I wonder what drives these decisions? Is there that much solid evidence that they get more value out of people in the office rather than home? Or are there other reasons like tax incentives that encourage in-person work over remote? Is this just a control thing or or there a compelling argument that I am missing?
The management want return to office and that's it.
Why does there need to be something "driving the decision"?
You may as well ask why I want my cleaner to descale the bottom of my taps. There may well be no reason beyond aesthetic preference.
Maybe it's not more profitable or less profitable. Maybe it's within margin of error, and maybe the people running Amazon for the most part prefer working in an office.
> The management want return to office and that's it.
I believe this is the truth. I worked for a startup 20 years ago and the founder told us all to come in early in the morning and look as busy as possible, because key investors were touring the office. He told us that they wanted to see where their money was going and we need to play our part.
Normally we worked nights and weekends at home and in the office, but the management class actually want to see us sweat IRL.
Another part of this is the management class has a herd mentality. If they see another dominant manager with some modicum of success do something, they will mindlessly copy it.
Usually peoples' wants are explainable. It's certainly not uncommon to be able to explain one's wants when their implementation affects others, especially in a negative way.
"I want you to return to the office."
"Why?"
"Just do."
Is so unfulfilling a response that it's stupid on the part of management to not have even a noble lie explaining why it's so.
My desire for the bottom of my taps to be descaled is not explainable.
I can make up reasons - I can say, it looks better because it's more visually ordered, it's shiny and it looks nice, family and friends I invite over have this arbitrary bias too and so they'll look more kindly on me... etc.
But at the end of the day I just want the taps descaled and my cleaner does it for me.
It sounds really as if what it comes down to is that you want more ownership over your job than what is being offered. Amazon are saying, explicitly, this is our decision, agree or disagree, we're doing it.
I'm not sure why you're being downvoted. This is a great explanation of your perspective.
For what it's worth. I tend to agree that most explanations of desires are post hoc rationalization or justifications. It's nice to encounter someone who's honest with themselves in that way.
I agree, but I think what it actually comes down to is this -
I deliberately use the cleaner example because - I'm hiring a person to clean my tap. They might disagree with my reasoning for cleaning it. At the end of the day, I don't care what your opinion is on tap descaling, I want it done, so you either do it or I'll find someone who will.
The management doesn't owe you a reason for preferring in-office work. It's not an unreasonable request, it's not illegal, they're not assaulting you or degrading you or something like that.
Why would the threshold be set at assault? It can simply be a battle of preferences and all all parties can use whichever framing devices they want to ensure their will is executed.
Amazon not being on the hook for severance for a large percentage of high salary workers, plus not having them on payroll/benefits for the weeks/months it would take to transition them out via PIP (including the management overhead involved per staffer) usually adds up to just about enough in savings to go out and recruit fresh, RTO-willing, naive talent much sooner.
Amazon doesn't really pay severance for PIP, nor are they required to pay severance for layoff. They would be required to do a WARN notice, but how would that be worse than giving people 4 months of notice about the RTO policy?
It's basically all anecdotal, like most management principles. But there does seem to be a number of managers across the tech industry concluding that in-person work is more effective, that the covid period of remote work was an experiment that did not work.
This isn't an opinion shared by everyone, which in my opinion is a good thing. Some people prefer all-remote teams, some people prefer a mix, and some prefer to work on teams where remote work is not allowed. I think everyone should find a workplace that is suited to what they want.
Rto is really important in dysfunctional organizations. Sometimes the only way forward is to know a guy. Lean on that personal connection, and unblock yourself.
For workers there are usually some tax benefits to home offices, though it's not a huge amount in practice. In the UK you can offset things like partial utility costs, but only for fully remote.
At the scale of Amazon, it's hard to pass up even a single-digit increase in productivity. Furthermore, they're in a position where they have the clout and prestige to attract the workforce they need.
Remote work is still probably a good decision for smaller companies, where they might struggle to hire if they don't offer remote work. A less productive worker is still better than not hiring a worker at all.
I watched a replay of a billionaire summit/conference once. They get these ideas in those echo chambers and bring back anecdotal evidence to the company and represent it as empirical fact.
> Is there that much solid evidence that they get more value out of people in the office rather than home?
Nope
> Or are there other reasons like tax incentives that encourage in-person work over remote?
In the corporate real estate sector, there were grumblings about incentives to companies. Basically, if you stay or extend the contract then we will improve the space “for free” or reduced rate.
> Is this just a control thing or or there a compelling argument that I am missing?
Some say it has to do with future layoffs. There are hints that AMZN is going to layoff people anyways but instead of having to pay out severance. They put these shitty policies in place to nudge people towards leaving on their own accord and thus paying out severance package.
Have seen this at a previous company. Unfortunately the people that do leave tend to be the people that you really want to stay. Almost the “anchor beings” of the team so to speak. Those people tend to find new jobs relatively quickly and the people you are left to work with simply just cannot replace those that left.
Velocity decreases. Management rushes to hire and push through the ranks with not so qualified individuals. Velocity further decreases because of the increased training and onboarding of a very inexperienced persons. People get annoyed all over. Veterans begin to slowly drop every month. New people begin to leave as well (within a year). Management then hires the worst off shore contractors. Velocity decreases further. Regression bugs, new bugs increases. Stability of application or platform is questionable.
Honestly these B-grade MBA losers are just clueless. This is all just a game to them every quarter so they can get their precious golden parachute or minimally meet the boards bonus requirements. These same losers then get rotated through various companies.
I do think there's probably a lot of political pressure on employers to not just abandon downtowns. And some do outright own a lot of real estate which puts them in a somewhat difficult position of probably writing down investments. But my first-hand observation in that employers who lease are just not renewing in at least a number of cases.
Certainly tax breaks related to local employment have been a common thing in the past. Whether this is related to any current RTO activity I have no idea.
There is certainly no data, even though Amazon has a reputation for being data driven. Amazon has tried hard to not talk about it, but friends who work there said that their internal surveys let any employee see the results, and that Amazon’s own data shows that remote work is actually more productive. So instead of admitting that, the company’s leaders like Andy Jassy have come up with vague claims like the office environment is better for culture or collaboration or brainstorming. In reality, all of this is probably just a boring way to force a layoff without a WARN notice or severance.
There is only one logic: they want to cause attrition.
And will this affect productivity and morale? Yes. But the C-Suite don't care as long as they make their $10 mil vest next quarter. This is a problem lower level managers should handle automagically.
A small donation to Harvard and we'll get our "study" with supporting data to show how much more productive people are in the office.
To answer your question though: the number of people who are motivated and disciplined enough to be productive remotely is in the minority. Most managers don't know how to manage remote teams (they need to micromanage or they can't fall asleep at night). Most people do the bare minimum at the office and do even less from home.
This is fine when the times are good, but when times are difficult, then everyone feels the squeeze.
RTO seems to have nothing to do with the warehouse workers asking for a piddly $25/hour and health and safety guarantees. It's flabberghasting that the union votes keep failing.
Union-busting campaigns are extremely effective, and honestly labor unions have gotten very lazy about building new units. "Hot shop" focused organizing plus a "we'll fire you if you sign the card (not really :) ) (yes really >:) )" poster in every breakroom and it's a big uphill battle for the workers.
Just one person's experience but when I was younger, I worked for several years at both a non-union grocery store and a unionized store in different cities. Working union was much better but part of that was the quality of co-workers was better. At the non-union store, I can see why unionization on the surface would be unappealing since there were lots of low quality employees. If you're someone who does their assigned work and see other slacking off constantly and constantly screwing things up, hearing the typical union messages of solidarity isn't going to be appealing. You have to be able to view things in the context of unionization of the company also making the jobs more appealing to a better quality worker. In my n=1 opinion, the non-union chain lost lots of money through poor quality labor and might have been better off with high labor costs that would be offset by higher quality labor but I have no way of actually being able to quantify that to determine if it would be true.
At both the union and non-union stores there was a perception that union dues were used by union officials more for their own enrichment than for the benefit of members. Having worked at the non-unionized store first, the better wages and benefits easily outweighed the cost of union dues, but some of that could also have been due to the location in a more affluent area.
It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions. I see it as an extension of a distaste for bureaucracy or perhaps, social structures in general, but I'm open to other perspectives.
No, it's solidly within the calculus of economics. Why are you concluding that rejection of unions are due to a cultural or personal disdain for unions, and rejecting the possibility that software developers disapprove of unions for economic reasons?
The economic calculus is pointing against unions: effectively every trade union creates tenure-based pay structures, which don't reward high performers and punish people who change jobs. This makes it hard to retain high performers as they can get better offers from non-unionized companies, and selects for the low performers that stand to benefit under a tenure-based pay structure.
Furthermore, unions routinely block advancements that improve efficiency, because it would reduce the amount of workers required. This is beneficial for the union, which has its membership artificially inflated. But it's bad for society as a whole. Unionized workplaces are routinely the least efficient companies on account of this. For instance, longshoremen's unions in the US have widely blocked automation at ports. The result? American ports are some of the least efficient in the world, despite costing on par with other developed countries. We all bear the cost of this inefficiency in terms of more expensive supply chains, which in turn makes products throughout the country more expensive than they should be.
You've edited or deleted your comment at least 3 times since I typed my reply. Regardless, I'm just going to highlight the relevant parts of the comment I responded to:
> It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions.
Right, and my point is that is it completely explained by economic reasoning. One way or another, you are rejecting the notion that software developers are capable of arriving at anti-union positions on the basis of economic reasons alone. You insist, without evidence or justification, that there must be some other motivation beyond economics.
Let me get this right. You're making the point that the economics explains the entirety of tech's disdain for unions? You know that all it takes is one counter-example, right?
My point is that the sizeable majority of the disdain for unions stems from economic reasoning, not some personality or sub-cultural factor. Let's revisit the original comment I responded to:
> It's a thought, but ceteris paribus, software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics. In other words, there is a personality/sub-cultural disdain for unions.
When one writes "software engineers _______", without any sort of qualifier, the typical interpretation is that the statement applies to the majority of the group.
It's a very different thing to write "software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics" and "a handful of software developers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics".
My point wasn't that cultural factors are more important in explaining disdain. It was simply that economic issues can't explain the disdain in its entirety. The first response was that I was saying economics played no factor, then it was that I was saying that economics were more important.
I'm not sure what you're arguing about anymore. It changes with every response. You seem to be bent on arguing with me and I'm not sure why.
The way you're portraying yourself reads as if you have an emotional reaction to unions that goes beyond merely the economic yourself. If you don't think that's the case, then you might want to consider changing the way you write. It's working against the argument you're trying to make.
I have been making the same point this whole time: the aversion to unions stems entirely from economic reasoning, not some "personality/sub-cultural disdain" for unions among the majority of software developers. In particular:
* Unions tend to push for seniority based pay schedules that fail to reward based on performance.
* Unions maintain membership be deliberately opposing efficiency gains that would allow for more work to be done with fewer personnel (because fewer personnel means fewer union members).
These trends are economically bad. Both for software developers themselves and for society as a whole. The majority of software developers who reject unions do so, entirely on these sorts of economic grounds. That's my position, and I don't see where it's changed throughout this conversion.
On the other hand, I'm still not sure about the scope of your statement "software engineers seem to have a particular scorn for unions beyond the calculus of economics". An unqualified statement "X group believes Y" would normally indicate that this applies to the group, broadly. But in a later comment you wrote "all it takes is one counter-example" to prove this true - suggesting that you intended this to apply very narrowly, potentially to just one person.
My claim is that the majority of developers are anti-union for entirely economic reasons. Maybe you do or don't agree, since the scope of how many developers you are stating harbor anti-union for non-economic reasons remains ambiguous.
Cherry picking a couple exceptional unions doesn't alter the predominant trend. On the flip side, we have teachers unions and police unions with seniority based pay. And they're much larger than athletics unions. The National Basketball Players Association has 450 members. The National Education Association has 3 million.
Sometimes I wonder if you framed it differently would it be more appealing to tech workers. Like if there was a startup that negotiates on behalf of employees for salary, benefits, remote vs in-office, etc. using collective influence as more people from a particular company used it. Or to put it another way, how much of the distaste for unions is wrapped up in the term “union”?
There's more to a union than just negotiating on behalf of employees. Unions have quasi-government status wherein the National Labor Relations Bureau can just step in and force the company to make business decisions. Furthermore, unions aren't optional in a lot of states. If you want to work a certain job at a company, you have no choice but to join the union (or at least pay union dues).
Something like the National Press Photographer's Association [1] is a valuable organization. They provide resources like contract templates, and can help if a customer doesn't pay the agreed royalties and whatnot. But membership isn't mandatory. A software developer's association and a software developer's unions would be to vastly different groups.
You'd need a free market of competing startups which workers could freely switch between or choose to not use, which is antithetical to the very concept of a union.
> if there was a startup that negotiates on behalf of employees for salary, benefits, remote vs in-office, etc. using collective influence as more people from a particular company used it.
I...love this idea. And end-users could pay them dues, excuse me, fees for the service.
I think a lot of people (especially tech employees and HN commenters) have this idea from the 80s and 90s of what a union must be, like they are all necessarily just like a Teachers' Union. Usually bad stereotypes like "Unions rank members by tenure and reward only the old timers!" and "Unions make it so only union members can plug a cord into an electrical outlet!" and "Unions only negotiate for salary, never things like equity, 401K features, IP assignment / moonlighting policy, implementing an ESPP, Remote Work, better development workstations, and so on." Like, who made these rules up? Why can't a new union negotiate to allow Remote Work? Why can't a new union rank its members by something other than tenure? Is there some "union police" that makes sure every union is exactly like the Teamsters and United Auto Workers?
A tech worker union could fight for non-salary things, things that tech workers care about. There's no law saying it can't.
There's no law saying a union can't fight for things besides salary. But in practice that's what it's often about.
Take the NYTimes tech worker union, for example (previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41504026). It really only has 2 objectives on its platform: indefinite remote work, and "pay equity". Notably, their objective is for pay equity regardless of different representation across different jobs. So not even "equal pay for equal work" but rather "equal pay for different work".
Union incentive align mostly to more members not more salary or benefits. Similar how companies tend to go for more revenue unions benefit more from additional member and less from higher salaries
The two are not mutually exclusive. The incentive for seniority-based pay is that low-performers are dissatisfied with lesser career advancement, so they form a block within the union electorate and vote in leadership that flattens pay.
You are correct that unions are also incentivized to increase membership, that's why unions often oppose more efficient work practices. More efficiency reduces the number of personnel needed to perform the job. An example of this is the longshoremen's unions in the US. They have consistently rejected the automation that most other developed countries have long-since adoped [1]. The result? American ports are some of the least efficient in the world, despite also being quite expensive [2].
>bad stereotypes like "Unions rank members by tenure and reward only the old timers!" and "Unions make it so only union members can plug a cord into an electrical outlet!"
This isn't a "bad stereotype", this is purposely pushed propaganda, and it sits on the shelf next to the training video you watch about how horrible unions get in the way of you negotiating with the company all by your lonesome, and the poster that says "Don't give a union $300, buy an Xbox instead"
The reason that tech workers hate unions is that it's a highly middle class male employee field, and they were targeted hardest by anti-union propaganda for a century.
Ive been in unions and worked with unions that enact policies that are unequivocally bad for the company and me as an employee. Stuff like basing way too much on seniority, overly bureaucratic process, constant deference to lawyers instead of solving problems were all completely debilitating to the organization and 100% due to the unions. While unions don't have to be this way I think the unfortunate reality is that most people are selfish and will vote for these policies which are good for them in the short run even if they tend to cause major problems for the business and new employees.
Curious what percentage of Amazon SWEs are H1B, because in my experience people who's ability to live in this country is tied to their continued employment are highly reticent to do anything that might rock that boat (like sign a union card).
Which brings up an interesting question of it someone in the US on a work visa is permitted to participate in a work stoppage. Would going on strike be considered a period of unemployment that puts them on the clock for getting deported?
If employees at a company that I started wanted to unionize, I'd be wracking my brain to figure out why, since I'd make sure everyone is treated better than they could get with unions.
But if employees at Amazon wanted to unionize, I think the company could make several good guesses why, all of them true.
One reason they don’t is because they’re afraid of ways in which a union might hurt them. For example many unions become overly political and involve in issues that aren’t just fighting for wages and benefits (like taking on social justice issues). Many unions have tenure based rules that they negotiate to privilege some workers above others. Many unions end up becoming so hostile in their view of the company, that they end up hurting the company and limiting everyone’s income instead of working together in a more balanced way. I think even now, the perception (even if it is wrong) is that all the possible negatives are worse than the possible benefits like fighting RTO policies.
Competent devs are not the target demographic. There are more incompetent than competent people and appeasing one alienates the other. It’s simple math you need to get to 50% so you optimize for outcomes
Are they doing anything like letting on call staff work from home to make up for the added work of commuting in and still not getting to log off in the evening?
Unions in the UK are nothing short of a broken promise, collecting fees from workers while offering little in return. It’s infuriating to see how they portray themselves as champions of the working class, yet when push comes to shove, they’re nowhere to be found. They’ll happily take your hard-earned money month after month, selling you the idea that they’ll fight for your rights. But when you actually need them—when management is pulling the rug out from under you—their usual response is something along the lines of, "Well, there’s not much we can do when management has already made a decision." Really? That's what we pay for?
The truth is, they’re masters of taking credit when it benefits their public image. When a company backtracks on an unpopular decision, it’s often due to public outrage or fear of bad PR, but the unions will still swoop in and claim victory. They act like they’ve led the charge, when in reality, they were sitting on the sidelines, waiting for someone else to force management’s hand. It’s a performance, and a poor one at that, designed to justify their existence. And let’s not even start on how little they’re actually doing to protect workers in an increasingly precarious job market. They’re loud when they want to be heard but silent when it truly counts. The whole thing is a farce, and it's time we stopped pretending unions are still the powerful advocates they once were. They're not. They're out of touch, ineffective, and quite frankly, taking advantage of the very people they’re supposed to be defending.
Hum... For those eligible to WFH, there is no higher salary, simply state WFH or you will not find any workers interesting in working for you. IT workers united means no IT company can survive against them.
This article seems to be more about warehouse workers than corporate workers. The warehouse workers have no choice but to come to the office. I do think they deserve more pay and benefits though. Amazon is pointing at what they’re providing as being competitive or industry leading, but that hides the reality of working at a grueling warehouse where everyone is pushed to physical limits and measured in brutal ways. That type of work takes a toll. And I don’t mean just the people who have experienced injuries and filed lawsuits, but everyone. They will probably all have some lasting health impact. They should be compensated much more for how Amazon runs those warehouses.
As for the return to office aspect: if employees - especially those with families that live in homes that are only affordable or available further away - have to lose 1-2 hours commuting each way, then yes they do deserve additional compensation to make up for the RTO policy. I’m sure Andy Jassy won’t recognize that or offer it up though. He and Jeff Bezos share a view that work life balance is “debilitating” (https://www.savvydime.com/jeff-bezos-believes-work-life-bala...) and Bezos has used code phrases before that suggest he favors young workers - which may be why this policy will hurt older workers and those with children the most.
The advantage of working from home was that you could take care of kids and do all the housework, this worth thousands of dollars per months. For years companies didn't adjust salaries in accordance to inflation and the cost of outsourcing kids care and house care, all that while keeping interest rate low and bailing rich bankers with printing of money. This caused funneling of wealth from the workers to asset holders which increased house and stock prices rather than creating new actual wealth or GDP per capita while destroying almost every class of society except the 1 percenters who became richer. It is about time the system will balance itself otherwise the western world will go back to de facto feudalism.
Isn't this kind of proving the point of RTO from the company's point of view? If you're taking care of your child and doing housework instead of working?
Right, but how much work is done when in the office. You might have the same amount of downtime in the office than at home, but now that down time can't be spent doing something else.
Who cares if you do the job? I have much higher efficency at home compared to office. No distractions, no wasted time communiting. I can organize myself better too. If I need to take a break, I do it and then I do job later, still keeping 8h of work, just splited.
The problem is how you are accounted for doing work. By tasks or by time spent in office... I saw people in office doing nothing, just talks on kitchen or answering emails.. When asked about tasks.. Im working hard sir.. heh.
Its a bit complicated matter, because when you are more efficient, boss usually will attach new tasks so you have to work harder or be even more efficient. And those who are less efficient dont get new tasks.. Not smart..
Thats the idealistic point of view, but management will always wrangle themselves out of it.
"Why aren't you efficient at the office? We've optimized it for efficiency" or "Okay well we'll budget in making you more efficient in office so that you're even more productive here".
Another could be the argument that you need to be highly available during core hours, you shouldn't potentially not be available during the core 8 hour work day of your location, and the best way to force that is you being visible in office by management.
The root of the issue is we value our time, and commuting is basically a loss of time and is not compensated. If we don't make enough money when commuting to make up for how much we value that time, we're losing. Most of us are comparing our salaries to what we used to make before this was the norm, and its not that different from before. So when going back to the "norm" we are losing part of what we consider our compensation packate -> more free time.
I guess it depends on the kind of work. But are there people who really spend all their time in the office continually doing work?
I spend some time pottering about and doing chores during the workday when I wfh. But I also spend lots of time goofing off while at the office. The difference is that while at the office, I have to be constantly vigilant about how I'm perceived by others, so time spend goofing off isn't nearly as rejuvenating and reinvigorating as it would have been at home.
Isn't it pretty normal to only have a few hours of real-work capability per day?
It would be if people were hourly. But devs are all salary so hours should not matter and besides Amazon generally wants more then 40hrs of work anyway
The easy argument to this by management is that you shouldn't be taking care of your kids and doing housework while working in the first place. Another argument could be that it punishes those who don't have kids yet or don't want them unfairly working more than those who do.
You can't use the argument of "being able to do things other than work" as an argument because its easily trumped. The best arguments are those having to do with lost time and increased stress due to commuting. Being able to more quickly transition to housework and looking after kids, or just being closer to them in general during your breaks/lunches, etc. You are losing time which is in itself compensation by being forced go to an office for a job that shouldn't necessitate it.
Another is health benefits: more easy access to preparing food at home. Less stress as mentioned. Easier to go to a gym or workout at home. etc.
Depends on the age of the child. A 10 year old is old enough to be at the house without direct supervision but not be left alone. They would need to go to a daycare if someone were in an office.
Ideally we should should hold employees to the work they produce but I still cringe a little when someone calls into a meeting because they had to run an errand. I want management to believe wfh isn't being abused. It's exclusively about the optics. The lack of interruptions is a net positive.
If we miss a deadline, it makes it easy for management to start blaming people not being at their desk. We shouldn't be giving them ammo
> The advantage of working from home was that you could take care of kids and do all the housework, this worth thousands of dollars per months
You are also not using the office, not commute and pollute.
Companies also put workers through the stress of working in inadequate workplaces - open plane offices to cram as many workers per square feet, like caged hens.
System will not balance itself, as people are just few missing pay checks from being homeless, so nobody is going to risk going against their master, sorry employer.
It will also not come from the government as these are as corrupt as they get.
The system will simply collapse at some point. Most likely the rich will be "hanged" and the cycle will start over.
Yep, working from home is easily 25%+ of my compensation and it doesn't cost the company a dime. I'm shocked executives aren't over the moon that there's a zero dollar perk they can give that's worth significant amounts of money to people.
Surely it's negative cost unless they're still maintaining an empty but fully furnished office building large enough for all employees to work from full time.
The company I used to work for was aggressively not renewing leases that they no longer needed given lower office occupancy. I have no doubt that companies trying to force people back into offices have some pretty silly reasons for doing so (including pressure from local governments) but the idea it's all about execs propping up commercial real estate seriously makes no sense even if it satisfies some conspiracy theory impulse.
If someone is paying for rent in a building, then the value does not lower just because nobody is actually using the space. The landlord has a tenant that continues to pay rent at market rate. That's the end of the story as far as the property value goes down. At least for the companies that rent their space. For companies that own their land and buildings, that's another thing, but again, the value is not set based on how many people are working there.
> If someone is paying for rent in a building, then the value does not lower just because nobody is actually using the space.
If company cannot fill the office, it will be looking at downsizing and breaking the lease. If there are many companies like this, then landlord may not find a new tenant at existing rate and they'll either have to lower the rate or sit with empty property. If they have mortgage on it, it is a tough cookie to swallow.
It's similar story for companies who own the buildings. It becomes an asset that is losing value.
Luckily if you're a commercial tenant that's not your problem. My $dayjob actually owns our office and is in the process of selling it. They lined up a buyer in less than a month so it seems there's still plenty of demand.
We are talking about Amazon engineers here. They are in the top 3% of earners, I don't think we need to cry too many tears about them going back to the office.
If people had some sort of class solidarity, then yes. But instead everyone is fighting against everyone to get to the top of the "earners" curve, even if it means a less equal society as a whole, and people seem fine with it. It's a cultural issue that has persisted in the country for a very long time.
Wage earners are working class. You are using "top 3%" as an excuse to c*p on them. This is the crabs in the bucket mentality that the rich want to cultivate amongst working class, so they pull each other down and help maximise profits.
It doesn't seem like a coincidence that Amazon's RTO is being paired with a middle manager haircut.
With less middle managers, the executives are probably thinking they'll need individual contributors physically present in order to monitor them effectively.
I still can't imagine why anyone agrees to work at a place that treats it's employees like children.
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