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Amazon employees: 'I'd rather go back to school than work in an office again'
- zooq_ai 2y agoITT : people confusing personal productivity (I finished my given set of tasks) vs company productivity (collaborate to bring new ideas into market) and most modern university educated won't get it
- bunedoggle 2y agoEhem, unionize, cough cough.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- mrits 2y agoI'd think the majority of the factory workers would tell corporate to come to work.
- cruffle_duffle 2y agoYup. Most factory workers are playing the worlds tiniest violin for all the privileged laptop class having to go back to the office.
- drewrv 2y agoAre they? I don't know any factory workers but I have friends outside of tech and they can all relate to "arbitrary rules from management that make my job harder are frustrating".
- cholantesh 2y agoThe people who spend the most time sneering at 'the laptop class' that I'm aware of are independent, ie, non-unionized, tradespeople who operate as sole proprietorships - emphatically not factory workers. The arbitrary, unproductive distinction between 'real' physical labour of the kind carpenters, roofers, drywall technicians, etc, do and 'laptop labour' is increasingly being seen as exactly that.
- ChrisKingWebDev 2y agoIf there are fewer cars on the road because the people who can work at home are doing so, then the commute becomes smoother for anyone who can't work from home.
- consteval 2y agoThen they are short-sighted, because other people WFH would be better for them too. The US culture can be staunchly individualistic and bordering on revenge-oriented, so I can't say I'm surprised.
- vasco 2y agoAnd then the union makes an agreement about going to the office 3 days a week instead of 5 and declares a victory for the workers.
- rat9988 2y agoIt would give any employee the choice to have 2 days remote at least, which is a victory.
- dymk 2y agoThat would indeed be a victory. Look at the status quo.
- vasco 2y agoThank you for illustrating my point perfectly.
- paranoidxprod 2y agoWhat is the point because I guess I'm missing it. Is a union winning more work from home days for workers as opposed to not having a union and not getting those days not a win in this situation?
- consteval 2y agoYou have no point. You said just enough to feel indigent but literally said nothing of value. "Union bad" isn't even an argument.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoOne of my happiest days of my life was when I quit my office job and got a new job where I could work from home with a boss that trusted me to do work at the time that's best for me. Since then, life is much better.
- bluSCALE4 2y agoThat's the trick, "At a time that's best for me". If I could work like 2 hours in the day and 4-5 at night, I'd have killer productivity, both home and work life.
- dvfjsdhgfv 2y agoThere are companies that understand this and those that don't. For me, asn an employee, the choice is crystal clear.
- 5555624 2y agoAnd there are managers that understand this and those that don't.
- robotnikman 2y agoI've been trying to find one but I've had very little success, with software engineering jobs anyways. What other fields offer remote work? Honestly I could care less about pay, being able to work remote like I previously had was so much better for my mental health and well being.
- vouaobrasil 2y agoI quit programming and became a photographer and writer. I'd just look everywhere. I've found the key to being happy in a job seems rather unrelated to the work and more related to the work conditions. Plus, I still get to use programming at my job to do random tasks like code small wordpress plugins and generated some automated HTML. It's a lot more fun than maintaining large codebases for me.
- Circlecrypto2 2y agoI'm of 2 minds on this. Not everyone can compete remotely and some jobs genuinely require in person collaboration, but whether or not this is a good idea really depends on Amazon's strategy, which most of us might not be privy to. We can assume a company of this size and this portfolio should be able to compete with remote workers, but that might only be true for a certain period of time.
- dvfjsdhgfv 2y agoYou can be of 2 minds but fortunately employees have a choice and companies too. I will never work for a company that requires me to come to their (probably open-plan) office, period. Those who insist, lose senior staff, period.
- JohnFen 2y agoBut from many employee's point of view, none of those considerations matter. They have become aware of how awful and soul-sucking offices can be and the impact that has on their lives even outside of work. That's what matters to them, as it should. Of course, a company can have any policy they want, and people who can't live with those policies have no choice but to seek employment elsewhere. From a cold business perspective, the real question Amazon and such have to answer is if the loss of those employees is something that they are OK with. It sounds like Amazon's answer to that question is "absolutely yes".
- the8472 2y agoWell, in some ways WFH made offices more soul-sucking because it's a lot of shared desks now. Personal desk, locker, plants, other custom office clutter, a door and so on were nicer.
- lucianbr 2y agoAmazon's current answer. Companies or their managers sometimes get a reality check after some confident answer like this. Not as often as we employees would like, but still. Remember those people who tought there was a worldwide market for about 5 computers? Or those who invested with SBF, because playing computer games during high level meetings is proof of... something?
- ajsnigrutin 2y agoLayoffs are bad for the public image, stockholders, etc. If people quit themselves, they can get rid of a lot of workforce without having to lay them off. They lose the chance to choose who stays and who goes, but if your bonuses are tied to quarterly results, it doesn't really matter for a quarter or two.
- dvfjsdhgfv 2y agoYes and no. For unskilled labor, probably it doesn't matter that much. For complex projects such as in AWS you need months or sometimes years to onboard new talent and make them catch up with the rest of the team (assuming there is a "rest").
- 0xbadcafebee 2y agoThey get rid of people who might need extra considerations for working, and they keep the employees who they can reliably push around or will compromise in favor of the company. Of course they also lose out on top talent that will go where someone gives them flexibility. But I think they prefer obedience to talent.
- bilbo0s 2y agoNot only that, but Amazon is of such a scale and such a segment, that hording high end intellectual capital is not likely to have any great impact on their results in any case. They're the closest thing in today's world to what would be in any sci fi dystopia world a global company that runs everything from taxis to health care. There just are not any other companies like Amazon, with the exception of Alibaba which is like Amazon on steroids. At this point, the use of companies like Amazon or Alibaba is kind of necessary to get by for most people. Even those who don't use it, are using it indirectly. Via using apps and sites running on Amazon. Via going to stores supplied by Amazon. And on and on and on. The tentacles are everywhere.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoAmazon doesn’t “run” (control) any market. They have a hand in retailing, logistics, web services, media, etc, but in each one, there are notable competitors. Not unlike other conglomerates, like Berkshire. But AWS’ big profit margins give Amazon a big upside.
- beretguy 2y agoI can’t stand working in office so much that I’m sticking to my low 55K salary with 3 days of WFH.
- dvfjsdhgfv 2y agoI get an excellent salary but would be happy with 50% of it if asked to RTO.
- sammyj47 2y agoDelete this comment now before the rest of the MBAs get ideas. In seriousness there a number of them who believe WFH is a favor to employees and not just the best option all around.
- dvfjsdhgfv 2y agoI know they do but in my case it is the other way round: most top-paid positions are remote only, so if someone starts getting strange ideas, I won't wait for long.
- ramesh31 2y ago>I get an excellent salary but would be happy with 50% of it if asked to RTO. Same. No amount of perks or camraderie will ever make up for getting 25% of my waking life back from commutes.
- jbombadil 2y agohttps://archive.is/uB9Nq https://archive.is/uB9Nq
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoRelated: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41558554 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41558554
- karaterobot 2y agoSwitching to work from home was, without exaggeration, one of the best decisions of my life. I did it a little less than a year before COVID made it pretty much mandatory, so I probably didn't need to quit that old job. But it's okay. Now that I am not exhausted from commuting 90 minutes through hellish traffic, and spending my limited introvert energy dealing with people all day, I feel like a million bucks. I don't have to hunker down all weekend, recuperating from the last week, and preparing for the next. I don't just get back my commute time, it's like I get two extra days every week, during which I am actually capable of enjoying my life. I recently turned down a very exciting recruiting effort from an old boss, because it would have required me to commute at least two days a week. I cannot think of anything that could entice or threaten me to go back to the office at this point.
- arresin 2y agoIs it a bit isolating? It is for me, and it’s a concern, but that’s outweighed by everything you mentioned. It would be nice if there was some happy medium. But what is that?
- mrinfinitiesx 2y agoHobbies. Groups. Classes, MMA/Self Defense classes, computer clubs, local singles groups. you want to not be isolated.. trust me.
- kevingadd 2y agoYou could always take the time you save by not commuting and go outside for walks or a drink at a bar or what not. I make a point of walking to the local farmers' market a couple times a week now to spend some time around people, get a meal, etc.
- skadamat 2y agoI've been working remotely since 2015 essentially and here's my perspective on overcoming the feeling of isolation. In order from highest to lowest impact: - Not commuting gave me more time to do physical activities socially. Tennis with neighbors / friends in my town. A group spin class. - More time to embrace serendipitous hobbies in person with friends (or excuse to meet strangers in my town). New Nepalese restaurant with promising reviews? Randomly go with a friend on a Wednesday. New coffee shop? Try out their pourover to see if they know what they're doing! - Try working from near home. Coworking space, coffee shop, etc. Workbar offered pretty affordable part-time coworking rates last I checked? Cal calls this "work from near home" - https://calnewport.com/thinking-outside-the-home/ https://calnewport.com/thinking-outside-the-home/ - Meet a life partner who also works from home 1-2 days a week! We've enjoyed random 3 PM walks, making breakfast together, etc. - Remote work works best with results oriented work environment / culture. So feel free to do a tea tasting or go watch a movie in the middle of the day - https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/09/want-to-boost-your-productivity-hit-the-movies-during-work-expert-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/09/want-to-boost-your-productiv... - Do 1 completely casual Zoom meeting with a coworker every week, even if you don't directly work together. The 9-5 commuting lifestyle makes it easy to "bundle together" lots of habits that solve for isolation, time to wind down / prep for the day, and for many a workout routine (workout before or after work in a nearby gym). When you work from home, these are all "unbundled" so you have to re-assemble the things that matter to you yourself. More freedom but more responsibility :)
- agtech_andy 2y agoIt is all a house of cards. A bunch of people in the city became dangerously levered bagholders, and the city is pushing people to come unnecessarily. It is a huge amount of waste of time and resources for the sake of an economy.
- byus 2y ago[dead]
- cratermoon 2y agoI wonder how many days a week Jassy is in his office, sitting at his desk.
- nyarlathotep_ 2y agoSchool never threatened anyone with a PIP
- Insanity 2y agoYou underperform - you don’t graduate. You skip class - you get expelled. You don’t even get a PIP in case of underperforming to be fair lol
- jp57 2y agoI suppose with grade inflation this is actually true now.
- fnfjfk 2y agomy freshman year roommate smoked weed every day instead of going to class. He wasn’t invited back for sophomore year.
- nikolay 2y agoA dirty trick for Amazon is to reduce the workforce as layoffs at large corporations are regulated. Once enough people quit, they will allow either a hybrid or fully remote option again. Soon after Oakley was acquired by Luxottica, they hired a guy to make our lives miserable and let us quit. After he did what he was hired for, they filled the vacant positions with contractors. I still feel sorry we didn't respond with a class action lawsuit for the blatant and widespread harassment - they really deserved it!
- andrepew 2y agoAre there jurisdictions that allow this? In my jurisdiction, that would be considered a constructive dismissal and legally treated the same way as a layoff with the same employer obligations.
- jedberg 2y agoThe Amazon contracts specially say five days a week in office, and always have. Even through the pandemic. The work from home was always a "trust us". So it's not constructive dismissal because they are just enforcing the already existing contracts.
- milch 2y agoI just checked mine and I don't see a provision that says I have to be in office 5 days a week anywhere. I've even seen a few folks that even had a contract that specifically said remote pre-pandemic, which the company "converted" to in-office post RTO announcement
- _yb2s 2y agoIt seems like such an approach would cause the most skilled and in demand workers to leave first. The ones that stay would be the ones that are unable to find a job elsewhere.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
- paxys 2y agoRead: "I'd rather give up my entire salary than work in an office again". If the employee is in a position to do that – great. But how many are?
- raverbashing 2y agoThe trick is to save and avoid being caught up in a precarious position Surely not everybody can do it, but a lot are caught in lifestyle inflation
- vasco 2y agoSeeing this is Amazon corporate, as warehouse and delivery people never worked from home, probably most of them (if they weren't dumb with their Amazon salaries).
- leptons 2y agoCompanies know the tech job market is awful right now, there simply aren't the number of jobs there used to be pre-pandemic or even a year into the pandemic. Hell I haven't even had a raise in 3 years, and while that kind of sucks, I don't have much leverage because my boss knows the job market sucks. I've been WFH for almost 5 years now, and thankfully I don't work for a company that wants us to return to the office.
- fnfjfk 2y agoA lot of people say they’ll move to Canada (etc.) if $CANDIDATE is elected president. They mostly don’t. (this is not a pro-RTO comment, offices mostly suck, but… people make these grandiose statements and then don’t actually act on them!)
- codingwagie 2y agoWhat's not spoken about is that Amazon engineering is 80%+ h1bs. They will not push back against RTO, which is why these policies can be pushed through. American workers are pushed out to companies with better working conditions. The impact of foreign workers on corporate culture cannot be underestimated, this will ripple across corporate America. We are all worse off
- vouaobrasil 2y agoThat is an excellent point! And one that is often not factored into economic models.
- onemoresoop 2y ago> The impact of foreign workers on corporate culture cannot be underestimated, this will ripple across corporate America. We are all worse off Can you expand on this?
- codingwagie 2y agoWhen American corporations have an endless amount of applications from China and India, American workers have no bargaining power. Which makes working conditions worse
- dymk 2y agoSpecifically, it's that these foreign workers are not afforded the same protections as American workers. If they were, it would be a much more even playing field, and corporations would not have a "second-class" set of workers they could so easily bully.
- janalsncm 2y agoNot OP, but my take is that it’s really not great for American workers or immigrants. For immigrants, their ability to stay in America is predicated on maintaining a good relationship with their employer. If they have a spouse in the US who isn’t American, an interruption at work is a huge problem. And navigating the legal immigration system (USCIS) is a nightmare. As an aside, when people list “immigration” as an election issue, I wish they were talking about USCIS. It sucks. They are slow, unresponsive, and their instructions are ambiguous. People pay thousands of dollars to lawyers to help them navigate it. Oh and you have to send everything via snail mail. For American workers, the main problem is that our ability to organize depends on the threat of withholding labor. If companies can prevent unionization it makes it pretty much impossible to negotiate with companies. Working conditions and salary are two of the main things workers would collectively negotiate but can’t. Also, there are many instances of H1B workers being paid far below market rate. You can check H1B salaries online. One blatant example I found was an “AI scientist” being paid $75k in San Jose, CA by Zoom. San Jose is basically Silicon Valley and has one of the highest COL in the US, and an AI Scientist is an expert who should be paid handsomely. More broadly there was an investigation by the EPI on this trend of underpaying workers below prevailing wages: https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage-theft-in-the-h-1b-program/ https://www.epi.org/publication/new-evidence-widespread-wage...
- zooq_ai 2y ago[flagged]
- shahbaby 2y agoRTO is about protecting commercial real estate. It has nothing to do with productivity. I say this as someone who is leaving a fully remote role for an in office one. Remote workers do a lot of work for which they don't get the visibility and therefore credit.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago> RTO is about protecting commercial real estate. It has nothing to do with productivity. I keep seeing this claim. Over and over and over. I don't see any evidence, though. All is see is "because of course it is", with a side order of conspiracy ("them" are doing it - sometimes more explicit, "the administration"). So in your claim, you say you're someone who is leaving a full remote role for an in-office one. You don't say that you know anything about commercial real estate. You don't say that you have any evidence. You don't hear that you caught one of the higher-ups admitting that this is the reason. No, your basis for knowing is just that it's happening to you. That's not enough. That's not evidence; it's conjecture. And that's all I ever see on this claim. Why am I seeing this claim so often when there's nothing to back it up? Is the conspiracy theory that prevalent? Or is it just a few people endlessly repeating the same claim, because that's their particular hobby horse? I guess this sounds fairly harsh. But this is about the 4th time I've seen this claim today, always as if "of course it's true", always with no evidence, and it's getting annoying. My instinct (yes, I also do not have actual evidence) is that the people making these decisions and the people who actually own commercial real estate are different people, with different interests. They aren't some monolithic "they". I could actually be persuaded, but it's going to take more than repetition and "of course it's true" to do it.
- shahbaby 2y agoThere are many businesses that depend on foot traffic of office workers. There are also many land leeches that need bodies in office. There may not be an explicit agreement where RTO earns a tax break but it certainly gives a company more leverage in negotiations with local government and businesses. This to me is obvious. What's not obvious is how it increases productivity to force people into an office.
- Yeri 2y ago> However, some disgruntled proffesionals have suggested that the new policy is designed to reduce its current 1.5 million-plus headcount. 1.5 million people work at Amazon?!
- forrestthewoods 2y agoWarehouses
- Yeri 2y agoStill -- seems a lot ?
- jamesponddotco 2y agoI've been working since I was 12, and working from home since I was 19 (32 now). I can't imagine ever going back to an office, especially now that my wife is pregnant. I'd rather learn a new profession than doing that.
- onemoresoop 2y agoYou're lucky you're in a position where you have that choice. Many will be forced to find a different company that offers remote or will actually suck it up back into the office.
- tibbon 2y agoAmazon already sounded like the worst FAANG to work for due to the way they sculpt reviews to avoid options vesting, combined with lower salaries than the other FAANGs. But with this? Yup, 100%. I don't see why someone would consider Amazon unless they have no other options.
- forrestthewoods 2y agoI’m pretty pro WFH. It’s undeniably great from an employee’s perspective. However I’m pretty annoyed and disappointed by the lack of honesty around its costs. There’s significant costs and benefits to remote work. COVID was a little bit of a cheat code for WFH. We all built up relationships and repertoires during office work which made the transition to remote much much easier. Remote work is particularly difficult for onboarding new members and especially for juniors. Slack and Zoom are vastly inferior to face-to-face. Remote work is great for talented seniors. But there is an undeniable cost to the team. Of course there are spectacular benefits to remote work. For example being able to hire people you couldn’t otherwise hire! I’m not anti-WFH. But I am annoyed at all the internet threads that act like remote work is all roses with zero costs. And especially annoyed at folks who only look at how impacts themselves and not the team. It’s totally reasonable for WFH to be net benefit in some cases and net negative in others. I expect downvotes for this. But that’s super lame. Would rather people engage thoughtfully. Alas.
- somekyle 2y agoI feel similarly. I've been pure remote since COVID. I used to complain about having to come into the office just to stare at a screen quietly next to people. Being remote has been great in some ways, but I've really noticed the reduction in connection to coworkers and the major decline in informal collaboration. I've also had to dedicate a room of my house as an office (have kids, so working from any common space is fully impossible). My life just feels smaller now, when most days instead of traveling through the city on a busy train to meet up with dozens of collaborators, discuss, eat together, I start my day by sitting down in a small room by myself in front of a screen. Work is what I do with most of my days. I'd like it to be as engaging and as socially connective as possible. I don't like commuting, but I'm planning for my next job to be in person.
- happytoexplain 2y ago>I am annoyed at all the internet threads that act like remote work is all roses with zero costs. This is an exaggeration. What people mostly describe is the enormity of the benefits to costs (for some positions and some people). >It’s totally reasonable for WFH to be net benefit in some cases and net negative in others. This is acknowledged. But it does not imply any reason to enforce a blanket policy. >I expect downvotes for this. But that’s super lame. Would rather people engage thoughtfully. Alas. I really wish we could avoid this tone of petty superiority.
- nomad-nigiri 2y agoI read about an Amazon SWE that was trying do as little as possible to not get fired or just get a severance. I wonder if this is the most effective way to weed out all those. With 300K employees they likely have thousands of zombie wfh employees.
- mrgoldenbrown 2y agoRTO drives away top performers who have the option to go anywhere. Is that worth it to weed out some low performers?
- cruffle_duffle 2y ago> RTO drives away top performers who have the option to go anywhere. Where is the proof that all "top performers" want to WFH?
- janalsncm 2y agoThe point isn’t that high performers want to wfh and low performers want to rto. The point is that for the high performers who want to wfh, an rto mandate will make them consider other options.
- nomad-nigiri 2y agoThe golden handcuffs at Amazon for top performers is really strong. I’ve heard SWE making $750K (with options) after 24 months of proving yourself. That’s an $125K bonus every 120 days. Or $1000 a day to go into the office. lol
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- CodeWriter23 2y agoDude is a genius. Avoids a layoff by getting the deadwood to quit instead.
- onemoresoop 2y agoAre you implying that people who prefer work remotely are deadwood? Are introverts deadwood? Are people who prefer not to commute 3 hours a day deadwood?
- CodeWriter23 2y agoI’m implying that is Jassy’s thought process.
- cafard 2y agoOr, from another point of view, getting just those engineers most attractive to competitors to quit.
- CodeWriter23 2y agoI think they’re gonna be just fine outsourcing it overseas for half the price.
- CamperBob2 2y agoIf they could have done that before, what was stopping them?
- CodeWriter23 2y agoThe afore-alluded to severance packages and unemployment insurance increases. Those insisting on WFH are apparently going to help mitigate those costs.
- bachmeier 2y agoI can't read the story, but I've noticed that there's a lot of vague terminology in these discussions. Does back to office mean an open office? Does it mean all day where others can bother you? Does it mean the boss can tell you to have a meeting in their office in ten minutes? Does it mean you have to ask permission to take the afternoon off to visit the dentist (and wouldn't you have to do that with WFH)?
- adrianco 2y agoSomeone came up with the name for this: “Disagree and commute”.
- lewdev 2y agoIt's 100% a scheme to do mass layoffs without having to pay severance. WFH is so awesome and everybody loves it. Take that away and you know people will leave on their own.
- stranded22 2y agoLet’s call this what it is: Lay offs without payment
- silexia 2y agoWarning: don't go back to school, you will just get more debt and be even more locked into going to an office.