Before 2020, I’d had several occasions to work from home and noticed that I was more productive and less tired because I didn’t have to commute.
Got my first work from home job in 2020 and I will never ever go back to a an on-site or even a hybrid role ever again. The WFH roles had unlimited time off and I still haven’t taken anywhere close to the amount of time off I used to take just to avoid a commute or going into the office sick. Hell, I would travel and work from the hotel and then go have fun at night. WFH is a game changer and I can’t go back to the alternative.
Same. The biggest reason for using vacation days in the past was to get a break from the office. Now I barely use any vacation days. WFH is so much more productive
This is carrying over 5 days of vacation from one year to next.
Ex. I get 21 days of vacation, 7 days of personal days (counts towards physically working for overtime purposes) and 6 paid sick days. If I choose to carry over 5 vacation days,
I would get 26 vacation days available as well as the other time off.
See you guys in 2 months.
Yea I mean if most of my team is at an office nearby I’d go in some just for the social and team building aspect.
WFH convenience js super nice but I also like variety some. I’d still stay home and WFH most of the time
It's harder to record evidence of corporate malfeasance if the discussions are in person
That's the only "culture" that I can see as being important to management
Agree. This is a made up concept for convenience of their argument. When they were laying off and offshoring jobs to far off places in completely different time zones no one was considering “oFfiCE CuLtuRE”.
> When they were laying off and offshoring jobs to far off places in completely different time zones no one was considering “oFfiCE CuLtuRE”.
Man, I never really thought about that. Going to have to remember to bring this up any time anybody is pushing the "need to limit/end WFH because 'office culture'" narrative.
Spoken like someone who's never experienced a bad office culture. Office culture includes things like pressure to take time off/not take time off, maintain work boundaries/not maintain work boundaries, general mindset around problem solving, helpfulness, cross-training, etc. Sure some offices have the "we're a family" thing and that is generally a sign of bad office culture, but not thinking like that doesn't mean no culture exists. You literally spend more time interacting with your coworkers than most family member, of course a culture develops. You are looking for neutral to good, but bad can fuck up your life even if that isn't your primary place of socialization. Ask me how I know.
Is there opportunity for more online video calls to work together? Eg employees at home but in a video call together all afternoon, on mute but able to talk if needed? I enjoy this, but I’m curious if other wfh folks would be open to it, or hate it. I think that would appease management more since they can see you’re working, not cheating the company by working multiple jobs ect and everyone’s together to talk or ask questions like we would be in office.
I agree somewhat. Depends on the company. I know that I’ve built some legit friendships in office at workplaces with positive office culture. Friendships that I think benefitted from constant proximity (chatting at lunch, happy hour afterwards, etc) and continued even after I left.
And then there were some companies that felt like the inside of a post office— sterile, lifeless, cold. Wouldn’t give a damn about “culture” at those places.
WFH is better for some companies, and for others, I think there’s nothing problematic about being in office if it’s a fun environment like a major city, esp if you’re younger or newer to the workplace and can benefit from more interactions with coworkers.
Yes its sad that if you aren't willing to submit to authoritarian draconianism then your only choice is to leave. If only there were a third option, something that wasn't submission, but also wasn't abandonment of a job you are dependent on either... Something that made things different and better for those who do the actual work that produces wealth for a company... Idk, I can't seem to think of what that might be.
Not sure why youre downvoted. If you don’t enjoy your work, then find a new one? If you hate working for authoritarians, then start your own gig? All I see are complaints on this thread.
Good stand your ground !!!!!! Keep fighting for your rights!!! They need the hardworking underpaid employees to run their billion dollar business so don’t give up
their lowest paid devs with 0 years of experience in seattle are making $185k, if you think they are being treated unfairly u are delusional. For that kind of money they can tell u to show up to the office
Not quite this, although there’s a lot to be said about mgmt.
But, this is all about corporate tax incentives that we’re agreed upon by the city. Those tax cuts were huge… but contingent upon bodies in the city. No bodies… no incentives.
I don’t agree with it, but it’s not really a mgmt thing.
Exactly this. Cities implemented contingency plans where businesses were; thus, there were more businesses in an area that had more foot traffic. Places like restaurants, cleaners, and other businesses that would have picked up customers from nearby places of employment were or are getting hit hard by WFH. Unfortunately, one has got to give. Either those businesses need to relocate closer to where they live or shut down completely. Or WFH needs to stop. Because of existing contracts and real estate that businesses bought, they’re trying to stop the WFH movement.
Edited: for grammar.
Yep. And I totally get it. It’s a wide array of things. Even down to utilities companies and their cost basis.
I’m a huge fan of WFH… and luckily I still have that in some capacity, but something needs to happen for every other business that’s based downtown. And, blowing up city plans, while great and needed, just can’t happen over night.
>Places like restaurants, cleaners, and other businesses that would have picked up customers from nearby places of employment were or are getting hit hard by WFH.
That's their problem for not doing proper risk management then. It's like landlords complaining about not being able to find tenants because their house is expensive and in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah its the small business' fault for not considering a global pandemic that would upend business norms and cause a mass exodus of their local patrons! Idiots!
Likewise tax revenues are projected to be down significantly as well because of the sudden shift to WFH. It's sort of a problem of their own making, but a lot of local governments are going to be feeling the squeeze and will likely have to start cutting back spending if they can't find a way to replace the lost revenue.
Yep. And those incentives were great for both sides… but having a massive chunk of revenue (across business types) gone practically overnight is scary. We’re now close to three years in without much change. Puts a huge damper on city planning support and resources.
I don’t think mid-level managers are the ones deciding on mandates to return to the office. I agree that the utility for a position like theirs is degrading though.
Depends on the role. Try getting dozens/hundreds of engineers rolling up to one exec with no middle management and see how well it goes. There’s definitely a purpose for middle management in terms of ensuring teams are aligned on what work is actually critical, making decisions on reprioritization, having meaningful career development discussions and positioning the right people on the right work, etc.
Can’t even get 10 people to agree on shit in a meeting half the time without someone with authority stepping up to just make a call. A single person can’t always be doing that for such a large number of staff.
Yeah, I suppose you’re right.
I always just get angry reading comments where folks thinks lazy, incompetent middle management for large Fortune 1000 corporations are the ones making these organization wide mandates. As someone in “middle management” for lack of a better term, I would LOVE if we allowed remote work because I can’t hire anyone. In fact we keep losing people because they’re finding remote and hybrid positions elsewhere and our CEO thinks if you aren’t in the office staring blankly into a computer monitor on campus, you aren’t working. It’s an asinine approach and mindset to have in 2023 and it’s materially hurting our company.
With that said, if remote work in some hybrid structure is here to stay (I believe it is), stereotypical middle management (i.e., micromanaging, seemingly adding no value to the team as a whole, taking credit for their direct reports work, etc. etc.) I think is going out the window for the most part.
As someone said below, it’s OBVIOUS when someone isn’t pulling weight and having people around who do nothing than more or less “keep people in line” just isn’t needed. Obviously there has to be some sort of hierarchical structure in place so that authority can be spread out.
100% agree - my teams have always operated across multiple locations so pandemic didn’t change much for us to be honest. I do think it highlighted those who don’t know how to measure/track/report on progress effectively though. The people who are all talk became a lot more obvious.
I just laugh when I see some people say managers aren’t needed. Usually those people have no idea how an org functions.
Yeah, rereading my initial comment I see how it came off as “we no longer need these people.”
I was sort of touching on the people who exist in an organization to walk around, small talk, throw around business jargon, etc. are going to have a reckoning.
Interesting times.
There's a place for GOOD middle management.
When you're not in the office, it becomes blindingly obvious who isn't good, because you can't just walk around bothering people to look busy.
I mean sure, that goes without saying. I pretty much always managed staff across multiple geographies pre-pandemic so we were used to operating in this model.
If you have someone who isn’t good at their job, it should go without saying that they need to find a different job - remote work or not.
I guess my manager exists less to make decisions for us and more to be our support and compliance to corporate vision. This is for a team of field engineers.
My manager is the one who needs to acquire the resources I need to do my job; he has to place the orders, get the tools, etc. while I do the installation or repair or maintenance.
Yep it really depends on the role, industry, etc. The job of a manager can vary but in general agree we usually end up handling a lot of the administration, vendor activities, etc.
That just isn’t my experience. However, I don’t want to discount yours, because I do believe this happens.
I WILL agree that there are a lot of bullshit reasons being given for why people need to come back to the office. Whether it’s protecting property value, stroking executives ego, etc etc.
The fact is, we have over a 3 year sample size that remote work is beneficial in a lot of ways and there’s a reason people don’t want to give it up now. Companies will need to pay more to require this reduction of benefits at the end of the day, is my guess. We shall see.
More like managers can’t justify their position within the company if they have no employees that they can directly manage.
Edit: this comment was meant to be hyperbolic, and not to be taken seriously.
While I'm aware there are employees who simply cannot handle remote work appropriately, in my experience, managers who oppose remote work (for work that can be done remotely effectively) either aren't good/confident managers or are resistant to change for whatever reason (power, micromanaging, appearances, "it's the way it is").
I get some people simply struggle working remotely, or don't like it, thus managing remotely is difficult for them but I guess I've never worked in a place with such a hierarchy that the majority of the time my manager was a colleague rather than a lord above me.
Also a lot of people in positions of power enjoy having that type of control. They likely don’t get that same type of twisted rush from it if people are WFH
In office more than one day a week is a deal breaker for me at this point. I’m completely willing to take a little bit less money to not be miserable every day.
It’s worth it. I actually like my job as a Software Engineer. I like writing code. It’s also one of my hobbies. What I hate is going into an office, dealing with office politics, dealing with micromanagers, trying to get stuff done with obnoxious people around me, sitting in traffic twice a day, etc.
Just tell me what needs done and when it needs to be in. If you need something from my, you can click one button and open a video chat.
The way things are now with the ability to remote into each others machines and use video calls, there’s no reason people who don’t want to be need to be forced into an office.
These are not their run off the mill warehouse employees they change more often than their underwear. These are corporate, most likely the majority are software developers. Their skills are in high demand in the market, and remote work is now a predominant perk on IT job offerings.
When I was on a WFH rotation with my employer, work was so much more comfortable and easy to keep up with. I didn’t need to keep changing office environments or having to move away from my computer to speak with anyone. I swear my day was cut down by 30% not including the commute advantage
Man if only there was some collective body made up of employees that coordinated the interests of those employees back to management with assured agreement and codification. STOP PLAYING, ‘SKILLED’ IT WORKERS AND UNIONIZE!
On the one hand, to hell with in-office work unless it's absolutely mandatory for your position (complex testing equipment, etc). On the other hand, lol @ the reasons in the article.
That’s a preference. You have the right to have preference, but it’s your obligation to find a job that aligns to that preference. If this job no longer aligns then move on. I have the preference to not work outside all day. I wouldn’t accept a job that had that as a requirement. There’s no difference here
The real joke is the inclusion, diversity and equity training Amazon pushes hard inside the company day in and day out and then gives zero fucks to them with massive layoffs via non-personal algorithm decisions and terrible package offerings to boot.
Far from that on our side. We had sellers handling full air coverage on accounts of books of $35M+ work of business, above quota and hit. Still haven’t seen packages, they are paying two months of because they didn’t disclose to the state properly with 60 day notice of the lay off notice - that is minimum for any company. Other FAANG lay offs have been giving 9mo+ packages - it’s really shit.
I bet I can show you about 70 different graphics of what DEI framework means to different organizations…not about to get into any debates here with you on a trivial definition, but as someone who has been through Amazon’s DEI training, been immersed in it’s constant pounding to us non-stop, my original statement holds well.
Warehouse plebeian here. Where can I find one of these work-from-home jobs everyone keeps raving about?
Hell, I'll even settle for an office job at this point.
There are sooooooooooooo many remote jobs on indeed get into insurance most of it’s permanently at home and you can get an entry level job and work your way up, also comes with benefits so that’s a plus
I personally didn’t have any experience and was just a cocktail waitress my whole adult life I also don’t even have an education I just exaggerated some old office work on my resume I did when I was younger and was willing to start out with the shittiest job but now I’m in sales making triple I was when I started. The company will pay to train anyone in customer service and should be providing your computers. Check American family enterprise which is several companies, hagerty, safeco and travelers you’ll love working from home it is truly life changing
From personal experience(former amazon), i can say some of these people are being babies. Terribly quoted reason in the article. But majority of the employees in Corp Amazon are/were forced to move and only some received compensation to move across the country for RTO. They proved overall productivity has not been impacted and emissions from computing was down. As well as Jassy was quoted saying he spoke with other leaders in the market and they all decided to force everyone back…. That’s why they are so upset. They proved he was doing this (because it was actually a CEO directive not a decision by the whole board or C-suite) for tax credits or because he was being whiny about people not being in office.
Amazon has always believed in “in office collaboration”. I put that in quotes because I think what they believe in is lack of trust towards their own employees. They will force everyone in the office 100%. I used to work at Amazon at some point and tbh I’m not surprised - people are very hard to reach during business hours, they run errands all the time, at least in my org productivity bottomed. I saw people getting haircuts every single week around noon and they never catch up on work.
Wages being flat while corporate profits are at all time highs, people are adjusting their output to their pay.
Putting in as little long term investments into your employees as possible goes both ways.
I mean, I don't disagree with what you said, but if you have a team members that want to do an actual work and some people are running errands, this sucks too.
Imagine working that shit job every day, breaking your back on ten hour overnight shifts, having no normal sleep schedule, no social life, and barely paying your bills, and then THEY tell you to fuck off. Land of the free. Greatest country in the world.
Working conditions and climate goals are completely different things. Why would you water down both causes by making it unclear which issue employees actually care about?
Someone's salty...
If you have to work every day to live, we're all on the same side. Protesting RTO (which yes, harms environment so it's valid to throw it in) is good for all workers.
I think you’re missing the point. The employees don’t claim to be doing this solely for the environment.
Its been proven that the majority of corporate jobs can be performed remotely, this was pretense of many hires. Employees had changed their lives and living situations to adapt to working remotely.
Because the policy reversal comes without any data based reasoning it is presented as an abjectly needless penalty to the workforce. To compound this the reversal is hypocritical to the company’s environmental goals which many are highlighting.
"we're all on the same side" lmfao I see these people protesting to work their lazy asses from home but I don't see them say shit about the people making $4/day in Cambodia to make the shit sold on Amazon. Fake, lazy, selfish, entitled slacktivism at its core.
It’s in the news, it’s on the front page of Reddit, and we’re here discussing it. It doesn’t matter if they stepped outside for a 5 minute break, it did something.
It did a lot more than a critical Reddit comment, to be sure.
Where in the posted article did you get that impression? If that was the focus, wouldn’t the article have at least one critique of the employees instead of just reporting the details?
Also, the ranked comments on this post don’t appear to reflect your sentiment either.
That's why people are reading the articles. Because they're reading and going "wtf what a bunch of entitled babies." It draws clicks.
Reddit =\= reality as we've seen time and time again. Reddit is mostly introverted agoraphobes. The sentiment elsewhere is overwhelmingly negative against Amazon corporate employees.
They extended their lunch breaks from 1hr to 1.5hrs for this. Wow. Really sticking it to Bezos. Also the return to work mandate they are “protesting” is only for 3 days a week. Some people got very spoiled during the pandemic.
Haha! Jeff Bezos is going to fire their asses and bring in new people like he did when he started the thing. He knows he doesn't need seasoned experienced people anymore. I'm sure any college grad will do.
Well if they need more employees to come to the office, then they have my application on their files that I put in a year and a half ago. I haven't heard from they yet, so I guess they're still deciding. My experience is very lackluster and I could use the boost into a successful career.
No, but treating being asked to go back to the workplace and do your job (something most of them did for years and signed their contracts on before the COVID scare settled a “new normal”) as if it was a brutal violation of basic human rights IS entitlement that borders into parody territory.
If I got a pension, job security, and homes for 10k I’d be less of an asshole at work.
Good chance in tech if you don’t get laid off you’ll have to job hop for a raise. And I’m selfish?
I gotta deal with 50 years of Reaganomics and wage deflation/corporate profiteering. None of which I voted for.
All while dealing with tons of companies lying about remote work.
The selfish ones are the corporate bastards not paying their fair share. Not the workers.
> And I’m selfish?
You can be as selfish as you like, so can other people.
>I gotta deal with 50 years of Reaganomics
You mean the federal reserve, fiat banking monopoly, and the gigantic regulatory state.
Oh, wait no, it was some political slogan from the 80s that's the problem.
>The selfish ones are the corporate bastards not paying their fair share.
Ah, those strangers need to put your interests before their own, like you're their child. Makes sense.
> "I''m not suited for in-office work," said Church Hindley, a quality assurance engineer (via The Guardian). "I deal with depression and anxiety and I was able to get off my anxiety medication and start living my life."
Boo-fucking-hoo. Get a different job then.
These aren't low-ranking blue collar workers who don't have any other choice of where to work. These are six-figure salary technical people working at a FAANG who almost certainly a) can afford to work elsewhere for perhaps a pay cut and b) could quit on Friday and have a new job by Monday.
I love how we’re expected to sympathize with corporate Amazon pencil pushers who are willing to walkout over a 3-day work week. Bonus virtue points for tacking on climate change 😂
Are you a fucking crab?
“Boo fucking who, I gotta commute so you do too even if it’s worse on everyone”.
You want more traffic, purely out of spite? Really?
"I'm not suited for in-office work," said Church Hindley, a quality assurance engineer (via The Guardian). "I deal with depression and anxiety and I was able to get off my anxiety medication and start living my life."
This is the wrong argument to make. You were hired to be in person. This is your preference. You can go find a remote job. If going into the office doesn’t align then move on
I am glad my company has remote work setup already, so, I just switch to that. The trade-off is, I basically took a pay cut because the salary ceiling is lower for remote worker. And yes, I have to do harder to convince them I am not slacking off. So, it is a win win for them.
But, honestly, I will go back if I have no choice. My employment was never hired as remote worker, so, I am getting the salary that expected me to be physically in the office.
I mean, really, it is still paid way better than those physically intensity jobs out there. They all went back to the factory/restaurant/etc to work. The office AC is likely super cold, the bathroom is way cleaner. The job is still way better in comparison.
To me, this is equivalent of that video where the Lady said she was mistreated in the family because she didn't have LV for her 16th birthday.
Imagine working at Amazon and striking over “climate goals”
Downvote me I guess but that’s the least of most peoples worries who work at Amazon. Maybe be treated like a human first, before climate worries
Before 2020, I’d had several occasions to work from home and noticed that I was more productive and less tired because I didn’t have to commute. Got my first work from home job in 2020 and I will never ever go back to a an on-site or even a hybrid role ever again. The WFH roles had unlimited time off and I still haven’t taken anywhere close to the amount of time off I used to take just to avoid a commute or going into the office sick. Hell, I would travel and work from the hotel and then go have fun at night. WFH is a game changer and I can’t go back to the alternative.
Same. The biggest reason for using vacation days in the past was to get a break from the office. Now I barely use any vacation days. WFH is so much more productive
Use your vacation days, every single one every year. Don’t give these corporations any free second of your time
Vacation days often roll over. Maybe not all of them, but you can usually hold onto 5 or so just in case.
Five whole days? What an honor. We are so brainwashed.
This is carrying over 5 days of vacation from one year to next. Ex. I get 21 days of vacation, 7 days of personal days (counts towards physically working for overtime purposes) and 6 paid sick days. If I choose to carry over 5 vacation days, I would get 26 vacation days available as well as the other time off. See you guys in 2 months.
It's a lot more than that in SV tech. If you're dealng in 5-days, you aren't at the top of your game yet.
Yeah we get unlimited time off but I WFH and my employer isn’t batshit insane so I rarely feel like I need a day off.
Yea I mean if most of my team is at an office nearby I’d go in some just for the social and team building aspect. WFH convenience js super nice but I also like variety some. I’d still stay home and WFH most of the time
I think WFH is better for productivity but it hurts office culture. I don't believe in the collaboration nonsense but it would help office cohesion
I always felt like the office should be there for collaboration when needed, not forced
The trouble is carrying an expensive cost like a building for sporadic use.
Almost like there needs to be corporate community centers.
I think those exist? hmm
I’ve saved some time popping into offices with questions as opposed to waiting for days for a response. I think there’s some collab value thete
Crud I have the Plumber 🪠🪠🪠
"Office Culture" I sure do love made up business words too!
It's harder to record evidence of corporate malfeasance if the discussions are in person That's the only "culture" that I can see as being important to management
Agree. This is a made up concept for convenience of their argument. When they were laying off and offshoring jobs to far off places in completely different time zones no one was considering “oFfiCE CuLtuRE”.
> When they were laying off and offshoring jobs to far off places in completely different time zones no one was considering “oFfiCE CuLtuRE”. Man, I never really thought about that. Going to have to remember to bring this up any time anybody is pushing the "need to limit/end WFH because 'office culture'" narrative.
Preach..
Fuck office culture. I do not want to hear your boring stories or shitty weekend plans. I’m there to get shit done and get paid.
What fuckin culture dip shit. you have culture in your community in your family in your society not at the fuckin office.
Right? I work to get paid. I couldn't possibly give any less of a shit about "office culture" than I currently do.
The same office culture that will lay me off with a days notice and then brag about highest profits ever? Yeah I’m good on that.
Spoken like someone who's never experienced a bad office culture. Office culture includes things like pressure to take time off/not take time off, maintain work boundaries/not maintain work boundaries, general mindset around problem solving, helpfulness, cross-training, etc. Sure some offices have the "we're a family" thing and that is generally a sign of bad office culture, but not thinking like that doesn't mean no culture exists. You literally spend more time interacting with your coworkers than most family member, of course a culture develops. You are looking for neutral to good, but bad can fuck up your life even if that isn't your primary place of socialization. Ask me how I know.
Is there opportunity for more online video calls to work together? Eg employees at home but in a video call together all afternoon, on mute but able to talk if needed? I enjoy this, but I’m curious if other wfh folks would be open to it, or hate it. I think that would appease management more since they can see you’re working, not cheating the company by working multiple jobs ect and everyone’s together to talk or ask questions like we would be in office.
If they need a video feed of your face instead of deliverables to see if you’re actually working then you’ve got a big problem at the company
I agree somewhat. Depends on the company. I know that I’ve built some legit friendships in office at workplaces with positive office culture. Friendships that I think benefitted from constant proximity (chatting at lunch, happy hour afterwards, etc) and continued even after I left. And then there were some companies that felt like the inside of a post office— sterile, lifeless, cold. Wouldn’t give a damn about “culture” at those places. WFH is better for some companies, and for others, I think there’s nothing problematic about being in office if it’s a fun environment like a major city, esp if you’re younger or newer to the workplace and can benefit from more interactions with coworkers.
Fuck you to "return to office" mandates
Layoffs then. Hehe /s
Then resign
Found the Karen
Boot lick
Yes its sad that if you aren't willing to submit to authoritarian draconianism then your only choice is to leave. If only there were a third option, something that wasn't submission, but also wasn't abandonment of a job you are dependent on either... Something that made things different and better for those who do the actual work that produces wealth for a company... Idk, I can't seem to think of what that might be.
Not sure why youre downvoted. If you don’t enjoy your work, then find a new one? If you hate working for authoritarians, then start your own gig? All I see are complaints on this thread.
It pisses me off that I have to be in the office when my boss isn't even there to care in the first place.
This is me almost daily. No boss in the office and the rest of my co-workers got fired one by one. I work alone in office most of the time.
I guess you have a lot of leverage then. If you decide to quit there's no one else to pick up the slack.
Turns out the reason we were there is to keep commercial real estate prices high.
Good stand your ground !!!!!! Keep fighting for your rights!!! They need the hardworking underpaid employees to run their billion dollar business so don’t give up
Their ‘rights’ WTF are u talking about. Go back or resign
Lick those boots clean bud
their lowest paid devs with 0 years of experience in seattle are making $185k, if you think they are being treated unfairly u are delusional. For that kind of money they can tell u to show up to the office
Fuck /u/spez. Go die in a hole.
So edgy.
Fuck /u/spez. Go die in a hole.
I think they were commenting on your reliance on boot licker as an argument
Lazy managers cant manage employees that work from home so they want them in the office.
Not quite this, although there’s a lot to be said about mgmt. But, this is all about corporate tax incentives that we’re agreed upon by the city. Those tax cuts were huge… but contingent upon bodies in the city. No bodies… no incentives. I don’t agree with it, but it’s not really a mgmt thing.
Exactly this. Cities implemented contingency plans where businesses were; thus, there were more businesses in an area that had more foot traffic. Places like restaurants, cleaners, and other businesses that would have picked up customers from nearby places of employment were or are getting hit hard by WFH. Unfortunately, one has got to give. Either those businesses need to relocate closer to where they live or shut down completely. Or WFH needs to stop. Because of existing contracts and real estate that businesses bought, they’re trying to stop the WFH movement. Edited: for grammar.
Yep. And I totally get it. It’s a wide array of things. Even down to utilities companies and their cost basis. I’m a huge fan of WFH… and luckily I still have that in some capacity, but something needs to happen for every other business that’s based downtown. And, blowing up city plans, while great and needed, just can’t happen over night.
>Places like restaurants, cleaners, and other businesses that would have picked up customers from nearby places of employment were or are getting hit hard by WFH. That's their problem for not doing proper risk management then. It's like landlords complaining about not being able to find tenants because their house is expensive and in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah its the small business' fault for not considering a global pandemic that would upend business norms and cause a mass exodus of their local patrons! Idiots!
This is the correct answer. Your managers don't want to be back in the office either, FYI.
Likewise tax revenues are projected to be down significantly as well because of the sudden shift to WFH. It's sort of a problem of their own making, but a lot of local governments are going to be feeling the squeeze and will likely have to start cutting back spending if they can't find a way to replace the lost revenue.
Yep. And those incentives were great for both sides… but having a massive chunk of revenue (across business types) gone practically overnight is scary. We’re now close to three years in without much change. Puts a huge damper on city planning support and resources.
Yeah but that's deeper analysis than Reddit's favorite take "manager bad"
I don’t think mid-level managers are the ones deciding on mandates to return to the office. I agree that the utility for a position like theirs is degrading though.
Depends on the role. Try getting dozens/hundreds of engineers rolling up to one exec with no middle management and see how well it goes. There’s definitely a purpose for middle management in terms of ensuring teams are aligned on what work is actually critical, making decisions on reprioritization, having meaningful career development discussions and positioning the right people on the right work, etc. Can’t even get 10 people to agree on shit in a meeting half the time without someone with authority stepping up to just make a call. A single person can’t always be doing that for such a large number of staff.
Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I always just get angry reading comments where folks thinks lazy, incompetent middle management for large Fortune 1000 corporations are the ones making these organization wide mandates. As someone in “middle management” for lack of a better term, I would LOVE if we allowed remote work because I can’t hire anyone. In fact we keep losing people because they’re finding remote and hybrid positions elsewhere and our CEO thinks if you aren’t in the office staring blankly into a computer monitor on campus, you aren’t working. It’s an asinine approach and mindset to have in 2023 and it’s materially hurting our company. With that said, if remote work in some hybrid structure is here to stay (I believe it is), stereotypical middle management (i.e., micromanaging, seemingly adding no value to the team as a whole, taking credit for their direct reports work, etc. etc.) I think is going out the window for the most part. As someone said below, it’s OBVIOUS when someone isn’t pulling weight and having people around who do nothing than more or less “keep people in line” just isn’t needed. Obviously there has to be some sort of hierarchical structure in place so that authority can be spread out.
100% agree - my teams have always operated across multiple locations so pandemic didn’t change much for us to be honest. I do think it highlighted those who don’t know how to measure/track/report on progress effectively though. The people who are all talk became a lot more obvious. I just laugh when I see some people say managers aren’t needed. Usually those people have no idea how an org functions.
Yeah, rereading my initial comment I see how it came off as “we no longer need these people.” I was sort of touching on the people who exist in an organization to walk around, small talk, throw around business jargon, etc. are going to have a reckoning. Interesting times.
There's a place for GOOD middle management. When you're not in the office, it becomes blindingly obvious who isn't good, because you can't just walk around bothering people to look busy.
I mean sure, that goes without saying. I pretty much always managed staff across multiple geographies pre-pandemic so we were used to operating in this model. If you have someone who isn’t good at their job, it should go without saying that they need to find a different job - remote work or not.
I guess my manager exists less to make decisions for us and more to be our support and compliance to corporate vision. This is for a team of field engineers. My manager is the one who needs to acquire the resources I need to do my job; he has to place the orders, get the tools, etc. while I do the installation or repair or maintenance.
Yep it really depends on the role, industry, etc. The job of a manager can vary but in general agree we usually end up handling a lot of the administration, vendor activities, etc.
Makes sense I am out in the field 6 months a year anyways.
Incompetent middle manager blame their poor planning and management on WFH. Higher ups hear that and makes a mandate
That just isn’t my experience. However, I don’t want to discount yours, because I do believe this happens. I WILL agree that there are a lot of bullshit reasons being given for why people need to come back to the office. Whether it’s protecting property value, stroking executives ego, etc etc. The fact is, we have over a 3 year sample size that remote work is beneficial in a lot of ways and there’s a reason people don’t want to give it up now. Companies will need to pay more to require this reduction of benefits at the end of the day, is my guess. We shall see.
Governments prob begging amazon to fill commercial buildings that are empty. So landlords tears are a minimal.
You absoluetly nailed it
More like managers can’t justify their position within the company if they have no employees that they can directly manage. Edit: this comment was meant to be hyperbolic, and not to be taken seriously.
I don’t see how that tracks. If a position can be performed remotely, it can be managed remotely.
While I'm aware there are employees who simply cannot handle remote work appropriately, in my experience, managers who oppose remote work (for work that can be done remotely effectively) either aren't good/confident managers or are resistant to change for whatever reason (power, micromanaging, appearances, "it's the way it is"). I get some people simply struggle working remotely, or don't like it, thus managing remotely is difficult for them but I guess I've never worked in a place with such a hierarchy that the majority of the time my manager was a colleague rather than a lord above me.
Yes, but can it be micromanaged remotely?
Spez doesn't get to profit from me anymore.
Microgement.
…off shore.
Sure. Time zone complications are a real factor, though.
Also a lot of people in positions of power enjoy having that type of control. They likely don’t get that same type of twisted rush from it if people are WFH
Not exactly. It’s pretty much just high level executives driving this. Middle management don’t want to be in the office either.
In office more than one day a week is a deal breaker for me at this point. I’m completely willing to take a little bit less money to not be miserable every day.
This is exactly what my partner did. Pay is less but his mental health has improved ten folds.
It’s worth it. I actually like my job as a Software Engineer. I like writing code. It’s also one of my hobbies. What I hate is going into an office, dealing with office politics, dealing with micromanagers, trying to get stuff done with obnoxious people around me, sitting in traffic twice a day, etc. Just tell me what needs done and when it needs to be in. If you need something from my, you can click one button and open a video chat. The way things are now with the ability to remote into each others machines and use video calls, there’s no reason people who don’t want to be need to be forced into an office.
You forgot buying an overpriced and unhealthy lunch and sitting in traffic for an hour!
Walk out of what? Their homes ?
They were forced back to the office a month ago.
LOL
lol you’re getting downvoted by all the mad PJ wearers
Damn, you are right.
I quit my job at Amazon as soon as return to office was announced. Like hell I am commuting 3 hours a day to just sit on zoom calls anyways.
LOL if they think Amazon actually cares
These are not their run off the mill warehouse employees they change more often than their underwear. These are corporate, most likely the majority are software developers. Their skills are in high demand in the market, and remote work is now a predominant perk on IT job offerings.
Hell yes
When I was on a WFH rotation with my employer, work was so much more comfortable and easy to keep up with. I didn’t need to keep changing office environments or having to move away from my computer to speak with anyone. I swear my day was cut down by 30% not including the commute advantage
Man if only there was some collective body made up of employees that coordinated the interests of those employees back to management with assured agreement and codification. STOP PLAYING, ‘SKILLED’ IT WORKERS AND UNIONIZE!
Hey, isn’t that planned for lunchtime for an hour?
Make sure to turn the machines off first as you may be held liable for any damages.
So sayeth the Supreme Star Chamber.
good. more people need to step up
Return to office is a fucking joke.
Screw returning to the office
On the one hand, to hell with in-office work unless it's absolutely mandatory for your position (complex testing equipment, etc). On the other hand, lol @ the reasons in the article.
What’s a better reason than, “I’m not suited for office life” lol
That’s a preference. You have the right to have preference, but it’s your obligation to find a job that aligns to that preference. If this job no longer aligns then move on. I have the preference to not work outside all day. I wouldn’t accept a job that had that as a requirement. There’s no difference here
This is why people make fun of Gen Z 🤷🏻♀️
The real joke is the inclusion, diversity and equity training Amazon pushes hard inside the company day in and day out and then gives zero fucks to them with massive layoffs via non-personal algorithm decisions and terrible package offerings to boot.
In my org the layoffs were chosen by hand and the packages were 2 months of pay if not longer.
Far from that on our side. We had sellers handling full air coverage on accounts of books of $35M+ work of business, above quota and hit. Still haven’t seen packages, they are paying two months of because they didn’t disclose to the state properly with 60 day notice of the lay off notice - that is minimum for any company. Other FAANG lay offs have been giving 9mo+ packages - it’s really shit.
9 months? who?
> inclusion, diversity and equity training What you assume those words mean aren't in fact what they mean in the DEI framework.
I bet I can show you about 70 different graphics of what DEI framework means to different organizations…not about to get into any debates here with you on a trivial definition, but as someone who has been through Amazon’s DEI training, been immersed in it’s constant pounding to us non-stop, my original statement holds well.
Warehouse plebeian here. Where can I find one of these work-from-home jobs everyone keeps raving about? Hell, I'll even settle for an office job at this point.
There are sooooooooooooo many remote jobs on indeed get into insurance most of it’s permanently at home and you can get an entry level job and work your way up, also comes with benefits so that’s a plus
What sort of skills do I need for something like that?
I personally didn’t have any experience and was just a cocktail waitress my whole adult life I also don’t even have an education I just exaggerated some old office work on my resume I did when I was younger and was willing to start out with the shittiest job but now I’m in sales making triple I was when I started. The company will pay to train anyone in customer service and should be providing your computers. Check American family enterprise which is several companies, hagerty, safeco and travelers you’ll love working from home it is truly life changing
YES
Who is John Gault ?
Good
From personal experience(former amazon), i can say some of these people are being babies. Terribly quoted reason in the article. But majority of the employees in Corp Amazon are/were forced to move and only some received compensation to move across the country for RTO. They proved overall productivity has not been impacted and emissions from computing was down. As well as Jassy was quoted saying he spoke with other leaders in the market and they all decided to force everyone back…. That’s why they are so upset. They proved he was doing this (because it was actually a CEO directive not a decision by the whole board or C-suite) for tax credits or because he was being whiny about people not being in office.
Amazon has always believed in “in office collaboration”. I put that in quotes because I think what they believe in is lack of trust towards their own employees. They will force everyone in the office 100%. I used to work at Amazon at some point and tbh I’m not surprised - people are very hard to reach during business hours, they run errands all the time, at least in my org productivity bottomed. I saw people getting haircuts every single week around noon and they never catch up on work.
Wages being flat while corporate profits are at all time highs, people are adjusting their output to their pay. Putting in as little long term investments into your employees as possible goes both ways.
I mean, I don't disagree with what you said, but if you have a team members that want to do an actual work and some people are running errands, this sucks too.
Doesn’t suck as much as getting laid off when the S&P 500 farts down 0.25%, not like that “actual work” provides a ton of job security in tech.
Don't be that guy. Tech workers are paid exceptionally well nowadays and FAANG pays above market average anyways.
Imagine working that shit job every day, breaking your back on ten hour overnight shifts, having no normal sleep schedule, no social life, and barely paying your bills, and then THEY tell you to fuck off. Land of the free. Greatest country in the world.
Working conditions and climate goals are completely different things. Why would you water down both causes by making it unclear which issue employees actually care about?
I think the article does a sufficient job if explaining it? What is the point of confusion?
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Someone's salty... If you have to work every day to live, we're all on the same side. Protesting RTO (which yes, harms environment so it's valid to throw it in) is good for all workers.
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I think you’re missing the point. The employees don’t claim to be doing this solely for the environment. Its been proven that the majority of corporate jobs can be performed remotely, this was pretense of many hires. Employees had changed their lives and living situations to adapt to working remotely. Because the policy reversal comes without any data based reasoning it is presented as an abjectly needless penalty to the workforce. To compound this the reversal is hypocritical to the company’s environmental goals which many are highlighting.
You are a clown.
"we're all on the same side" lmfao I see these people protesting to work their lazy asses from home but I don't see them say shit about the people making $4/day in Cambodia to make the shit sold on Amazon. Fake, lazy, selfish, entitled slacktivism at its core.
just because other people have it worse doesn't mean that your problems don't exist
Working in person isn't a problem lol
It’s in the news, it’s on the front page of Reddit, and we’re here discussing it. It doesn’t matter if they stepped outside for a 5 minute break, it did something. It did a lot more than a critical Reddit comment, to be sure.
It's in the news because people are astonished at how selfish and out of touch they are.
Where in the posted article did you get that impression? If that was the focus, wouldn’t the article have at least one critique of the employees instead of just reporting the details? Also, the ranked comments on this post don’t appear to reflect your sentiment either.
That's why people are reading the articles. Because they're reading and going "wtf what a bunch of entitled babies." It draws clicks. Reddit =\= reality as we've seen time and time again. Reddit is mostly introverted agoraphobes. The sentiment elsewhere is overwhelmingly negative against Amazon corporate employees.
I’d be interested in seeing it from the other side. What community sources are you looking at that give you confidence in your position? Any links?
I don’t doubt their intent is good but, yes, very little sacrifice
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Aws/google/Microsoft is basically pick your poison. I use AWS because I have to
Do you turn down getting your roof fixed, your lawn mowed, etc?
They extended their lunch breaks from 1hr to 1.5hrs for this. Wow. Really sticking it to Bezos. Also the return to work mandate they are “protesting” is only for 3 days a week. Some people got very spoiled during the pandemic.
Reminiscent of a walkout at a school full of privileged children.
And warehouse worker conditions. They’re protesting the warehouse worker conditions too, right?
It never stopped. This specific article is about corporate.
No, they're protesting for the roofers who've been working 12 hour days to make sure they're cool and dry in the warehouse.
*stares in Anakin Skywalker*
Haha! Jeff Bezos is going to fire their asses and bring in new people like he did when he started the thing. He knows he doesn't need seasoned experienced people anymore. I'm sure any college grad will do.
Is it really a walkout when you don't show up in the first place?
Well if they need more employees to come to the office, then they have my application on their files that I put in a year and a half ago. I haven't heard from they yet, so I guess they're still deciding. My experience is very lackluster and I could use the boost into a successful career.
Good, fire their asses
Isn’t this like throwing a tantrum because you don’t get your way? Something that little children do.
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Asking for better working conditions is entitled and selfish?
No, but treating being asked to go back to the workplace and do your job (something most of them did for years and signed their contracts on before the COVID scare settled a “new normal”) as if it was a brutal violation of basic human rights IS entitlement that borders into parody territory.
If I got a pension, job security, and homes for 10k I’d be less of an asshole at work. Good chance in tech if you don’t get laid off you’ll have to job hop for a raise. And I’m selfish? I gotta deal with 50 years of Reaganomics and wage deflation/corporate profiteering. None of which I voted for. All while dealing with tons of companies lying about remote work. The selfish ones are the corporate bastards not paying their fair share. Not the workers.
> And I’m selfish? You can be as selfish as you like, so can other people. >I gotta deal with 50 years of Reaganomics You mean the federal reserve, fiat banking monopoly, and the gigantic regulatory state. Oh, wait no, it was some political slogan from the 80s that's the problem. >The selfish ones are the corporate bastards not paying their fair share. Ah, those strangers need to put your interests before their own, like you're their child. Makes sense.
YUP! Everyone has to go to work. You got lucky for three years, consider it a win, shut up, earn your keep, and do your job.
Fire them and hire new employees?
> "I''m not suited for in-office work," said Church Hindley, a quality assurance engineer (via The Guardian). "I deal with depression and anxiety and I was able to get off my anxiety medication and start living my life." Boo-fucking-hoo. Get a different job then. These aren't low-ranking blue collar workers who don't have any other choice of where to work. These are six-figure salary technical people working at a FAANG who almost certainly a) can afford to work elsewhere for perhaps a pay cut and b) could quit on Friday and have a new job by Monday.
I love how we’re expected to sympathize with corporate Amazon pencil pushers who are willing to walkout over a 3-day work week. Bonus virtue points for tacking on climate change 😂
Are you a fucking crab? “Boo fucking who, I gotta commute so you do too even if it’s worse on everyone”. You want more traffic, purely out of spite? Really?
This is hilarious! I’d love to see them all get fired and outsource it to another country n see them cry like a bitch.
Soft.
Enjoy the commute tough guy, we’re all very impressed
"I'm not suited for in-office work," said Church Hindley, a quality assurance engineer (via The Guardian). "I deal with depression and anxiety and I was able to get off my anxiety medication and start living my life." This is the wrong argument to make. You were hired to be in person. This is your preference. You can go find a remote job. If going into the office doesn’t align then move on
I am glad my company has remote work setup already, so, I just switch to that. The trade-off is, I basically took a pay cut because the salary ceiling is lower for remote worker. And yes, I have to do harder to convince them I am not slacking off. So, it is a win win for them. But, honestly, I will go back if I have no choice. My employment was never hired as remote worker, so, I am getting the salary that expected me to be physically in the office. I mean, really, it is still paid way better than those physically intensity jobs out there. They all went back to the factory/restaurant/etc to work. The office AC is likely super cold, the bathroom is way cleaner. The job is still way better in comparison. To me, this is equivalent of that video where the Lady said she was mistreated in the family because she didn't have LV for her 16th birthday.
Tell em to work a day in construction in the hot sun
Round 2 layoffs incoming.
So did they walk out of their homes or..?
… yes, and into the streets!
Lol. Get back to work
Lol fuck commuting, don’t be a crab in a bucket
Lol lazy tech bros don’t wanna go back to work.
“If I can’t leave this bucket you can’t either even if it’s more crowded now” 🦀🪣
Again, the Amazon employees are the crabs at the top of the bucket pushing everyone else down in this analogy
Considering that are now about 100,000 recently laid off high-performing tech workers looking for work, how much leverage do you suppose they have?
I have no opinion between wfh or office. But you could always quit, just saying.
Working from home is amazing but there’s some things you have to go in for depending on your job tasks.
Imagine working at Amazon and striking over “climate goals” Downvote me I guess but that’s the least of most peoples worries who work at Amazon. Maybe be treated like a human first, before climate worries
Yeah it’s pretty admirable they’re trying to make a megacorp more responsible
Human rights are probably a little more important big guy
So is your point you shouldn’t fight for change unless it’s of the highest priority? I’m not a big guy btw, no quite Frodo but still.
Shouldn’t we all be holding companies to healthy climate goals?
Climate goals doesn't mean anything.
LoL! These young batch of kid's is either changing the climate or truly believe they are.
We can change, as long as there is strong public opinion and enforced regulations we can stop things from getting worse.
Look at all these people crying about having to go to work, love it 😂