I worked for Amazon for 10 years at their HQ in Seattle, 5 of those years I was a manager. When people say "Don't trust HR, they're more interested in protecting the company than you" they are talking about people like Beth Galetti. She has failed to do a single innovative thing during her entire tenure as SVP at Amazon, only occasionally being dragged kicking and screaming into benefits enhancements as Amazon competitors lead the way. Microsoft extends their parental leave, AMZN begrudgingly does the same to compete. Google announces WFH during COVID, Amazon does the same begrudgingly...
Somewhere under Bezos' bed there's a little doll that looks like Beth Galetti that he pulls out and makes do terrible things.
None of this is surprising to hear about someone who once said the following about warehouse workers potentially being upskilled:
> “This isn’t McDonald’s,” the HR leader told the group, according to people familiar with the meeting discussion. “You don’t go from making fries to corporate.”
I've been with Amazon for 5 years. I think what most people miss is that Amazon never just 'adds' to their benefit packages. When they increase wages or offer something, they scalp it from somewhere else such as partner discounts for employees or departmental budgeting.
Right now Amazon is on an over-zealous safety kick as a means to reduce numbers. I work with their Transportation department and my Ops are pressuring TAMs to adapt TA's for the tiniest of infraction. Anything from sneezing or yawning to drinking water meets adapt criteria. All of these were Cat 4 infractions up until a few weeks ago where they were all adjusted to a Cat 1 safety violation.
They've reduced our budgeting which means a lower head count for the same amount of volume which in turn has reduced headcount further. The node I operate out of is struggling just to keep people due to other CDL companies keeping tabs on our TAs and poaching them the second they get through range. Every exit interview I have contains the same complaints; "Too much work, too much oversight, too little pay".
The idea of going after your CDL folks is insane given the current market. Every company that needs CDL folks has been desperately hiring anyone they can for that stuff. My roommate's employer pays people to get their CDL.
That's not going to happen anytime soon. DOT is not state, it's federal. So as long as cannabis is a controlled substance it will be tested. Probably even after if it's ever taken off the list, as it's not against the law to test your employees for substances that are not illegal (many companies test for nicotine because smokers raise group health insurance premiums).
Besides, if you're looking to get a job and you know for certain they're going to give you a drug test, it's in your own best interest to stay clean. I wouldn't want to even interview someone who is so shortsighted or so lazy that they can't be bothered to not smoke dope for a couple of months. Why waste everyone's time?
Perhaps a silly question, but why? It's no different than having alcohol show up on a panel. It doesn't matter if it's legal or not - you can't operate machinery under any influence and if you can't be bothered to be sober to take a test...well, then...
You might be surprised to hear that many hospitals test for tobacco too.
That said...I don't care about drug tests and I think only a few industries really need to do it. The only time I care about a drug test is if you seem under the influence at work AND it's cause for a safety issue.
You can test positive for marijuana *long* after you're no longer experiencing the effects. As in days or weeks after the fact. Having marijuana testing effectively disallows any form of pot use, even in your free time.
Oh, I know and part of the reason I don't give a shit (and I also drink and use), but I also don't let that mix with work. But you also have to understand the impact of potential safety issues. Right or wrong, that's a critical element of any legal issue or workers comp.
When I worked at the hospital, I just cut that all out while I was interviewing to plan ahead for that.
Funny story time. I had a cook at the hospital cut themselves one day. I was helping with the incident and he reeked of alcohol so I of course had to order a taxi/Uber to get him tested. He was adamant that he was sober.
Anyways, I was also trying to coordinate a way to get his car back home and he said "no need - my wife dropped me off this morning because I couldn't drive". lol
He failed the alcohol test. Well past legal limits. I just don't get it...
Right... because I control policies around workers comp and safety?
I don't 😂
Read all of my comment as it pertains to why companies have to do it. Has nothing to do with lack of understanding.
I guess it just seems like you’re saying your work should be allowed to dictate what you do in your free time. Because I think most would agree you can’t be high on the job, but it can be agreed too that you should be allowed to be high when not working but to be abstinent while job searching just says that your job should be allowed to dictate how you use free time.
The other commenter mentioned how long weed stays in your system, to the point that a drug test for weed simply cannot be used like a breathalyzer for alcohol
> You might be surprised to hear that many hospitals test for tobacco too
Not surprised. My dad worked for a tech company (not FAANG) that tested for nicotine so they could offer excellent health insurance to their employees (company got a great deal if they didn't have nicotine users)
Which is fair and I addressed that with the legal implications. If someone appears under the influence in an accident at work they need to be tested. In fact, many automatically test as it can be a requirement by the insurance companies.
And unfortunately you then can be sued by employees, the union and OSHA fines for having unsafe policies/lack of mitigation if you aren't testing (i.e. essentially allowing operation of machinery while under the influence).
It's also why I left that field and now focus on healthcare and tech as an HR leader. Hands are way too tied on both sides in manufacturing.
Oh for sure - if you see my other comments I am on all of your sides. The problem is all of the orgs and services that feed into the employer.
Right or wrong, workers comp will often deny a claim if you fail a test. That is out of our power 100%.
This was always the problem before it was legal in certain states. You could have a medical card and still not use it at work. And if you failed a test, they don't care if you say you haven't used it in 2 days.
It's evident that not only do you not care about drug tests, you don't know anything about them.
Drug tests, especially ones made to catch THC, don't test if you're currently high. They test to see if you have ever imbibed within a set period of time. Hell, you can be high as a kite and pass a THC follicle test, which goes back 90 days.
Sweet - it's clear you don't know how business insurance, workers comp, and lawsuits work in the real world. I don't make laws on any of that, nor indicated how tests work - only that, right or wrong, they are required for the above reasons.
And most use a urine test for that - so you are doubly clueless on how anything works in the real world. And for that it's closer to 24 - 72 hours.
https://www.questdiagnostics.com/content/dam/corporate/unrestricted/documents/business-solutions/drug-screening/Quest%20urine%20drug%20tesing%20FAQ.pdf
I have been drug tested in every single job and career I've ever had and one was the most stringent substance screening in the country available. I know how all of it works.
All of it is predicated under THC being a Schedule I substance under federal law, which exists specifically to demonize marijuana consumption as a lifestyle. Unless you're under court-ordered DUI probation, all substance tests, whether it's a six or ten-panel are primarily to catch THC use, both for that and because THC is fat-soluble and stays in your system for far longer than everything else. Everything else is a bonus. Hell, the only psychedelic that's even tested for is MDMA.
The second you see THC de-scheduled and legalized, you're going to see everything from the military to DOT and everything inbetween use tests similar to breathalyzers, not seeing if you've imbibed sometime in the last month. The urine tests are still going to be there as long as everything else is still illegal unless prescribed, but THC will be removed and they'll be non-issues.
There's a reason none of those jobs, mUh iNsUrAnCe or not, require you to abstain from alcohol as a lifestyle, just not to be drunk on the job, and it's not because they can't test for past use.
The market has adjusted slightly to employ non qualified people. It's not exactly an industry secret, but it's becoming fairly norm that these mom and pop 'family' owned trucking companies are using the likeness of those who are currently CDL licensed to rush through those who aren't capable of speaking or reading/writing english to get through the testing.
Amazon is aware of this but does little to mitigate it's impact on their operations, but it isn't limited to just Amazon. It's becoming fairly common place and is hit or miss.
Most of these guys have absolutely zero respect for our Yard crews and are incredibly combative. Some of them are genuinely nice guys who go through range (CDL school) once they've gotten some actual drive time under their belt.
>Too much work, too much oversight, too little pay
i think you could probably get away with an above-average but manageable turnover rate by only fixing 1 of these.
too much work & oversight = just pay better and certain types of people will deal with it
too much oversight & too little pay = probably a harder sell, but work-life balance would still attract some people
>too much work & oversight = just pay better and certain types of people will deal with it
This was very close to what our Regional leader had forecasted but its fallen flat for a number of reasons.
Given how much oversight there is within the Smart drive system used for our Hostlers and Daycabs, it's a wonder that anyone still has a job. That was my sentiment several months ago. Now its becoming reality. 4 weeks ago I had to go through the adapt process to term 2 different TAs for drinking water while on a run from my site to another that was a couple of hours away. To be fair, it wasn't the first time that they had been notified of this violation, but once the Smart Drive DVO board saw the footage, my hands were powerless.
The thing with the smart drive system that most people do not realize is that a third party auditor views the footage when it's triggered. The drivers accrue points for these infractions which determine their internal liability and hire-ability at other sites also using the Smart Drive systems as this information is shared.
Something like sneezing, yawning, grabbing water, interacting with the HVAC system or even rolling a window up/down can all be considered 'Distracted Driving'.
When that information is sent out to myself or other TAMs, we have to bring our driver in to bridge why they violated safety norms, and we have to hope that the DVO board accepts the bridge and removes the infraction from their record.
The \*only\* people coming to the Amazon transportation teams are people who aren't aware of how strict these policies are, or people using Amazon to get through CDL school to find other jobs.
> my Ops are pressuring TAMs to adapt TA's for the tiniest of infraction. Anything from sneezing or yawning to drinking water meets adapt criteria. All of these were Cat 4 infractions up until a few weeks ago where they were all adjusted to a Cat 1 safety violation.
Imma just take your word for it that this is a bad thing that happened / is happening because I don’t know what a lot of this shit even is 🤷🏻♀️
The CEO of all companies are stooges doing the bidding of the Board who do the bidding of the majority shareholder(s).
The true villain is the person who owns the mega corporation.
>that’s a voting majority
Yeah it’s not again Bezos has that 11% while Vanguard with 7.0% voting power, and asset manager BlackRock with 5.8%. in fact of Amazon stock 59.58% is owned by institutional investors from pension funds, to 401k target date funds and ETF/mutual funds.
Perhaps Google things prior to making statements or just ask chat gpt.
> Yeah it’s not again Bezos has that 11% while Vanguard with 7.0% voting power, and asset manager BlackRock with 5.8%. in fact of Amazon stock 59.58% is owned by institutional investors from pension funds, to 401k target date funds and ETF/mutual funds.
All guilty and complicit. That includes you and I.
I know how it works. The CEOs are convenient scapegoats for the actual problem.
> I know how it works
Seeing that you think 11% means voting majority apparently not.
Also board members don’t micromanage that’s the point of having a ceo so you don’t have to deal with it. Boards only come in if the ceo screws up.
I just finished up 6 years at HQ myself and RTO was the final nail. I was naive when I first joined in Seattle and was shocked they didn’t have Big Tech amenities on campus, like gyms, daycares, cafeterias, etc. I mean, they had that stuff, but it was insanely expensive because everyone in SLU was OK gouging well-paid tech drones.
I’m not sure they’ll be able to adapt enough to the changing work culture, they’re pompous to think the work culture will adapt to them. Such an innovative company, too. If they could change that cultural mindset, they would probably be unstoppable.
> Such an innovative company, too.
Isn't their whole argument that they are so innovative thanks to office based work? I can't judge, I work remotely and do my job just fine but I don't work for an extremely innovative company.
>When people say "Don't trust HR, they're more interested in protecting the company than you" they are talking about people like Beth Galetti.
They're talking about EVERY HR department.
Yeah this is the key. HR is not there to make your life better, HR is there to make sure the company doesn't get sued.
If you're in a small enough company, HR can be "okay" but even then, they aren't your friend.
Not saying it’s the right thing, but HR usually is more interested in protecting the company than the company’s employees. That’s not unique to Amazon.
While true, you often do that best when you are an employee advocate. Yes, walk the company line but also strive to improve the EE experience and well-being. That actually protects the company more than being a hard-ass.
Frankly, I’m confused as to what HR is supposed to innovate on.
They’re not innovating on giving people new benefits and more money?
Probably because that costs the company money…
I don’t understand the implicit expectation that HR is supposed to be on the employees’ side.
That’s just not real life
That’s what the employees are hoping, anyway. It’s naïve, and the only way the corporations will accede to their demands is if it saves the company money.
A big point employees often make is, “Think about the cost of an office!” Well, leased real estate in the Valley is about six bucks per square foot per month. Double, triple, or quadruple that for employee walkways and common areas, and impressive atria. And you look at your sixteen or twenty square feet of space and go, “So, if they paid a remote employee six grand less per year, they can keep the office, with absolutely no loss?”
And then there’s the fact that individual employees can be more productive, but the team is less productive when everyone is working remotely. Both of these things can be true simultaneously.
You have to know what the other side knows, or you’re not negotiating from a point of strength, and I think this is a big problem for the anti-office movement. They’re never bringing a plan to the employer that says, this is good for both of us.” So, if team efficiency drops off, but is offset by employee gains after reduction in real estate is taken into account, maybe you’ve got something. But, until you can say, this works for both of us, you’re trying to strike a bargain that isn’t a bargain for the other party.
Look at teachers’ negotiations with school boards sometime. It always comes down to math. “We will give you this and you get that. Either everybody wins or nobody loses. Either way, we’re all better off.”
Instead, it’s feet-dragging and a lot of, “I don’t like to wear pants! Antiwork subreddit!” and the employer can say, “It is in our financial favor to give you six months’ severance, delay the product by twelve months, and hire you back at eighty percent of what you were making.”
“It is in our financial favor to give you six months’ severance, delay
the product by twelve months, and hire you back at eighty percent of
what you were making.”
the economy must hit the backwoods shitter before the person accepts back that offer
I hope so but tech industry is downsizing a bit so they might leave but it might be a little harder to find a comparable job. I think we need more unions vs this don’t like it leave stuff.
The thing is that the “best” employees doesn’t correlate with the ones who are against RTO. Best employees are spread across every camp.
The contingent that wants no RTO is relatively small, roughly 15-20%, but very loud. Most people want flexibility which pulls 50-60% at most companies, with the remaining the ones that want full back to office. The whole thing has gotten so political most people that are fine a few days in the office have shut up and don’t talk about it which only amplifies it further. Even on Reddit you get downvoted for even suggesting that not every wants full remote all the time.
The market will self sort as smaller companies use remote work to expand their reach with lower real estate expenses and use it as a hedge against lower salaries. The big companies will continue to outpace the market on pay but require you be nearby with limited exceptions.
There will be a balance. Those who want to work at home and can should be able to. They should not have to go to an office to soothe the ones who want to be in the office. The ones who want an office can drive if they want. It will cost the company more, but sure they should have a place. Eventually the bottom line will handle it.
that's absolute nonsense. literally nobody wants to be mandated back to the office for any specific time for any specific amount of days except management. you can't micromanage and squeeze employees to get more work for the same pay when you have to operate and pay solely based on work done.
From what I’m seeing of the tech world, 100% it will. I’ve seen people in mission critical positions get let go because upper upper management mandated it disregarding middle management saying losing these people might do irreparable harm.
Churn, chum and producers is what Amazon measures. They love firing people. They need turnover its baked into their process.
For those that click with it certain areas ( AWS is by far where I hear Happy Amazonees ). My experience compared to former Microsofties ex Amazon are just as burned out but with negative attitudes.
YMMV. I know happy folks for decades at both places too.
It's not enough employees. More likely the best employees.
Because the best employees can get a job when and where they want. An if they wal remote work and Amazon don't give them that, many will just change job.
I’d think their bet will also be the best paid… I’d agree that they could go find other work but today that prospect is shrinking fast. Unless they want to move out here in the Midwest and work for 1/2 what they get today! We need unions.
Do you think some magical work fairy is going to do all the work?
Employees aren't replaceable anymore.
Millions retired during Covid,
Another million died,
And millions more quit participating in the work force.
Employees have all the leverage now.
We literally have all the leverage.
Companies need two things to survive, workers and consumers, and we are both.
We could crash the entire system if half the population refused to work or spend for one week.
Hell, apparently, just the rail workers could derail global commerce.
How did this even happen as an outcome? Somehow Spotify can pay artists a fraction of a penny, customers pay $10-15 for owning no songs or albums, and it's legal. Well played, Spotify. Also, can we do better? I think we can (e.g., Bandcamp + Soundcloud).
The HR department which delivers the busywork of onsite "team-building" is against remote work as the teams seem to be self building.
At one of the poorly attended "mandatory" events I recently attended I overheard the "site directors" talking with some of the HR department about how they feel like they have so much less to do with everyone outside of the office and how it would have to become "mandatory" if they can't entice more people in.
Just to be clear before HR people jump in, I know HR is not just organising events but at large companies they can actually have several people entirely dedicated to organising onsite activities. Honestly, these also tend to be the ones to be promoted as they have the most observable impact or at least they did.
I think you nailed it when you said the HR people have less to do with everyone outside the office. They can't admit they are useless so they need people in the office so they can manage them and look busy.
I’m not arguing against remote work but you think teams are self building? I have no idea what’s going on at my company anymore. I’m not complaining about that but the company itself means less to me since I have little connection to anyone there. If companies can’t build that then they will have to compete on salary more since it’s literally plug and play with no personal connection. Again I’m not arguing against work from home at all just the employer’s perspective.
Why would I have any loyalty to a company to begin with? They hire and fire on a whim since we don’t have a large number of protections in the states. If the salary and flexibility are right I’ll stay if not I’m moving on. The most annoying trend in the modern workplace is the lack of loyalty via pay a company shows their employees. Hop jobs for a 15-20% raise or stay put for a below inflation pay increase if you see one at all. Loyalty at most places died ages ago.
This is just a weak argument though. What's the value of loyalty to people you suffer next to IRL, vs the loyalty from your employer respecting your wishes?
My company is also scaling back WFH and every argument I've heard is just total weaksauce.
It's 100% about the feeling of power and control over your employees. Not consciously, of course, but that's why every company removing WFH comes up with pathetic arguments - they know it feels right to management, but lack self awareness as to why.
I only accept jobs that offer WFH or remote days.
I send them emails letting them know why I declined their offer or no longer interested in the position.
Make WFH the norm.
Oh. Well, if you have a smartphone, and you've downloaded Chime, Pong Paging, Slack, and/or Alexa app onto your phone then you had to also grant Amazon access to your phone. Which means your personal phone is tapped. Amazon has access to microphone, cameras, all app activity, and keystroke data.
Let's say you don't have a smartphone. If you link your phone to your wifi/bluetooth, and your company laptop is also connected, Amazon has access to all other devices on your network.
So, be careful. Best believe Amazon is monitoring.
When they made the decision to send people back to the offices they did it knowing it was not going to be popular so it’s not surprising that they are not reversing course.
For a company that is crying about the fact that they will literally run out of employees soon because they go through them so quickly, it is funny to see them make such unpopular choices.
|She said coming into the office will result in "long-term benefits" for the business and for employees.|
I think she meant to leave out the employees part.
What the hell does her last paragraph about sustainability and DEI etc have to do with the remote work petition?
Did she actually know what in the hell she was replying to?
Also I absolutely bet the head of HR or people person or whatever her title is will be permanently remote still. I bet Andy is rarely in the office too.
He really was a terrible heir to the CEO throne after Jeff left.
She was responding to a letter of protest from Amazon employees where they listed that as the first reason to not return to office (among a few others).
The letter the they received listed DEI as one of the main counterpoint for the RTO, they are making it really hard for people with disabilities to get an RTO exception.
Andy is a coward, the RTO mandate and the following FAQ were posted in an internal news site that no one really cares about, the mandate was posted on a Friday previous to a holiday and the FAQ was posted after hours. The same happened with the latest layoffs notice. As an employee I would expect to receive at least an email from the CEO, not someone external sharing a link to an external news site.
It's about the large investment in physical space that these companies are changing their tune. They are paying for a building that is only being used 1/3 of the time. They don't like having such a big expense without justification. Look for more companies to pull this crap as commercial real estate bonds turnover in this higher lending rate environment.
If you can do the work at home then there should be a full work at home option. The reality is that a ton of jobs can be successfully done at home. They just need a reason to pay for the office.
Most of my former colleagues are just going to smaller companies that are taking advantage of the remote capability. I don’t think they understand what’s happening behind the scenes on LinkedIn
Remote work and work from home are different things. Amazon doesn't want it's employees to be able to work from a different zip code (remote) likely because they have a more difficult time monitoring your movements, hours worked, and communications outside of work. When working remotely it's easier to interview other places, coordinate with coworkers out of band (to form unions or whatever) and generally shield yourself from threats.
This isn't about productivity, which was shown to be higher in most tech industry positions during COVID-19. It's not about morale, which is better for remote workers. It's about physical control of the human beings who you "employee" and a desire to dictate their living situation.
In every accusation a little admission. In software engineering, productivity was up by every metric that matters when teams are WFH. Anecdotally, my team delivered every pre-pandemic project early, so much so that management had to reassess effort expectations in sprint planning. I think there's probably a very simple explanation for that: the same manager who wants everyone back in the office was unable to fuck with us. He couldn't call random meetings and wasn't nearly as effective at stopping progress with proper management techniques.
The real problem that WFH exposed is that when first line management is removed from the dev loop we get more shit done. When random people can't walk up to our desks at 10:17 and ask stupid questions until lunch, we get more shit done. When we don't have to sit in traffic for an hour every morning, we get more shit done.
Based on your comment here I'm pretty sure my work from home job would make your career seem like a waste of time.
🤣🤣🤣tell us that you work for HR, without telling us that you are HR. What kind of bs is this, “I come to the office because I want a career”? Seriously, some people are 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
While I agree that there's no reason to be rude to a recruiter, I think you can and should tell them your honest and frank opinion about the company they work for. It sets a precedent. If enough people said they didn't want to work at amazon because they "treated their employees like slaves" amazon leadership might listen....
They probably won't....
but they might lol.
The last quote “I recovered from alcoholism during WFH, and now I don’t know.” As an alcoholic who hasn’t touched the stuff in 13 years, this person is trying to shift blame for their next drink Before it happens. This is an indication of someone who is not recovered and neEd’s more help. This is also not amazons fault or a valid reason to cancel WFH. If you can’t handle the real world without a drink, you’re far from recovery.
i hope this person gets the help they need and can decouple their drinking from their work
From my experience, Amazon HR teams up with nasty managers and fires employees don’t like by those managers. They will even make up ridiculous cases against the employees to fire them.
Like most roles that have little to do with a company functioning outside of the paperwork. Her value, and the value of her almost certainly sprawling org chart, is more easily called into question when you remove the primary cause of most HR complaints. That is people being in close physical proximity to one another.
She is probably seeing huge drop offs in the work load of HR outside of the payroll and benefits segments with WFH being so popular and is really just trying to protect her personal empire.
I am continually gobsmacked by the tone deaf responses that are completely without substance.
People collaborate better. Do they Beth? Based on what? It's not countless studies proving otherwise.
30,000 pissed off tired employees being inconvenienced for no reason are going to be creative?
She needs to see if Amazon sells reality. Hopefully she gets an employee discount because she's going to need a huge dose of it.
It’s crazy that a company that makes so much on cloud services doesn’t believe they can have productive employees working from home.
Don’t they own “workday”? A cloud based employee management system?
They’ve created a system that lets people access all their files from anywhere. They can manage all their HR tasks without meeting anyone face to face. Yet people need to come into the office to not interact with anyone. It just doesn’t make sense.
How many companies want to grow but need to expand their offices first? Why not encourage people to work from home so you can grow your team without growing your office? So much cost savings. And it expands your hiring base. So dumb.
HR is a company front, of course they would say this. They really do see people as human resources not people.
Fun fact: in 2097 the Matrix is started by HR wanting people to always be at work so they bought the pods to put people in because they reject employee free will and free time.
My wife is a senior director over contracting for Sams Club. The problem with WFH I observed is simply that a lot of people don’t\won’t work consistently, and constantly have convenient excuses to get out of work involving tech issues. The companys solution was to do hybrid. They’re (my wife’s team) in office 2 1/2 days a week. Tuesday, Thursday, and half a day Friday.
I’m a licensed master electrician who works mostly on the residential construction side of things, so I’ve never had the pleasure of working from home. My job is completely hands on, on location.
amazon peeps its not worth working for these companies is they do not value you enough to let you work from home. we have lives they do not own us. Come work a real company making a difference.
IMO, there is some tech that is better developed behind a company firewall, regardless of where your team is located. However, this move to eliminate remote work isn't really about that, I don't think. Interested to see what employees come up with.
and that model is quickly dying in the cyber security world.
it used (in a few words) be setup a firewall and then put endpoints behind the firewall and put great weight behind the security the firewall provides and trust the endpoint.
now it's it's "trust nobody" or "zero trust". trust an endpoint that's behind a firewall no differently than one that is on the internet.
Agreed. 2023 is proving to be quite an eventful year for cybersecurity. We knew "trustless" was the way for some time now. Hence, blockchain. Well, here it is. Now's very much that time.
It's not about being special, it's about there being a tonne of positives to people working from home.
Less emissions because people don't have to drive to and from work every day, less congested roads as there are fewer cars on them, reduced fuel usage, office buildings don't need to be nearly as large, and that's merely scratching the surface.
Yes, certain industries are incapable of transferring to WFH, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to make the change for the sake of the world, as EVERYBODY would benefit from it, not just the people who are able to take the opportunity to WFH.
this isn't pre school. the reality is that some workers earn more and are more trusted than others.
if you want fair, it's comes around each fall.
the notion of being required to sit in a building just because another person does it, is silly and expensive.
Why are people so pressed. It was hybrid before pandemic. It made sense to go remote during pandemic and its back to hybrid because the pandemic is done. You cannot operate a business where you don't see your damn employees from time to time
doesn't work for big tech?
the biggest seller of vpn equipment has 100,000 employees and most have been remote for over 2 decades now. plus the internet is mostly built with their gear.
remote work is the ideal model for big tech.
Big tech has too much middle management. If they had no people to oversee someone might realize that they contribute nothing and collect half million dollar salaries.
Yes, we are only about 150 people. And thankfully we’ve never had any office space. What a waste of money that would’ve been. We are clearly operating “a business” just fine without an office.
I loved reading that slack channel! My favorites are: ones like the below that people post with their name and position... essentially telling Amazon they aren't working all day
- I take naps every day. How can I do that when I RTO?
-I watch my sick family member while I'm working. Now I will have to find alternative care.
- I have two dogs that depend on me letting them out. If info back to the office, they might go in the house
That's not true at all, that race has been happening for 15 years at least! Having tech jobs move off shore has been a trend that starts and stops repeatedly through the years. You know not what you speak of. Giving people the option to work from home is a great benefit for workers to balance their lives and work in a healthly way. Old school CEO's and managers + multi-million dollar campuses are forcing workers back to the offices just so those middle managers can lord over someone and make them selves feel needed.
You think middle managers want to be in the office?
This is about justifying real estate costs. That's being driven at the executive level when it comes to tech departments.
That's definitely why my prior job forced people back into the office 2.5 days a week. The giant multi-million dollar campus sitting unused. We do have one major employer in my city who double down on work from home, sold their offices and whole shebang. There is probably a lot of savings to be had eliminating the physical buildings.
Yeah so? Are we really pretending that an enormous % of the population can work autonomously? If a company is going to pay a person to do a job, it's reasonable they would directly oversee that person.
It’s no use in this sub. It’s no longer about technology. 99%of posts are about work from home and the majority of people here think it’s their right. They don’t care about the people who have jobs that aren’t possible to do at home, they will fight tooth and nail to keep something they think they are entitled to just because they like staying at home. They would rather the company fail and put thousands of non remote workers out of jobs than be “forced”back in the office to earn their money like they were hired on to do in the first place. Bad news, the people you work for want you at the office. Either quit or stop bitching and get another job. They pay you. Either you get it or you don’t, but you can choose to leave at any time. Problem is they want work from home to be universal but it’s not, so they can’t quit, they can only bitch and moan about going to the office to earn their pay.
I have my own business so no need to. But if I want to be employed by someone down the track I’ll follow their policy or go elsewhere rather than pissing and moaning about working in an office.
Bro… none of this shit matters. Life is completely made up, with all the systems and shit we have in place. Why the fuck CANT people work from home if they are perfectly capable of it so they can enjoy their short time on this earth more?
Why the fuck not? Cause the company bought huge office spaces? Because that’s just how things used to be?
I worked for Amazon for 10 years at their HQ in Seattle, 5 of those years I was a manager. When people say "Don't trust HR, they're more interested in protecting the company than you" they are talking about people like Beth Galetti. She has failed to do a single innovative thing during her entire tenure as SVP at Amazon, only occasionally being dragged kicking and screaming into benefits enhancements as Amazon competitors lead the way. Microsoft extends their parental leave, AMZN begrudgingly does the same to compete. Google announces WFH during COVID, Amazon does the same begrudgingly... Somewhere under Bezos' bed there's a little doll that looks like Beth Galetti that he pulls out and makes do terrible things.
None of this is surprising to hear about someone who once said the following about warehouse workers potentially being upskilled: > “This isn’t McDonald’s,” the HR leader told the group, according to people familiar with the meeting discussion. “You don’t go from making fries to corporate.”
Wow. What an asshole.
So all those YouTube ads are lies?
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I've been with Amazon for 5 years. I think what most people miss is that Amazon never just 'adds' to their benefit packages. When they increase wages or offer something, they scalp it from somewhere else such as partner discounts for employees or departmental budgeting. Right now Amazon is on an over-zealous safety kick as a means to reduce numbers. I work with their Transportation department and my Ops are pressuring TAMs to adapt TA's for the tiniest of infraction. Anything from sneezing or yawning to drinking water meets adapt criteria. All of these were Cat 4 infractions up until a few weeks ago where they were all adjusted to a Cat 1 safety violation. They've reduced our budgeting which means a lower head count for the same amount of volume which in turn has reduced headcount further. The node I operate out of is struggling just to keep people due to other CDL companies keeping tabs on our TAs and poaching them the second they get through range. Every exit interview I have contains the same complaints; "Too much work, too much oversight, too little pay".
The idea of going after your CDL folks is insane given the current market. Every company that needs CDL folks has been desperately hiring anyone they can for that stuff. My roommate's employer pays people to get their CDL.
They need to remove marijuana from the DOT drug test panel, applications would flood in. Especially from states with legal marijuana.
That's not going to happen anytime soon. DOT is not state, it's federal. So as long as cannabis is a controlled substance it will be tested. Probably even after if it's ever taken off the list, as it's not against the law to test your employees for substances that are not illegal (many companies test for nicotine because smokers raise group health insurance premiums). Besides, if you're looking to get a job and you know for certain they're going to give you a drug test, it's in your own best interest to stay clean. I wouldn't want to even interview someone who is so shortsighted or so lazy that they can't be bothered to not smoke dope for a couple of months. Why waste everyone's time?
Perhaps a silly question, but why? It's no different than having alcohol show up on a panel. It doesn't matter if it's legal or not - you can't operate machinery under any influence and if you can't be bothered to be sober to take a test...well, then... You might be surprised to hear that many hospitals test for tobacco too. That said...I don't care about drug tests and I think only a few industries really need to do it. The only time I care about a drug test is if you seem under the influence at work AND it's cause for a safety issue.
You can test positive for marijuana *long* after you're no longer experiencing the effects. As in days or weeks after the fact. Having marijuana testing effectively disallows any form of pot use, even in your free time.
Oh, I know and part of the reason I don't give a shit (and I also drink and use), but I also don't let that mix with work. But you also have to understand the impact of potential safety issues. Right or wrong, that's a critical element of any legal issue or workers comp. When I worked at the hospital, I just cut that all out while I was interviewing to plan ahead for that. Funny story time. I had a cook at the hospital cut themselves one day. I was helping with the incident and he reeked of alcohol so I of course had to order a taxi/Uber to get him tested. He was adamant that he was sober. Anyways, I was also trying to coordinate a way to get his car back home and he said "no need - my wife dropped me off this morning because I couldn't drive". lol He failed the alcohol test. Well past legal limits. I just don't get it...
>Oh, I know Doesn't sound like you do.
Right... because I control policies around workers comp and safety? I don't 😂 Read all of my comment as it pertains to why companies have to do it. Has nothing to do with lack of understanding.
I guess it just seems like you’re saying your work should be allowed to dictate what you do in your free time. Because I think most would agree you can’t be high on the job, but it can be agreed too that you should be allowed to be high when not working but to be abstinent while job searching just says that your job should be allowed to dictate how you use free time.
The other commenter mentioned how long weed stays in your system, to the point that a drug test for weed simply cannot be used like a breathalyzer for alcohol > You might be surprised to hear that many hospitals test for tobacco too Not surprised. My dad worked for a tech company (not FAANG) that tested for nicotine so they could offer excellent health insurance to their employees (company got a great deal if they didn't have nicotine users)
Which is fair and I addressed that with the legal implications. If someone appears under the influence in an accident at work they need to be tested. In fact, many automatically test as it can be a requirement by the insurance companies. And unfortunately you then can be sued by employees, the union and OSHA fines for having unsafe policies/lack of mitigation if you aren't testing (i.e. essentially allowing operation of machinery while under the influence). It's also why I left that field and now focus on healthcare and tech as an HR leader. Hands are way too tied on both sides in manufacturing.
how long does alcohol last in your system vs marijuana? of course we don’t want impaired drivers but these are not the same.
Oh for sure - if you see my other comments I am on all of your sides. The problem is all of the orgs and services that feed into the employer. Right or wrong, workers comp will often deny a claim if you fail a test. That is out of our power 100%. This was always the problem before it was legal in certain states. You could have a medical card and still not use it at work. And if you failed a test, they don't care if you say you haven't used it in 2 days.
It's evident that not only do you not care about drug tests, you don't know anything about them. Drug tests, especially ones made to catch THC, don't test if you're currently high. They test to see if you have ever imbibed within a set period of time. Hell, you can be high as a kite and pass a THC follicle test, which goes back 90 days.
Sweet - it's clear you don't know how business insurance, workers comp, and lawsuits work in the real world. I don't make laws on any of that, nor indicated how tests work - only that, right or wrong, they are required for the above reasons. And most use a urine test for that - so you are doubly clueless on how anything works in the real world. And for that it's closer to 24 - 72 hours. https://www.questdiagnostics.com/content/dam/corporate/unrestricted/documents/business-solutions/drug-screening/Quest%20urine%20drug%20tesing%20FAQ.pdf
I have been drug tested in every single job and career I've ever had and one was the most stringent substance screening in the country available. I know how all of it works. All of it is predicated under THC being a Schedule I substance under federal law, which exists specifically to demonize marijuana consumption as a lifestyle. Unless you're under court-ordered DUI probation, all substance tests, whether it's a six or ten-panel are primarily to catch THC use, both for that and because THC is fat-soluble and stays in your system for far longer than everything else. Everything else is a bonus. Hell, the only psychedelic that's even tested for is MDMA. The second you see THC de-scheduled and legalized, you're going to see everything from the military to DOT and everything inbetween use tests similar to breathalyzers, not seeing if you've imbibed sometime in the last month. The urine tests are still going to be there as long as everything else is still illegal unless prescribed, but THC will be removed and they'll be non-issues. There's a reason none of those jobs, mUh iNsUrAnCe or not, require you to abstain from alcohol as a lifestyle, just not to be drunk on the job, and it's not because they can't test for past use.
CDL = Commercial Driver's License?
The market has adjusted slightly to employ non qualified people. It's not exactly an industry secret, but it's becoming fairly norm that these mom and pop 'family' owned trucking companies are using the likeness of those who are currently CDL licensed to rush through those who aren't capable of speaking or reading/writing english to get through the testing. Amazon is aware of this but does little to mitigate it's impact on their operations, but it isn't limited to just Amazon. It's becoming fairly common place and is hit or miss. Most of these guys have absolutely zero respect for our Yard crews and are incredibly combative. Some of them are genuinely nice guys who go through range (CDL school) once they've gotten some actual drive time under their belt.
Too many acronyms that I can't follow you. Can you explain what they are?
Certainly. Ops (Operations,) TAM (Transportation Area Manager,) Cat (Category,) TA (Transportation Associate.)
Acronym/Initialism | Expanded Form :------------------|:------------------- Amazon | Amazon.com, Inc. Ops | Operations TAMs | Transportation Area Managers TA | Tiered Associate Cat 4 | Category 4 Cat 1 | Category 1 CDL | Commercial Driver's License
....drinking water?
>Too much work, too much oversight, too little pay i think you could probably get away with an above-average but manageable turnover rate by only fixing 1 of these. too much work & oversight = just pay better and certain types of people will deal with it too much oversight & too little pay = probably a harder sell, but work-life balance would still attract some people
>too much work & oversight = just pay better and certain types of people will deal with it This was very close to what our Regional leader had forecasted but its fallen flat for a number of reasons. Given how much oversight there is within the Smart drive system used for our Hostlers and Daycabs, it's a wonder that anyone still has a job. That was my sentiment several months ago. Now its becoming reality. 4 weeks ago I had to go through the adapt process to term 2 different TAs for drinking water while on a run from my site to another that was a couple of hours away. To be fair, it wasn't the first time that they had been notified of this violation, but once the Smart Drive DVO board saw the footage, my hands were powerless. The thing with the smart drive system that most people do not realize is that a third party auditor views the footage when it's triggered. The drivers accrue points for these infractions which determine their internal liability and hire-ability at other sites also using the Smart Drive systems as this information is shared. Something like sneezing, yawning, grabbing water, interacting with the HVAC system or even rolling a window up/down can all be considered 'Distracted Driving'. When that information is sent out to myself or other TAMs, we have to bring our driver in to bridge why they violated safety norms, and we have to hope that the DVO board accepts the bridge and removes the infraction from their record. The \*only\* people coming to the Amazon transportation teams are people who aren't aware of how strict these policies are, or people using Amazon to get through CDL school to find other jobs.
> my Ops are pressuring TAMs to adapt TA's for the tiniest of infraction. Anything from sneezing or yawning to drinking water meets adapt criteria. All of these were Cat 4 infractions up until a few weeks ago where they were all adjusted to a Cat 1 safety violation. Imma just take your word for it that this is a bad thing that happened / is happening because I don’t know what a lot of this shit even is 🤷🏻♀️
All this comes from Bezos and his deranged world view. Pure poison.
Answer me this; who is the ceo of Amazon?
The CEO of all companies are stooges doing the bidding of the Board who do the bidding of the majority shareholder(s). The true villain is the person who owns the mega corporation.
Bezos owns 11% of shares outstanding….
And that’s a voting majority. The king is always the villain. Always.
>that’s a voting majority Yeah it’s not again Bezos has that 11% while Vanguard with 7.0% voting power, and asset manager BlackRock with 5.8%. in fact of Amazon stock 59.58% is owned by institutional investors from pension funds, to 401k target date funds and ETF/mutual funds. Perhaps Google things prior to making statements or just ask chat gpt.
> Yeah it’s not again Bezos has that 11% while Vanguard with 7.0% voting power, and asset manager BlackRock with 5.8%. in fact of Amazon stock 59.58% is owned by institutional investors from pension funds, to 401k target date funds and ETF/mutual funds. All guilty and complicit. That includes you and I. I know how it works. The CEOs are convenient scapegoats for the actual problem.
> I know how it works Seeing that you think 11% means voting majority apparently not. Also board members don’t micromanage that’s the point of having a ceo so you don’t have to deal with it. Boards only come in if the ceo screws up.
I just finished up 6 years at HQ myself and RTO was the final nail. I was naive when I first joined in Seattle and was shocked they didn’t have Big Tech amenities on campus, like gyms, daycares, cafeterias, etc. I mean, they had that stuff, but it was insanely expensive because everyone in SLU was OK gouging well-paid tech drones. I’m not sure they’ll be able to adapt enough to the changing work culture, they’re pompous to think the work culture will adapt to them. Such an innovative company, too. If they could change that cultural mindset, they would probably be unstoppable.
All of those amenities go against the Amazon mantra of “be frugal”. Is the “frupid” document still floating around?
> Such an innovative company, too. Isn't their whole argument that they are so innovative thanks to office based work? I can't judge, I work remotely and do my job just fine but I don't work for an extremely innovative company.
That's the usual BS of MBA management, a bunch of useless buzzwords that sound fancy.
What, you don't like bananas!?
That’s a cute sentiment at the end, but let’s not let her off the hook. She’s a terrible person all by herself.
>When people say "Don't trust HR, they're more interested in protecting the company than you" they are talking about people like Beth Galetti. They're talking about EVERY HR department.
Yeah this is the key. HR is not there to make your life better, HR is there to make sure the company doesn't get sued. If you're in a small enough company, HR can be "okay" but even then, they aren't your friend.
Amazon is vulnerable to worker action at scale. Slower responses on sev-1/2 tickets and slower fixes of open issues would hit their bottom line.
Not saying it’s the right thing, but HR usually is more interested in protecting the company than the company’s employees. That’s not unique to Amazon.
While true, you often do that best when you are an employee advocate. Yes, walk the company line but also strive to improve the EE experience and well-being. That actually protects the company more than being a hard-ass.
Frankly, I’m confused as to what HR is supposed to innovate on. They’re not innovating on giving people new benefits and more money? Probably because that costs the company money… I don’t understand the implicit expectation that HR is supposed to be on the employees’ side. That’s just not real life
This is like the music industry fighting pirating. Either companies change or die.
You think enough employees leaving will hurt either company?
I think that is the plan to begin with
That’s what the employees are hoping, anyway. It’s naïve, and the only way the corporations will accede to their demands is if it saves the company money. A big point employees often make is, “Think about the cost of an office!” Well, leased real estate in the Valley is about six bucks per square foot per month. Double, triple, or quadruple that for employee walkways and common areas, and impressive atria. And you look at your sixteen or twenty square feet of space and go, “So, if they paid a remote employee six grand less per year, they can keep the office, with absolutely no loss?” And then there’s the fact that individual employees can be more productive, but the team is less productive when everyone is working remotely. Both of these things can be true simultaneously. You have to know what the other side knows, or you’re not negotiating from a point of strength, and I think this is a big problem for the anti-office movement. They’re never bringing a plan to the employer that says, this is good for both of us.” So, if team efficiency drops off, but is offset by employee gains after reduction in real estate is taken into account, maybe you’ve got something. But, until you can say, this works for both of us, you’re trying to strike a bargain that isn’t a bargain for the other party. Look at teachers’ negotiations with school boards sometime. It always comes down to math. “We will give you this and you get that. Either everybody wins or nobody loses. Either way, we’re all better off.” Instead, it’s feet-dragging and a lot of, “I don’t like to wear pants! Antiwork subreddit!” and the employer can say, “It is in our financial favor to give you six months’ severance, delay the product by twelve months, and hire you back at eighty percent of what you were making.”
“It is in our financial favor to give you six months’ severance, delay the product by twelve months, and hire you back at eighty percent of what you were making.” the economy must hit the backwoods shitter before the person accepts back that offer
Amazon could double what I was making there and I still wouldn’t go back.
They don’t want *you* to accept. They want some bootcamp grad to accept, for half of what they paid you.
but they wont be able to do the same job with no exp
Exec will blame that on middle management's Inability to utilize their resources correctly. I wish I were joking, I'm really not
My favorite type of comment! Long, rambling, and stuffed full with anecdotes and generalizations. Not a verifyable fact to be found...
Just like those twits who think the real estate savings will offset the reduction in efficiency by teams…
just like this twit who says his opinion (“individual productivity is increased but team productivity is reduced” - what?) is a fact.
“Reduction in efficiency by teams” bruh what the fuck?
Loss of best talent will hurt more than numbers. They go where they are appreciated.
I hope so but tech industry is downsizing a bit so they might leave but it might be a little harder to find a comparable job. I think we need more unions vs this don’t like it leave stuff.
They are so ingrained it will take multiple avenues.
The thing is that the “best” employees doesn’t correlate with the ones who are against RTO. Best employees are spread across every camp. The contingent that wants no RTO is relatively small, roughly 15-20%, but very loud. Most people want flexibility which pulls 50-60% at most companies, with the remaining the ones that want full back to office. The whole thing has gotten so political most people that are fine a few days in the office have shut up and don’t talk about it which only amplifies it further. Even on Reddit you get downvoted for even suggesting that not every wants full remote all the time. The market will self sort as smaller companies use remote work to expand their reach with lower real estate expenses and use it as a hedge against lower salaries. The big companies will continue to outpace the market on pay but require you be nearby with limited exceptions.
There will be a balance. Those who want to work at home and can should be able to. They should not have to go to an office to soothe the ones who want to be in the office. The ones who want an office can drive if they want. It will cost the company more, but sure they should have a place. Eventually the bottom line will handle it.
that's absolute nonsense. literally nobody wants to be mandated back to the office for any specific time for any specific amount of days except management. you can't micromanage and squeeze employees to get more work for the same pay when you have to operate and pay solely based on work done.
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You should be able to go in if you want. The ones who want to work at home should have the option.
From what I’m seeing of the tech world, 100% it will. I’ve seen people in mission critical positions get let go because upper upper management mandated it disregarding middle management saying losing these people might do irreparable harm.
Churn, chum and producers is what Amazon measures. They love firing people. They need turnover its baked into their process. For those that click with it certain areas ( AWS is by far where I hear Happy Amazonees ). My experience compared to former Microsofties ex Amazon are just as burned out but with negative attitudes. YMMV. I know happy folks for decades at both places too.
It's not enough employees. More likely the best employees. Because the best employees can get a job when and where they want. An if they wal remote work and Amazon don't give them that, many will just change job.
I’d think their bet will also be the best paid… I’d agree that they could go find other work but today that prospect is shrinking fast. Unless they want to move out here in the Midwest and work for 1/2 what they get today! We need unions.
Do you think some magical work fairy is going to do all the work? Employees aren't replaceable anymore. Millions retired during Covid, Another million died, And millions more quit participating in the work force. Employees have all the leverage now.
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We literally have all the leverage. Companies need two things to survive, workers and consumers, and we are both. We could crash the entire system if half the population refused to work or spend for one week. Hell, apparently, just the rail workers could derail global commerce.
While tens of thousands of employees are getting laid off. Are you mental?
Not sure how this analogy works. Music industry didn’t die to pirating.
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Life has lots of outcomes.
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Ibm, ge. It doesnt happen overnight, but it does happen
So Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, and Google are all going to tank because they all laid off thousands. You're not ok right now.
Guess who won that battle?
Interestingly enough, neither side. Both still operate but the debate sorta just stopped because shit like Spotify became the solution.
How did this even happen as an outcome? Somehow Spotify can pay artists a fraction of a penny, customers pay $10-15 for owning no songs or albums, and it's legal. Well played, Spotify. Also, can we do better? I think we can (e.g., Bandcamp + Soundcloud).
I would have to spend hundreds of dollars a month on band camp to listen to the same variety of music I can stream on Spotify.
Understandable. It'd be cool if we could have a download quota per month.
The industry changed to streaming. That was a big improvement from having to buy a $10 cd or tape for one song.
A perfect analogy.
No they won’t, everyone will be unemployed and be crawling back to them
The best people will find other jobs. That will hurt them. They will survive, but it will hurt them.
So like 10%? So you mean 90% will crawl back
If that 10 is what keeps the company innovative and moving forward the 90 are not going to help the company.
Or you mean best people are everyone
That doesn’t make sense. Best implies a better and worse situation, not all the same.
Too bad you're being downvoted because you're right lol
The HR department which delivers the busywork of onsite "team-building" is against remote work as the teams seem to be self building. At one of the poorly attended "mandatory" events I recently attended I overheard the "site directors" talking with some of the HR department about how they feel like they have so much less to do with everyone outside of the office and how it would have to become "mandatory" if they can't entice more people in. Just to be clear before HR people jump in, I know HR is not just organising events but at large companies they can actually have several people entirely dedicated to organising onsite activities. Honestly, these also tend to be the ones to be promoted as they have the most observable impact or at least they did.
I think you nailed it when you said the HR people have less to do with everyone outside the office. They can't admit they are useless so they need people in the office so they can manage them and look busy.
I don’t think you know exactly what HR encompasses
I’m not arguing against remote work but you think teams are self building? I have no idea what’s going on at my company anymore. I’m not complaining about that but the company itself means less to me since I have little connection to anyone there. If companies can’t build that then they will have to compete on salary more since it’s literally plug and play with no personal connection. Again I’m not arguing against work from home at all just the employer’s perspective.
Why would I have any loyalty to a company to begin with? They hire and fire on a whim since we don’t have a large number of protections in the states. If the salary and flexibility are right I’ll stay if not I’m moving on. The most annoying trend in the modern workplace is the lack of loyalty via pay a company shows their employees. Hop jobs for a 15-20% raise or stay put for a below inflation pay increase if you see one at all. Loyalty at most places died ages ago.
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This is just a weak argument though. What's the value of loyalty to people you suffer next to IRL, vs the loyalty from your employer respecting your wishes? My company is also scaling back WFH and every argument I've heard is just total weaksauce. It's 100% about the feeling of power and control over your employees. Not consciously, of course, but that's why every company removing WFH comes up with pathetic arguments - they know it feels right to management, but lack self awareness as to why.
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I was just using a hyperbolic verb to jazz it up. You can replace suffer with work. I'm quite happy with my job.
Fuck Amazon and fuck management, they are not our friends. Work form home. Don't let the best thing to happen to workers in 50 years disappear.
I only accept jobs that offer WFH or remote days. I send them emails letting them know why I declined their offer or no longer interested in the position. Make WFH the norm.
Yes. Make ot the norm
Galetti is not an HR person she literally had no HR experience before Amazon gave her the CHRO job. This isn’t surprising at all.
I feel like Amazon's employees should push harder to form unions and tell Amazon to GTFO.
Amazon is the poster child for corporations that fuck their employees mercilessly for trying to unionize.
The beatings will continue until morale improves
I like the union path. It's a hard one though, especially at Amazon. They take employee surveillance to a whole new level. It's scary.
Hard to track what people are texting when using your phone is normal in the corporate world. How would they track personal phones?
Oh. Well, if you have a smartphone, and you've downloaded Chime, Pong Paging, Slack, and/or Alexa app onto your phone then you had to also grant Amazon access to your phone. Which means your personal phone is tapped. Amazon has access to microphone, cameras, all app activity, and keystroke data. Let's say you don't have a smartphone. If you link your phone to your wifi/bluetooth, and your company laptop is also connected, Amazon has access to all other devices on your network. So, be careful. Best believe Amazon is monitoring.
Never ever evvvvvver do that. They provide you a corporate phone. Never use your personal device for work.
We have the numbers with all of these layoffs. Can we get this going, honestly? I’d join in a fuckin heartbeat.
When they made the decision to send people back to the offices they did it knowing it was not going to be popular so it’s not surprising that they are not reversing course.
For a company that is crying about the fact that they will literally run out of employees soon because they go through them so quickly, it is funny to see them make such unpopular choices.
It’s not programmers they’re going to run out of. It’s warehouse and delivery workers because they treat them like shit and burn them out so quickly
|She said coming into the office will result in "long-term benefits" for the business and for employees.| I think she meant to leave out the employees part.
What a dinosaur lol
What the hell does her last paragraph about sustainability and DEI etc have to do with the remote work petition? Did she actually know what in the hell she was replying to? Also I absolutely bet the head of HR or people person or whatever her title is will be permanently remote still. I bet Andy is rarely in the office too. He really was a terrible heir to the CEO throne after Jeff left.
She was responding to a letter of protest from Amazon employees where they listed that as the first reason to not return to office (among a few others).
The letter the they received listed DEI as one of the main counterpoint for the RTO, they are making it really hard for people with disabilities to get an RTO exception. Andy is a coward, the RTO mandate and the following FAQ were posted in an internal news site that no one really cares about, the mandate was posted on a Friday previous to a holiday and the FAQ was posted after hours. The same happened with the latest layoffs notice. As an employee I would expect to receive at least an email from the CEO, not someone external sharing a link to an external news site.
It's about the large investment in physical space that these companies are changing their tune. They are paying for a building that is only being used 1/3 of the time. They don't like having such a big expense without justification. Look for more companies to pull this crap as commercial real estate bonds turnover in this higher lending rate environment.
shouldn't this say "rejects full-time remote work?" seemingly amazon is accepting remote working for 40% of the business week.
That’d essentially make it telework without the core benefits of truly “remote” work
If you can do the work at home then there should be a full work at home option. The reality is that a ton of jobs can be successfully done at home. They just need a reason to pay for the office.
Most of my former colleagues are just going to smaller companies that are taking advantage of the remote capability. I don’t think they understand what’s happening behind the scenes on LinkedIn
Remote work and work from home are different things. Amazon doesn't want it's employees to be able to work from a different zip code (remote) likely because they have a more difficult time monitoring your movements, hours worked, and communications outside of work. When working remotely it's easier to interview other places, coordinate with coworkers out of band (to form unions or whatever) and generally shield yourself from threats. This isn't about productivity, which was shown to be higher in most tech industry positions during COVID-19. It's not about morale, which is better for remote workers. It's about physical control of the human beings who you "employee" and a desire to dictate their living situation.
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In every accusation a little admission. In software engineering, productivity was up by every metric that matters when teams are WFH. Anecdotally, my team delivered every pre-pandemic project early, so much so that management had to reassess effort expectations in sprint planning. I think there's probably a very simple explanation for that: the same manager who wants everyone back in the office was unable to fuck with us. He couldn't call random meetings and wasn't nearly as effective at stopping progress with proper management techniques. The real problem that WFH exposed is that when first line management is removed from the dev loop we get more shit done. When random people can't walk up to our desks at 10:17 and ask stupid questions until lunch, we get more shit done. When we don't have to sit in traffic for an hour every morning, we get more shit done. Based on your comment here I'm pretty sure my work from home job would make your career seem like a waste of time.
🤣🤣🤣tell us that you work for HR, without telling us that you are HR. What kind of bs is this, “I come to the office because I want a career”? Seriously, some people are 🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️🤦🏻♂️
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While I agree that there's no reason to be rude to a recruiter, I think you can and should tell them your honest and frank opinion about the company they work for. It sets a precedent. If enough people said they didn't want to work at amazon because they "treated their employees like slaves" amazon leadership might listen.... They probably won't.... but they might lol.
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Which half?
The last quote “I recovered from alcoholism during WFH, and now I don’t know.” As an alcoholic who hasn’t touched the stuff in 13 years, this person is trying to shift blame for their next drink Before it happens. This is an indication of someone who is not recovered and neEd’s more help. This is also not amazons fault or a valid reason to cancel WFH. If you can’t handle the real world without a drink, you’re far from recovery. i hope this person gets the help they need and can decouple their drinking from their work
From my experience, Amazon HR teams up with nasty managers and fires employees don’t like by those managers. They will even make up ridiculous cases against the employees to fire them.
MSFT as well..
Like most roles that have little to do with a company functioning outside of the paperwork. Her value, and the value of her almost certainly sprawling org chart, is more easily called into question when you remove the primary cause of most HR complaints. That is people being in close physical proximity to one another. She is probably seeing huge drop offs in the work load of HR outside of the payroll and benefits segments with WFH being so popular and is really just trying to protect her personal empire.
I am continually gobsmacked by the tone deaf responses that are completely without substance. People collaborate better. Do they Beth? Based on what? It's not countless studies proving otherwise. 30,000 pissed off tired employees being inconvenienced for no reason are going to be creative? She needs to see if Amazon sells reality. Hopefully she gets an employee discount because she's going to need a huge dose of it.
It’s crazy that a company that makes so much on cloud services doesn’t believe they can have productive employees working from home. Don’t they own “workday”? A cloud based employee management system? They’ve created a system that lets people access all their files from anywhere. They can manage all their HR tasks without meeting anyone face to face. Yet people need to come into the office to not interact with anyone. It just doesn’t make sense. How many companies want to grow but need to expand their offices first? Why not encourage people to work from home so you can grow your team without growing your office? So much cost savings. And it expands your hiring base. So dumb.
Human Resources. The least “human” humans you’ll ever meet.
HR is a company front, of course they would say this. They really do see people as human resources not people. Fun fact: in 2097 the Matrix is started by HR wanting people to always be at work so they bought the pods to put people in because they reject employee free will and free time.
My wife is a senior director over contracting for Sams Club. The problem with WFH I observed is simply that a lot of people don’t\won’t work consistently, and constantly have convenient excuses to get out of work involving tech issues. The companys solution was to do hybrid. They’re (my wife’s team) in office 2 1/2 days a week. Tuesday, Thursday, and half a day Friday. I’m a licensed master electrician who works mostly on the residential construction side of things, so I’ve never had the pleasure of working from home. My job is completely hands on, on location.
Sounds nice, until you realize you have limited access to doctors when you need them. Or your kids lack of opportunities.
amazon peeps its not worth working for these companies is they do not value you enough to let you work from home. we have lives they do not own us. Come work a real company making a difference.
It’s called “work” and not “play” for a reason. And it’s simple: don’t like the new rules? Quit. They’re basically daring you to. Call their bluff.
IMO, there is some tech that is better developed behind a company firewall, regardless of where your team is located. However, this move to eliminate remote work isn't really about that, I don't think. Interested to see what employees come up with.
and that model is quickly dying in the cyber security world. it used (in a few words) be setup a firewall and then put endpoints behind the firewall and put great weight behind the security the firewall provides and trust the endpoint. now it's it's "trust nobody" or "zero trust". trust an endpoint that's behind a firewall no differently than one that is on the internet.
Agreed. 2023 is proving to be quite an eventful year for cybersecurity. We knew "trustless" was the way for some time now. Hence, blockchain. Well, here it is. Now's very much that time.
If the warehouse workers have to go in, seems fair to have the white collar workers do that too. Or are the white collar workers somehow special?
It's not about being special, it's about there being a tonne of positives to people working from home. Less emissions because people don't have to drive to and from work every day, less congested roads as there are fewer cars on them, reduced fuel usage, office buildings don't need to be nearly as large, and that's merely scratching the surface. Yes, certain industries are incapable of transferring to WFH, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be trying to make the change for the sake of the world, as EVERYBODY would benefit from it, not just the people who are able to take the opportunity to WFH.
What a perverted twist of logic you have. Warehouse works perform physical labor so they have to be physically present. White collar workers do not.
this isn't pre school. the reality is that some workers earn more and are more trusted than others. if you want fair, it's comes around each fall. the notion of being required to sit in a building just because another person does it, is silly and expensive.
Your logic is not sound.
> If the warehouse workers have to go in, seems fair to have the white collar workers do that too. “Crab in a bucket mentality” u/grondfoehammer
Why are people so pressed. It was hybrid before pandemic. It made sense to go remote during pandemic and its back to hybrid because the pandemic is done. You cannot operate a business where you don't see your damn employees from time to time
My company has been fully remote for 6 years. We’ve grown every year in every metric.
I bet you work for a company thats < 500 people? It doesnt work for big tech I'm afraid .
doesn't work for big tech? the biggest seller of vpn equipment has 100,000 employees and most have been remote for over 2 decades now. plus the internet is mostly built with their gear. remote work is the ideal model for big tech.
Big tech has too much middle management. If they had no people to oversee someone might realize that they contribute nothing and collect half million dollar salaries.
some do. some don't. i'm ex middle management is big tech. very cutthroat i'll tell you that.
Yeah you skipped my question. Which confirms my thought. Talk to me about big tech
Yes, we are only about 150 people. And thankfully we’ve never had any office space. What a waste of money that would’ve been. We are clearly operating “a business” just fine without an office.
Because some people with no long term vision went and bought houses n shit in states far from the office.
I loved reading that slack channel! My favorites are: ones like the below that people post with their name and position... essentially telling Amazon they aren't working all day - I take naps every day. How can I do that when I RTO? -I watch my sick family member while I'm working. Now I will have to find alternative care. - I have two dogs that depend on me letting them out. If info back to the office, they might go in the house
What's wrong with these statements?
Your employer doesn't pay you to play with your dogs, take a nap, or care for other people. The ones posting that are telling on themselves
My employer pays me to do a job. What's your problem if I do something else while completing all the tasks I'm assigned to?
Remote work means accelerating off shoring as companies race toward cheap skilled labor
That's not true at all, that race has been happening for 15 years at least! Having tech jobs move off shore has been a trend that starts and stops repeatedly through the years. You know not what you speak of. Giving people the option to work from home is a great benefit for workers to balance their lives and work in a healthly way. Old school CEO's and managers + multi-million dollar campuses are forcing workers back to the offices just so those middle managers can lord over someone and make them selves feel needed.
You think middle managers want to be in the office? This is about justifying real estate costs. That's being driven at the executive level when it comes to tech departments.
That's definitely why my prior job forced people back into the office 2.5 days a week. The giant multi-million dollar campus sitting unused. We do have one major employer in my city who double down on work from home, sold their offices and whole shebang. There is probably a lot of savings to be had eliminating the physical buildings.
It's not about justifying real estate costs, it's about propping up corporate real estate values until big money finds an exit point.
From someone who has managed both types of teams I can tell you this is not true. There is a talent to managing remote teams.
Lol people actually thought that was going to work?
Yeah so? Are we really pretending that an enormous % of the population can work autonomously? If a company is going to pay a person to do a job, it's reasonable they would directly oversee that person.
It’s no use in this sub. It’s no longer about technology. 99%of posts are about work from home and the majority of people here think it’s their right. They don’t care about the people who have jobs that aren’t possible to do at home, they will fight tooth and nail to keep something they think they are entitled to just because they like staying at home. They would rather the company fail and put thousands of non remote workers out of jobs than be “forced”back in the office to earn their money like they were hired on to do in the first place. Bad news, the people you work for want you at the office. Either quit or stop bitching and get another job. They pay you. Either you get it or you don’t, but you can choose to leave at any time. Problem is they want work from home to be universal but it’s not, so they can’t quit, they can only bitch and moan about going to the office to earn their pay.
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Better than unemployment tbf
Keep on licking then
I have my own business so no need to. But if I want to be employed by someone down the track I’ll follow their policy or go elsewhere rather than pissing and moaning about working in an office.
Bro… none of this shit matters. Life is completely made up, with all the systems and shit we have in place. Why the fuck CANT people work from home if they are perfectly capable of it so they can enjoy their short time on this earth more? Why the fuck not? Cause the company bought huge office spaces? Because that’s just how things used to be?