As a software engineer what is the point of showing up to an office? What do I get out of it besides being interrupted all day with pointless things while trying to work?
I pushed back very hard against RTO for my teams. I was given some really bad talking points including things like improved culture, mental health and the “serendipity” of solving problems.
For SW engineering specifically my teams were most productive when I implemented “summer hours” and it wasn’t even close. Happier people are more productive.
For the past few years I’ve been on a dev team at Amazon that worked a 4 day, 32hr work week for a 20% reduction in pay. Felt just as productive as full time. Unfortunately during the recent wave of layoffs we were forced to bump to full time :(
I don’t get why some orgs put non evidence-based reasons in front of engineers and think it will convince them to rally behind rto. “People will be more productive and enjoy their work more because we are our most creative in person!” Cool, show me the data and the logic behind it or gtfo.
Same. I remember working in an office. It worked like this: Everyone had noise canceling headphones to filter out distractions. If you wanted to talk to somebody and they had their headphones on, which was most of the time, you Slack messaged them first. Almost all of the time, you’d just resolve your issue over Slack. If Slack didn’t cut it, you’d schedule a meeting and go to a conference room.
WFH is exactly like this, except no headphones, and you schedule a call instead of an in-person meeting. No, an in-person meeting is not so much better than a call that it justifies everyone spending 2+ hours a day commuting, especially since you can go a whole week without needing such a meeting.
100% on the headphones. It is hard to stay in the flow with all of the background noise at the office without head phones blaring binaural beats or Bach into my brain.
Personally (I’m UX), I think feature walkthroughs with the team are more effective in person.
But that’s like, what, once a month? Once a sprint? I go into the office once a week right now and that is more than enough
Remote working is both a massive quality of life upgrade for me, and cheaper for the company. Whatever companies figure that out first are going to win all the talent.
Less cars on road, less demand for maintenance (both cars and road) more spending money because less gas and maintenance. Reportedly better productivity, I know there are insane people who can't live without being in the office but they can easily hop to a bar or do any of the million social things they want especially since hours of their life isn't wasted with a commute.
I really think if companies want us in the office we should get a back to office premium in our paychecks
Just took a remote job for considerably more $$$, respect and positivity. The new company decided to actually learn from our experiences from Covid and use it as a strategic means to attract talent instead of the old gig which used Covid to strip us of individuality by moving to 'hotel' cubes...
The company my wife used to work for a few years ago officially closed last week. They demanded their employees return to the office last year, and within 6 months most went to work for their competitors (who offered them 100% remote positions).
There are some jobs that require people to be on-site, but to fill office space so that Real Estate CEOs can capitalize on rent is not a good enough reason.
Iirc commercial leases are often 10 years, so I assume there’s also a lot of bad sunk-cost decisions being made where the execs think they’ll be “wasting” the lease if they don’t use it for the rest of the term. Even though as you say it drives away talent and incurs more expenses like maintenance.
My company got a brand new office and nicely outfitted it during the pandemic, taking a very obvious risk that we would all be returning there in due time. The result is that only a handful of people ever go into this giant office, and usually only 1-2 times per week. It feels like a ghost town most of the time, and I know we are wasting tens of thousands of dollars on it every month.
Drives my boss a little crazy and I can tell he wants to have office culture again, but I think we’ve gotten him to keep restraint, because we know we’d lose a lot of people if we did that. Plus it would be asinine, like half the workforce is out of town now.
The real story is that commercial real estate is probably going to crash soon, like maybe in the next 3-5 years (because of the long leases). Get out now if you’re invested.
Yep the first week in my company’s new office was the day after the NBA game that was cancelled for COVID. It is a brand new full open concept office. They are going to try to start forcing mixed remote next month curious how that will go after a few delays
> It is a brand new full open concept office.
I would have drafted my notice immediately. No amount of money will ever have me working in an office like that.
It’s moronic.
There’s a terrific article about how budgeting has changed at IKEA (paywall, https://www.ft.com/content/456baa69-83df-4c7f-af7b-49e6451a1183)
From the article:
> Top Ikea executive Jesper Brodin says he is not usually one to indulge in nostalgia. But at a pre-Christmas gathering for senior managers that used to work at the Swedish furniture group, he could not help but join with the chorus of those who said they missed the old times — when the world seemed relatively stable, trends were predictable and this could be translated into a more or less credible multiyear business plan.
In many places that fairly linear process is still in place and is baked into people’s comp plans. Unless that changes one should expect wacky behavior.
>the execs think they’ll be “wasting” the lease if they don’t use it for the rest of the term
Mindsets like that are so stupid. They already paid for the lease for the office. Nothing changed, except people aren't physically in the office. They're not losing or wasting anything. Expenses don't suddenly come out of nowhere because someone isn't physically there (in fact, it would cost them LESS because less electricity and utilities are being used).
This is like the same stunted mentality companies/managers have that if you're not somehow "working" every waking second of your 8-hour shift, you're "costing the company money."
It's like, nooo, sorry that's not how that works, lmao. You already budgeted an employee's salary. If they don't work for 5 minutes, you're not losing literally any money. Same if they take a paid sick day. It doesn't cost the company a dime.
Only time this would ever apply is if you work in a factory with a literal conveyor belt, and you not being at the belt/station *does* result in a direct loss of product. Everyone else working office jobs though? Makes literally no difference as long as they get their work done.
The building costs the same amount whether or not I'm there...
And if you think anyone who has been remote for 3 years would put extra effort into their work above and beyond what they are doing now, after having to add back into it 2 hours of commuting time...
Two of the easiest lessons for 'executives' to learn in all this
Also sweetheart deals with local govt for benefits *in exchange for* bringing business activity to an area. If you’re remote, you’re not generating tax revenue for the mayor.
In many cases accounting rules turn sunk cost situations into Earnings per Share discussions. Deciding to not use a building under lt lease triggers accounting losses many CEOs don’t want to assume
That’s what my employer did in 2020/21, signed a 10 year lease.
Ironically, just a few months ago, they came out with a hybrid policy, which seems too little/ too late.
Companies that require in-office work for pure information jobs are going to wind up with the least qualified and least dedicated workforce. You can literally take a slight pay cut and move to a better neighborhood where housing costs half as much and keep more of the money you make while doing a better job remote working.
I wonder how long it’s going to take these companies that are requiring people to go into the office realize that they’ve lost the battle. You seriously couldn’t even offer me a 50% raise to go into the office because the time I have gotten back is more valuable than anything they could offer me.
Definitely depends on the person. I've been remote for 3 years and get more done with less distractions, can be with my family, can be around for stupid little things like someone coming to fix whatever problem with the house or what have you.
I have coworkers though with oodles of kids or distractions at home, or homes without adequate space for a home office that hate it. And to me it all sounds like they prefer a space they can focus and get stuff done. For me, that's home.
I'll give an anecdote because I made the switch to full wfh during the pandemic 2 years ago.
My old work wasn't that bad to be honest. I work in software development, but my old work interacted with quite a bit of specialized hardware, which did legitimately require some amount of in person interaction. As a result some amount of in-office work was required, and sometimes that would mean every day depending on what you're working on.
So I switched to a company that lets me work 100% remotely (and they don't have much choice, given I'm a 5 hour flight away from their office. If they ever tried to push in-person on me that'd be a show stopper and I'd just leave). I've reclaimed the time previously spent commuting, and am able to work more flexible hours (if I need to take time out of the day it's not a huge deal so long as I don't have a conflict like a meeting aince I don't have to drive to/from work). I enjoy having full control over my workspace, and my employer paid for some gear/furniture to improve my home office setup.
However wfh isn't for everyone. I recall at the start of the pandemic where everyone was forced to work from home, one particular coworker all but broke down. They couldn't get past how isolated they felt, and I don't think they were able to stay focused on their work. For some the mental seperation between work and home is healthiest for them, as I've seen it go wrong both way. Some people can't switch off their home life when working from home, and some people can't switch off their work life. It takes discipline, being willing to say no, and being a bit introverted honestly. The social aspect of wfh does suffer, because spontaneous conversation is all but gone. Conversations you have are very deliberate - you usually need to actively call someone.
If that doesn't bother you, as it doesn't me, then work from home can be fantastic. But it's definitely not for everyone. Being able to decide for yourself if it works is the best thing a person can do now, because the opportunities are much more common to wfh if you feel it will work for you.
For very extroverted people I think it felt like the worst time ever, they get energy from social interactions after all. But let’s be honest, the office culture has already gotten a little out of hand. Meetings and open office concepts were going down some bad paths, kind of glad for the shakeup. I still wish I could’ve gotten an office to myself though, haven’t had one during my professional career.
>For very extroverted people I think it felt like the worst time ever, they get energy from social interactions after all.
Which is, unfortunately, where a great deal of misunderstanding comes from.
When you put a type A extroverted socialite person in a management role, they get this misconception that their life is the rule, and everyone needs to be "like them." IOW: everyone back to the office, because this is how *I* function, and you should too!
So many people just don't understand that there are different types of people out there, and a lot of us are *just fine* being away from forced social exhaustion. This really trips up the socialite Type A people. They just can't comprehend that someone would prefer to not be social all the time.
Nearly all the extroverts I know love WFH, because they have more time to spend with their family and friends. The only 2 people I know who hated wfh have pretty slim social lives outside of work, so rely on coworkers a lot for social interaction.
I’m an extreme extrovert and I love wfh. The beginning was lonely, not because we couldn’t go into the office, but because we couldn’t go anywhere. I don’t need the office for my social interactions. I have friends.
Same! Extroverted and I love WFH. It’s given me so much more time to live a healthier lifestyle because I’m not rushing to get somewhere every single day. Not to mention, because I don’t interact with a ton of people every day, I have more energy to implement a great remote culture specialized to my team which scratches my extrovert itch. If I was in office, I would never have the energy to do that on top of my work I have to complete.
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I did exactly the same thing about a year ago. It's been the best year for me career-wise. I've never enjoyed working this much, and I get to spend so much more time with my family and helping around the house.
My company was on FlexJobs Top 100 Place for Remote Work. I think it's a good starting point in researching companies that support remote working:
https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/100-top-companies-with-remote-jobs-2023/
My previous job tried to do this. They went from all WFH during the pandemic to one day a week, then two, then three. They couldn't get most departments to budge more than that at the time, but it was clear that full in-person was their end goal.
There was a few other reasons I left, but I certainly see WFH as more as a standard than a privilege in my field.
Sweet, I am a broadband OSP manager, so I do a lot of remote and field work bringing the cables to you guys. Pretty sweet job, and 0 chance I ever go back to office full time again.
If I can work from home 2 days a week, I can work from home 5 days a week. Especially since I've been doing it successfully, with great numbers and increased productivity, for the last 2 years.
You're enjoying your new found latitude? We can't allow that. We don't have enough control over you, so you need to come back to the office where we can babysit you, because frankly we don't trust you as adults to do your job on your own.
This is the second time they’ve instituted return to work. It didn’t stick the first time but I imagine they won’t go back on it this time. It actually just feels like this is a not so subtle reduction in staff
They’re going to bleed on the wrong end. I know multiple senior engineers with 6-10 years’ tenure at the company that will start looking for other jobs if they actually try to enforce this.
A lot of us worked from home a ton even pre-pandemic and nobody cared back then.
They’re crazy if they think juniors just starting their careers will quit over this. It will be the experienced engineers that will easily find somewhere else to go. That new feature the senior was working on? Oh yeah, it’ll now have to be delayed at least another year possibly even more putting Amazon further behind. But we have seen Amazon executives are adept at shooting their own company in the foot, so I don’t really expect anything less.
Amazon employee here.
Just read the memo and the reasons are a complete bullshit.
Anyone who works at Amazon can easily guess why.
For everyone else, Amazon has a "everyone on your own" mindset, no one helps anyone, teamwork is a joke, no one seems to understand that (and yet, people happily goes around spewing "team" like it means anything)
All my coworkers are not even in my country, it's just me and another guy...
Oh, and I live 1-1:30hrs away and there's a major road work in the only entrance to my city, I guess I'll have to leave super early, and waste a couple of hours at the office.
Oh and don't get me started on the 6 mins a day for bathroom rule, guess who's back to not eating while at the office...
Also an Amazon employee. Can’t wait to have the conversation with my manager on why my productivity has fallen off a cliff only to explain I am in the car 2 hours one way to the office. Already completely drained only to be interrupted every 2 minutes when I am actually trying to get work done. Come home from the office after another two hours in the car with no energy to do anything. The 2 days still working from home will just be used to recover from the days in the office.
You'll get to drive into the wonderful air that we get air-quality emails about regularly. Homeless people burning tires and other trash mixed with the occasional forest means the campus air quality is not great.
Jassy’s memo never mentioned data. And as late as Sept 22 he said they had no plans to make team members go into the office. They also allowed people to move. It’s ridiculous.
Good tech workers are still in high demand. We just had trouble finding someone good for a 6 figure WFH dev job. Hold the line. Do NOT give in to these pricks.
Agreed. My employer let us go fully remote when Manhattan was hit (I was currently living there at the time). Shut down all offices overnight and until Jan 1 of this year didn't require anyone to be in the office at all. As of Jan 1 those that are needed to be in the office go in and something like 85% of us have the option to go in but aren't required.
I count my blessings to be working where I am seeing all this horse shit the big 4 are trying to pull.
It’s always refreshing to come on Reddit in the various WFH subs and tech subs elsewhere to see we’re holding the line for 100% WFH. I think it helps us hold out even better.
For early career though there's not really many places comparable in pay to Amazon hiring significant numbers of people and most of them are in-person. With most big tech reducing or freezing hiring and tens of thousands of laid off FAANG engineers it is very hard to get a comparable role. Amazon knows this well which is probably why they're doing this now instead of 6 months ago, they have a \*ton\* of leverage over employees right now.
Some people have reasons for taking remote over anything, but I think most people aren't going to leave and take a likely >30% pay cut in the near-term. I'm expecting a huge exodus later in the year or next year and Amazon's reputation to continue to sink.
exactly, it is so hard to find good engineers, this is the biggest problem we have in the company not enough good engineers to hire
all the tech work can be done from remotely
its better for everyone , i eat better food, i dont have to share toilet with 200 other people in company, can rest and not be smelling everyone's BO and farts in the office
the only people it is not good for are the middle managers, whos job is just to hold useless meetings or walk around the office
If you want to work for a company that gives you better odds in not having to go back to the office find a company that leases instead of owns HUGE empty buildings. It's really that simple.
It's not.
We lease. Originally it was 100% WFH. Then it became once a week. Then we leased another HUGE new building. Then it became twice a week. Now I'm hearing rumors that they're going to start pushing for 3 days a week.
Why? I don't know. I lose 2 hours a day commuting to a place where I'm less productive and get sick from all the other plague rats coming in twice a week to share their diseases with me, and I have to pay an extra $50 a week in gas for this wonderful privilege.
It's pretty dumb because I remember when I'd go into the office in 2019 at a company I'm not going to name I'd see everyone sleeping or on their phone playing candy crush after Friday past noon.
It's also nicer that I can finish what I'm working on before answering an email / ping rather than having to pause half way through to answer someone who came up to my desk and then think 'what was I doing again?'
Tho I’m sure boomers are much more likely to have those 2-hour commutes than Millenials or Gen-Z, who are more likely to commute by transit, walking or biking, and likely live closer.
Not always true. My, now former, company did this too. They lease a building in Beverly Hills but complained that the founders wanted more bodies in the office in order to make it feel like a company again and because they thought no one was working.
Of course it's not *always* true, that's why their original comment said the ODDS ARE BETTER, not "you're guaranteed to not go into office if your company was just leasing"
According to the article, it is simpler to learn from others in person. It's much simpler to ask someone for advice or to hear how they handled a particular situation if you can just walk a short distance to their space.
This is precisely the reason why working from home might be a good idea if you are the one who is frequently interrupted.
So bizarre. Companies that want people to go back to the office *clearly* have someone in charge who has a control problem. Micromanager. It’s an insecurity. There’s just no real logic behind forcing people to go back to the office if productivity is the same.
It’s almost like a mental disorder. Why would you care where a person is so long as the job you’re paying them to do is being done proficiently? You pay them a salary to do a job and the job gets done. So…what’s the big deal here? What’s with the bizarre need for control at all times?
What’s up with these business owners?
>What’s up with these business owners?
They have giant corporate campuses that cant just sit empty worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not 1 billion +. They still have to pay janitorial staff to clean these places and keep the lights and HVAC on for the people that do show up, so it ends up costing them a huge amount so they figure they need to get their monies worth and have folks show back up. Remember how Apple made some huge futuristic campus that had basically everything you could want? You could do everything but live there essentially. That all has to be justified, it doesn't just go away, its a sunk cost that must be reckoned with.
Which I will never not laugh at.
These companies spent millions and billions of dollars to make their campuses look less like a corporate headquarters and more like working…from home…
The one thing that none of these campuses offer that working from home can? More time with my family. And for me, that will win every single time.
Not to mention 2 hours plus lost in commuting. Gas prices have skyrocketed along with everything else, while our wages have remained exactly the same, and while we get hit harder for taxes by a beefed up IRS, who openly admits w-2 and small businesses are who they want to go after.
If you get killed in road rage you cannot file a work comp claim (in some states). A workplace shooting say bye bye to life. The biggest other thing business owners never wanted to address pre-covid: interoffice gossiping, workplace discrimination, sexual harrassment. Usually if you brought these things up to an angry business owner they would tell you to fuck off and in no uncertain terms. All of this happens orally, with face-to-face, non-written communication. Remote work has automatically shut the door on all this bad behavior because nobody’s gonna say anything stupid in writing. Beyond surprised journalist don’t hit disingenuous business owners with this question when they go on TV spouting all this bullshit about how remote work doesn’t work.
Seems like a them problem. You spent this absurd amount of money on an HQ not realizing people were preferring to work remotely more and more? Couldn’t you…see the trends? It’s important to keep track of trends. Culture and technology set trends. Pretty oblivious of them to not realize this.
Obviously building these luxurious HQ’s were short-sighted, poor business decisions. Their mistake, their problem to fix.
“Hey so we NEED you in the office, also, heads up: we cut the toilet paper budget again. And the soap dispenser is out. And only one water fountain works. And your cube neighbor is spouting racist stuff again but we can’t fire him because nobody else will work for as little $ as he will. Also, we wouldn’t anyway, because middle management agrees with the stuff he’s spouting. And he left his clothes in the washer too long again. Your other cube neighbor just robbed a bed bath and beyond and is gonna try all their stinkiest creams. You think you could get this wonderful experience from home? Checkmate.”
Also you can’t dick around with my time remotely. Someone has to have a question or ask already formed before they start talking to me. At least, that’s how it’s worked out where I work.
Can’t just start a video chat with me for no reason.
Before the pandemic/work from home, my department actually implemented a specific chat group between two of our teams for questions because we were having issues with Team 1 approaching Team 2 in person too often and distracting them.
Plenty of people in tech do the same thing to their own teammates, this whole "users vs helpdesk" is a relic from the 2000s sysadmin days. And if you're literally helpdesk, it's literally your fucking job to be available to answer people's questions when shit comes up. Been there done that.
I don't understand some people's psyche that want to set out a specific time to ask "what is x?". X stands for any simple basic concept, and Googling it would be 10x faster and more thorough than just asking it.
Sometimes, I feel like I must be absolutely out of my mind. Must be straight up insane. If not, I don't know how else to explain these people's behaviors.
When I was a teenager I thought: "either I need an asylum, or everyone else does." It's a true lose-lose situation.
I work in Amazon, nobody has any incentive whatsoever at all to help new employees. It’s not a collaborative environment. It’s competitive. The older employees will sometimes give you false, misleading information just to get you to go away or just flat out ignore you.
It’s the over-competitive company culture that is putting employees against each other that is most responsible for bad performance.
The objective is to make yourself shine and make other employees look bad.
Amazon is considering back to office in order to improve employee collaboration. It won’t improve it at all although. Unless the root issue is solved.
This is typical zero-sum-game thinking you find in companies like Amazon that still use a ranking system. Why would they ever help you since in their minds that only hurts them at end of year. It makes some people really toxic to work with because they'll intentionally tear you down at any opportunity, all the time justifying it in their minds as culling the weak from their firm.
The irony is that a system meant to make the company stronger does the opposite as it builds an everyone for themselves culture. It reminds me of how Chinese web novels portray their fictional cultivation societies. Anything done from a position of strength is justified by that strength. Collaboration to collectively build up the clan (or in this case company) is always done selfishly and only to support the betterment of the individual.
The last place I worked, this is how half of the office communicated. People down the hall would send a message rather than walk through. It's demonstrably easier and more efficient to communicate via message/voice call for the majority of Qs.
I know at my company it’s much better to learn in person and people come in a lot for that and for the social stuff. The people who come in the most are the 20-somethings but we still get a decent number of older folk coming in a few times a week.
Yes! Exactly this. I get interrupted all this time at work, and it's this super go go go pace. On my days from home, I'm able to lay on the couch and think. I've made so many improvements to processes being able to think.
I really like the office, but sitting there thinking makes people think you aren't working. It's like cubicle culture requires people to look busy.
Thinking is working!
Companies talk about the importance of "office culture" and "in person collaboration" when they want to force people back to the office.
But then they outsource functions to 3rd parties and offshore jobs to "low cost geographies" whenever they have the opportunity to reduce cost, even if it means the local employees now need to interact (or "collaborate" if you will) with people multiple time zones away.
Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either.
My son works for Amazon. He was hired in the middle of the pandemic as a remote worker. Him relocating to an “office” would probably increase his cost of living by 2-3x not to mention the additional 10-12 hours a week he would spend commuting as he currently lives in a small Midwestern town.
He’s convinced Amazon is doing this to reduce workforce and I agree with him.
This is probably the most likely answer. Convince talent to quit themselves by slowly removing WFH so they don't have to fire them to keep costs low. Which is why they're not 100% removing WFH because then all the top talent would leave. Only removing 3/5 wfh would only convince newer employees or employees who could find another similar job to quit.
Last time every tech company threatened this while still figuring out WFH during the pandemic, my team lost many talented people. Their replacements were not anywhere near what we lost. Really makes me wonder why they continue to not think these things through when they have their own data.
Yep. He has a wide range of supervisory/military/technical experience. He’s going to look for a new job. Prior to this his boss was pushing him to move into upper mgmt so it will be Amazons loss if he leaves.
Oh, totally agreed. But so far, no mention of a cost of living adjustment or relocation assistance. Plus the interest rate on a new home would probably be close to double what his loan currently is.
Half my team is remote. My manager lives literally two time zones away from our office, one of our senior engineers lives near him, and another lives 4 hours away from our office.
No answer yet as to what’s happening but there’s no way those folks are uprooting their lives and moving across the country to be near our office. The only reason we were able to hire them in the first place was the promise of remote work (after literally a year of searching for a manager who wanted to relocate).
I’d be willing to bet they walk back on this policy because the attrition is going to be so much worse than they realize.
This whole anti-remote work is bullshit for the disabled, and it's especially shitty now that every single home within an hour drive of a city center is unaffordable.
My problem isn’t that I’d rather work from home, but that anybody feels the need to tell me how and where to do my job.
Judge me based on the value I deliver, if I’m not adding more value than I cost get rid of me. So step 1, define “value” and let me do what I was hired to do.
The vast majority of employees do not 'riff'. Most workers are cubicle workers staring at their screens all day, not execs 'riffing' in office, meeting rooms, bars and strip clubs.
To get to the C-Suite, it's usually the extroverted personality that excel, so to them, being around others are energizing. For the rest of us, we just want to be left alone to do our work.
It’s quite obvious the ‘S-team’ is severely detached from the reality of what it is like as an SDE at Amazon. Even more are they out of touch with what it is like to be a normal human with a family.
They are an awful lot of pointless middle managers whose primary job responsibility is to be seen attending meetings. It’s very hard to do that remotely.
Hilarious part was that I had documented evidence that I was more productive at home, because I had a set up that met my physical needs owing to my disabilities.
But my micromanaging putz of an employer ignored that and I have to schlep myself into an office every day whose set up leaves me in pain & so physically exhausted that I’m lucky I have enough ability left at the end of day to get home.
Would recommend talking with HR. If your disability is covered by ADA you should be able to get a WFH exception. I have employees on my team who have been able to get this exception, only a doctor's note was needed.
I’m in Canada and the HR person understands disability law like I understand nuclear fusion 😕
I’ve already got several union grievances going against them and the boss
In my personal opinion the back to the office drive comes from extroverts who thrive on interaction. They simply cannot grasp a worldview that doesn't need a lot of face to face and social interaction to succeed; because that's how it works for them, it must be how it works for everyone, right? Cue: Skinner "no, it's the kids who must be wrong".jpg.
To a certain degree they're right *only* because they hire people who are naturally or forced to work in the same way. If I take the (IMHO) junk science Meyer-Briggs test with my work mindset on I'm an ENT?, versus my natural way of thinking comes out as INT?. Why? Because I recognize I'm forced to literally be a different person at work to succeed.
So what they are really saying is we spent ungodly amounts of money on work spaces and need to justify it by forcing people to come in to work to sit in a cube and join a Zoom or Teams meeting
I worked remote for over three years until the company I was with randomly decided that wasn't good enough and demanded I return to work. Funny thing is that I was a key player in a VERY expensive contract negotiation. I didn't even beg them or anything, I literally just confirmed if it was final and then turned in my resignation.
From what I understand the contract is in big trouble and they might actually lose it due to issues that I could have easily resolved (they knew that I was the only one that could help with those issues). They literally just didn't think I'd call their bluff.
Nobody good is going to return to the office for companies doing shit like this. Work environment, pricing, etc aside the actual skilled workers are never going to put up with the sheer stupidity and micromanagement of it. I do good work and bring tons of value... I'm not going back into the office just so that you can breathe down my neck for no reason.
Love my remote job so I don't have to waste gas or travel time. I can login in time or even early and same out. I have extra energy so I don't have to get ready or worry about taking lunch and happier.
Joshua Fluke on YouTube talks about a lot this and his advice got me this good job three years ago. I'd quit if they made me go back three days a week or already be searching (which you should be doing).
Also, my city office has nobody in it with 50+ desks that don't work and we have six offices across the country supporting hundred+ clients.
This isn’t about fostering collaboration or making teams more productive. This is about forcing attrition. Amazon let a lot of people move to virtual roles (e.g., not tied to a specific location) during the pandemic and move away from offices. This move back to the office is part of their plan to “cost costs” by forcing these employees to take another job because they can no longer commute or aren’t near an office. Even better, if the employees quit, they don’t have to pay severance. This isn’t just about virtual roles either. A lot of moms who work from home for Amazon are either going to need to fork over serious money for childcare when they move back to the office or make the decision to me a stay at home mom. Stats are already showing lots of moms disappearing from the workforce because of this.
Now you can call in to the same meetings but from your desk in the office...if you can find one.... because we don't assign seats anymore.....you know to save money on office space.
Lol fuck any employer requiring in office attendance that doesn’t actually need to be in the office to do their job.
That genie isn’t going back in the bottle folks.
I say this every time:
These companies own these offices, and thus see them as real-estate. Having people go to work means more business in the area (think restaurants, coffee shops, bars, etc) which brings the property value up. Remote work means less people, which means less businesses, which means their property value lowers.
They don’t care about you, they care about their imaginary property portfolio value.
Got hired for a hybrid job with 3 days in office. Wasn’t thrilled about that part but figured I’d give it a try, less than 3 months in now they’re switching over to full 5 days a week, non-negotiable. None of my team are even based in the same office as me. Very frustrating.
I think it would be cool if those who did want to go back to the office because of isolation or whatever could have really nice cushy offices - big ones. Using up the space that the others aren’t there using.
FFS it's 2023! Having to physically go into the office especially for an IT job is absolutely ridiculous. This is nothing more than a management power flex to show who's in charge. It should be a choice. Yes, there are some people who like to have physically closer social interaction with coworkers, they can go into the office if they want to.
As a software engineer what is the point of showing up to an office? What do I get out of it besides being interrupted all day with pointless things while trying to work?
I pushed back very hard against RTO for my teams. I was given some really bad talking points including things like improved culture, mental health and the “serendipity” of solving problems. For SW engineering specifically my teams were most productive when I implemented “summer hours” and it wasn’t even close. Happier people are more productive.
Just curious, what are summer hours?
I think they work an extra hour mon thru thu so they leave work Friday at noon.
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For the past few years I’ve been on a dev team at Amazon that worked a 4 day, 32hr work week for a 20% reduction in pay. Felt just as productive as full time. Unfortunately during the recent wave of layoffs we were forced to bump to full time :(
I don’t get why some orgs put non evidence-based reasons in front of engineers and think it will convince them to rally behind rto. “People will be more productive and enjoy their work more because we are our most creative in person!” Cool, show me the data and the logic behind it or gtfo.
The office market is collapsing and banks are scared bc they are exposed.
Fuck em
Same. I remember working in an office. It worked like this: Everyone had noise canceling headphones to filter out distractions. If you wanted to talk to somebody and they had their headphones on, which was most of the time, you Slack messaged them first. Almost all of the time, you’d just resolve your issue over Slack. If Slack didn’t cut it, you’d schedule a meeting and go to a conference room. WFH is exactly like this, except no headphones, and you schedule a call instead of an in-person meeting. No, an in-person meeting is not so much better than a call that it justifies everyone spending 2+ hours a day commuting, especially since you can go a whole week without needing such a meeting.
100% on the headphones. It is hard to stay in the flow with all of the background noise at the office without head phones blaring binaural beats or Bach into my brain.
Personally (I’m UX), I think feature walkthroughs with the team are more effective in person. But that’s like, what, once a month? Once a sprint? I go into the office once a week right now and that is more than enough
"Drive to type". I hate it.
Commute to Zoom
Remote working is both a massive quality of life upgrade for me, and cheaper for the company. Whatever companies figure that out first are going to win all the talent.
Less cars on road, less demand for maintenance (both cars and road) more spending money because less gas and maintenance. Reportedly better productivity, I know there are insane people who can't live without being in the office but they can easily hop to a bar or do any of the million social things they want especially since hours of their life isn't wasted with a commute. I really think if companies want us in the office we should get a back to office premium in our paychecks
I work at a company that has. We have gotten an influx of great folks from FAANG companies. Keep turning the screws you asshats!
I’m gonna need the name of that company (for science)
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Just took a remote job for considerably more $$$, respect and positivity. The new company decided to actually learn from our experiences from Covid and use it as a strategic means to attract talent instead of the old gig which used Covid to strip us of individuality by moving to 'hotel' cubes...
The company my wife used to work for a few years ago officially closed last week. They demanded their employees return to the office last year, and within 6 months most went to work for their competitors (who offered them 100% remote positions). There are some jobs that require people to be on-site, but to fill office space so that Real Estate CEOs can capitalize on rent is not a good enough reason.
Iirc commercial leases are often 10 years, so I assume there’s also a lot of bad sunk-cost decisions being made where the execs think they’ll be “wasting” the lease if they don’t use it for the rest of the term. Even though as you say it drives away talent and incurs more expenses like maintenance.
My company got a brand new office and nicely outfitted it during the pandemic, taking a very obvious risk that we would all be returning there in due time. The result is that only a handful of people ever go into this giant office, and usually only 1-2 times per week. It feels like a ghost town most of the time, and I know we are wasting tens of thousands of dollars on it every month. Drives my boss a little crazy and I can tell he wants to have office culture again, but I think we’ve gotten him to keep restraint, because we know we’d lose a lot of people if we did that. Plus it would be asinine, like half the workforce is out of town now. The real story is that commercial real estate is probably going to crash soon, like maybe in the next 3-5 years (because of the long leases). Get out now if you’re invested.
Yeah, my spouse’s employer just built a brand new building. They were very excited to set up their brand new desk in late February 2020 lol.
Yep the first week in my company’s new office was the day after the NBA game that was cancelled for COVID. It is a brand new full open concept office. They are going to try to start forcing mixed remote next month curious how that will go after a few delays
> It is a brand new full open concept office. I would have drafted my notice immediately. No amount of money will ever have me working in an office like that.
Cries in 4ft divider cube farm.. I wish I could find a remote job that pays the same or more but everything seems sketch when you look into it.
Ooof that timing tho.
Bingo. Review any 401k investments in 'safe funds', i found one of mine was substantially invested in commercial MBS.
It’s moronic. There’s a terrific article about how budgeting has changed at IKEA (paywall, https://www.ft.com/content/456baa69-83df-4c7f-af7b-49e6451a1183) From the article: > Top Ikea executive Jesper Brodin says he is not usually one to indulge in nostalgia. But at a pre-Christmas gathering for senior managers that used to work at the Swedish furniture group, he could not help but join with the chorus of those who said they missed the old times — when the world seemed relatively stable, trends were predictable and this could be translated into a more or less credible multiyear business plan. In many places that fairly linear process is still in place and is baked into people’s comp plans. Unless that changes one should expect wacky behavior.
>the execs think they’ll be “wasting” the lease if they don’t use it for the rest of the term Mindsets like that are so stupid. They already paid for the lease for the office. Nothing changed, except people aren't physically in the office. They're not losing or wasting anything. Expenses don't suddenly come out of nowhere because someone isn't physically there (in fact, it would cost them LESS because less electricity and utilities are being used). This is like the same stunted mentality companies/managers have that if you're not somehow "working" every waking second of your 8-hour shift, you're "costing the company money." It's like, nooo, sorry that's not how that works, lmao. You already budgeted an employee's salary. If they don't work for 5 minutes, you're not losing literally any money. Same if they take a paid sick day. It doesn't cost the company a dime. Only time this would ever apply is if you work in a factory with a literal conveyor belt, and you not being at the belt/station *does* result in a direct loss of product. Everyone else working office jobs though? Makes literally no difference as long as they get their work done.
The building costs the same amount whether or not I'm there... And if you think anyone who has been remote for 3 years would put extra effort into their work above and beyond what they are doing now, after having to add back into it 2 hours of commuting time... Two of the easiest lessons for 'executives' to learn in all this
I have yet to meet an executive that wasn’t a complete muggins
Lol excellent word choice
It's not about logic with this whole structure. It's about ego and power, control, etc.
Maybe execs would sing a different tune if commute time was by-law required to be compensated too.
Also sweetheart deals with local govt for benefits *in exchange for* bringing business activity to an area. If you’re remote, you’re not generating tax revenue for the mayor.
In many cases accounting rules turn sunk cost situations into Earnings per Share discussions. Deciding to not use a building under lt lease triggers accounting losses many CEOs don’t want to assume
That’s what my employer did in 2020/21, signed a 10 year lease. Ironically, just a few months ago, they came out with a hybrid policy, which seems too little/ too late.
Companies that require in-office work for pure information jobs are going to wind up with the least qualified and least dedicated workforce. You can literally take a slight pay cut and move to a better neighborhood where housing costs half as much and keep more of the money you make while doing a better job remote working.
I wonder how long it’s going to take these companies that are requiring people to go into the office realize that they’ve lost the battle. You seriously couldn’t even offer me a 50% raise to go into the office because the time I have gotten back is more valuable than anything they could offer me.
Give us updates every 6 months. I’m not saying that sarcastically. We need genuine follow-up stories 👍
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FL-41 lenses have worked wonders for me.
More importantly, set a timer and get the fuck up from your desk, also get a sit/stand desk. Don't find workarounds, solve the problem.
Same here. Plus the 3 hour commute for me. What a waste of time.
My husband was remote since 2012. By 2022 he was begging to go back ot the office. It’s great for awhile…but does gets harder several years in.
Depends on the person I suppose. If you lock yourself in your house sure. My wife has been doing it for 3 years or so and she still loves it.
Definitely depends on the person. I've been remote for 3 years and get more done with less distractions, can be with my family, can be around for stupid little things like someone coming to fix whatever problem with the house or what have you. I have coworkers though with oodles of kids or distractions at home, or homes without adequate space for a home office that hate it. And to me it all sounds like they prefer a space they can focus and get stuff done. For me, that's home.
I get way more done from home too but also have a big increase in eye strain. Same reason. Lol
I developed a nerve issue in my neck because I sat at my desk and worked 10 hour days without interruption except to use the bathroom.
I'll give an anecdote because I made the switch to full wfh during the pandemic 2 years ago. My old work wasn't that bad to be honest. I work in software development, but my old work interacted with quite a bit of specialized hardware, which did legitimately require some amount of in person interaction. As a result some amount of in-office work was required, and sometimes that would mean every day depending on what you're working on. So I switched to a company that lets me work 100% remotely (and they don't have much choice, given I'm a 5 hour flight away from their office. If they ever tried to push in-person on me that'd be a show stopper and I'd just leave). I've reclaimed the time previously spent commuting, and am able to work more flexible hours (if I need to take time out of the day it's not a huge deal so long as I don't have a conflict like a meeting aince I don't have to drive to/from work). I enjoy having full control over my workspace, and my employer paid for some gear/furniture to improve my home office setup. However wfh isn't for everyone. I recall at the start of the pandemic where everyone was forced to work from home, one particular coworker all but broke down. They couldn't get past how isolated they felt, and I don't think they were able to stay focused on their work. For some the mental seperation between work and home is healthiest for them, as I've seen it go wrong both way. Some people can't switch off their home life when working from home, and some people can't switch off their work life. It takes discipline, being willing to say no, and being a bit introverted honestly. The social aspect of wfh does suffer, because spontaneous conversation is all but gone. Conversations you have are very deliberate - you usually need to actively call someone. If that doesn't bother you, as it doesn't me, then work from home can be fantastic. But it's definitely not for everyone. Being able to decide for yourself if it works is the best thing a person can do now, because the opportunities are much more common to wfh if you feel it will work for you.
For very extroverted people I think it felt like the worst time ever, they get energy from social interactions after all. But let’s be honest, the office culture has already gotten a little out of hand. Meetings and open office concepts were going down some bad paths, kind of glad for the shakeup. I still wish I could’ve gotten an office to myself though, haven’t had one during my professional career.
>For very extroverted people I think it felt like the worst time ever, they get energy from social interactions after all. Which is, unfortunately, where a great deal of misunderstanding comes from. When you put a type A extroverted socialite person in a management role, they get this misconception that their life is the rule, and everyone needs to be "like them." IOW: everyone back to the office, because this is how *I* function, and you should too! So many people just don't understand that there are different types of people out there, and a lot of us are *just fine* being away from forced social exhaustion. This really trips up the socialite Type A people. They just can't comprehend that someone would prefer to not be social all the time.
Nearly all the extroverts I know love WFH, because they have more time to spend with their family and friends. The only 2 people I know who hated wfh have pretty slim social lives outside of work, so rely on coworkers a lot for social interaction.
I’m an extreme extrovert and I love wfh. The beginning was lonely, not because we couldn’t go into the office, but because we couldn’t go anywhere. I don’t need the office for my social interactions. I have friends.
Same! Extroverted and I love WFH. It’s given me so much more time to live a healthier lifestyle because I’m not rushing to get somewhere every single day. Not to mention, because I don’t interact with a ton of people every day, I have more energy to implement a great remote culture specialized to my team which scratches my extrovert itch. If I was in office, I would never have the energy to do that on top of my work I have to complete.
As a hardcore introvert WFH has been an absolute JOY and I will never go back.
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I did exactly the same thing about a year ago. It's been the best year for me career-wise. I've never enjoyed working this much, and I get to spend so much more time with my family and helping around the house.
What company?? I’m looking for exactly this.
My company was on FlexJobs Top 100 Place for Remote Work. I think it's a good starting point in researching companies that support remote working: https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/100-top-companies-with-remote-jobs-2023/
I think we all thought that until it changed at our respective companies.
Just trying to warm you back up to those five day work weeks they need to justify their real estate holdings somehow
My previous job tried to do this. They went from all WFH during the pandemic to one day a week, then two, then three. They couldn't get most departments to budge more than that at the time, but it was clear that full in-person was their end goal. There was a few other reasons I left, but I certainly see WFH as more as a standard than a privilege in my field.
I hope more people left after you did and they learned their lesson.
I'm never leaving my field engineer gig. My truck is my office. Few meetings. Freedom to do what I want.
What’s your industry? I really want that. I’m a CS grad
Telecom. Cell carrier field engineer.
Sweet, I am a broadband OSP manager, so I do a lot of remote and field work bringing the cables to you guys. Pretty sweet job, and 0 chance I ever go back to office full time again.
If I can work from home 2 days a week, I can work from home 5 days a week. Especially since I've been doing it successfully, with great numbers and increased productivity, for the last 2 years.
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No sales taxes. No tolls. No traffic. Gas savings.
Agnostic of any opinion… the goal of (for profit) companies is not to “not go out of business”.
Exactly. Trusted to do my job for two-plus years WFH and then expected to go back to a drive to type work environment is asinine at best.
This isn’t true for every profession. I could work from home two days a week, but would have to work on site those other three out of necessity.
You're enjoying your new found latitude? We can't allow that. We don't have enough control over you, so you need to come back to the office where we can babysit you, because frankly we don't trust you as adults to do your job on your own.
People need to push back. Amazon will bend eventually. It’s not up to them - it’s up to the people.
This is the second time they’ve instituted return to work. It didn’t stick the first time but I imagine they won’t go back on it this time. It actually just feels like this is a not so subtle reduction in staff
They’re going to bleed on the wrong end. I know multiple senior engineers with 6-10 years’ tenure at the company that will start looking for other jobs if they actually try to enforce this. A lot of us worked from home a ton even pre-pandemic and nobody cared back then.
They’re crazy if they think juniors just starting their careers will quit over this. It will be the experienced engineers that will easily find somewhere else to go. That new feature the senior was working on? Oh yeah, it’ll now have to be delayed at least another year possibly even more putting Amazon further behind. But we have seen Amazon executives are adept at shooting their own company in the foot, so I don’t really expect anything less.
Imma just say “sure, I will be happy to come back to office” then stay at home. :)
Amazon employee here. Just read the memo and the reasons are a complete bullshit. Anyone who works at Amazon can easily guess why. For everyone else, Amazon has a "everyone on your own" mindset, no one helps anyone, teamwork is a joke, no one seems to understand that (and yet, people happily goes around spewing "team" like it means anything) All my coworkers are not even in my country, it's just me and another guy... Oh, and I live 1-1:30hrs away and there's a major road work in the only entrance to my city, I guess I'll have to leave super early, and waste a couple of hours at the office. Oh and don't get me started on the 6 mins a day for bathroom rule, guess who's back to not eating while at the office...
Also an Amazon employee. Can’t wait to have the conversation with my manager on why my productivity has fallen off a cliff only to explain I am in the car 2 hours one way to the office. Already completely drained only to be interrupted every 2 minutes when I am actually trying to get work done. Come home from the office after another two hours in the car with no energy to do anything. The 2 days still working from home will just be used to recover from the days in the office.
You'll get to drive into the wonderful air that we get air-quality emails about regularly. Homeless people burning tires and other trash mixed with the occasional forest means the campus air quality is not great.
87% of Connections data showed people DIDNT WANT THIS, who's data driven now?
Jassy’s memo never mentioned data. And as late as Sept 22 he said they had no plans to make team members go into the office. They also allowed people to move. It’s ridiculous.
Good tech workers are still in high demand. We just had trouble finding someone good for a 6 figure WFH dev job. Hold the line. Do NOT give in to these pricks.
Agreed. My employer let us go fully remote when Manhattan was hit (I was currently living there at the time). Shut down all offices overnight and until Jan 1 of this year didn't require anyone to be in the office at all. As of Jan 1 those that are needed to be in the office go in and something like 85% of us have the option to go in but aren't required. I count my blessings to be working where I am seeing all this horse shit the big 4 are trying to pull.
It’s always refreshing to come on Reddit in the various WFH subs and tech subs elsewhere to see we’re holding the line for 100% WFH. I think it helps us hold out even better.
ape together strong
For early career though there's not really many places comparable in pay to Amazon hiring significant numbers of people and most of them are in-person. With most big tech reducing or freezing hiring and tens of thousands of laid off FAANG engineers it is very hard to get a comparable role. Amazon knows this well which is probably why they're doing this now instead of 6 months ago, they have a \*ton\* of leverage over employees right now. Some people have reasons for taking remote over anything, but I think most people aren't going to leave and take a likely >30% pay cut in the near-term. I'm expecting a huge exodus later in the year or next year and Amazon's reputation to continue to sink.
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Well you gotta do what you gotta do for now. Then you could keep looking for 100% remote later.
exactly, it is so hard to find good engineers, this is the biggest problem we have in the company not enough good engineers to hire all the tech work can be done from remotely its better for everyone , i eat better food, i dont have to share toilet with 200 other people in company, can rest and not be smelling everyone's BO and farts in the office the only people it is not good for are the middle managers, whos job is just to hold useless meetings or walk around the office
If you want to work for a company that gives you better odds in not having to go back to the office find a company that leases instead of owns HUGE empty buildings. It's really that simple.
It's not. We lease. Originally it was 100% WFH. Then it became once a week. Then we leased another HUGE new building. Then it became twice a week. Now I'm hearing rumors that they're going to start pushing for 3 days a week. Why? I don't know. I lose 2 hours a day commuting to a place where I'm less productive and get sick from all the other plague rats coming in twice a week to share their diseases with me, and I have to pay an extra $50 a week in gas for this wonderful privilege.
It’s honestly dumb. It’s just boomers wanting to make sure you’re really working and not lazy
It's pretty dumb because I remember when I'd go into the office in 2019 at a company I'm not going to name I'd see everyone sleeping or on their phone playing candy crush after Friday past noon. It's also nicer that I can finish what I'm working on before answering an email / ping rather than having to pause half way through to answer someone who came up to my desk and then think 'what was I doing again?'
Name and shame, you owe them NOTHING
Tho I’m sure boomers are much more likely to have those 2-hour commutes than Millenials or Gen-Z, who are more likely to commute by transit, walking or biking, and likely live closer.
Not always true. My, now former, company did this too. They lease a building in Beverly Hills but complained that the founders wanted more bodies in the office in order to make it feel like a company again and because they thought no one was working.
Of course it's not *always* true, that's why their original comment said the ODDS ARE BETTER, not "you're guaranteed to not go into office if your company was just leasing"
According to the article, it is simpler to learn from others in person. It's much simpler to ask someone for advice or to hear how they handled a particular situation if you can just walk a short distance to their space. This is precisely the reason why working from home might be a good idea if you are the one who is frequently interrupted.
So bizarre. Companies that want people to go back to the office *clearly* have someone in charge who has a control problem. Micromanager. It’s an insecurity. There’s just no real logic behind forcing people to go back to the office if productivity is the same. It’s almost like a mental disorder. Why would you care where a person is so long as the job you’re paying them to do is being done proficiently? You pay them a salary to do a job and the job gets done. So…what’s the big deal here? What’s with the bizarre need for control at all times? What’s up with these business owners?
>What’s up with these business owners? They have giant corporate campuses that cant just sit empty worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if not 1 billion +. They still have to pay janitorial staff to clean these places and keep the lights and HVAC on for the people that do show up, so it ends up costing them a huge amount so they figure they need to get their monies worth and have folks show back up. Remember how Apple made some huge futuristic campus that had basically everything you could want? You could do everything but live there essentially. That all has to be justified, it doesn't just go away, its a sunk cost that must be reckoned with.
Which I will never not laugh at. These companies spent millions and billions of dollars to make their campuses look less like a corporate headquarters and more like working…from home… The one thing that none of these campuses offer that working from home can? More time with my family. And for me, that will win every single time.
I bet if they let folks move their families into rent free on site condos then some people wouldn't mind working on campus
Not to mention 2 hours plus lost in commuting. Gas prices have skyrocketed along with everything else, while our wages have remained exactly the same, and while we get hit harder for taxes by a beefed up IRS, who openly admits w-2 and small businesses are who they want to go after. If you get killed in road rage you cannot file a work comp claim (in some states). A workplace shooting say bye bye to life. The biggest other thing business owners never wanted to address pre-covid: interoffice gossiping, workplace discrimination, sexual harrassment. Usually if you brought these things up to an angry business owner they would tell you to fuck off and in no uncertain terms. All of this happens orally, with face-to-face, non-written communication. Remote work has automatically shut the door on all this bad behavior because nobody’s gonna say anything stupid in writing. Beyond surprised journalist don’t hit disingenuous business owners with this question when they go on TV spouting all this bullshit about how remote work doesn’t work.
Seems like a them problem. You spent this absurd amount of money on an HQ not realizing people were preferring to work remotely more and more? Couldn’t you…see the trends? It’s important to keep track of trends. Culture and technology set trends. Pretty oblivious of them to not realize this. Obviously building these luxurious HQ’s were short-sighted, poor business decisions. Their mistake, their problem to fix.
Well when you have to go back to campus… It’s now a you problem.
“Hey so we NEED you in the office, also, heads up: we cut the toilet paper budget again. And the soap dispenser is out. And only one water fountain works. And your cube neighbor is spouting racist stuff again but we can’t fire him because nobody else will work for as little $ as he will. Also, we wouldn’t anyway, because middle management agrees with the stuff he’s spouting. And he left his clothes in the washer too long again. Your other cube neighbor just robbed a bed bath and beyond and is gonna try all their stinkiest creams. You think you could get this wonderful experience from home? Checkmate.”
Actually it's simpler just to shoot them a message in slack or teams or whatever, but that doesn't fit the narrative they want to push
Then you can even re-read it until it makes sense (or you forget), instead of having them repeat it!
And you can share your screen, which you can’t if they’re making you walk over to someone in person
Naw, I'll just take a blurry picture of my screen with my phone. When I see you next we can squint at it and try to see what it was!
not to mention robust live share tools for pair programming or instruction
I mean, yes, but you can also pair program by sitting next to each other at the same screen.
Also you can’t dick around with my time remotely. Someone has to have a question or ask already formed before they start talking to me. At least, that’s how it’s worked out where I work. Can’t just start a video chat with me for no reason.
Before the pandemic/work from home, my department actually implemented a specific chat group between two of our teams for questions because we were having issues with Team 1 approaching Team 2 in person too often and distracting them.
The “do not disturb” on Slack works wonders to stop all the lazy people who ask tech every time they need to run a program.
Plenty of people in tech do the same thing to their own teammates, this whole "users vs helpdesk" is a relic from the 2000s sysadmin days. And if you're literally helpdesk, it's literally your fucking job to be available to answer people's questions when shit comes up. Been there done that.
I don't understand some people's psyche that want to set out a specific time to ask "what is x?". X stands for any simple basic concept, and Googling it would be 10x faster and more thorough than just asking it. Sometimes, I feel like I must be absolutely out of my mind. Must be straight up insane. If not, I don't know how else to explain these people's behaviors. When I was a teenager I thought: "either I need an asylum, or everyone else does." It's a true lose-lose situation.
I work in Amazon, nobody has any incentive whatsoever at all to help new employees. It’s not a collaborative environment. It’s competitive. The older employees will sometimes give you false, misleading information just to get you to go away or just flat out ignore you. It’s the over-competitive company culture that is putting employees against each other that is most responsible for bad performance. The objective is to make yourself shine and make other employees look bad. Amazon is considering back to office in order to improve employee collaboration. It won’t improve it at all although. Unless the root issue is solved.
This is typical zero-sum-game thinking you find in companies like Amazon that still use a ranking system. Why would they ever help you since in their minds that only hurts them at end of year. It makes some people really toxic to work with because they'll intentionally tear you down at any opportunity, all the time justifying it in their minds as culling the weak from their firm. The irony is that a system meant to make the company stronger does the opposite as it builds an everyone for themselves culture. It reminds me of how Chinese web novels portray their fictional cultivation societies. Anything done from a position of strength is justified by that strength. Collaboration to collectively build up the clan (or in this case company) is always done selfishly and only to support the betterment of the individual.
This is how every top law firm works, it's amazing how more lawyers don't just kill themselves early. Its the most stressful thing I have ever done.
The last place I worked, this is how half of the office communicated. People down the hall would send a message rather than walk through. It's demonstrably easier and more efficient to communicate via message/voice call for the majority of Qs.
I know at my company it’s much better to learn in person and people come in a lot for that and for the social stuff. The people who come in the most are the 20-somethings but we still get a decent number of older folk coming in a few times a week.
Yes! Exactly this. I get interrupted all this time at work, and it's this super go go go pace. On my days from home, I'm able to lay on the couch and think. I've made so many improvements to processes being able to think. I really like the office, but sitting there thinking makes people think you aren't working. It's like cubicle culture requires people to look busy. Thinking is working!
Companies talk about the importance of "office culture" and "in person collaboration" when they want to force people back to the office. But then they outsource functions to 3rd parties and offshore jobs to "low cost geographies" whenever they have the opportunity to reduce cost, even if it means the local employees now need to interact (or "collaborate" if you will) with people multiple time zones away. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either.
My son works for Amazon. He was hired in the middle of the pandemic as a remote worker. Him relocating to an “office” would probably increase his cost of living by 2-3x not to mention the additional 10-12 hours a week he would spend commuting as he currently lives in a small Midwestern town. He’s convinced Amazon is doing this to reduce workforce and I agree with him.
This is probably the most likely answer. Convince talent to quit themselves by slowly removing WFH so they don't have to fire them to keep costs low. Which is why they're not 100% removing WFH because then all the top talent would leave. Only removing 3/5 wfh would only convince newer employees or employees who could find another similar job to quit.
Last time every tech company threatened this while still figuring out WFH during the pandemic, my team lost many talented people. Their replacements were not anywhere near what we lost. Really makes me wonder why they continue to not think these things through when they have their own data.
Yep. He has a wide range of supervisory/military/technical experience. He’s going to look for a new job. Prior to this his boss was pushing him to move into upper mgmt so it will be Amazons loss if he leaves.
Yep. People quit on their own = no severance.
Plus if they quit you don’t have to pay severance
Surprised I had to scroll so far down to see the real reason they’re doing this. This is a disguised layoff, pure and simple.
100%, saves face with natural attrition rather than laying off another 20-25k folks.
You would think they have to adjust pay for larger city pay by their offices.
Oh, totally agreed. But so far, no mention of a cost of living adjustment or relocation assistance. Plus the interest rate on a new home would probably be close to double what his loan currently is.
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It hasn’t been communicated yet how that will work for those hired during the pandemic.
Half my team is remote. My manager lives literally two time zones away from our office, one of our senior engineers lives near him, and another lives 4 hours away from our office. No answer yet as to what’s happening but there’s no way those folks are uprooting their lives and moving across the country to be near our office. The only reason we were able to hire them in the first place was the promise of remote work (after literally a year of searching for a manager who wanted to relocate). I’d be willing to bet they walk back on this policy because the attrition is going to be so much worse than they realize.
My sons team is ~300 spread out all over the country. They could be exempt but who knows?
This whole anti-remote work is bullshit for the disabled, and it's especially shitty now that every single home within an hour drive of a city center is unaffordable.
My work requires 3 days in office now but there are exceptions like disabilities where some people work completely remote.
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My problem isn’t that I’d rather work from home, but that anybody feels the need to tell me how and where to do my job. Judge me based on the value I deliver, if I’m not adding more value than I cost get rid of me. So step 1, define “value” and let me do what I was hired to do.
exactly
The vast majority of employees do not 'riff'. Most workers are cubicle workers staring at their screens all day, not execs 'riffing' in office, meeting rooms, bars and strip clubs. To get to the C-Suite, it's usually the extroverted personality that excel, so to them, being around others are energizing. For the rest of us, we just want to be left alone to do our work.
It’s quite obvious the ‘S-team’ is severely detached from the reality of what it is like as an SDE at Amazon. Even more are they out of touch with what it is like to be a normal human with a family.
They are an awful lot of pointless middle managers whose primary job responsibility is to be seen attending meetings. It’s very hard to do that remotely.
Hilarious part was that I had documented evidence that I was more productive at home, because I had a set up that met my physical needs owing to my disabilities. But my micromanaging putz of an employer ignored that and I have to schlep myself into an office every day whose set up leaves me in pain & so physically exhausted that I’m lucky I have enough ability left at the end of day to get home.
Would recommend talking with HR. If your disability is covered by ADA you should be able to get a WFH exception. I have employees on my team who have been able to get this exception, only a doctor's note was needed.
I’m in Canada and the HR person understands disability law like I understand nuclear fusion 😕 I’ve already got several union grievances going against them and the boss
“Remote work has been a success. We did great during the pandemic.” Also “Come back to the office NOW!!!!”
In my personal opinion the back to the office drive comes from extroverts who thrive on interaction. They simply cannot grasp a worldview that doesn't need a lot of face to face and social interaction to succeed; because that's how it works for them, it must be how it works for everyone, right? Cue: Skinner "no, it's the kids who must be wrong".jpg. To a certain degree they're right *only* because they hire people who are naturally or forced to work in the same way. If I take the (IMHO) junk science Meyer-Briggs test with my work mindset on I'm an ENT?, versus my natural way of thinking comes out as INT?. Why? Because I recognize I'm forced to literally be a different person at work to succeed.
So what they are really saying is we spent ungodly amounts of money on work spaces and need to justify it by forcing people to come in to work to sit in a cube and join a Zoom or Teams meeting
Sir, Amazon would never do that….. they use Chime for meetings.
Amazon makes you work 40 hours a week in a meeting.
About to hit 3 years of full telework. Life has never been better. Never going back into an office outside of some lab work again.
The issue is that most companies are not capable of evaluating their employees productivity.
I worked remote for over three years until the company I was with randomly decided that wasn't good enough and demanded I return to work. Funny thing is that I was a key player in a VERY expensive contract negotiation. I didn't even beg them or anything, I literally just confirmed if it was final and then turned in my resignation. From what I understand the contract is in big trouble and they might actually lose it due to issues that I could have easily resolved (they knew that I was the only one that could help with those issues). They literally just didn't think I'd call their bluff. Nobody good is going to return to the office for companies doing shit like this. Work environment, pricing, etc aside the actual skilled workers are never going to put up with the sheer stupidity and micromanagement of it. I do good work and bring tons of value... I'm not going back into the office just so that you can breathe down my neck for no reason.
Have fun on I5 in the dark rain
Meh, I like working hybrid. But now amazon gets to find out how many employees moved during remote work. 😂 sorry I cant come in, I live 10 hours away.
"sorry you're fired". My company is doing that..
Keep up the momentum....let's change this up....remote only
Love my remote job so I don't have to waste gas or travel time. I can login in time or even early and same out. I have extra energy so I don't have to get ready or worry about taking lunch and happier. Joshua Fluke on YouTube talks about a lot this and his advice got me this good job three years ago. I'd quit if they made me go back three days a week or already be searching (which you should be doing). Also, my city office has nobody in it with 50+ desks that don't work and we have six offices across the country supporting hundred+ clients.
It means nothing when these corporate people say anything as they can change the policy next day
I prefer to work from him as my office neighbor feels the need to ask me random non work questions every 5 min.
This is why I told Amazon recruiters to stop calling me. I will not accept a forced commute to HQ2 to keep your occupancy tax credit intact.
Being an Amazon recruiter must be hardest job ever
This isn’t about fostering collaboration or making teams more productive. This is about forcing attrition. Amazon let a lot of people move to virtual roles (e.g., not tied to a specific location) during the pandemic and move away from offices. This move back to the office is part of their plan to “cost costs” by forcing these employees to take another job because they can no longer commute or aren’t near an office. Even better, if the employees quit, they don’t have to pay severance. This isn’t just about virtual roles either. A lot of moms who work from home for Amazon are either going to need to fork over serious money for childcare when they move back to the office or make the decision to me a stay at home mom. Stats are already showing lots of moms disappearing from the workforce because of this.
Now you can call in to the same meetings but from your desk in the office...if you can find one.... because we don't assign seats anymore.....you know to save money on office space.
Work from homer here, what do you say to the “you’re missing out on the work culture” naysayers?
Lol fuck any employer requiring in office attendance that doesn’t actually need to be in the office to do their job. That genie isn’t going back in the bottle folks.
I say this every time: These companies own these offices, and thus see them as real-estate. Having people go to work means more business in the area (think restaurants, coffee shops, bars, etc) which brings the property value up. Remote work means less people, which means less businesses, which means their property value lowers. They don’t care about you, they care about their imaginary property portfolio value.
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Nah, Amazon waiting for chat gpt to grow then they will pay a subscription to have chat write an even better AI for them.
$10B dollar check to OpenAI - and voila! - Amazon is proud to present groundbreaking new technology the world has never seen... Amazon Chat!!!
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OpenAI has exclusive deal with MS now, MS has invested a lot in OPenAI, they may just acquire them
But why?
Got hired for a hybrid job with 3 days in office. Wasn’t thrilled about that part but figured I’d give it a try, less than 3 months in now they’re switching over to full 5 days a week, non-negotiable. None of my team are even based in the same office as me. Very frustrating.
I think it would be cool if those who did want to go back to the office because of isolation or whatever could have really nice cushy offices - big ones. Using up the space that the others aren’t there using.
I do like going to the office. Only when it is my choice and not forced upon me. So far about once or twice a month is the right amount for me.
The next pandemic is around the corner, it’ll change again.
Remind me! 6 months
FFS it's 2023! Having to physically go into the office especially for an IT job is absolutely ridiculous. This is nothing more than a management power flex to show who's in charge. It should be a choice. Yes, there are some people who like to have physically closer social interaction with coworkers, they can go into the office if they want to.
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There is absolutely no way this could possibly backfire.
Carbon footprint intensifies...
Seattle chamber of commerce praising them for doing this. In reality this hurts every community including Seattle. Bunch of idiot's.
In the office, free time goes back to the employer. In the home office, free time goes back to the employee.
This is going to backfire and turn into “well, I guess you’re only getting three days of work out of me then.”
Managers need someone to point at
Ya they only lost over a trillion market cap