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> If you or your child were sick, if you had some sort of house emergency, if you were on the road seeing customers or partners, if you needed a day or two to f

> If you or your child were sick, if you had some sort of house emergency, if you were on the road seeing customers or partners, if you needed a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, people worked remotely. This was understood, and will be moving forward as well. This is Amazon having it both ways, which is what a lot of companies are doing. You can work remotely 'sometimes,' with a secret definition of 'sometimes,' operating in the background. I found this paragraph to be somewhat galling since, like, if you're sick you shouldn't work at all, you should be focussing on getting well. Ditto if your kid is sick. Raising one or more whole other human/s is a super important thing. One result I saw from the pandemic is fathers doing more of the childcare, and what full-RTO like this fundamentally does is shift that dynamic back to where it was before. Shame on Amazon.

thepasswordis 2y ago
Strategic ambiguity.
- malfist 2y ago
  Amazon _always_ engages in "house always wins" games with ambiguity. They want it both ways
awsguy123 2y ago
I would not listen to their PR there is no reasonableness being applied to these rules. I hurt my knees back in May and tried to get HR to make an exception for me. They shot it down because they said I didn’t have enough documentation. They wanted more paperwork, which meant I had to make another doctor’s appointment. Getting a doctor’s appointment these days takes weeks, so I never managed to get the exception. How much leeway you get totally depends on your L8 Director. If you’ve got a strict L8, good luck—this policy isn’t going to be applied reasonably. They’re actually looking at badge reports that show how many hours you’re in the office, and managers will call you out if you’re just “coffee badging.” If you think this kind of thing doesn’t happen, just take a look at Blind. There’s no logic to how these rules are applied. Meanwhile, if you go to an L8/L10 meeting, try counting how many people are actually in the office. It’s a joke, especially when all the <L7 exceptions have been pulled.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  I would recommend speaking to an ADA attorney with regards to civil action, as well as potentially filing an ADA complaint with the federal government. https://www.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/ https://www.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/
hackernewds 2y ago
There has been a shift since the 9-5 meant you leave your laptop at work, and were virtually unreachable. Next, you were reachable so managers especially also bothered you at 7PM (I even sometimes had meetings at a FAANG). In exchange, employees got the freedom often to work in their desired 40 hours as long as things got done. Now, companies want it both ways where you come in 9-5 AND they want non office hours productivity as well. Somehow we've forgotten the paystubs and employee offer letters say "40 hours of work"
- firtoz 2y ago
  In the UK anywhere I tried to become an employee in the last 5 years also asked me to sign the "I am ok to work more than 40 hours" addendum, and it was a condition with the offer.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - vidarh 2y ago
    The limit in the UK is 48 hours. Beyond that they can ask, but they can't legally tie it to an offer.
    - hhmc 2y ago
      technically it's the EU working hours directive that's binding (or being opted out of) in the UK
      - vidarh 2y ago
        It's correct that it was the Working Time Directive that required the UK to add it to UK law in the first place (over the strident objections of the Tory government at the time) but it is the Working Time Regulations Act 1998 that provides this regulation in the UK, and since Brexit the EU Working Time Directive 2003 has no legal force in the UK.
DebtDeflation 2y ago
I especially liked "if you were on the road seeing customers" as if they're reluctantly granting an RTO exception to people meeting with customers and those employees should be thankful for it.
- pc86 2y ago
  I think it's more instances like "if you're traveling and you get back to your home city at 9am don't feel like you need to be in the office by a certain time, just WFH that day." Obviously if you're traveling as part of your job you're not going to be working from the office during that travel.
Salgat 2y ago
My wife's company does this hybrid office bullshit at a fortune 500 and they not only track the days you come in, but they will bring it up in annual reviews if it hits a certain threshold.
- jensensbutton 2y ago
  You mean an employer set an expectation, checks to see if people are meeting the expectation, and holds them accountable if they aren't? What incredible bs.
  - tekknik 2y ago
    companies shouldn’t care the physical location of an employee, only that they’re meeting performance goals. why do you need to see me to do my job?
    - randomdata 2y ago
      Companies need you to perform a certain amount of defined work (as captured by performance goals) to keep the lights on, and aside from some jobs that require the physical touch this can be done remotely just fine, but what they really want to see is the impromptu networking between people doing entirely different jobs to discover new opportunities where there is overlap. That is where the magic happens. Having worked from home for 20+ years, I'm in favour of remotely working more than just about anyone, but I'd be remiss to claim that said networking isn't harder remotely. I don't think it is impossible, but it is different, and not very well understood. I expect most people working from home don't engage in this much, if at all. Now, keep in mind that the people running these companies are every day normal people who aren't particularly intelligent. They don't really know or understand how to get people working remotely to network better (or even at all). All they know is that there is some chance that if you bump into someone else at the water cooler that you might start talking, so they lean into that. Even that is not a great solution, but it is seen as being better than what happens remotely. I assume from what description of your job you have given us that you are in a problem solving-type role (e.g. software development). There is the problem they face. Here is your time to shine!
mxkopy 2y ago
From the CEO’s memo: “(you need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems)” Somewhat telling that he’d use a congenital disorder as a metaphor for how work should be done at Amazon
- mjlee 2y ago
  I'm not defending the CEO's memo but "joined at the hip" is a very common idiom and in normal (and this) usage has no connotation with conjoined twins. Attack the opinion all you like, but this isn't productive.
  - pc86 2y ago
    It's a cute joke about an unintended interpretation of what the CEO said. Let's be real, not a single HN comment (and there's nearly 1500 here as I'm writing this one) is going to be "productive" is this discussion, especially with regard to Amazon. The biggest impact is some comment here may convince someone on the fence to quit when they might have waited a few months without it. And this joke isn't going to change that.
yard2010 2y ago
"When your boss is asking how are you when you're sick, he doesn't really care about you. He's thinking 'this asshole lying in bed costing me the money'"
- sokoloff 2y ago
  In over 20 years of managing people, I’ve never once had that thought. I may have a dual motive for wishing for you to “get well soon”, but even that is majority personal.
- dbtablesorrows 2y ago
  How does leave policy work in your companies? Where I work you can use that leaves quota for something else (i.e taking a vacation). So its gonna "cost money" the same way.
jajko 2y ago
Is sick leave paid in US by law (till certain extent of course) from some employer's mandatory insurance, or some sort of corporate perk like extra paid holidays? And what about when having sick child? Even in Europe I've seen various mix, some countries ie don't pay first 3 days of sick leave, some do but pay only some minimal compensation, some do full for X days etc. But it was never completely on the employee, meaning no pay. Covid shuffled this a bit so may be different now.
- xienze 2y ago
  > Is sick leave paid in US by law (till certain extent of course) from some employer's mandatory insurance, or some sort of corporate perk like extra paid holidays? And what about when having sick child? For the kinds of jobs we’re talking about here (corporate Amazon, college education required, salaried) you basically just call in sick and that’s it. You didn’t work but you still get paid your normal salary. This is the flipside of salaried work obviously — just as there may be times you work over 40 hours and don’t get additional pay, there are times when you work less than 40 hours and still get your regular pay. Now all of this depends on circumstances like your manager, but in general, in these kinds of jobs, no one is running around tracking your sick days. If you’ve got something more substantial going on then you’ll have to take short-term or long-term disability however.
  - malfist 2y ago
    That's not how Amazon operates. You have paid personal time that you must use as sick time. You get 6 days per year or whatever the legal minimum is in your state if it's over 6
    - pc86 2y ago
      The 6 day thing may be corporate policies but there are (were?) absolutely teams where you just call in and nobody really cares what the personal time balance is.
hnbad 2y ago
FWIW in other countries you not only get paid sick leave by law but also paid leave when your kid is sick (only for one parent usually but the idea is that it doesn't matter whether you're sick yourself or have to care for a sick kid because the kid can't be expected to take care of themselves). You don't fix this with corporations having better policies out of the kidness of their heart, you fix it with laws. The reason corporations were moving everything to remote work during the pandemic was that in many places travel was severely restricted and they needed to ensure the operation of the business in the case of a full lockdown. Now that that's no longer an urgent risk, they're rolling everything back because the benefits to the business don't outweigh the drawbacks and everybody else doing it makes it an easier sell (just like the wave of mass layoffs).
starspangled 2y ago
Not sure about Amazon, but I work for a big US corporate that is making similar noises. I suspect "sometimes" basically equates to how much your more immediate management chain wants to keep you around, because after a few steps up the chain, you're PYs and percentages rather than an individual. Your more immediate management would have targets, but if 80% of their group's hours are logged in the office, it probably doesn't show up as a red light higher up.
misja111 2y ago
> if you're sick you shouldn't work at all Well it depends how sick you feel. Personally, if I only have a cold, I prefer working (from home) over hanging on the couch and watching Netflix all day long. If I'd have to come to the office I'd report ill though, also because I don't want to contaminate my colleagues.
- fundad 2y ago
  We have to be in n the office 3-days so if I WFH because sick, I would have to badge in Friday. This is foolish so I take a sick day if I’m not going into the office.
  - s1artibartfast 2y ago
    That doesn't work for a lot of people due to workload, but that is a separate problem
    - fundad 2y ago
      True. I can’t take RTO organizations seriously about productivity
  - cholantesh 2y ago
    Huh; my org seems to be pretty lenient in that regard - if you are ill or book time off on a day you meant to be in the office it's fine.
    - fundad 2y ago
      My org may be more lenient than I understand it to be, mainly I don't know what if any consequences there are if I do WFH while sick/recovering/contagious and am only in the office twice in a week.
- 39896880 2y ago
  If you are happy about your relationship with work such that you would prefer to do it rather than rest, then what I have to say next is not relevant to you. For others whom this might not be the case: You need rest. If your only or primary form of rest is Netflix on the couch, such that you feel you “should” work instead, you might consider if other forms of rest might be better for you. Rest benefits you and your employer. Working while ill is a sure path to burnout. Burnt out employees are less productive and more likely to quit. It’s okay to not grind 25/8.
jeffwask 2y ago
I was at a large manufacturing software company where the CEO came out with a return to office mandate early on except it didn't apply to anyone in my chain of command. My director lived in an RV and worked from that travelling. Every VP above worked from a remote location, so I asked. I was told they all had other arrangements. I left within a month.
- 39896880 2y ago
  Yeah. My reaction to the leadership for this kind of mandate would be: you first. Release your badge-in metrics for the C-Suite, then progress down the chain from there. They can all afford houses right next to the office, as well as nannies and private schools and a house on the coast. So when the highest paid employees show they’re in office 5 days a week for a single quarter, then let’s talk. I doubt this would be the case. The L10s get to wfh from there vacation homes while the L5s get commutes.
palata 2y ago
> Shame on Amazon. Wouldn't be the first time, would it?
VyseofArcadia 2y ago
> This is Amazon having it both ways, which is what a lot of companies are doing. You can work remotely 'sometimes,' with a secret definition of 'sometimes,' operating in the background. This isn't really different than startups offering "unlimited" time off. That's just > This is Company XYZ having it both ways, which is what a lot of companies are doing. You can take time off 'sometimes,' with a secret definition of 'sometimes,' operating in the background. I think it's widely known that "unlimited" time off is a scam, and people with "unlimited" PTO actually take less time off then their peers who have to accrue PTO the old fashioned way. And yet sometimes I still see people who are enthusiastic about it.
- dml2135 2y ago
  I don't know why people are so convinced that "unlimited" time off is always a scam. I took 7 weeks off last year, it doesn't feel like a scam to me.
  - VyseofArcadia 2y ago
    Congratulations, you work for a very nice company.
  - farivan 2y ago
    One factor to consider (depending on your locality) is that "unlimited" time off doesn't allow you to accrue vacation days, that would be paid if you were e.g. laid off.
    - dml2135 2y ago
      Absolutely, which is why I make sure to take more time off than any vacation days I would likely receive.
  - hapless 2y ago
    when I had "unlimited" pto, my boss took three months a year, I got two weeks at Christmas it is a question of priorities, and every vacation you take suddenly requires review
collyw 2y ago
> if you're sick you shouldn't work at all, you should be focusing on getting well. Most people could work perfectly well with a bit of a cold. Then covid turned it into a virtue signal to slack off for something trivial.

thepasswordis 2y ago

Strategic ambiguity.

malfist 2y ago
Amazon _always_ engages in "house always wins" games with ambiguity. They want it both ways

awsguy123 2y ago

I would not listen to their PR there is no reasonableness being applied to these rules. I hurt my knees back in May and tried to get HR to make an exception for me. They shot it down because they said I didn’t have enough documentation. They wanted more paperwork, which meant I had to make another doctor’s appointment. Getting a doctor’s appointment these days takes weeks, so I never managed to get the exception. How much leeway you get totally depends on your L8 Director. If you’ve got a strict L8, good luck—this policy isn’t going to be applied reasonably. They’re actually looking at badge reports that show how many hours you’re in the office, and managers will call you out if you’re just “coffee badging.” If you think this kind of thing doesn’t happen, just take a look at Blind. There’s no logic to how these rules are applied. Meanwhile, if you go to an L8/L10 meeting, try counting how many people are actually in the office. It’s a joke, especially when all the <L7 exceptions have been pulled.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
I would recommend speaking to an ADA attorney with regards to civil action, as well as potentially filing an ADA complaint with the federal government. https://www.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/ https://www.ada.gov/file-a-complaint/

hackernewds 2y ago

There has been a shift since the 9-5 meant you leave your laptop at work, and were virtually unreachable. Next, you were reachable so managers especially also bothered you at 7PM (I even sometimes had meetings at a FAANG). In exchange, employees got the freedom often to work in their desired 40 hours as long as things got done. Now, companies want it both ways where you come in 9-5 AND they want non office hours productivity as well. Somehow we've forgotten the paystubs and employee offer letters say "40 hours of work"

firtoz 2y ago
In the UK anywhere I tried to become an employee in the last 5 years also asked me to sign the "I am ok to work more than 40 hours" addendum, and it was a condition with the offer.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- vidarh 2y ago
  The limit in the UK is 48 hours. Beyond that they can ask, but they can't legally tie it to an offer.
  - hhmc 2y ago
    technically it's the EU working hours directive that's binding (or being opted out of) in the UK
    - vidarh 2y ago
      It's correct that it was the Working Time Directive that required the UK to add it to UK law in the first place (over the strident objections of the Tory government at the time) but it is the Working Time Regulations Act 1998 that provides this regulation in the UK, and since Brexit the EU Working Time Directive 2003 has no legal force in the UK.

DebtDeflation 2y ago

I especially liked "if you were on the road seeing customers" as if they're reluctantly granting an RTO exception to people meeting with customers and those employees should be thankful for it.

pc86 2y ago
I think it's more instances like "if you're traveling and you get back to your home city at 9am don't feel like you need to be in the office by a certain time, just WFH that day." Obviously if you're traveling as part of your job you're not going to be working from the office during that travel.

Salgat 2y ago

My wife's company does this hybrid office bullshit at a fortune 500 and they not only track the days you come in, but they will bring it up in annual reviews if it hits a certain threshold.

jensensbutton 2y ago
You mean an employer set an expectation, checks to see if people are meeting the expectation, and holds them accountable if they aren't? What incredible bs.
- tekknik 2y ago
  companies shouldn’t care the physical location of an employee, only that they’re meeting performance goals. why do you need to see me to do my job?
  - randomdata 2y ago
    Companies need you to perform a certain amount of defined work (as captured by performance goals) to keep the lights on, and aside from some jobs that require the physical touch this can be done remotely just fine, but what they really want to see is the impromptu networking between people doing entirely different jobs to discover new opportunities where there is overlap. That is where the magic happens. Having worked from home for 20+ years, I'm in favour of remotely working more than just about anyone, but I'd be remiss to claim that said networking isn't harder remotely. I don't think it is impossible, but it is different, and not very well understood. I expect most people working from home don't engage in this much, if at all. Now, keep in mind that the people running these companies are every day normal people who aren't particularly intelligent. They don't really know or understand how to get people working remotely to network better (or even at all). All they know is that there is some chance that if you bump into someone else at the water cooler that you might start talking, so they lean into that. Even that is not a great solution, but it is seen as being better than what happens remotely. I assume from what description of your job you have given us that you are in a problem solving-type role (e.g. software development). There is the problem they face. Here is your time to shine!

mxkopy 2y ago

From the CEO’s memo: “(you need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems)” Somewhat telling that he’d use a congenital disorder as a metaphor for how work should be done at Amazon

mjlee 2y ago
I'm not defending the CEO's memo but "joined at the hip" is a very common idiom and in normal (and this) usage has no connotation with conjoined twins. Attack the opinion all you like, but this isn't productive.
- pc86 2y ago
  It's a cute joke about an unintended interpretation of what the CEO said. Let's be real, not a single HN comment (and there's nearly 1500 here as I'm writing this one) is going to be "productive" is this discussion, especially with regard to Amazon. The biggest impact is some comment here may convince someone on the fence to quit when they might have waited a few months without it. And this joke isn't going to change that.

yard2010 2y ago

"When your boss is asking how are you when you're sick, he doesn't really care about you. He's thinking 'this asshole lying in bed costing me the money'"

sokoloff 2y ago
In over 20 years of managing people, I’ve never once had that thought. I may have a dual motive for wishing for you to “get well soon”, but even that is majority personal.
dbtablesorrows 2y ago
How does leave policy work in your companies? Where I work you can use that leaves quota for something else (i.e taking a vacation). So its gonna "cost money" the same way.

jajko 2y ago

Is sick leave paid in US by law (till certain extent of course) from some employer's mandatory insurance, or some sort of corporate perk like extra paid holidays? And what about when having sick child? Even in Europe I've seen various mix, some countries ie don't pay first 3 days of sick leave, some do but pay only some minimal compensation, some do full for X days etc. But it was never completely on the employee, meaning no pay. Covid shuffled this a bit so may be different now.

xienze 2y ago
> Is sick leave paid in US by law (till certain extent of course) from some employer's mandatory insurance, or some sort of corporate perk like extra paid holidays? And what about when having sick child? For the kinds of jobs we’re talking about here (corporate Amazon, college education required, salaried) you basically just call in sick and that’s it. You didn’t work but you still get paid your normal salary. This is the flipside of salaried work obviously — just as there may be times you work over 40 hours and don’t get additional pay, there are times when you work less than 40 hours and still get your regular pay. Now all of this depends on circumstances like your manager, but in general, in these kinds of jobs, no one is running around tracking your sick days. If you’ve got something more substantial going on then you’ll have to take short-term or long-term disability however.
- malfist 2y ago
  That's not how Amazon operates. You have paid personal time that you must use as sick time. You get 6 days per year or whatever the legal minimum is in your state if it's over 6
  - pc86 2y ago
    The 6 day thing may be corporate policies but there are (were?) absolutely teams where you just call in and nobody really cares what the personal time balance is.

hnbad 2y ago

FWIW in other countries you not only get paid sick leave by law but also paid leave when your kid is sick (only for one parent usually but the idea is that it doesn't matter whether you're sick yourself or have to care for a sick kid because the kid can't be expected to take care of themselves). You don't fix this with corporations having better policies out of the kidness of their heart, you fix it with laws. The reason corporations were moving everything to remote work during the pandemic was that in many places travel was severely restricted and they needed to ensure the operation of the business in the case of a full lockdown. Now that that's no longer an urgent risk, they're rolling everything back because the benefits to the business don't outweigh the drawbacks and everybody else doing it makes it an easier sell (just like the wave of mass layoffs).

starspangled 2y ago

Not sure about Amazon, but I work for a big US corporate that is making similar noises. I suspect "sometimes" basically equates to how much your more immediate management chain wants to keep you around, because after a few steps up the chain, you're PYs and percentages rather than an individual. Your more immediate management would have targets, but if 80% of their group's hours are logged in the office, it probably doesn't show up as a red light higher up.

misja111 2y ago

> if you're sick you shouldn't work at all Well it depends how sick you feel. Personally, if I only have a cold, I prefer working (from home) over hanging on the couch and watching Netflix all day long. If I'd have to come to the office I'd report ill though, also because I don't want to contaminate my colleagues.

fundad 2y ago
We have to be in n the office 3-days so if I WFH because sick, I would have to badge in Friday. This is foolish so I take a sick day if I’m not going into the office.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  That doesn't work for a lot of people due to workload, but that is a separate problem
  - fundad 2y ago
    True. I can’t take RTO organizations seriously about productivity
- cholantesh 2y ago
  Huh; my org seems to be pretty lenient in that regard - if you are ill or book time off on a day you meant to be in the office it's fine.
  - fundad 2y ago
    My org may be more lenient than I understand it to be, mainly I don't know what if any consequences there are if I do WFH while sick/recovering/contagious and am only in the office twice in a week.
39896880 2y ago
If you are happy about your relationship with work such that you would prefer to do it rather than rest, then what I have to say next is not relevant to you. For others whom this might not be the case: You need rest. If your only or primary form of rest is Netflix on the couch, such that you feel you “should” work instead, you might consider if other forms of rest might be better for you. Rest benefits you and your employer. Working while ill is a sure path to burnout. Burnt out employees are less productive and more likely to quit. It’s okay to not grind 25/8.

jeffwask 2y ago

I was at a large manufacturing software company where the CEO came out with a return to office mandate early on except it didn't apply to anyone in my chain of command. My director lived in an RV and worked from that travelling. Every VP above worked from a remote location, so I asked. I was told they all had other arrangements. I left within a month.

39896880 2y ago
Yeah. My reaction to the leadership for this kind of mandate would be: you first. Release your badge-in metrics for the C-Suite, then progress down the chain from there. They can all afford houses right next to the office, as well as nannies and private schools and a house on the coast. So when the highest paid employees show they’re in office 5 days a week for a single quarter, then let’s talk. I doubt this would be the case. The L10s get to wfh from there vacation homes while the L5s get commutes.

palata 2y ago

> Shame on Amazon. Wouldn't be the first time, would it?

VyseofArcadia 2y ago

> This is Amazon having it both ways, which is what a lot of companies are doing. You can work remotely 'sometimes,' with a secret definition of 'sometimes,' operating in the background. This isn't really different than startups offering "unlimited" time off. That's just > This is Company XYZ having it both ways, which is what a lot of companies are doing. You can take time off 'sometimes,' with a secret definition of 'sometimes,' operating in the background. I think it's widely known that "unlimited" time off is a scam, and people with "unlimited" PTO actually take less time off then their peers who have to accrue PTO the old fashioned way. And yet sometimes I still see people who are enthusiastic about it.

dml2135 2y ago
I don't know why people are so convinced that "unlimited" time off is always a scam. I took 7 weeks off last year, it doesn't feel like a scam to me.
- VyseofArcadia 2y ago
  Congratulations, you work for a very nice company.
- farivan 2y ago
  One factor to consider (depending on your locality) is that "unlimited" time off doesn't allow you to accrue vacation days, that would be paid if you were e.g. laid off.
  - dml2135 2y ago
    Absolutely, which is why I make sure to take more time off than any vacation days I would likely receive.
- hapless 2y ago
  when I had "unlimited" pto, my boss took three months a year, I got two weeks at Christmas it is a question of priorities, and every vacation you take suddenly requires review

collyw 2y ago

> if you're sick you shouldn't work at all, you should be focusing on getting well. Most people could work perfectly well with a bit of a cold. Then covid turned it into a virtue signal to slack off for something trivial.