
Amazon tells employees to pause nonessential travel in U.S. due to coronavirus - alpb
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-amazon-com/amazon-tells-employees-to-defer-all-non-essential-travel-due-to-coronavirus-idUSKCN20M2TZ
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secondo
This seemingly goes further than Google’s travel restrictions[1] and it’s safe
to assume more tech companies will encourage reduced or even restrict travel.
How long until these companies start to encourage remote work to reduce
transmission or has any major tech company already done this?

[1] [https://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-tests-
positi...](https://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-tests-positive-for-
novel-coronavirus-company-restricts-travel-2020-2)

~~~
new_realist
It’s easier for Amazon; they’re so cheap they hate employees traveling even in
healthy times.

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akhilcacharya
The PMs/TPMs I know travel constantly.

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mav3rick
The travel cap is so ridiculously low. Even a 3 to 4 star hotel was over cap
in South Africa and my PM friend had to pay out of pocket. Amazon truly hates
its employees. The least they could do is free Prime but no not even that.
Well let's start with bathroom breaks for the warehouse people first.

~~~
otterley
I work for AWS - opinions are my own and not of the company.

I don't know about your "friend," but I don't share their experience.

I have occasionally had to stay in hotels that were more expensive than the
"reasonable price" listed due to higher fees than normal. Sometimes it's
impossible to get a room in Seattle or New York -- or especially San Francisco
-- for less than $300 a night, especially during busy seasons like summertime.

The travel portal does warn you if a room charge is in excess of "reasonable"
rates, but it will still allow you to book your stay. And I have _never_ had a
hotel room expense claim denied after the fact, even if I had to pay excess
rates.

Overall, my impression of our travel and expense policies is that they are
totally reasonable. I've had far fewer issues traveling as an Amazon employee
than I have at other companies.

The only hard limit that's ever been imposed on us is that we must fly economy
coach rates; any excess must be paid out of pocket or come out of airline
frequent flier benefits. And there are even some exceptions now for extremely
long flights for some employees, where they are permitted to upgrade to
Premium Economy.

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mav3rick
At G you can regularly fly business. If you save the company money you can use
the credits for upgrades in your next business related trip. I found that I am
way more productive when I am flying half way across the world and am well
rested in the flight.

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akhilcacharya
Nice, I guess? In the era of gigabit broadband and zoom/chime/hangouts/etc i'm
not sure why an engineer would even need to travel half way across the world
to even need to be "well rested".

Is there something more you're trying to say here? That we are less valuable
or something?

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mav3rick
Aah, have you ever tried working on a project with a team from a different
time zone. It can get slow when time zones don't sync. We travel to get face
time and really prototype some difficult stuff. You're trying to defend
Amazon's behavior by undermining face to face interaction.

I am trying to reinforce the parent point in this thread. That Amazon is cheap
even more so when it comes to travel.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Yes, I have. Face time is possible over video chat. Code collaboration is
possible through pull requests / change lists / whatever.

Again, not sure what you're saying here.

~~~
mav3rick
It's higher bandwidth to work face to face. There are many studies citing the
same.

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janesvilleseo
I work for a F500 and we got a company wide email today. It says we can travel
and to follow the CDC/WHO guidelines. And that certain places are to be
avoided, HK, China, South Korea.

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99_00
I would have to see the memo myself. Curbing travel in the I US to cut
expenses given economic uncertainty makes sense.

But the article makes it sound like they don't want to spread the virus by
traveling within the US. Which I just don't believe I until I see the actual
memo.

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mrosett
This is unfolding amazingly quickly.

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lostmsu
AFAIK Microsoft did the same a few days ago too.

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rarecoil
Do you have a link to a policy document or an article that states this?

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lostmsu
No, but a person, who works there said, that they got an email along the lines
of "considering coronavirus, you can refuse travel requests from your manager
at will".

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rarecoil
That's a different angle than Amazon's "no nonessential travel" policy. Being
uncomfortable to travel and corporate policy banning travel have different
implications and consequences for employees that decide not to travel or work
remotely.

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woofie11
We see major cancellations of trade shows and similar.

At the same time, cademic conferences are moving full speed ahead... Including
in areas with community transmission. Publish-or-perish becomes publish-and-
perish.

~~~
save_ferris
This isn’t true of all academic conferences. I have a close relative who’s a
researcher and lecturer in global nutrition and her next 6 months of travel
have effectively been paused due to the outbreak.

Ironically, the only major organization in her world that has allegedly
pleaded to keep things running as normal is the Gates Foundation.

