Amazon CEO Andy Jassy threatens employees to return to office or "things are probably not going to work out for you"

[Vermillion]

Their problem, just like it was the employees problem when they had no work during the pandemic. City life for a lot of people sucks and it generally costs more than living in a house.

Yes, it is their problem but that needs to be taken into consideration. There's no way around that. I fully expect the office building market to crash and burn hard around here as companies start to downsize.

This is fine for some people. You may not want to develop a relationship as it can get you fired. I don't mean like having a sexual one, but like you say something to someone and they take it the wrong way, and then you're fired for it. Especially if you switch jobs often for better pay or less work, you really don't care to develop relationships. The whole mentality of "you're in a family" and learning to develop bounds with people so you're less likely to leave this job, is a crutch.

I understand. I was simply stating that I find it far better for me and my work to have a bit of a relationship with my co-workers. In my years I've found that the overall work that gets done is higher quality when you get along with the people you work with and have a good rapport with them. That's anecdotal but it is important to me.

A camera on the entire time working? I don't see how that helps an employee at all, nor do I see anyone actually looking at the footage.

My fault. I wasn't clear. I meant cameras on during Teams meetings and the like.

I don't see a problem with this. If they did their jobs, as in completed their tasks, then what's the problem? The problem is you can make them do more work. When I do a job quickly then that's not to your benefit, but mine. That's years worth of experience at play. You go by hours, not work done. This is the reason why employers hate work from home, because they don't know you have a script that does the task instantly when they expect you to take hours. If they knew, they just put more work onto you. Also, if they're working multiple jobs then that means you aren't paying them well enough. You see a Doctor or lawyer working multiple jobs? No, because they get paid very well. Chances are your company is so disorganized that they don't know their employees are working multiple jobs. How long did it take for anyone to figure this out? I'm sure it took a while.

While working multiple jobs is not illegal it is normally against the rules of conduct of the company you work for, which can get you terminated if/when discovered. Working multiple jobs also could put you in a position of conflict of interest. Working multiple jobs for Uncle Sam is actually prohibited. Sometimes it does take time to figure out but when you hear reports of somebody not responding or you find that they have multiple laptops with them the one day of week they're at the office it makes you dig a little deeper.

And no my company is not disorganized. Nice strawman though. We have to watch for multiple job people because we are a government contractor. We can't have the possibility of a conflict of interest as it could cost us dearly.

 

[staknhalo]

As a 45yo genXer, I generally can't stand US born boomers and millennials, and zoomers are a lost cause whatsoever.

I'm a millennial and I hate millennials and forget about gen x like everyone else - only thing anyone remembers of you guys is that Spice Girls Pepsi commercial

 

[Joust]

I'm a millennial and I hate millennials and forget about gen x like everyone else - only thing anyone remembers of you guys is that Spice Girls Pepsi commercial

Nice.

“I don’t even know who you are.”

 

[DukenukemX]

Yes, it is their problem but that needs to be taken into consideration. There's no way around that. I fully expect the office building market to crash and burn hard around here as companies start to downsize.

Like I said, nobody cared when they fired people and had to file for moratorium to prevent themselves from getting kicking out of their apartments. Also, they still had to pay that rent back when the moratorium was lifted. Also, also, good that the office building market to crash. If you watched Louis Rossmann you'll know that NYC rent costs have been wild for some time.

View: https://youtu.be/qxCVUpaelHw?si=NCFuOmNSsgZ3x8wp

While working multiple jobs is not illegal it is normally against the rules of conduct of the company you work for, which can get you terminated if/when discovered.

To be fair, they can fire you anyway at any moment. The risk to rewards ratio is heavily favored to the worker. This isn't the UK where you have to have a valid reason to be fired, they can just fire you for no reason.

Working multiple jobs also could put you in a position of conflict of interest.

Yea, and that would suck for the employer. My suggestion is to pay them better so they don't. Again, not illegal and also none of their business.

Working multiple jobs for Uncle Sam is actually prohibited.

Yea but nobody works two jobs for the same company, unless that company is really stupid.

Sometimes it does take time to figure out but when you hear reports of somebody not responding or you find that they have multiple laptops with them the one day of week they're at the office it makes you dig a little deeper.

Blame the manager for not managing.

And no my company is not disorganized. Nice strawman though. We have to watch for multiple job people because we are a government contractor. We can't have the possibility of a conflict of interest as it could cost us dearly.

How is that a strawman? If it took your company more than a week to figure out that your employee is working multiple jobs, then there's a problem beyond that of said employee. The problem is that most employee's are so busy doing their tasks, that nobody has time to look to see what other employee's are doing. If a person works multiple jobs, then they depend on this level of dysfunction to get away with what they do. If a person works two part time jobs that they physically need to be there, then that's just them needing full time employment. If a person works two full time jobs and remotes to both jobs, then that's them making good use of their time working. Going back to answering emails as an example, there's a major difference between a person who knows how to type with all their fingers vs an index finger typist. What could take an index typist 10 minutes could take a home row typist a few minutes. But because the majority of people have never learned to home row type, then the expected task time is much longer. If the employer knew, then they just double your work load and there is no benefit to you. In this situation where you work two jobs, you double your work load and double your pay. Would your company double the pay of someone who can properly type? Probably not.

 

[paradoxical]

If a person works two full time jobs and remotes to both jobs, then that's them making good use of their time working. Going back to answering emails as an example, there's a major difference between a person who knows how to type with all their fingers vs an index finger typist. What could take an index typist 10 minutes could take a home row typist a few minutes. But because the majority of people have never learned to home row type, then the expected task time is much longer. If the employer knew, then they just double your work load and there is no benefit to you. In this situation where you work two jobs, you double your work load and double your pay. Would your company double the pay of someone who can properly type? Probably not.

I am having a hard time following your argument. At my company, the support agents work answering emails all day. There is an endless amount of support tickets because we sell more products every single day to new customers. As such, it doesn't make a difference in individual workload whether or not someone types with their index finger or home row typing - they are answering tickets for 8hr a day regardless. It would be impossible for me to force a more efficient typer to do more work since their time is spent typing for 8hrs per day anyway.

The only difference is that the faster typer closes more tickets purely as a function of their typing speed, which means they are more productive and get paid more by me (compensation is tied to KPIs). But I literally can't make them spend more time working than someone typing slower as they spend the same amount of time daily doing the exact same thing.

If one of them was working a second job during regular work hours, that means they would not be spending 8hr per day answering support tickets. Since the employment contract we enter into gives them a specific salary in exchange for full time employment answering support tickets, they would be not living up to their end of the bargain and I would terminate them without a second thought.

 

[aldamon]

For entry level positions if I fired everyone who wasn't doing their job from home I would not have any employees. I don't think you understand how dire the situation is to find people that aren't stupid/irresponsible/have anxiety issues. Pre-pandemic, I was offering $45k for entry level support positions where the only task is to respond to email customer inquiries. I was flooded with candidates and a couple of them were rockstars who worked their way up to $100k leadership positions.

During the pandemic, I was offering $55k for full WFH, 4 weeks vacation, no drug testing, cadillac benefits, 401k, no degree required, and the quality of people just plummeted. It hasn't returned either - I am now offering $60k (bumped it $5k since it's in office) for someone to literally sit in an air conditioned office and answer emails but my God, everyone has "mental health issues" and magically need time off every Friday and Monday. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Whenever I hear stories like this, I encourage people to try to apply for a job at their company and go through the same BS they're putting applicants through. Hiring and interviewing processes have become a race to the bottom.

 

[paradoxical]

Whenever I hear stories like this, I encourage people to try to apply for a job at their company and go through the same BS they're putting applicants through. Hiring and interviewing processes have become a race to the bottom.

I am not really sure what you mean. Our process: they submit resumes, their direct manager has a 30min interview with them. If they like them, they have a second 15min zoom call with me for a final signoff and they are extended an offer. The whole process from job opening on indeed to extending an offer letter rarely takes more than 1-2 weeks.

 

[harmattan]

I can't speak specifically to any Amazon worker, but research on this subject has shown that people are generally more productive when working from home than they are in the office, provided they are in a role that lends itself to remote work, which makes actions like these from employers even more insane.

They are essentially giving up free productivity and paying for expensive useless office space over a boomer sensibility of how they think things should be.

Essentially the message is:

"I don't care if you are capable of doing your work from home, and that coming into an office just to sit on the same remote meeting harms your live to the tune of 4 hours every day, not to mention the cost of commuting. I also don't care that you are less effective in the office, and that this actually hurts the company from the perspective of retention, productivity and office space costs. I want you to come in anyway because I am the old CEO and I say so, because I feel that a proper company has people in the office"

It is absolutely insane and counter to all reason. There are obviously some types of jobs that can't be done remotely, but a good chunk of work is just meetings, MS Office, and email, or programming or just using web tools, and those people can literally do their job from anywhere they have an internet connection.

The bald-face rational and sociopathic psychology of execs so obvious here for all those points, it's laughable. The other laughable aspect among this littany of chicanery is the ecological impact of making people commute into work 5+ days a week. My firm has a target to go near-carbon neutral over the next few years and lauds ESG every chance and channel they get. Then, the CEO comes around saying people need to commute back to the office. The level of diarrea on the guy's face every time he says it gets thicker and thicker.

On a side note, I'd recommend checking out "Disipline and Punish" (or "To Surveille and to Punish" for a better translation) by Foucault. It definitively covers the history/epistemology of the entire dynamic at play here.

As for my own situation, I go in two times a week to do close collaboration with my teams -- that's more than enough. The rest of the time, I'd be sitting at my desk on zoom/teams meetings talking to people halfway around the world. If I told my teams they needed to be in more often they'd be leave -- and rightfully so (I'd leave myself if that was the mandate). Further, echoing others, it's an absolute ball-ache to find decent talent nowadays (and my firm trades for top spot in tables and is one of the most desirable place to work in my industry).

 

[aldamon]

I am not really sure what you mean. Our process: they submit resumes, their direct manager has a 30min interview with them. If they like them, they have a second 15min zoom call with me for a final signoff and they are extended an offer. The whole process from job opening on indeed to extending an offer letter rarely takes more than 1-2 weeks.

You're complaining about the quality of an applicant pool plummeting and not considering the possibility good candidates aren't getting through your "simple" system. Try something different. The lazy response is "oh it's everyone else."

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Yes, it is their problem but that needs to be taken into consideration. There's no way around that. I fully expect the office building market to crash and burn hard around here as companies start to downsize.

I understand. I was simply stating that I find it far better for me and my work to have a bit of a relationship with my co-workers. In my years I've found that the overall work that gets done is higher quality when you get along with the people you work with and have a good rapport with them. That's anecdotal but it is important to me.

My fault. I wasn't clear. I meant cameras on during Teams meetings and the like.

While working multiple jobs is not illegal it is normally against the rules of conduct of the company you work for, which can get you terminated if/when discovered. Working multiple jobs also could put you in a position of conflict of interest. Working multiple jobs for Uncle Sam is actually prohibited. Sometimes it does take time to figure out but when you hear reports of somebody not responding or you find that they have multiple laptops with them the one day of week they're at the office it makes you dig a little deeper.

And no my company is not disorganized. Nice strawman though. We have to watch for multiple job people because we are a government contractor. We can't have the possibility of a conflict of interest as it could cost us dearly.

CEOs often work multiple jobs - Elon Musk, for example, is CEO of several companies. Most CEOs are on the boards of other companies too, which is a paying job. So, if it’s good for them, it’s good for their employees too. I just don't have the energy for that - too old and cranky.

The poster you were responding to gave a great example I’ve experienced in my career as well. I can’t tell you the number of times in my career where I took some tedious process and reduced it down to minutes because of automation. What did I gain from that? More work. Sure, I got good raises and kudos, but it didn’t exactly propel me to a CEO position. One boss I had got in trouble with HR because they thought he was “holding me back.” He came to me frantic one day and asked me if I could tell them that wasn’t true.

 

[Sir Beregond]

Whenever I hear stories like this, I encourage people to try to apply for a job at their company and go through the same BS they're putting applicants through. Hiring and interviewing processes have become a race to the bottom.

Yeah I know someone who got put through 7 interviews and then they passed on him. That just sounds like the prospective employer wasting his time to me. I mean really, 7 interviews to then say no.

Anyway I don't know what BS is going on these days as I started my current employment literally 2 months before the pandemic hit, but I do know this. Interviews are two way streets and a lot of prospective employees forget that. I will ask you questions about your culture, processes, day vs night work, how you manage agile since you claimed to be "agile" but the rest of the job req read like a bog standard waterfall shop to me with your "CABs" and "maintenance windows over the weekends".

 

[DukenukemX]

I am having a hard time following your argument. At my company, the support agents work answering emails all day. There is an endless amount of support tickets because we sell more products every single day to new customers. As such, it doesn't make a difference in individual workload whether or not someone types with their index finger or home row typing - they are answering tickets for 8hr a day regardless. It would be impossible for me to force a more efficient typer to do more work since their time is spent typing for 8hrs per day anyway.

In that case the worker knows there's a certain amount of tickets that are expected to be done by them. As long as they don't get written up, they're fine.

The only difference is that the faster typer closes more tickets purely as a function of their typing speed, which means they are more productive and get paid more by me (compensation is tied to KPIs). But I literally can't make them spend more time working than someone typing slower as they spend the same amount of time daily doing the exact same thing.

I doubt if the faster worker did twice as much work they get twice as much pay. Even if they did, they would have to deal with that level of stress constantly. It's easier to put the bare minimum in for two jobs at the same time, because you do get twice the pay.

If one of them was working a second job during regular work hours, that means they would not be spending 8hr per day answering support tickets. Since the employment contract we enter into gives them a specific salary in exchange for full time employment answering support tickets, they would be not living up to their end of the bargain and I would terminate them without a second thought.

Yes but how would you know? Remember the idea is that they depend on your company being dysfunctional. They pray on companies like this. Being fired isn't a problem, because remember they still have a job. They're just gaming the system. These are probably the hardest working people, so it's hard to tell if they're working multiple jobs. They'd have to be in the office with multiple laptops for them to get caught. Work from home and nobody will know.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Yeah I know someone who got put through 7 interviews and then they passed on him. That just sounds like the prospective employer wasting his time to me. I mean really, 7 interviews to then say no.

Anyway I don't know what BS is going on these days as I started my current employment literally 2 months before the pandemic hit, but I do know this. Interviews are two way streets and a lot of prospective employees forget that. I will ask you questions about your culture, processes, day vs night work, how you manage agile since you claimed to be "agile" but the rest of the job req read like a bog standard waterfall shop to me with your "CABs" and "maintenance windows over the weekends".

Around 20 years ago, I interviewed with a well-known supplier of tech products. I wasn’t necessarily unhappy with my job, but this job was much closer (less than 10 minutes from home) so I thought I’d give it a shot and see what they had to offer. Their HQ was in California (this facility was in Indiana) so the initial interviews were by phone.

Note I said interviewS. I can’t remember for sure, but it was at least 4 rounds of phone interviews, if not 5. The manager and his boss flew out here to do in-person interviews afterwards. I went to their facility and first met with the HR person. She was really nice and told me a bit about their company and mentioned that they actually made products for other companies, mentioning a couple by name. So I tucked that in the back of my mind for my meeting with the director and manager.

I get into that session and the director asks me what I know about the company. So I give a little speech and then throw in what the HR person told me. He told me I was wrong and argued with me! I just sat back and knew how this was going to go. The guy was a complete and total ass, at one point asking me “if you had 2 identical candidates, which would you hire?” Keep in mind this was for an individual contributor role, not a hiring manager. I told him I’d hire the best personality fit. He said “They‘re identical!” I said “No two people are identical.” He said “Well you’re wrong and we had that situation - we hired both!” We all know that’s not how it works in the real world - you have a job req for a position and hire one person per req! And no two people are alike in every facet either.

So he proceeded to berate me the entire interview, actually gracing me with how he would’ve answered many of the questions. At the end, they asked if I had questions. I knew I wasn’t going to get the position and these two jerks wasted my time with 4 or 5 rounds of interviews and me taking time off from work for this interview. Keep in mind these idiots were hiring this position because the previous people they hired were incompetent and unprofessional. They just sat there smiling. So I decided I was going to do my own berating and have fun:

Me: “ Why yes, I have several questions if you don’t mind. My first question is about your service desk customer sat scores. Mr. Manager, you said they’ve improved to 80%. That’s an absolutely dismal score and you’d get fired from where I work for that score. Can you explain what your plan is to improve that?”

Their shit-eating grins disappeared and their jaws hit the ground.

Me: “You said you’re having major global Active Directory issues. As I told you, I led a global Active Directory project for a company much larger than yours and solved that same issue. But since your staff doesn’t seem up to the task, I’d be happy to refer you to some consultants who can help.”

They looked flabbergasted.

And I went on for several minutes like that, picking apart everything they told me and telling them everything they were doing wrong while they stumbled, bumbled, and turned red. He ended the interview with “I bet you’re glad this is over - I know I am.” I looked at him, smiled really wide, and said “Did you want the names of some consulting firms to help your team since they can’t solve this simple issue?”

Yes, I had considered the possibility they were being jerks to test me. But I don’t play that game. The one regret I do have is that I didn’t send a Thank You note a few weeks later with a reminder to the director that they didn’t tell me if I got the job or not and by his own definition of “professionalism,” he proved he was not a professional.

 

[mashie]

I have spent most of my working life in an office, however for the past 3.5 years I have worked from home pretty much 100%.

Working from an office is great IF everyone you work with are based in the same office. My team for the past 5 years are spread out in offices across nearly 800 miles so those 18 months prior to COVID I spent most of the time on WebEx. Now I spend it from home using Teams. Side effect, much better work environment at home, zero commute, not that it matters living 2 miles from the office.

I'm not going back.

 

[pendragon1]

still in tech news?! ok...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5fUg1eUXKE

 

[OutOfPhase]

I've found people do better work when they feel comfortable doing work. My experience with remote workers: they work longer hours / are more productive however that works out (no driving), and are happier overall.
And I didn't need to buy a 10k desk.

 

[socK]

I have spent most of my working life in an office, however for the past 3.5 years I have worked from home pretty much 100%.

Working from an office is great IF everyone you work with are based in the same office. My team for the past 5 years are spread out in offices across nearly 800 miles so those 18 months prior to COVID I spent most of the time on WebEx. Now I spend it from home using Teams. Side effect, much better work environment at home, zero commute, not that it matters living 2 miles from the office.

I'm not going back.

I've been full remote for a few years now. Never going back if I can help it. Entire team is remote.

Tiny team, everyone does their shit, works great.

If you can't handle remote work, then you can't handle it. We've let one person go because of this. We're small enough that you can't hide, it will become obvious very fast that you're not doing your shit. If you're stuck, ask, that's why we're a team.

We routinely spend large chunks of the days on Slack huddles. Someone starts one and others tend to pile in. There's zero issues with collaboration.

I've found people do better work when they feel comfortable doing work. My experience with remote workers: they work longer hours / are more productive however that works out (no driving), and are happier overall.
And I didn't need to buy a 10k desk.

This is a great point.

It's a lot more palatable to hang around a little more and finish something out when I don't need to worry about ordering a fuckin pizza to the office then still having to drive home.

When I need a breather I can just get up and go take the dog for a run in the yard or some shit.

 

[TheToE!]

Business has reached a point that they don't care if you quit now, they want people back at the office at least a couple times a week now. I expect it to become harder and harder to remain in jobs that are solely work at home.

Agreed. Pretend to work from home has always been bullshit. I say good on amazon.

 

[tangoseal]

For entry level positions if I fired everyone who wasn't doing their job from home I would not have any employees. I don't think you understand how dire the situation is to find people that aren't stupid/irresponsible/have anxiety issues. Pre-pandemic, I was offering $45k for entry level support positions where the only task is to respond to email customer inquiries. I was flooded with candidates and a couple of them were rockstars who worked their way up to $100k leadership positions.

During the pandemic, I was offering $55k for full WFH, 4 weeks vacation, no drug testing, cadillac benefits, 401k, no degree required, and the quality of people just plummeted. It hasn't returned either - I am now offering $60k (bumped it $5k since it's in office) for someone to literally sit in an air conditioned office and answer emails but my God, everyone has "mental health issues" and magically need time off every Friday and Monday. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Those jabbies changed everything.

 

[SamuelL421]

I’ve been fully WFH since before the pandemic. Office work makes sense - maybe even essential - for creative and problem solving tasks/roles that require a group to collaborate. Everything else is a pointless waste of of time spent commuting though.

Exceptions should be poor performing employees and junior staff. Wether they are good or bad workers, the rookies/fresh out of school kids need some degree of in-person support. As for the poor-performing people: in my experience, some simply cannot get work done (or focus) in their home environment. Again, I do feel they are the exception - most people I’ve worked with seem like to be genuinely more productive at home (basing this solely on results).

WFH inefficiency has more to do with bad managers - especially the idea that so many are slacking off. More often I’ve seen people complete tasks more quickly, then “grant” themselves free time as their managers fail to do an adequate job of structuring the work day, meetings, and assignments. I’ll be the first call myself out on this - I’ve certainly dropped the ball with providing structure for direct reports in the past. Traditional (“legacy” ) managers aren’t inherently good at facilitating WFH for their staff.

All that said, I think other agendas are at play with this news article as well. Ushering excess technical staff to the door without a payout is tough and pretending office work is paramount could be a very effective way to cull expensive employees. Amazon has also spent a fortune on their office facilities and the executive-tier will be looking for ways to justify the continued existence of these sites. No one in the c-suite will want to have a prestige office location close down under their tenure. It’s a bad look - even if it makes financial sense to do so.

 

[socK]

I’ve been fully WFH since before the pandemic. Office work makes sense - maybe even essential - for creative and problem solving tasks/roles that require a group to collaborate. Everything else is a pointless waste of of time spent commuting though.

I remain unconvinced - we wrote our entire product remote.

For any scenario I've encountered, this this doesn't need to be more complicated than a Slack huddle.

 

[Eulogy]

Current employer is fully WFH. We are actually closing pretty much all of our offices around the world. We've been "remote first" mentality since inception, and built our tooling, expectations, and workflows around that. Other places that are trying to do the exact same thing they did in office, but remotely, struggle, because that's not how it works best. If they just close their offices and change nothing other than the physical location where someone is, that's definitely not setting up for success.

Each year we're granted $3000 to spend on our home offices. This even includes personal cell phone (phone itself and service), internet, headphones, cameras, all hardware, stationary, furniture... on and on. We're given freedom to more or less set our schedules, within reason of course (meetings are few and far between - most conversations are async and in durable locations, and open to pretty much everyone for input unless sensitive). If we get stuck, or simply want to pair (or mentor / be mentored) or mob on things, we just do - even across teams, it's pretty much painless to engage and move things forward. If there's an issue or an outage, working with anyone needed is seamless and simple. There's extremely little to no drama. There's high expectations of everyone, which are clear and visible.

Simply put, we're treated like the responsible, professional, adults that we are. And we didn't have to go through any kind of gatekeeping BS to prove it - trust was extended both ways, and, it's worked out remarkably well for over 15 years.

We don't need spoon fed work by my manager - we know the projects that I'm involved in and that my team are involved in. The tasks (architect, design, divide up the work into meaningful and deliverable bits, implement them) needed to get done each sprint are clear, so, when I complete one thing, I move onto the next. If the sprint is cleared and there's still time left, there's learning, backlog, personal pet projects and so on to keep things moving along.

We're not a "small" company by any measure. We're a household name, especially among developers.
We don't have any problems with wfh what so ever - quite the opposite.

 

[OutOfPhase]

I remain unconvinced - we wrote our entire product remote.

For any scenario I've encountered, this this doesn't need to be more complicated than a Slack huddle.

Anecdote: I have one team with a client which went from embedded on-site crew, to fully remote.
By all metrics available, the productivity went up. Satisfaction went up. And actually, perhaps paradoxically - engagement went up. The banter on slack (hi, teambuilding) was more than they'd do in an office.

 

[freeagentt]

I work in a shop making stuff that the machines of the world need.

Must be nice to sit at home you guys.

 

[Harvestor]

up until 6 months ago I was in the telecom field, when march 2020 hit all of our call centers/ support went wfh, at first there was no noticeable difference for us in the field but by 2 months in it was very noticeable the difference in quality of support. Average wait times went from 5-10 min to over 40min waits, tickets went from solved in under 24hours to 48+ and the quality of general customer service dive bombed and this is with the exact same workforce #’s.

Management noticed and put more overwatch in place which sort of fixed some issues but after a couple of months the agents figured out work arounds for the watchguards and back to crap service it went.

August 2022 they forced back to the centers and no more WFH thank god.

 

[NightReaver]

I work in a shop making stuff that the machines of the world need.

Must be nice to sit at home you guys.

Blue collar fist-bump.

 

[socK]

I work in a shop making stuff that the machines of the world need.

Must be nice to sit at home you guys.

Who do you think writes the software that allows your business to exist

Also going for a morning run while you're commuting is pretty nice

 

[NightReaver]

Who do you think writes the software that allows your business to exist

People made machines before software. They could do so after.

WFH jobs would cease to exist before.

 

[freeagentt]

Who do you think writes the software that allows your business to exist

Your comment tells me that if this was the jungle you would not make it.

In the old world, if you worked from home it was because you were on welfare.

 

[sharknice]

Your comment tells me that if this was the jungle you would not make it.

In the old world, if you worked from home it was because you were on welfare.

Everyone used to work from home pre industrial age.

 

[bigdogchris]

I've not seen anything positive for employeers come from work from home. I have however seen decreased productivity. My last job, a guy I worked with played video games all day at work but thought no one noticed. What do you think he's doing now that he's WFH?

And the whole "come into the office or your done" philosophy is just a great way to clear out people who you really don't want anyways.

When you see these stories of people who are working 2 (or more) jobs at the same time, it just makes me sick thinking about how some of us have to go in and put in a full days work every day but only get 1 paycheck.

But I'm not fully against WFH. I do think it's OK for some jobs that have very tight performance metrics like call centers. But for jobs when it's just the honor system, I don't think it works as a broad policy because there are too many bad eggs that ruin it for the few who can be truly more productive at home.

 

[DukenukemX]

I work in a shop making stuff that the machines of the world need.

Must be nice to sit at home you guys.

Some jobs can't be done at home. Even those can benefit from having people work from home. You want less traffic? You want less pollution? You want cheaper gasoline? Let those who can work from home, work from home. As someone who lives in NJ, I hate all the traffic. Going into NYC is the worst, because it's just bumper to bumper the whole time. It's also good for rural areas where houses were literally falling apart due to them being vacant. One of the places NYC people moved to besides NJ is upstate NY, and trust me those areas needed more people. I can tell, because I'm seeing more Audi's and Tesla's all over the place where you'd expect pickup trucks and Murican cars. Before you just saw retires living there because that's the cheaper place they can live off their social security. I'd imagine it's nice to live in a house where you have nothing around you but trees and mountains, while you get on your computer to work. A lot of those places now have fiber internet, mostly because ISP's would never run wires to those homes.

Trust me, you want these people to work from home. The only people who don't benefit from this are land lords and local city governments. Fuck those people anyway.

 

[freeagentt]

Its all good guys, I am just jealous.

 

[SamuelL421]

Its all good guys, I am just jealous.

“The grass is always greener “ and all that stuff… I’m a WFH IT guy but, for what it’s worth, the most fulfilling jobs I’ve had were probably either farmhand or when I was an underling at an ad agency (both for laughably bad pay too) *shrug*

 

[freeagentt]

“The grass is always greener “ and all that stuff… I’m a WFH IT guy but, for what it’s worth, the most fulfilling jobs I’ve had were probably either farmhand or when I was an underling at an ad agency (both for laughably bad pay too) *shrug*

Interesting, I can see it though. Everyone here who is good with computers is probably good with their hands..

I used to drive a desk for a few years.. I hated it lol. I liked going home clean, but thats about it.

 

[cAllen]

Everyone has an opinion, but if you want "their" money...you work where your employer says you work.

 

[DukenukemX]

Everyone has an opinion, but if you want "their" money...you work where your employer says you work.

Starting to look like if you want to make money, you let employees work from home. You can act like there's a ton of people ready to break down the door and take away their jobs, but that's not the case today. Went to my local AutoZone and the guy there was bragging about how happy he is to quit his previous job and worked for Autozone. Apparently, they really wanted to get blood from a stone, but him and everyone else just packed up and left. Dudes now a manager at Autozone. You hear this story all the time where the manager walks in and tells employees they need to work longer hours and put more effort into the company. What they don't know is that the employee had it and was already lining up another job. The job market is no longer a one way street. Losing employees can destroy a business, and other businesses know this and are ready to pay for it. For every company that wants you to come to the office, there's one that doesn't care.

 

[Darunion]

Starting to look like if you want to make money, you let employees work from home. You can act like there's a ton of people ready to break down the door and take away their jobs, but that's not the case today. Went to my local AutoZone and the guy there was bragging about how happy he is to quit his previous job and worked for Autozone. Apparently, they really wanted to get blood from a stone, but him and everyone else just packed up and left. Dudes now a manager at Autozone. You hear this story all the time where the manager walks in and tells employees they need to work longer hours and put more effort into the company. What they don't know is that the employee had it and was already lining up another job. The job market is no longer a one way street. Losing employees can destroy a business, and other businesses know this and are ready to pay for it. For every company that wants you to come to the office, there's one that doesn't care.

My wife where she works shes been there about 3years. Average time an employee stays is about 3-6months. The company keeps blaming not finding good workers. But a high turnover rate is rarely an employee problem imo.

 

[TheHig]

People quit bad management even at good jobs. Pretty universal.

 

[WorldExclusive]

Amazon owns/leases an abundance of real estate. The last thing they want is empty spaces caused by remote workers. They have to justify the glut somehow.