Short term it doesn’t matter for Amazon, they are printing money but more challenging times are ahead and wouldn’t mind to reduce their headcount. Being “unhappy” has been the staple of most Amazon employees since the beginning - see Yegge blog posts.
Tech jobs do not abound right now, so if they are going to do this, the moment is now.
The discussion if this is the right move or not ( for the future of the company) is one we could have, but in a way it’s like the peasants discussing the latest drama in the Royal family, at the of the day: who cares? They’ll be fine either way.
The land owning gentry ofc. People still mistakenly romanticize the French revolution being about the poor killing the rich by guillotine, when it was actually the rich nobility (land owning gentry) getting the royalty beheaded via the publics' uprising. Same with the Russian revolution that got the Romanovs killed and replaced by the Soviets.
Most such conflicts are not the haves vs the have-nots but the just-gots vs the already-hads -- new money vs. old money.
Most of the enlightenment-era revolutions in Europe were the newly minted mercantile rich overthrowing the old medieval rich and the Church of Rome. The US revolution was the colonial rich throwing off the yoke of the British crown and its taxes.
Sometimes there are improvements for the poor though. My speculation there would be that the just-gots include some people who were poor recent enough that they or their immediate ancestors remember it.
The results of the communist revolutions, especially in Russia, would beg to differ. Instead of being oppressed by the monarchy like they were before, the common people were then oppressed by the soviets. Whoop-de-do. You still have a gun to your head it's just who's behind the trigger that's different.
Would you also apply this logic today? As in, would like a new class turnover in the country you live in hopes to fix the rampant wealth inequality?
Because I don't think the poor would end up killing and robbing the likes of Trump, Biden, Zuckerberg, Bezos or Musk, but most likely the likes of you and me.
Getting new management isn't always a good idea. The rich have the resources to move their wealth and be welcomed somewhere safe like Switzerland or Monaco, while only the poor have to suffer the consequences of the uprising.
The french gentry very deliberately wanted a American style liberal revolution. But by the time the guillotine was rolled out, the revolution had turned into something they had 0 control over. Not to say it was in the hands of the peasants either of course.
If I remember correctly, there was a “Continental Army.” It wasn’t drawn from the whole continent, but it was enough to fight a whole war with the British army and win.
At a time where the British were fighting an actual continental war in Europe lol.
But anyways, the real point to be made is that it's not the peasants that revolted. But a bunch of merchants from NE that were unhappy about giving the crown money.
It changed the USA, it didn't change "the world". Where I'm originally from, nothing changed after the US revolution. Why do Americans seem to think the world always revolved around their country?
Are you saying that the American Revolution, which established the first modern constitutional republic, directly inspiring the French Revolution, Haitian Revolution, and rest of Atlantic Revolutions, famous for the "shot heard 'round the world", did not have any impact on the world?
Your examples are strictly former colonies of Britain. This was not the case in Continental Europe where the British had no colonies.
By that logic Nazi Germany should also be credited for improving democracy around the world since its war with Britain, France, Netherlands and Belgium made them so weak post-WW2 that it allowed their former colonies to gain independence.
Nazi Germany definitely changed the world. They don't get "credit" for it because their goals were very different than the result and their methods were abhorrent, but their rise and fall is without a doubt one of the most significant events in world history.
Not Amazon: back in 2021 we were still completely remote, but for new candidates they insisted they be near an office location. A coworker complained that we were missing out on good candidates when our team was already remote, but I told him what was up - over time you get more people who are ok with the idea of being in an office, and then once you hit some critical mass, you just flip the switch and say "everyone back".
Which is, of course, what happened. On the other hand, the company never got good at the idea of "remote" work anyway, it was the same stuff you'd do in an office but over Zoom. IMO truly remote companies are not just a physical difference from in-office companies, there's a whole way of doing business shift as well.
Without judging whether it's good or bad, I'd say async communication skills are still not the norm. Very few people are good at those. After all, human brain evolved for in-person communication skills. Collaboration over Zoom is so new that we need proper training.
Also add poor async management skills, which also is the norm.
Is it really all that or you just disagree? Have to be kind and respectful of others - especially when they are not to you.
I think a lot of people are afraid to tell the truth. After years of pretending and keeping it bottled up inside there will be some unhealthy elements.
Keeping politics out of the workplace was been decorum for decades upon decades.
It's only your modern braindead right wingers that can't stfu as their brain is ruined by doomscrolling.
We are also going back 2 days per week and next year 3 days a week. Only thing I can do is to work from 10-4. Not gonna pay the 1-hour commute * 2 myself.
I think the visibility is important. After 20 years in the workforce, I've learned that it's more important to be liked than it is to do a good job. If people work from home, the managers have trouble knowing who to keep, and who to lay off, because they can't interact with you socially in person.
> Getting rid of good workers because you don't personally like them? Keeping your mates even if they're useless?
Things are rarely so clear-cut. Usually there are shades of gray and humans tend to develop affinity for the ones they interact with in person. So if two colleagues are similar in performance, one in office gets preferential treatment due to unconscious bias.
It might be working as expected, even though the number is quite high, maybe higher than expected. The problem I see is when they do need to hire later down the line, it will be much harder to convince people to move when the change in work/life balance is that drastic.
I agree. Usually your best people have an easier time finding new jobs and are the first to go. That will also work against future hiring when you no longer have the talent to draw in great people.
I don't work in Amazon nor I have any particular information about this (although I have friends working there) but isn't this the intention in most companies that implement RTO against employees' wishes? There's always some collateral damage when virtually irreplaceable people jump ship but this is definitely planned. It's a cheap way to get rid of headcount. It only works when most big companies agree to do it at roughly the same timeline, otherwise people will just switch companies - RTO is too big of a perk to ignore, specially if you have a family.
“Decisions like the one from Jassy are a big reason why I don’t want kids. I don’t need others to impose rules that ruin my quality of life.”
Long time lurker but had to sign up and comment on this statement made by the amazon worker.
The fact that he is not having kids is precisely due to rules imposed by people like jassy. And so do many workers in the western world. The fear of being controlled is just as bad as being controlled. You truly free once the fear, and the actions caused by said fear, are non existant.
Here's the lesson I hope people learn from this: your employer is not your friend.
Why are they doing this now? Because they can. 2-3 years ago when it was a tight job market, Amazon (and every other tech company) was all about remote work. This started out of necessity (ie the pandemic) but it became a way to lure employees who had moved during the pandemic.
I think a lot of us deluded ourselves into thinking tech companies were different to any other employer. They are not. You are a cost they want to reduce. RTO will cause a few to quit and the rest to be more compliant. Those who quit are cheaper than a layoff.
When there's a layoff (or people quit), they aren't replaced. Why? Their work is redistributed to those who remain. It's more work done at no extra cost. At some point there is more hiring but that's part of the "natural" 5% layoff rate that is now a permanent feature of your employment.
It is all about suppressing wages and getting you to do more for the same or less money.
This is going to be very controversial, but I think the technology industry of America is very smug. A lot of people will get very angry about not getting to WFH, but then have an issue when McDonalds's drive through is really somebody working from home. Silicon Valley has a hubris problem and it extends throughout the Wfh debate. How dare you make me come into the office, I'm important. I work for Amazon.
This is a crab in a boiling pot pulling the other crabs back rather than let them escape.
After we all demonstrated increased productivity during Covid, with record profits, everyone is happier and it’s better for the environment… we all have to go in because otherwise we’re somehow smug about our importance?
Does that make any sense? This just reads as jealousy to me; not really a good spot to make calls from.
I've always considered Blind to be a a source that's almost exclusively people unhappy with their company so the way I'm seeing this poll is "on a website of people unhappy with their employment, 91% are unhappy about the latest decision" or "in today's news, the sky is blue"
So why they not decide ALL UNITED an impromptu sudden strike? Not only Amazon but ALL WORKERS able to WFH, together, with a single message: we are the people who made the tech, be against us and you'll get no tech, good luck with pen and paper.
Really? I seriously doubt that 91% of people working for Amazon have ever done a single day of work from home. From drivers to warehouse workers, the vast majority of tasks within the Amazon sphere cannot be done via wifi. This is about the office-working elite of corporate Amazon. The actual company as a whole is very different and will continue regardless of how happy/unhappy the corporate office staff claim to be.
That is a good point. But 'Amazon' is really a few different companies. You have the warehouse people, the store front people, the AWS people, the twitch people, the movie/tv people, etc etc. So 91% is probably just office workers from a particular part of the company. My 'guess' is the people who own the buildings also are near the top in the company. Low capacity means low valuations of property.
I think it's worth exploring the interesting psychology behind WFH. If you ask anybody they would say they would want to work from home. Regardless of the efficiency, the job, all of that, WFH in my opinion has more to do with avoiding work than it does actual work. When you are at work, you can't avoid it, but when you are home, you can walk away, pretend, and make your boss think you are working.
lol, as if! People fuck about on reddit as much in the office as they do at home, probably more so.
If anything, its easier to avoid work in the office: when everyone is working from home there is a renewed interest in metrics and productivity monitoring, in the office you can just hop around the office catching up with people on endless water cooler chats.
So basically you saying manager need to see people in order to know there stuff is working.
If someone pretend to work at home he will pretend to work at work.
Tech jobs do not abound right now, so if they are going to do this, the moment is now.
The discussion if this is the right move or not ( for the future of the company) is one we could have, but in a way it’s like the peasants discussing the latest drama in the Royal family, at the of the day: who cares? They’ll be fine either way.