Guessing it’s a flawed idea in some way (but not a manager myself) - I think they should offer a modest but nontrivial pay overlay type of thing for in-office work over remote. If you really like remote, take the paycut but stay comfy. If you really need/want maximal $, you do most or all of your work in the office.
@@WPS691Anecdotally, my friend who’s a recruiter has 10-12 times the applicants for remote work job compared to traditional office job. Remote workers put a spotlight on just how unproductive many office jobs are. Going back to the office saves these jobs from being cut.
I’ll try to make it make sense… “it is not about you or your thoughts about what you think is best for the company. You are an employee, do what you are told or go find somewhere else to work.” The video is right that what is going on is corporate gaslighting. Everyone can hate on corporations, but what really matters is what will employees do? Stay, leave, form a union? Companies are now indifferent to the decision of the majority of average office workers. Companies believe that worker are easily replaced. Best of luck to those in corporate America
@@danielvergara9890 I was looking for something along these lines. Just before my employer announced an RTO, Fox Business release survey results saying 25% of those surveyed admitted it was done at least in part to make people quit and save in attrition.
u r 100% right " in disguise". when they need u, they run n smile 2u, rub ur shoulder, once the NEED 4u over, they fire U, under different excuses. the old wisdom said "dnt put all ur eggs in same basket". this is the real ugly face & side of big capitalists firms= 1st & last Goal is to make n generate profit at any cost or price, even if it require fire part of the gd staff
@@sighsgkj Yeah that was funny. You gotta hand it to Wells Fargo. After helping spark the Great Recession years ago, they manage to make everything extremely worse!
And that might not have happened if she had coworkers who didn’t work from home and actually cared. Sorry but that story says more about the every day workers at Wells Fargo than the upper management.
@@ninjagirl226 Do you really think WFH was the reason she wasn't identified, and had nothing to do with management that didn't realize she was entirely gone and unresponsive? She literally was in-office with other managers who were also in-office.
@@ninjagirl226 Nah, not WFH's fault. The janitors & staff on site are responsible. Especially whoever does payroll & tracks work hours. The fact they think its ok for someone stay clocked in on site for up to 96 hours is a bad mark on the company & its on site work culture and why no one wants to go back to the office.
Remote work puts a spotlight on just how unproductive so many office workers and departments are. I have friends who were easily doing multiple remote work jobs over an eight hour day.
@@86Framerthe data has shown different. People or more productive with hybrid or remote work options. The crazy thing is people can be in the building and still not work. Happens everyday!… Hire the right person and being unproductive will never be a problem.
@@KFontLab The data where people who want to work from home say they’re more productive there? Let’s look at what the vast majority of profit driven companies see, because they’d rather fire people than have them work remote. These companies only see the color green and most of these remote worker types just aren’t worth their salaries. Y’all had a couple years where you could easily work at least two different jobs during an eight hour day. I hope you put at least an additional 20 grand into your 401k (or something else good) for those years of your life. Instead of blowing your money on stupid stuff.
The temptation for younger office workers to goof off when working remotely is just too great. Collaboration on ideas will never be the same remotely vs in person. Even the nerd god Elon Musk feels the exact same way. If your employer wants you back in you can always quit, but keep in mind this is not the 2021 job market, and someone will gladly take your in-office job if you don’t want to do it.
Couldn't agree more! I've seen the performance metrics being changed twice in this quarter and it's way harder than it was before. They're definitely planning quiet lay-offs!
Return to office is a collective goal by CEOs to repair the values of commercial real estate. Nobody has any issue with offshore Indians working remote.
Yeah, that's a big problem most aren't talking about. I read it was $4T worth of commercial real estate bonds coming due over the next few years and many building owners can't pay the coming bill.
Real estate must be the reason and nowhere do i hear or read about it. big tech created remote work more than a couple of decades ago. Is it the ownership of the buildings/land only? What if they are only leasing? The big development partnership stratus of money? Are cities (SF…) losing tax or other revenue besides the ancillary businesses?
@@user_abcxyzz discipline. Try to separate work area with other areas of your home, if you can. Maybe go to nearby coffee shops. Whenever I come in the office, everybody chatters and I can’t focus due to my ADHD. So I bring a noise cancelling headphones but people still wanna come up to me to chatter. A lot less productive when working next to a lot of ppl.
It’s not just bad for everyone. It’s bad for the country as a whole. Rural America is dying and the cost of purchasing a home anywhere near a big city is impossible. Work from home jobs enable American workers to move to more rural areas where they can purchase a house and revitalize depressed parts of rural America. It’s not good for the country to have the vast majority of people living in and around just a dozen or less big cities. We need to spread out our population for better quality of life and standard of living.
Tech companies should be leading the way in remote work, not falling back on a 1950s style of in-office only. With employees around the world, who often all report to the same manager, this nonsense about "collaboration" and meeting in person really falls flat. And like you said, with the "open office" where no one has an assigned desk and "teammates" end up on different floors or in different buildings... Come on. This is about control, period. They don't trust their employees. And I guarantee most of them spend half the day socializing, going to lunch, taking breaks, etc. anyway when they're 'on-site."
They claim "collaboration" and at the same time outsource jobs to countries where foreign languages are spoken and are completely remote from the corporate HQ. It's a lie.
This why I hate going to the office. It's the lazy people who waste my time in meetings and the 1.5 hour long chit chat when they come to my office. They don' t care if you have work to do, their venting about actually working, how tired they are, the endless gossiping is much more important. I get paid to work, not socialize - if employers would only see that they get a bigger bang for the buck with remote employees who actually work and can focus on getting work done without the bother of fake "collaboration" by their fellow lazy coworkers. And yet, they actually enable these people and do nothing about them.
True, but then who would purchase the commercial real estate that has plummeted in value. My theory is that RTO policies are just a collective agenda by CEOs to repair the valuations of the commercial real estate market. Managers don't care if offshore workers are fully remote.
Do they? Amazon isn't a major player in my country (Finland), so not that much forcefed their marketing, but haven't seen environmental or sustainability being high on their agenda.
Two thoughts… sounds like they became like Microsoft and that made them uncomfortable. Thinking it will take 2-3 years to determine if this change had impact towards their objectives. So now we wait.
And less free labor hours given to your employers out of gratitude for that lovely work from home time period. I know my employer got a lot of extra hours from me for free in 20-22. It's been a lot less free labor now that I'm commuting 3 days a week again.
Can you smell the mystery farts yet? Crop dusting?? Looking forward to awkward face to face interactions? People counting how long you’ve been away from your desk?
@@noumenon3020 often that level and up is not connected to the issues the everyday customer encounters. I had an issue in nov2023 which is not resolved. It is frustrating! This holds true is most companies.
My company went to a hybrid work schedule with WFH on Monday & Friday. So guess what we do in the office? We have all of our meetings and huddles in Teams. We communicate with each other 90% of the time on chat and never leave our cubicles. We do the same thing in the office we do at home. So much for all of this “collaboration and culture” nonsense.
its a total joke. My managers did that as well in the last few years. We came to office for these key meetings which they then used Teams videoconferencing...defeatinug the whole point. They want people in cubes but using all these WFH tools like a slave chained to a desk.
Same here. Having hybrid meetings is the most idiotic thing. It's impossible to hear teammates who are in the office full of people who are also having meetings. Most of other teams we work with are in other countries, so every meeting has to be online. A third of our own team is fully remote. What's the actual point of being in the office? It's just a way for senior management to say they increased productivity, that's all.
And I forgot to mention that front line employees have to adhere to hybrid schedule of being in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays. Mangers, however, can WFH whenever they please. You see, they are managers with more on their plate so they need the “flexibility”.
It's not what you think. It's a way to trim workforces without taking the PR hit of a layoff. Other big companies have proven that it works. Some workers will refuse to return to the office, effectively "quitting." If that percentage meets the company's downsize requirements, it's a win.
Im not even kidding, companies who claim to be eco friendly and are forcing their employees to commute to office at the same time should be punished in some way
I live near a major highway and I remember the air quality was so bad before the shut downs. The air was literally flammable during rush hours. I don't miss the high traffic to say the least. I even began wearing a painters mask in the car because there was no fresh air when sitting in traffic-even with the ac running. Now it's totally different, the air isn't terrible.
We're not going back to the pre-Covid era: we're entering a world where companies are taking advantage of both styles. In office, but now we've got the mental stress of non-stop instant messaging and Zoom meetings, hot-desking, badge/PC/room entry monitoring, but we're still commuting ... the worst of all worlds.
The sad thing is that so many people convince themselves that driving long distances and getting "stressed" is inevitable. Our frailness has reached epic proportions. We may want to have everyone join an ROTC program to toughen our skin. I've always made sure that my commute was less than 30 minutes and in a fun vehicle. No long commuting does wonders for your attitude about going to work. And working alongside coworkers, in-person cannot be substituted with Teams or Zoom meetings. It's like watching your wife having a baby via computer, and not being there to experience that special event. Stop crying and get back to work!
@@davepaturno4290Nah the traditional American work schedule doesn’t work for the workers and we all know it. It’s worse in east Asia but that doesn’t excuse America because it’s better in places like Sweden. I don’t need to be in the same room as 20 other people irritating and distracting me to do my job.
The middle managers actually want people back in the office because it’s easy to see how unproductive your average remote worker is. Getting them back in the office saves everyone’s jobs.
@@86Framerthe data says the absolute opposite. Remote work has increased productivity overall. Throwing everyone back in the building at the same time is unnecessary chaos. Obviously people slack, but they would be slacking in the building too.
@@KFontLab People who want to work from home will naturally say they’re more productive there. However, all of these companies (who can only see the color green) know that they just aren’t worth their salaries working from home. And have demonstrated it by constantly lsyinh off huge amounts of people who refuse to go back to the office.
@@86Framer university researcher here, always been on remote. I can grant you there are ways to measure productivity without obliging people to stand in a cubicle
@@floatingsara And your average (not all of course) remote worker just isn’t meeting those metrics. That’s why as whole they’re getting laid off or forced back into the office by the thousands every month.
@@Carmë-k7w I work remotely for that space company (Blue Origin). Word from my manager is they will be force all remote workers back in the office as well soon.
Could be that Amazon invested heavily in beautiful commercial real estate headquarters and they are trying to influence CRE market by ending WFH. My teams are happier and more productive while WFH !!!
@@ALifeAfterLayoff How could the tax benefits change is they still own or lease the building. Does the state government have secret police to monitor the cubicles
@@ALifeAfterLayoff Do you think this requires a legal change? These CEO’s are legitimately adding so much bullshit to peoples’ lives. These people are the absolute worst.
@@timgibney5590 If a company invests in new real estate and decides to set up shop in a new location for at least the next several years, it is likely because the local government is offering tax incentives/breaks to hire local talent, especially in economic development zones of certain cities. The more people they hire locally, the more the tax base (funding) grows for the city’s budget. The company pays taxes over the term of their lease in the city as do the employees working there.
I was in a London based Enterprise software company as a Senior manager in 2022, where they wanted us to “lead by example” by going to the office but while most of our staff would work from home. Made no sense and they kept talking about how we needed to lure the staff back to the office, but for most it was a total hassle with long commutes for nothing. The big reason was the office space being mostly empty which frustrated senior management 😅
No. They were concerned about the drop in productivity but also realized they could not be blunt about it since that would damage morale. It is a difficult problem because they can't say the truth. To avoid the negativity they needed to send the message in a more subtle way.
Work closer to where you live. If your skill level results in having very few choices of employers, then move on to another line of work so that you are not so restricted.
@@Tugela60you can't keep saying this without stats to back it up. People aren't foolsh and see that they're still supposed to work remotely from the office so obviously it's not that
@hatter5834 Believe what you want, but I am telling you why they want workers back in the office. I am sorry it does not jive with what you want but that is reality. Do you seriously think that if they could save millions by not having to maintain office space they would choose to not do that? And don't come up with some power play BS. Most executives are not in the same space as regular workers and never see them at all. The return to work mandates are due to productivity reasons.
@Tugela60 i know they want workers back in the office but it's absolutely not because of productivity reasons. If it were, they would absolutely take the chance to use data to say how bad workers are. They do it all the time. If it was because of productivity, they'll enforce people being in office at the same time or stop outsourcing work to other countries because then people can actually work together i person. Instead, they're forcing people to work remotely at the office. It's obviously because real estate investments are going down. They'll rather keep those investments up that save a bit of money by selling off a failed investment.
In the 80's my Dad worked a modest job, Mom stayed at home and raised the kids, and they lived a nice middle class lifestyle including owning a home. Nowadays both I and my partner works and can barely afford to make ends meet. Soon the kids and family dog will need to work to keep this household going. It's the destruction of the American dream right before our eyes.
I'm 54 and my wife and I are VERY worried about our future, gas and food prices rising daily. We have had our savings dwindle with the cost of living into the stratosphere, and we are finding it impossible to replace them. We can get by, but can't seem to get ahead. My condolences to anyone retiring in this crisis, 30 years nonstop just for a crooked system to take all you worked for.
I feel your pain mate, as a fellow retiree, I'd suggest you look into passive index fund investing and learn some more. For me, I had my share of ups and downs when I first started looking for a consistent passive income so I hired an expert advisor for aid, and following her advice, I poured $30k in value stocks and digital assets, Up to 200k so far and pretty sure I'm ready for whatever comes.
If you are not in the financial market space right now, you are making a huge mistake. I understand that it could be due to ignorance, but if you want to make your money work for you...prevent inflation
I was a late bloomer, but Tracy Britt Cool Consulting, my financial advisor helped me bring it all together and got me into crypto. Now retired for 6 years at 72, my managed portfolio with Tracy generates about 9k a month on average more than my RMD on my retirement accounts. Not real big, but together with SS we're able to live reasonably with 160k a year. While being mortgage free.
I got to go to the office 1 day a week... about an hour away. This was in my offer... but have heard rumors of high ups wanting us to come back to office more. I left a FULLY remote job for this position. If this does actually happen I'll spend my office days looking for a job. I am way less productive while in office because of too many distractions. When I'm at home I can sit and crank out code in my home office with no distractions.... don't need to take a cig break, or go to vending machine, etc.
In my experience, once they open the door to one day or more in office, it's to hypnotize the workforce that this is the new norm, and that... oh wait! Look at that, now we want 2 days, 3 days... pushing further and further in their own self interest, which is fair enough! That being said, workers should push for what is in their best interest, otherwise we're going to be slowly accepting worse conditions each quarter.
Ya the distractions at work are because no one wants to be there. Yes there are distractions at work, but you're in a environment where you are comfortable and no one breathing down your neck.
Office is soooo distracting. People talking loudly on phones, bad smells, dropping by your desk for no reason, horrible lights that cause eye strain.. just to name a few - I’m always more productive all by myself - collaboration should be limited to scheduled meeting times and followed up with emails
I can work fine in an office if I need to, but being told that 10 hours a week that I used to spend with my son is suddenly for commuting isn't something I'll ever accept.
There is no commitment to each other, there is no loyalty, there is no friends at work and I don't care about the CEO. No one will look after you except you and your family! Wake up! This has freed me so much and I am much at ease!
Working for Amazon sucked. The culture was terrible. I was a level 6 manager. Most people bail at the 2 year mark when the signing bonus drops or at the 4th year mark when the stock grants are complete. The suckers stay for that 5 year orange badge or 10 year red badge. You are right most people you deal with are in other areas so you use chime or slack or whatever and are not physically interacting anyway. The letter is bs. That being said, a year ago they started providing level 7 and above managers metrics of how often their employees were badging into the office at their assigned building so they have been preparing for this for a while.
I completely agree. I recently started a new hybrid position hoping that going into the office would bring more collaboration. However, when I got to the office, I didn't have an assigned seat and didn't know where anyone from my team was sitting. This is a large company and many of the people I was working with directly were in other regions anyway. The only difference with being in the office and working at home was the scenery. That and having to commute for over an hour and making more normally 8 to 9 hour day into an 11 to 12 hour day.
@@terranova8890It’s not about control. It’s just that it’s common for remote workers to easily be able to work multiple jobs with a forty hour work week. Those remote workers just tend to not be work their paychecks
Some people may view WFH as a perk. But for people who are disabled (or caring for someone who's disabled), WFH is an accessibility issue. This trend of abolishing remote work is very worrying.
@@anthonyrodriguez2413 It sort of is. Most developed countries will have laws to prevent discrimination against disabled people. In the US, for example, they have to follow the Americans with Disabilities Act, which means they are legally obliged to make reasonable accommodations for workers with disabilities. In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act says the same thing. They would open themselves to all sorts of lawsuits if they insisted that disabled people working from home come into the office as a covert way of firing them.
I would NOT mention that. It’s one thing if the worker is disabled and that’s an accommodation. Some exceptions for piece work or 1099 or whatnot..But to be fair, in an hourly role, caregiving in any substantial capacity while on the clock isn’t really cool.
It's all just a power play... they want employees back in the office so they have total control. Even more control than monitoring your camera and online activity. They need to see you sitting in that chair, slaving away, in order to make sure you're "giving your all" for the company...
Why are they like this? What is the business reason for pushing people beyond the point of misery? Don't they know that people snap at a certain point?
Everyone was OK with going to work prior to Covid. The worst part is that if everyone returns to work, the traffic will worsen mid afternoon. For some reason the traffic now is ALWAYS terrible
@@dchardin1 NEVER let it get near the point of "snapping". The Americans With Disabilities (including temporary disabilities) exists. There's FMLA and short-term disability payment benefits. It might be a good idea to pay the optional premium for long-term disability coverage as well. The law, healthcare providers and insurance exist for a reason.
@@edash2065 100% essentially cheaper may lay off then drop the costs of hiring people local and remote. The best of the best will be fine. The average 80% will take a pay cut.
Amazon has high turnover rates, but counters that by over hiring people. Depending on the level there are no interviews or background checks. For office workers they do multiple types of interviews and practice exams.
Showing up is not an arbitrary hoop. There are a lot of bad employees who take advantage of remote work to deliver nothing and still earn a paycheck. And it's demoralizing to the other employees who actually do deliver work.
@@t.yop9 This accusation is not backed up by data, again you're just slandering remote workers like a lying a-hole. Not much of an argument, more of an arrogant middle finger.
@@angelainamarie9656If remote workers (outside of stuff like insurance claims) were actually worth their salaries. Then remote jobs wouldn’t have been constantly slashed for the past over a year. Get out of your pajamas and get to work!
My husband works at Amazon. Half his team works on the other side of the country, so they have to video call anyway. This is so dumb. Just wasting everyone’s time (and money on gas!)
Thoughts: 1) Those organizations that hire remotely will get the pick of A+ players. 2) If you cannot get sufficient collaboration within three days in the office, you are not in an environment conducive to collaboration. Either the management is falling down on the job, or the actual environment is the problem (physically and culturally). Instead of going to 5 days in the office, fix that first.
Yea, but less and less jobs are remote because corporate world is built on control. Part of controlling someone is keeping them stressed, so they need you in the office.
This is a myth. +A talent will go to where the money and opportunities are at, regardless of remote flexibility. Much of what made those workers valuable were that they were team players and see the long term picture in terms of personal gains returned (which is alooot of money when talking about the best, not your avg dude). Remote work is nice but its not $200k+ nice.
I've posted in other messages about my office environment and how distracting and uncomfortable it is, hindering productivity. It's bad enough that most employees have complained to management about the conditions. Corporate won't fix the problem though because of the amount of money it would cost, meaning they'd have to lease a lot more floor space to make it a more pleasant environment. During the lockdowns we not only hired more people while everyone was working from home, we gave back two leased floors of office space to save money. Now that larger numbers of employees are crammed into 30% less space than we had before 2020 and we were overcrowded back then. So much so that our employer had to check with code enforcement to make sure our small restrooms were legal for the number of people per floor. They only got by because we can technically go to another floor and use one of their small restrooms as well. And you can imagine what those restrooms are like when an overcrowded floor of men use them. It's bad enough that I go to the executive and HR floors to do my business, they're not packed like sardines and their facilities are much cleaner. And when someone that sits only 2 feet from you coughs or sneezes, everyone starts looking nervous in the time of post-C worry. I know I use more sick days in our new office configuration than I ever did before. As for collaboration, we actually collaborate more over Teams while working from home than we do in the office because of the overcrowding and distracting other people, because you have to practically sit on top of your neighbor, when you bring others to your tiny desk to collaborate you tend to ruin the productivity of the others around you not involved. Then there's the search for an available conference room with none of the resources you need to collaborate, resources like the multiple monitors on your tiny desk to crowd around.
People don't want to believe other people are that sociopathic. You better believe it! Especially those who make it to the top of a company and had to beat everyone to get there.
Never going to go back into an office. Just as you said, my team is spread out all over the US and Canada, no point in driving for an hour plus to see nobody that I work directly with. The company did have a return to office push, however a lot of people have just ignored it (along with their managers), so nothing really came from the push from the "Overhead" perspective. I am sure that the Operational people did have to return, which has been causing it's own set of problems that I only see in the weekly office update e-mails.
When we returned to office in 2022, the year following was the loneliest and most disconnected year ever. We had a beautiful new building. Lots of space to collaborate. Tiny half-height cubes close together. And nobody talked to each other. Managers never left their office. People just took meetings at their desk. I was miserable. After over ten years there, we had changed. Everyone was dealing with some trauma from COVID, and RTO did not magically fix us. I don’t miss it at all almost two years later. I’m way closer to my remote colleagues across the country now.
Our company, like everyone else, went 100% remote in 2020. They started hiring people all across the country, not near any offices. FF to 2023 and they annlunced a grand back to offices plan to facilitate "collaboration" and "teambuilding," with a 3 day a week RTO for anyone 20 miles or less from an office. But by now more than half the members of the teams were remote. Plus, they'd downsized so much that those who'd wanted to return were assigned most of the available desks already. There's been no mention whatsoever of RTO since early 2024. I've been in a couple times over the last year and it's exactly as you describe. Silence. People work in their cubicles and even when they have catered lunches people come out, get food, and go back to their desks.
My work told us to come back for "the culture". There is no team any longer, we are all out to save ourselves, we deeply do not like each other, nor do we trust any upper leadership. We are all waiting to be laid off. Some "culture".
I just want to thank you for all that you do! In June I was laid off from a remote TPM role at a Bay Area tech company and I watched nearly every one of your videos. I just accepted a Staff level TPM role at a Fortune 100! Much higher level and significantly higher pay! Couldn’t have done it without you!
After working remotely for 5+ years, I hardly see an opportunity or any sense to visit the office again, especially every day. Productivity is higher when people do not need to waste 1-2 hours of their life commuting to work, and these hours add to months which can be spent with the family or invested in yourself.
I told my manager that when it was decided we had to return to the office 3 days a week after working from home for more than two years. My manager told me that I wasn't unique in voicing that same concern. Many of us worked a lot of extra hours because for one thing, we couldn't go anywhere during the lockdowns easily and enjoyably, but also because we didn't spend the 1-2 hours a day on the road (2+ hours round trip for me). I told my manager he wasn't getting those same hours from me anymore now that I had to drive in just for the sake of the CEO wanting our physical presence in an overcrowded office environment.
For some, it means higher productivity, for most, it's the opposite. Productivity has gone down. That's why all these companies want people back in the office. In this case, they just want to lay them off.
@@sblijheid absolutely, everything is individual and some people feel more productive when they work face to face in the office. However, in my organization with 1000+ employees every person I talked to shared that his/her productivity became tangibly higher in a remote mode. I'm sure companies can conduct some kind of researches to assess the situation before forcing the people back to the offices
Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world. They collect and analyze perhaps the most data in the world. They are focused on efficiency above all else. Clearly, their numbers show that employees are not more productive when working from home. They have every incentive to cut office space and the expenses that come with it. And their data says remote work still doesn't pay off in the long run.
Never going back to an office. Everyones anxiety was off the charts in an office. They already have ways to keep thumbs on us at home. I dont need someone standing over my computer in the office making things worse. Theres too many chiefs and not enough workers. If some managers were to help with work and care like some other managers things would run smoother.
Wow- “corporate gaslighting” that’s a great phrase. I’m a hard working, bright, creative, and thirsty employee.. the problem? I hate teamwork… I hate bosses and coworkers… I would do so much work and for less money if I didn’t have to interact with shitty colleagues all the time. Corporate life is not for me. So much happier away from the BS… missing the paycheck though…
Some of my friends have to go back to the office for hybrid…the reason? Companies get a huge tax break in certain cities (ie Newark) if a certain percentage of the workforce is in the office every day which helps revenue for the city. Also, they want to justify the cost of their lease to have someone there.
I’m working a hybrid remote contract job. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to working full time in the office. Right now I spend about 18 hours a week at the office, the rest of the time I’m home. And I like it that way. We as employees just have to start standing up and fighting back. We can’t take this crap anymore.
You go first bud 😁 lol Honestly the only power we have is as consumers, not as employees. Vote w/ your wallet ppl and stop buying so much useless crap! Seriously, so many ppl do it. If Americans really changed that habit, prices for a lot of things would drop!
@@zerocal76 Speaking of useless shit people keep buying stupid shit from Amazon, especially sex toys. Friends that work there say they keep having to pack them.
A friend of mine who did remote work for Amazon was just let go without warning. He lives in a rural area and was the bread winner for his wife and three kids. I'm trying to help him get a job at the company I work for right now.
In-office collaboration? You spend 15 minutes watching someone struggle to get PowerPoint up in a conference room. At home, it's the same deal-15 minutes just to get the presentation going.
Amazon and the big companies can do this but smaller companies cannot. If a company wants to save money and grow, Remote Work is the FUTURE. I can see the Government pushing big companies to do this to save the BANKS (Commercial real estate)!
Amazon were recruiting fully remote roles during the pandemic (I was approached for one). Anyone who took a job on that basis has just been given a nasty rug pull and needs to talk to an employment lawyer if they don't make the "special exemptions" list. If enough people fight it, the bad publicity and cost may just trigger a re-think.
No, they will just replace the ones that can't work in the office. CEO already said they can't win and he is right. Only one that can win is the CEO. He is still working remote.
Good luck finding a competent lawyer to take on Jeff Bezos. And I hope you have a ton of cash for a retainer because I doubt a good lawyer will do it pro bono.
I work for an Amazon company. Those contracts also state things can change according to what's best for the business. Trust me there's no winning a court case. Those fully remote positions are being demolished and RTO 5 days a week is here to stay. I wish it wasn't true as I absolutely love wfh but sadly, it is and you'll need to RTO if you want to stay w the company.
The "special exemptions list" isn't a good idea. We had one of those for a year after mandatory return to the office and it created a lot of employee resentment about how they had to come to the office and other, "special" people didn't have to. My employer ended up having to end the permanent remote work for everyone and we lost some really good talent in that outcome, including one of my previous managers who, I consider the best engineer I've ever met and I've been around for more than 30 years now. We lost a lot though in productivity with resentful employees though IMO.
Yes, 💯% agree! Amazon is like the business that insists on using horse and buggy 🐎 drivers after the invention of the automobile 🚗. No matter how much they hate the change, remote work is not going back! 😆🤣😆🤣
I heard one speculation that they were only doing it to avoid doing layoffs and thus preserve their stock pricing. I tend to agree and suspect this is not their long-term plan.
I doubt that. The corpos want control over their employees and they're getting it back, one layoff after another. Things look even grimmer with the two presidential candidates who see no reason to change anything at all.
Given how hard it is to find work and people eschewing all the local stores in their areas I doubt Amazon will go anywhere. Yeah some talented people will quit and maybe that’s the point. Maybe Amazon wants them to quit so they can replace them with outsourced developers who work at smaller salaries and don’t get benefits and all that. And here’s the kicker: there are many skilled and equally talented developers who are capable of doing the work that locals can do. Especially after they are trained. People here are complacent about this fact. Developers in other countries doesn’t necessarily mean lower quality even if they are cheaper to hire. Take the Ukraine for example. So many amazing developers come from there.
You sound like one of those arrogant disgruntled managers who is insecure and only gets an egoboost by making your employees as miserable as you are. @@maryjanesnow
Amazon: Just say you don’t want to or can’t give up the office spaces. Anyone going into the office is going to be doing the same work they could do remotely, and if other companies don’t follow suit, you will have to pay more for your positions to remain competitive. People will literally take a pay cut to be completely remote.
One thing in RTO (return to office) especially on tech companies is that bean counters realized this hard truth: if it's remote then it can be anywhere. So if it's not in the office let's move our workforce for India or the Philippines where the cost per hour is less than a fifth of the United States. I've seen this with many of my friends and peers. They moved and the jobs that stayed remote are slowly being replaced by cheaper overseas workers. These tech companies have campuses in many other countries. So, reality is that if you have a remote job the chances that you will be outsourced increase dramatically.
My old company just off-shored some functions. The teams they off-shored did come into the office most days. The teams that weren't off-shored happened to be strenuously WFH people who haven't set foot on campus in years. The bean counters looked at what jobs were easy to fill remotely, not which jobs were already staffed by in-house people vs. remote people. The bean counters have massively short memories, though. The last time they off-shored a function (for a deprecated product) we saved at least NEGATIVE $2 million due to low quality out-sourced staffing but it looked good in concept.
In my opinion, whether intentionally or not, worker productivity may decline as a result of this decision. Many employees who, while working remotely, put in extra hours and maintained high engagement, might now feel that their preferences have been dismissed. This could lead them to adopt a more minimalist approach to work-doing only what's necessary to avoid being let go, rather than going above and beyond as they might have done when they had more flexibility.
I'm sorry but going above and beyond doesn't equate to more money being added to your paycheck. Just more responsibility for the same pay. I do what I am paid to do and nothing more. These greedy jobs care nothing about their employees and would post your job probably the very next day if something happended to you. I've seen these dirty rotten companies let go of employees who were getting ready to retire just to keep from giving them what they worked for.
@@truthhurts...6574 If you've worked at a company for a long time and are near retirement, it's not in the company's interest to make you redundant, as they have to pay you a severance for every year you've worked there. If you'd been there say 25 years, your severance pay would be huge depending on the company and their individual policy. They're better off just letting you retire.
Yeah, they don't take into account that the commute savings are often turned over to the company. I've always worked remote, since 2011 when I graduated, and the fight we have in my sector is limiting people from over-working since they're all at home.
@@Longlostpuss every company is not the same. I'm speaking from what I have witnessed in my 20 years of working. Believe it or not some people are very spiteful and do not want to see you have a good life. It angers some to see you retiring getting out the rat race especially if you are not broken down and in bad health able to start a new venture in life. I've seen it in the military too with them trying to kick out people before before they can get retirement. Those asre the ones that then go to try to get medically chaptered out to get something for their years of service. It's a dirty game.
Exactly. When our new CEO announced his plan was to bring us back to the overcrowded office 5 days a week I let my manager know that my availability outside of office hours would be much less, my after-hours response time would be much higher as I'd be powering down my home office each day at the end of the "normal workday", that I wouldn't be checking in on things over the weekend and in the evenings before bed, and that I'd be claiming on-call pay anytime they called me after hours, something I've never done before unless it was an excessive amount of time in one day. Apparently that was a common sentiment from many of us salaried workers and the CEO shelved that plan, at least for the last two years. Hopefully that lasts at least a few more years until retirement.
I've been trying to move out of my toxic tech startup for years now. It has never taken this long for me to find a job, ever. All the competition from the layoffs and RTO policies is making it impossible.
I’m in the exact same boat. Working for a startup where I got stuck under a toxic manager and I am desperate to get out, but there’s no hope on the horizon. I’m actually pretty depressed
The company I was working for folded in January, outside of about 2 months of contract work I have been unemployed and looking. Hopefully picking up a long term contract soon, it's extremely rough out there right now though, especially for those of us working fully remote.
Same...been laid off for a few months now..haven't had one interview..at this point I don't even care about going in 5 days...I need a job.🫤And I won't even mention the low paying salaries.
Managers and business owners need to be held accountable for this. Good software devs are scarce, this is gonna slow down things alot and tbh they deserve it.
@@lifecyclestyled6732 They don't care about the money, the money belongs to the company. They want to have a big fancy desk in a big fancy office and boss around underlings.
The "End Remote Work" stuff is just a way for companies to force employees to quit in order to avoid providing employees WARN / unemployment benefits in mass layoffs... It's just to save some money. Our business used remote work to expand 30% and avoid a $10 million office add on. Instead, we are adding a $30 million laboratory complex expanding our core business. We proved the model during covid. We have been continuously breaking revenue records. Our CEO said we are never going back. Over 30% of our employees are Remote. It allows us to attract higher quality professionals at lower salaries than would be required to get people to relocate to our area.
Your video inspired me to lower my pay expectations to $7.25 per hour (minimum wage) as an experienced Data Engineer. I would rather get minimum wage than return to the office. Life is better at $20K remotely than $130K in the office.
I assume you're speaking hyperbolically, but I can agree with your setiment to some degree. Some of IT jobs in my area (legit,customer facing IT jobs,not just resetting passwords over the phone) are still paying about 50-60k a year in my area. Long hours with no ovetime, stresful, projects that go on along with your already assigned duties, if you take vacation or a sick day your work sitting there waitig for you. Meanwhile, some fast food / retail jobs with no experience are paying18/20hr. Is all the BS really worth the extra 10k a year?
😢😢I was an auditor before I retired in 2019. Most of my work was either at the client location or working in my office cubicle. However, the last few years they started letting us work from home some of the time. They found that we had higher productivity by getting us out of office cubicles.
Why does it seem like corporations are dead set against people having a better quality of life? Remote work would cut way down on my stress and the money I spend on gas.
For those of us staying remote, management has decided they can squeeze more juice out of us. "You get the benefit of working in your pjs." They no longer take into account the overhead savings they are reaping and are jealous of our time. They are demanding increased productivity ONLY for the remote team members.
You are asking if remote workers are lazy? Check the quarterly profit reports. Last one was +13% profit for Amazon. And the raises they offered didn’t even cover inflation!!
He likes the "culture" of having enough money to give thousands of people raises, but instead decides how they get to live their lives and have no say.
Of course they have a say. It's a simple yes or no question, wether you like to jump through the hoops or seek employment elsewhere. It's not a nice situatuation for the most, but each and every worker gets to make that choise.
@@also307 Absolutely an ultimatum. That wasn't my point at all. It's a matter of "take or leave it", but there is a choise. I might be mistaken, but i don't think that Amazon has been at the top of the totem pole for the most desirable employes even for office workers for many years. Those poor bastards unfortunate enough, not to employ elsewhere will probably also have to start peeing in bottles, like other Amazon workers allready do. It never was a secret that Amazon has worse corporate culture than medieval slaves.
All they really want to do is track you while you go into a huge office building they've rented and sit with people you don't know and them go into a teams meeting - with a coworker in a different office on a different coast
These employers are gonna have karma come back to bite them in the ass. They’re gonna go from not being able to get top tier talent to getting less then average, to barely have people knock on their door for job opportunities.
Great point about middle managers. They have slowly taken away all the decent paying jobs that were middle managers. They have done an excellent job replacing living wage. Jobs that paid 80k-150k now pay 40k.
I’m not saying that they should, but if they were going to end remote working, they should have done it in ‘21 or ‘22. The fact that it’s been a thing for 5 years, makes ending remote working that much more ridiculous!
They tried back in 2022 but had a lot of resistance then. People were still scared of the "big C", and companies were still bleeding employees who were jumping ship. I know I was hit with a lot of solicitations for 100% remote jobs, so were a lot of my colleagues who took them. Now those are drying up, but people are still used to the last almost 5 years as you noted.
They would have, but got massive pushback. The economy is slowing down now, so they cant afford the poor productivity that comes with remote work. I think if people were willing to take a 30-40% paycut to bring productivity back in line management would be fine with remote work.
@@Shadow_Banned_Conservative By that point, the Big C was just an excuse to not come back to the office. Sort of like the teachers that pleaded to stay on remote school, so they could stay 'teaching' from a hammock, and taking vacations.
I think remote work needs to be a priority. The office work place is fully of bullies, sabotaging, harassment and drama. No thanks. I don't want people counting how many shits I take a day.
After 38 years in the office, post-COVID I worked remotely until I retired with mixed emotions, considering bringing my team back in to the office or not. Most of the team was always available on Teams, and most always had their cameras on, but some were screwing us. I had one new hire that objected to our core hours and with further investigation we found she was working two full time, 8-hour a day jobs at the same time. But in the end, there are dozens of reasons to continue remote work and dozens to terminate it, from every perspective… the employer, employee, community, etc.
This is a bad decision. Here's why. Remote work allows companies to see other candidates, highly experienced candidates, and potentially game-changing productive employees who could play an integral role in the success of a company but doesn't live near that company's HQ or main office. If you're a company President or CEO why limit yourself to just the talent that's available in your market? The best employee for your company could be someone living on the other side of the country. Why do you think Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meets was invented???
Actually it goes beyond what you talk about with remote meeting software. Almost 30 years ago when I was hired with my employer they used to look for the best candidates. We'd fly people in from anywhere in the country if their resume impressed us. Put them up for 2-3 days in a hotel and after a day long interview, if we liked them we'd pay relocation costs, temporary residence (I had 30 days paid), and other assistance if needed to make them happy new employees. Somewhere around the 2000 timeframe we wouldn't spend money anymore to attract people and HR required that we "hire locally". Things have never been the same quality-wise since HR dictated more who we hired than the actual department managers.
They'll change their policy back once they're not worried about layoffs. Companies know how attractive remote work is to potential applicants, so when they want to hire more/better talent for the cost they will look remote. Right now, most big tech companies are more concerned about needing to lay off existing employees; hence the lack of new hires and policy changes designed to get people to quit.
@@SeattlePioneer Unless it's a company that already has employees working overseas, then no. If it's a company that only has its employees working domestically, they won't want to have to deal with the payroll hassle with foreign taxes and foreign exchange rates for one employee.
If these companies want to improve and create healthy workplace cultures, they'd at the very least allow hybrid work. Productivity improved while employees worked remotely. I'm currently looking for optimal remote work opportunities. I left the traditional 8 to 4:30pm healthcare job because the work environment was toxic. Especially post pandemic. I have PTSD from my last job. A lot of toxic employees and supervisors are in these companies and they're not being held accountable for their bad behavior.
I agree. No one size fits all model but hybrid is a good compromise between company and employee. I do also find occasion face to face interaction is very productive.
Unless there's an organized mass movement of that kind of action, and at a big enough level to have an affect on Amazon profits, don't bother. They don't care and won't notice. If it's convenience and service benefits you, keep it. They're a huge global corporation (there's an Amazon for most countries and languages) that's too big and successful (and too convenient and popular to its users) to be affected by anything like a few people here and there cancelling prime in protest.
I enjoyed listening to your perspective. I have worked remotely more or less for a pretty long time now. Back when I did physically work in the office the bulk of my team was in a different city so my reality was there were a lot of nice people in the office and I didn’t necessarily mind being there. However, the people I saw every day in the office their jobs had absolutely nothing to do with my job and nobody I worked with directly was in the building. But the reality of it was, I was on teams that did not work in the same office, I did so in my mind I really saw no difference between an office and remote because even when I was in the office I was still a remote employee and I spent my entire day either on the phone or on teams
It won't. In a capitalist society/economy the Companies dictate. Not the Employees. Simple as. People will eventually be happy just to have a job, believe me.
My viewpoint is this. If companies can outsource jobs to other countries, they can let people work from home. This is likely just about control and to make sure they have eyes on everyone at all times.
An anxious staff is a much less productive one. It's so idiotic. As a boss (and or manager) what do I want? For my staff to be anxious and distracted, or physically and mentally comfortable and focussed / so they can focus on their work? That's a no brainer to me but higher ups and corporate c-suite types aren't often the wisest bunch when it comes to people. I've read some articles that theorize that it's a lot of it is about the big execs and their egos. They don't feel as big and important when they can't see & be seen, and wave their arm across a physical spread and domain of people who work for them - and who HAVE to acknowledge and smile at them cuz they're dependent on them for their jobs. It's like plantation mentality.
Most “office” companies are owned by bigger giant companies that own 10+ smaller companies. These mega corporations often own and rent the office buildings to their smaller companies. Just follow the money.
@@roberth4395 of course, that makes a lot of sense. 👍 All I was thinking was that the company owned the building but rented to other stores and businesses on the street level floor and or other businesses in other floors of the building. And that they're street level floor renters like coffee shops etc have more customers from a full building of people. But yeah, basically many reasons but none that have to do with how useful for the employees and productive for the company WFH is.
Thanks a lot, Amazon. As if it already wasn’t hard enough in this tech market to get a different position. I’m stuck under a toxic boss at a dysfunctional startup and I’ve desperately want it out for many months now. Trying all the things that the experts say when looking for a new job and I’m coming up With nothing. It’s depressing, and I feel like my walls are closing in
Execs who push office work, especially in a company with offices around the globe, are just egomaniacs that thrive on the power trip and adulation and deference they get in the office, and/or the access to extramarital activity. Change my mind.
They just announced at my workplace that they are going back to full-time in-office again. They claim that the reason why is that working remotely is a security liability and that the project wants us back in office 100%. We were scheduled to eventually go back in a hybrid schedule where we would only go into the office 2 days a week. Apparently, from my I've heard from the rumor mill at work is that our off-shore IT folks violated processes that lead to security breaches that cost the company money, so they are going to take it out on us American workers. On top of that, they gave us all crappy merit increases this year even though we did so well throughout the year. The only benefit my job had was it being remote/hybrid. If that goes away, I'll just start looking for other jobs where I can get a nice pay bump.
All hail forced collaboration! It is now a part of our great culture to make people waste thousands precious hours of their lives commuting to work and stressing out! We could compensate for the "lack" of collaboration by coming up with some creative ways to fix it, like setting up more company parties or informal out-of-office offline meetings and seeing each other in person during some fun stuff outside of work, but we're too lazy for that, and it's much easier to just try to force you back! That's our culture!
I had no desire to see 99% of my co-workers at "a party" or any function outside of work. They are co-workers, not friends. Retired since 1/2020. Y'all can have it.
Those window offices won't be admired by remote workers and the executives can't have their pointless all hands where they can brag about their bonuses and have their butts kissed by *that* employee who always asks the questions at the end of an all hands. Who else will appreciate the executives' parking spaces? Who will laugh at their lame jokes? They're just a spouse or partner or parent at home. But, they are royalty in the office. What executive would give that up?
Another small thing that's being overlooked that I picked up on when the pandemic happened was that a lot these men were desperate to get back into the office because they didn't want to be around their families 24/7 at home. Also they couldn't get out as freely to meet up with their mistresses and hookups buddies. I knew of at least 2 men cheating on their wives who were mad that we all didn't get called back into the office during the pandemic. The office was available to anyone to use if they were having internet issues or needed a quiet space, but nope those individuals wanted all of us back in the office because they ran out of excuses to tell their spouses. I just laughed them.
I got diagnosed with PTSD, aggravated by being placed into Focus at Amazon, a situation so ugly that ended up with my supervisor being fired , after he threatened me during a phone call. Despite the admission of guilt, they did not take me out of Focus. This was less than a year ago. I think the reduction targets were being demanded from L8s and L7s for a while now, but maybe PIPs were not doing the job fast enough? Good ol’ Andy helping the boys with a 5 days mandate, gonna send those middle managers out of the door much faster.
@@JustinHitt funny thing is that I live close to their offices, I was there 5 days a week on my own will. I guess even more reason to try to make me leave by other means…
The only reason management hates remote work is that their little tinpot dictator souls can't bear the thought that people might not have their nose to the grindstone every living second. Being remote keeps them at arms length and they hate that. Instead of being concerned with the real work and whether it gets done properly by the deadline, they obsess over making sure people are 'busy' every second. Trivia fact... people can't work that way because we aren't machines. So what ends up happening is that either people make themselves sick by stressing over being watched incessantly, or they spend all their time figuring out how to evade panopticon culture and not working...
No one works effectively when under constant surveillance. This is why the panopticon was used in prisons... it dehumanizes and discomforts the observed, to the point of declining health and sanity. And, thus, was eventually removed from the prison system for being inhumane. And yet the workforce, of people who are not imprisoned, are expected to submit to the same thing? Curious... Frankly, I am a professional, and when hired to do a job, expect my employer to recognize this fact and let me do my damn job without interference. If they're so insecure about my productivity, then it seems like they should have hired someone they like better from the get go? I just have no time or patience for overweening managerial nonsense.
As an SWE, lately I’ve been thinking of downsizing everything, be a minimalist, move to a small town, learn other hard labor skills while using my tech skills to build a business. I think we’ve been spoiled with lucrative tech salary and having all these materialistic stuff is unnecessary. I’m starting to use my car mechanic skills now too by fixing friends cars for lower rate. Can’t rely on big companies anymore. We are all expendable to them. Gotta have backup plans.
Looking to land an increasingly rare remote job? Here's how I can help: www.alifeafterlayoff.com/career-resume-training-courses/
Guessing it’s a flawed idea in some way (but not a manager myself) - I think they should offer a modest but nontrivial pay overlay type of thing for in-office work over remote. If you really like remote, take the paycut but stay comfy. If you really need/want maximal $, you do most or all of your work in the office.
Employees with spines will leave Amazon at once.
@@WPS691Anecdotally, my friend who’s a recruiter has 10-12 times the applicants for remote work job compared to traditional office job.
Remote workers put a spotlight on just how unproductive many office jobs are. Going back to the office saves these jobs from being cut.
Bryan, the word is "AsteriSk." The word "risk" is in it.
My leadership hates letting us work remote, but we only meet on Teams in the office. Make it make sense.
Sounds about right.
Just sit at your desk and use meetings at a break and just casually listen in.
Why do you callem leadership then
@@AldhairJOyaga because they are "leader" of the team.
I’ll try to make it make sense… “it is not about you or your thoughts about what you think is best for the company. You are an employee, do what you are told or go find somewhere else to work.”
The video is right that what is going on is corporate gaslighting. Everyone can hate on corporations, but what really matters is what will employees do? Stay, leave, form a union? Companies are now indifferent to the decision of the majority of average office workers. Companies believe that worker are easily replaced. Best of luck to those in corporate America
This is nothing but a lay-off in disguise
@@danielvergara9890 I was looking for something along these lines. Just before my employer announced an RTO, Fox Business release survey results saying 25% of those surveyed admitted it was done at least in part to make people quit and save in attrition.
Most likely. More to come.
u r 100% right " in disguise". when they need u, they run n smile 2u, rub ur shoulder, once the NEED 4u over, they fire U, under different excuses. the old wisdom said "dnt put all ur eggs in same basket". this is the real ugly face & side of big capitalists firms= 1st & last Goal is to make n generate profit at any cost or price, even if it require fire part of the gd staff
Correct.
Probably just trying to push out some folks.
They say team but then you read in news "Wells Fargo took 4 days to notice an employee had died in cubicle."
@@sighsgkj Yeah that was funny. You gotta hand it to Wells Fargo. After helping spark the Great Recession years ago, they manage to make everything extremely worse!
This is a perfect comment, so true
And that might not have happened if she had coworkers who didn’t work from home and actually cared.
Sorry but that story says more about the every day workers at Wells Fargo than the upper management.
@@ninjagirl226 Do you really think WFH was the reason she wasn't identified, and had nothing to do with management that didn't realize she was entirely gone and unresponsive? She literally was in-office with other managers who were also in-office.
@@ninjagirl226 Nah, not WFH's fault. The janitors & staff on site are responsible. Especially whoever does payroll & tracks work hours. The fact they think its ok for someone stay clocked in on site for up to 96 hours is a bad mark on the company & its on site work culture and why no one wants to go back to the office.
It’s “quiet firing”. This is how they get ppl to quit so they don’t have to report layoffs and avoid paying out severance pay & unemployment.
Remote work puts a spotlight on just how unproductive so many office workers and departments are. I have friends who were easily doing multiple remote work jobs over an eight hour day.
@@86Framerthe data has shown different. People or more productive with hybrid or remote work options. The crazy thing is people can be in the building and still not work. Happens everyday!… Hire the right person and being unproductive will never be a problem.
@@KFontLab The data where people who want to work from home say they’re more productive there?
Let’s look at what the vast majority of profit driven companies see, because they’d rather fire people than have them work remote. These companies only see the color green and most of these remote worker types just aren’t worth their salaries.
Y’all had a couple years where you could easily work at least two different jobs during an eight hour day. I hope you put at least an additional 20 grand into your 401k (or something else good) for those years of your life. Instead of blowing your money on stupid stuff.
The temptation for younger office workers to goof off when working remotely is just too great. Collaboration on ideas will never be the same remotely vs in person. Even the nerd god Elon Musk feels the exact same way. If your employer wants you back in you can always quit, but keep in mind this is not the 2021 job market, and someone will gladly take your in-office job if you don’t want to do it.
Couldn't agree more! I've seen the performance metrics being changed twice in this quarter and it's way harder than it was before. They're definitely planning quiet lay-offs!
Coming from a company that offers online shopping is highly ridiculous
Perhaps we should abandon remote shopping and head back to brick and mortar stores.
never gonna happen... the laziness has set in and strip malls are being demolished.
@@MarkDaMak and no one wants to go in the store with a bunch of nutbags lol
@@joes3376 Very, very clever comment!! Touché Amazon! Thank you for making me smile amidst all this real gloom :)
Hahahaha!
Best
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I miss the 90s mall. But I love Amazon 🥰
Return to office is a collective goal by CEOs to repair the values of commercial real estate. Nobody has any issue with offshore Indians working remote.
Yeah, that's a big problem most aren't talking about. I read it was $4T worth of commercial real estate bonds coming due over the next few years and many building owners can't pay the coming bill.
💯💯💯💯💯
YES! I just said this. This is about commercial real estate and the nose dive it has taken over the last several years.
Real estate must be the reason and nowhere do i hear or read about it. big tech created remote work more than a couple of decades ago.
Is it the ownership of the buildings/land only? What if they are only leasing? The big development partnership stratus of money? Are cities (SF…) losing tax or other revenue besides the ancillary businesses?
Company should stop offshore from India if they want us to go back to the office 5 days a week.
Managers always start announcements with a bunch of word salad no one gives a shit about.
Gotta distract the people from the real outrage.
Oh you know same ol' "office politics." The only worse politics are the presidential election type... 🤷♂
middle managers get told what to say
Politicians and government officials too.
Hey! You gotta justify your EXISTANCE somehow! Hell, someone studying stuff like gender-studies or philosophy also has to do that!
Anyone who thinks being in the office makes you more productive has never been in an average office.
Or they are a middle manager that doesn't actually know how to manage people.
I could never be a remote worker. I cannot be productive that way. I prefer to be in the actual work environment 🙃
@@user_abcxyzz discipline. Try to separate work area with other areas of your home, if you can. Maybe go to nearby coffee shops. Whenever I come in the office, everybody chatters and I can’t focus due to my ADHD. So I bring a noise cancelling headphones but people still wanna come up to me to chatter. A lot less productive when working next to a lot of ppl.
@@user_abcxyzz try being in an office with 180 people, all talking at once, and let's see how productive you are.
It depends on the type of work and the office environment. Some work are suited to teamwork while others you're better off solo.
It’s not just bad for everyone. It’s bad for the country as a whole. Rural America is dying and the cost of purchasing a home anywhere near a big city is impossible. Work from home jobs enable American workers to move to more rural areas where they can purchase a house and revitalize depressed parts of rural America. It’s not good for the country to have the vast majority of people living in and around just a dozen or less big cities. We need to spread out our population for better quality of life and standard of living.
💯%!
Tech companies should be leading the way in remote work, not falling back on a 1950s style of in-office only. With employees around the world, who often all report to the same manager, this nonsense about "collaboration" and meeting in person really falls flat. And like you said, with the "open office" where no one has an assigned desk and "teammates" end up on different floors or in different buildings... Come on. This is about control, period. They don't trust their employees. And I guarantee most of them spend half the day socializing, going to lunch, taking breaks, etc. anyway when they're 'on-site."
If they're gonna fall back to the 50s then we should get pensions and they should have 90% tax on $3 million+ in income.
@@watamatafoyu Co-sign.
They claim "collaboration" and at the same time outsource jobs to countries where foreign languages are spoken and are completely remote from the corporate HQ. It's a lie.
This why I hate going to the office. It's the lazy people who waste my time in meetings and the 1.5 hour long chit chat when they come to my office. They don' t care if you have work to do, their venting about actually working, how tired they are, the endless gossiping is much more important. I get paid to work, not socialize - if employers would only see that they get a bigger bang for the buck with remote employees who actually work and can focus on getting work done without the bother of fake "collaboration" by their fellow lazy coworkers. And yet, they actually enable these people and do nothing about them.
True, but then who would purchase the commercial real estate that has plummeted in value. My theory is that RTO policies are just a collective agenda by CEOs to repair the valuations of the commercial real estate market. Managers don't care if offshore workers are fully remote.
Amazon should not claim they are environmentally conscious.
Do they? Amazon isn't a major player in my country (Finland), so not that much forcefed their marketing, but haven't seen environmental or sustainability being high on their agenda.
Amazon is not a friend of the rainforest.
Two thoughts… sounds like they became like Microsoft and that made them uncomfortable. Thinking it will take 2-3 years to determine if this change had impact towards their objectives. So now we wait.
Their customers certainly aren't.
But there also the richest company that's Number and that got to stay plus what's wrong just drive to work
Back to sharing bathrooms 🤮 listening to horrible office jokes, spending time in traffic, and stressing about being late to the office. Yuck.
And less free labor hours given to your employers out of gratitude for that lovely work from home time period. I know my employer got a lot of extra hours from me for free in 20-22. It's been a lot less free labor now that I'm commuting 3 days a week again.
Then go live in a cave
Yeah and it's always one dude who hates his wife & family and doesn't want to come in to an empty office that sets the rules for everyone else
Can you smell the mystery farts yet? Crop dusting?? Looking forward to awkward face to face interactions? People counting how long you’ve been away from your desk?
Cry babies gen lol , just quit
As a former mechanical engineer at Amazon Robotics for 5 years, I can confirm you are spot on about the directors being the problem
@@noumenon3020 often that level and up is not connected to the issues the everyday customer encounters. I had an issue in nov2023 which is not resolved. It is frustrating! This holds true is most companies.
Wierd thing though, is that they think guys like you are the problem! 😂
@@Tugela60 lol truth 😅
@noumenon3020 They are not wrong though.
@@Tugela60 kudos on the weird, unintelligent and disappointingly dick response.
My company went to a hybrid work schedule with WFH on Monday & Friday. So guess what we do in the office? We have all of our meetings and huddles in Teams. We communicate with each other 90% of the time on chat and never leave our cubicles. We do the same thing in the office we do at home. So much for all of this “collaboration and culture” nonsense.
its a total joke. My managers did that as well in the last few years. We came to office for these key meetings which they then used Teams videoconferencing...defeatinug the whole point. They want people in cubes but using all these WFH tools like a slave chained to a desk.
Same here. Having hybrid meetings is the most idiotic thing. It's impossible to hear teammates who are in the office full of people who are also having meetings. Most of other teams we work with are in other countries, so every meeting has to be online. A third of our own team is fully remote. What's the actual point of being in the office? It's just a way for senior management to say they increased productivity, that's all.
And I forgot to mention that front line employees have to adhere to hybrid schedule of being in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays. Mangers, however, can WFH whenever they please. You see, they are managers with more on their plate so they need the “flexibility”.
😡
It's not what you think. It's a way to trim workforces without taking the PR hit of a layoff. Other big companies have proven that it works. Some workers will refuse to return to the office, effectively "quitting." If that percentage meets the company's downsize requirements, it's a win.
Amazon does not give a fuck about PR, this move is aiming at saving severance packages and stock bonus.
But all these “work from home” geniuses think their company will close their doors without their daily 15 minutes worth of work from them.
This.
And cheaper too if people chose to quit rather than being laid off.
What did you think we were thinking?
Im not even kidding, companies who claim to be eco friendly and are forcing their employees to commute to office at the same time should be punished in some way
That company will be punished when you quit and deny them your awsomeness.
@sayyara2921 Totally agree.
Have you caught on already that THAT was just a gimmick from the start?
I live near a major highway and I remember the air quality was so bad before the shut downs. The air was literally flammable during rush hours. I don't miss the high traffic to say the least. I even began wearing a painters mask in the car because there was no fresh air when sitting in traffic-even with the ac running. Now it's totally different, the air isn't terrible.
The vast majority of corporate 'eco-friendly' initiatives are nothing more than green-washing, anyway.
We're not going back to the pre-Covid era: we're entering a world where companies are taking advantage of both styles. In office, but now we've got the mental stress of non-stop instant messaging and Zoom meetings, hot-desking, badge/PC/room entry monitoring, but we're still commuting ... the worst of all worlds.
The sad thing is that so many people convince themselves that driving long distances and getting "stressed" is inevitable. Our frailness has reached epic proportions.
We may want to have everyone join an ROTC program to toughen our skin.
I've always made sure that my commute was less than 30 minutes and in a fun vehicle. No long commuting does wonders for your attitude about going to work.
And working alongside coworkers, in-person cannot be substituted with Teams or Zoom meetings.
It's like watching your wife having a baby via computer, and not being there to experience that special event.
Stop crying and get back to work!
Lmao bait
@@LinguaXavier yes exactly this!
@@davepaturno4290 You're a pathetic miserable worm.
@@davepaturno4290Nah the traditional American work schedule doesn’t work for the workers and we all know it. It’s worse in east Asia but that doesn’t excuse America because it’s better in places like Sweden.
I don’t need to be in the same room as 20 other people irritating and distracting me to do my job.
Let’s be honest they just don’t want their real estate being devalued.
The middle managers actually want people back in the office because it’s easy to see how unproductive your average remote worker is. Getting them back in the office saves everyone’s jobs.
@@86Framerthe data says the absolute opposite. Remote work has increased productivity overall. Throwing everyone back in the building at the same time is unnecessary chaos. Obviously people slack, but they would be slacking in the building too.
@@KFontLab People who want to work from home will naturally say they’re more productive there. However, all of these companies (who can only see the color green) know that they just aren’t worth their salaries working from home. And have demonstrated it by constantly lsyinh off huge amounts of people who refuse to go back to the office.
@@86Framer university researcher here, always been on remote. I can grant you there are ways to measure productivity without obliging people to stand in a cubicle
@@floatingsara And your average (not all of course) remote worker just isn’t meeting those metrics. That’s why as whole they’re getting laid off or forced back into the office by the thousands every month.
Creates a major cloud hosting platform: doesn't allow remote work.
And now Jeff Bezos is working on a space company.
I'm sure you'll have to show up for that too.
@@Carmë-k7w being required to "show up" to ur job LOL
@@Carmë-k7w I work remotely for that space company (Blue Origin). Word from my manager is they will be force all remote workers back in the office as well soon.
Zoom did the same thing, absolutely nuts
Can't be much of a product then, can it?
Could be that Amazon invested heavily in beautiful commercial real estate headquarters and they are trying to influence CRE market by ending WFH. My teams are happier and more productive while WFH !!!
It's 100% related to tax benefits in their local markets.
@@ALifeAfterLayoff How could the tax benefits change is they still own or lease the building. Does the state government have secret police to monitor the cubicles
@@ALifeAfterLayoff
Do you think this requires a legal change? These CEO’s are legitimately adding so much bullshit to peoples’ lives. These people are the absolute worst.
@@sephondranzer then work for yourself instead for someone lol
@@timgibney5590 If a company invests in new real estate and decides to set up shop in a new location for at least the next several years, it is likely because the local government is offering tax incentives/breaks to hire local talent, especially in economic development zones of certain cities. The more people they hire locally, the more the tax base (funding) grows for the city’s budget. The company pays taxes over the term of their lease in the city as do the employees working there.
That's why people "don't want to work anymore", because they are sick and tired of this corporate BS.
Commuting to work everyday in a big city is soul draining.
@@witblitsfpv1265 then someone else that wants the job will go into the office. Never think you are not replaceable.
Well if you’re too lazy to even go to the job site, then saying you “don’t want to work” seems pretty accurate.
Stop yer yapping and get your azz to werk.
@@crinklecut3790some been too comfortable, a rude awakening is coming. 😊
It's so awesome to be forced to go to the office so you can have zoom calls with your teammates. This is ridiculous!
On a computer that barely even functions.
I was in a London based Enterprise software company as a Senior manager in 2022, where they wanted us to “lead by example” by going to the office but while most of our staff would work from home. Made no sense and they kept talking about how we needed to lure the staff back to the office, but for most it was a total hassle with long commutes for nothing. The big reason was the office space being mostly empty which frustrated senior management 😅
No. They were concerned about the drop in productivity but also realized they could not be blunt about it since that would damage morale. It is a difficult problem because they can't say the truth. To avoid the negativity they needed to send the message in a more subtle way.
Work closer to where you live. If your skill level results in having very few choices of employers, then move on to another line of work so that you are not so restricted.
@@Tugela60you can't keep saying this without stats to back it up. People aren't foolsh and see that they're still supposed to work remotely from the office so obviously it's not that
@hatter5834 Believe what you want, but I am telling you why they want workers back in the office. I am sorry it does not jive with what you want but that is reality.
Do you seriously think that if they could save millions by not having to maintain office space they would choose to not do that? And don't come up with some power play BS. Most executives are not in the same space as regular workers and never see them at all. The return to work mandates are due to productivity reasons.
@Tugela60 i know they want workers back in the office but it's absolutely not because of productivity reasons. If it were, they would absolutely take the chance to use data to say how bad workers are. They do it all the time. If it was because of productivity, they'll enforce people being in office at the same time or stop outsourcing work to other countries because then people can actually work together i person. Instead, they're forcing people to work remotely at the office.
It's obviously because real estate investments are going down. They'll rather keep those investments up that save a bit of money by selling off a failed investment.
In the 80's my Dad worked a modest job, Mom stayed at home and raised the kids, and they lived a nice middle class lifestyle including owning a home. Nowadays both I and my partner works and can barely afford to make ends meet. Soon the kids and family dog will need to work to keep this household going. It's the destruction of the American dream right before our eyes.
I'm 54 and my wife and I are VERY worried about our future, gas and food prices rising daily. We have had our savings dwindle with the cost of living into the stratosphere, and we are finding it impossible to replace them. We can get by, but can't seem to get ahead. My condolences to anyone retiring in this crisis, 30 years nonstop just for a crooked system to take all you worked for.
I feel your pain mate, as a fellow retiree, I'd suggest you look into passive index fund investing and learn some more. For me, I had my share of ups and downs when I first started looking for a consistent passive income so I hired an expert advisor for aid, and following her advice, I poured $30k in value stocks and digital assets, Up to 200k so far and pretty sure I'm ready for whatever comes.
If you are not in the financial market space right now, you are making a huge mistake. I understand that it could be due to ignorance, but if you want to make your money work for you...prevent inflation
I was a late bloomer, but Tracy Britt Cool Consulting, my financial advisor helped me bring it all together and got me into crypto. Now retired for 6 years at 72, my managed portfolio with Tracy generates about 9k a month on average more than my RMD on my retirement accounts. Not real big, but together with SS we're able to live reasonably with 160k a year. While being mortgage free.
She is really a good investment advisor. Was privileged to attend some of her seminars.that's how I started my own crypto investment
I got to go to the office 1 day a week... about an hour away. This was in my offer... but have heard rumors of high ups wanting us to come back to office more. I left a FULLY remote job for this position. If this does actually happen I'll spend my office days looking for a job. I am way less productive while in office because of too many distractions. When I'm at home I can sit and crank out code in my home office with no distractions.... don't need to take a cig break, or go to vending machine, etc.
In my experience, once they open the door to one day or more in office, it's to hypnotize the workforce that this is the new norm, and that... oh wait! Look at that, now we want 2 days, 3 days... pushing further and further in their own self interest, which is fair enough! That being said, workers should push for what is in their best interest, otherwise we're going to be slowly accepting worse conditions each quarter.
Ya the distractions at work are because no one wants to be there. Yes there are distractions at work, but you're in a environment where you are comfortable and no one breathing down your neck.
Office is soooo distracting. People talking loudly on phones, bad smells, dropping by your desk for no reason, horrible lights that cause eye strain.. just to name a few - I’m always more productive all by myself - collaboration should be limited to scheduled meeting times and followed up with emails
Are you at amzn? I have the same experience. I was told it was going to be 1 day at the office, then it became 3, now it's 5. fuck this, seriously.
I can work fine in an office if I need to, but being told that 10 hours a week that I used to spend with my son is suddenly for commuting isn't something I'll ever accept.
There is no commitment to each other, there is no loyalty, there is no friends at work and I don't care about the CEO. No one will look after you except you and your family! Wake up! This has freed me so much and I am much at ease!
Want loyalty? Get a dog.
Not even family looks out for you
@@IP0Monsturd not even a dog!
@@IP0Monsturd Yet these same companies demand loyalty while having none themselves.
underrated comment.
Working for Amazon sucked. The culture was terrible. I was a level 6 manager. Most people bail at the 2 year mark when the signing bonus drops or at the 4th year mark when the stock grants are complete. The suckers stay for that 5 year orange badge or 10 year red badge. You are right most people you deal with are in other areas so you use chime or slack or whatever and are not physically interacting anyway. The letter is bs. That being said, a year ago they started providing level 7 and above managers metrics of how often their employees were badging into the office at their assigned building so they have been preparing for this for a while.
I completely agree. I recently started a new hybrid position hoping that going into the office would bring more collaboration. However, when I got to the office, I didn't have an assigned seat and didn't know where anyone from my team was sitting. This is a large company and many of the people I was working with directly were in other regions anyway.
The only difference with being in the office and working at home was the scenery. That and having to commute for over an hour and making more normally 8 to 9 hour day into an 11 to 12 hour day.
This is most people's situation, at this point is a tug of war for remote work vs the control executives feel they need to have their employees under.
@@terranova8890It’s not about control. It’s just that it’s common for remote workers to easily be able to work multiple jobs with a forty hour work week.
Those remote workers just tend to not be work their paychecks
Some people may view WFH as a perk. But for people who are disabled (or caring for someone who's disabled), WFH is an accessibility issue. This trend of abolishing remote work is very worrying.
Yes. We really shouldn’t accept this
It’s not the jobs problem to worry about your personal issues. Businesses are there for the bottom line. Haven’t figured that out yet?
@@anthonyrodriguez2413then why do they give us healthcare? Edgy hot takes are fun especially with the edgy stoic one liners.
@@anthonyrodriguez2413 It sort of is. Most developed countries will have laws to prevent discrimination against disabled people. In the US, for example, they have to follow the Americans with Disabilities Act, which means they are legally obliged to make reasonable accommodations for workers with disabilities. In the UK, the Disability Discrimination Act says the same thing. They would open themselves to all sorts of lawsuits if they insisted that disabled people working from home come into the office as a covert way of firing them.
I would NOT mention that. It’s one thing if the worker is disabled and that’s an accommodation. Some exceptions for piece work or 1099 or whatnot..But to be fair, in an hourly role, caregiving in any substantial capacity while on the clock isn’t really cool.
It's all just a power play... they want employees back in the office so they have total control. Even more control than monitoring your camera and online activity. They need to see you sitting in that chair, slaving away, in order to make sure you're "giving your all" for the company...
Why are they like this? What is the business reason for pushing people beyond the point of misery? Don't they know that people snap at a certain point?
@@dchardin1 Workers are like cogs in a machine. If one breaks , it needs to be replaced immediately.
@@dchardin1They don't care.
Everyone was OK with going to work prior to Covid. The worst part is that if everyone returns to work, the traffic will worsen mid afternoon. For some reason the traffic now is ALWAYS terrible
@@dchardin1 NEVER let it get near the point of "snapping". The Americans With Disabilities (including temporary disabilities) exists. There's FMLA and short-term disability payment benefits. It might be a good idea to pay the optional premium for long-term disability coverage as well. The law, healthcare providers and insurance exist for a reason.
This is likely a backhanded way to push people towards quitting, i.e. back door way of laying people off.
And judging from the comments it will work beautifully.
Yup!
Ok. And?
@@edash2065 100% essentially cheaper may lay off then drop the costs of hiring people local and remote. The best of the best will be fine. The average 80% will take a pay cut.
Amazon has high turnover rates, but counters that by over hiring people. Depending on the level there are no interviews or background checks. For office workers they do multiple types of interviews and practice exams.
Laying off employees based on their willingness to jump over arbitrary hoops is a way to get rid of best employees, not worst.
Yup. But shareholders are apparently the stupidest people alive and don't care.
Showing up is not an arbitrary hoop. There are a lot of bad employees who take advantage of remote work to deliver nothing and still earn a paycheck. And it's demoralizing to the other employees who actually do deliver work.
@@t.yop9 This accusation is not backed up by data, again you're just slandering remote workers like a lying a-hole. Not much of an argument, more of an arrogant middle finger.
@@t.yop9 Try to stop fucking lying and make a real case, how about. The a-hole lies are getting exhausting.
@@angelainamarie9656If remote workers (outside of stuff like insurance claims) were actually worth their salaries. Then remote jobs wouldn’t have been constantly slashed for the past over a year.
Get out of your pajamas and get to work!
My husband works at Amazon. Half his team works on the other side of the country, so they have to video call anyway. This is so dumb. Just wasting everyone’s time (and money on gas!)
Thoughts:
1) Those organizations that hire remotely will get the pick of A+ players.
2) If you cannot get sufficient collaboration within three days in the office, you are not in an environment conducive to collaboration. Either the management is falling down on the job, or the actual environment is the problem (physically and culturally). Instead of going to 5 days in the office, fix that first.
Yea, but less and less jobs are remote because corporate world is built on control. Part of controlling someone is keeping them stressed, so they need you in the office.
Point #2 is spot on!
*2 days not 3. By halfway thru the 2nd day ppl should be able to plank their as*es down and focus together.
This is a myth. +A talent will go to where the money and opportunities are at, regardless of remote flexibility. Much of what made those workers valuable were that they were team players and see the long term picture in terms of personal gains returned (which is alooot of money when talking about the best, not your avg dude). Remote work is nice but its not $200k+ nice.
I've posted in other messages about my office environment and how distracting and uncomfortable it is, hindering productivity. It's bad enough that most employees have complained to management about the conditions. Corporate won't fix the problem though because of the amount of money it would cost, meaning they'd have to lease a lot more floor space to make it a more pleasant environment. During the lockdowns we not only hired more people while everyone was working from home, we gave back two leased floors of office space to save money.
Now that larger numbers of employees are crammed into 30% less space than we had before 2020 and we were overcrowded back then. So much so that our employer had to check with code enforcement to make sure our small restrooms were legal for the number of people per floor. They only got by because we can technically go to another floor and use one of their small restrooms as well. And you can imagine what those restrooms are like when an overcrowded floor of men use them. It's bad enough that I go to the executive and HR floors to do my business, they're not packed like sardines and their facilities are much cleaner.
And when someone that sits only 2 feet from you coughs or sneezes, everyone starts looking nervous in the time of post-C worry. I know I use more sick days in our new office configuration than I ever did before.
As for collaboration, we actually collaborate more over Teams while working from home than we do in the office because of the overcrowding and distracting other people, because you have to practically sit on top of your neighbor, when you bring others to your tiny desk to collaborate you tend to ruin the productivity of the others around you not involved. Then there's the search for an available conference room with none of the resources you need to collaborate, resources like the multiple monitors on your tiny desk to crowd around.
Why don't they just come out and say it?
"We're doing this because we know you hate it. It satisfies our sadistic glee."
Time to get out of your pajamas and go to work.
Because you're assuming they care enough about you to be sadistic in the first place.
😂
@@sanshinobi3664 They don't need to care about you in order to be sadistic.
They scr*w people over indiscriminately.
People don't want to believe other people are that sociopathic. You better believe it! Especially those who make it to the top of a company and had to beat everyone to get there.
Never going to go back into an office. Just as you said, my team is spread out all over the US and Canada, no point in driving for an hour plus to see nobody that I work directly with. The company did have a return to office push, however a lot of people have just ignored it (along with their managers), so nothing really came from the push from the "Overhead" perspective. I am sure that the Operational people did have to return, which has been causing it's own set of problems that I only see in the weekly office update e-mails.
They just won't hire or promote people who work from home. Eventually they will dissappear on their own.
Listen companies are not loyal to you. And this remote work will be a tension between employees and employer. So this will be interesting.
When we returned to office in 2022, the year following was the loneliest and most disconnected year ever. We had a beautiful new building. Lots of space to collaborate. Tiny half-height cubes close together. And nobody talked to each other. Managers never left their office. People just took meetings at their desk. I was miserable. After over ten years there, we had changed. Everyone was dealing with some trauma from COVID, and RTO did not magically fix us. I don’t miss it at all almost two years later. I’m way closer to my remote colleagues across the country now.
When I go into the office, I don’t know anyone. It’s alienating. Hot desking also sucks for ergonomics.
Our company, like everyone else, went 100% remote in 2020. They started hiring people all across the country, not near any offices. FF to 2023 and they annlunced a grand back to offices plan to facilitate "collaboration" and "teambuilding," with a 3 day a week RTO for anyone 20 miles or less from an office. But by now more than half the members of the teams were remote. Plus, they'd downsized so much that those who'd wanted to return were assigned most of the available desks already. There's been no mention whatsoever of RTO since early 2024.
I've been in a couple times over the last year and it's exactly as you describe. Silence. People work in their cubicles and even when they have catered lunches people come out, get food, and go back to their desks.
My work told us to come back for "the culture". There is no team any longer, we are all out to save ourselves, we deeply do not like each other, nor do we trust any upper leadership. We are all waiting to be laid off. Some "culture".
I just want to thank you for all that you do! In June I was laid off from a remote TPM role at a Bay Area tech company and I watched nearly every one of your videos. I just accepted a Staff level TPM role at a Fortune 100! Much higher level and significantly higher pay! Couldn’t have done it without you!
After working remotely for 5+ years, I hardly see an opportunity or any sense to visit the office again, especially every day. Productivity is higher when people do not need to waste 1-2 hours of their life commuting to work, and these hours add to months which can be spent with the family or invested in yourself.
I told my manager that when it was decided we had to return to the office 3 days a week after working from home for more than two years. My manager told me that I wasn't unique in voicing that same concern. Many of us worked a lot of extra hours because for one thing, we couldn't go anywhere during the lockdowns easily and enjoyably, but also because we didn't spend the 1-2 hours a day on the road (2+ hours round trip for me). I told my manager he wasn't getting those same hours from me anymore now that I had to drive in just for the sake of the CEO wanting our physical presence in an overcrowded office environment.
For some, it means higher productivity, for most, it's the opposite. Productivity has gone down. That's why all these companies want people back in the office. In this case, they just want to lay them off.
@@sblijheid absolutely, everything is individual and some people feel more productive when they work face to face in the office. However, in my organization with 1000+ employees every person I talked to shared that his/her productivity became tangibly higher in a remote mode. I'm sure companies can conduct some kind of researches to assess the situation before forcing the people back to the offices
Amazon is one of the largest companies in the world. They collect and analyze perhaps the most data in the world. They are focused on efficiency above all else. Clearly, their numbers show that employees are not more productive when working from home. They have every incentive to cut office space and the expenses that come with it. And their data says remote work still doesn't pay off in the long run.
@@sblijheidproductivity is only down from the unusually high figures seen in 2021, it’s still higher than pre Covid.
Never going back to an office. Everyones anxiety was off the charts in an office. They already have ways to keep thumbs on us at home. I dont need someone standing over my computer in the office making things worse. Theres too many chiefs and not enough workers. If some managers were to help with work and care like some other managers things would run smoother.
same. I'll go on the dole or retire, or both before I go back to an office-based job.
Wow- “corporate gaslighting” that’s a great phrase.
I’m a hard working, bright, creative, and thirsty employee.. the problem? I hate teamwork… I hate bosses and coworkers… I would do so much work and for less money if I didn’t have to interact with shitty colleagues all the time. Corporate life is not for me. So much happier away from the BS… missing the paycheck though…
You may try freelancing.
Some of my friends have to go back to the office for hybrid…the reason? Companies get a huge tax break in certain cities (ie Newark) if a certain percentage of the workforce is in the office every day which helps revenue for the city. Also, they want to justify the cost of their lease to have someone there.
I’m working a hybrid remote contract job. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to working full time in the office. Right now I spend about 18 hours a week at the office, the rest of the time I’m home. And I like it that way. We as employees just have to start standing up and fighting back. We can’t take this crap anymore.
Yeah!!!!! But you go first...
@@larahporter8123 😅😅 "you go first" good1
You can always find another job if you don't like it. Oh....forgot....there are not that many another jobs out there, not ones that are remote anyway.
Just tell your boss, either you let me remote work at least 2 days a week, or you'll just quit. If he doesn't fire you, you're set.
Can we try the Great Resignation again? Apparently it's the only way giant corporations will care to treat workers fairly.
Too many people are broke right now...
You first
The economy is basically toast now.
You go first bud 😁 lol Honestly the only power we have is as consumers, not as employees. Vote w/ your wallet ppl and stop buying so much useless crap! Seriously, so many ppl do it. If Americans really changed that habit, prices for a lot of things would drop!
@@zerocal76 Speaking of useless shit people keep buying stupid shit from Amazon, especially sex toys. Friends that work there say they keep having to pack them.
A friend of mine who did remote work for Amazon was just let go without warning. He lives in a rural area and was the bread winner for his wife and three kids. I'm trying to help him get a job at the company I work for right now.
He may be forced to move to a larger city.
In-office collaboration? You spend 15 minutes watching someone struggle to get PowerPoint up in a conference room. At home, it's the same deal-15 minutes just to get the presentation going.
Amazon and the big companies can do this but smaller companies cannot. If a company wants to save money and grow, Remote Work is the FUTURE. I can see the Government pushing big companies to do this to save the BANKS (Commercial real estate)!
It depends on the kind of workers they hire. Too many slackers around these days..
Amazon were recruiting fully remote roles during the pandemic (I was approached for one). Anyone who took a job on that basis has just been given a nasty rug pull and needs to talk to an employment lawyer if they don't make the "special exemptions" list. If enough people fight it, the bad publicity and cost may just trigger a re-think.
If "remote" was in the contract then go to the court
No, they will just replace the ones that can't work in the office. CEO already said they can't win and he is right. Only one that can win is the CEO. He is still working remote.
Good luck finding a competent lawyer to take on Jeff Bezos. And I hope you have a ton of cash for a retainer because I doubt a good lawyer will do it pro bono.
I work for an Amazon company. Those contracts also state things can change according to what's best for the business. Trust me there's no winning a court case. Those fully remote positions are being demolished and RTO 5 days a week is here to stay. I wish it wasn't true as I absolutely love wfh but sadly, it is and you'll need to RTO if you want to stay w the company.
The "special exemptions list" isn't a good idea. We had one of those for a year after mandatory return to the office and it created a lot of employee resentment about how they had to come to the office and other, "special" people didn't have to. My employer ended up having to end the permanent remote work for everyone and we lost some really good talent in that outcome, including one of my previous managers who, I consider the best engineer I've ever met and I've been around for more than 30 years now.
We lost a lot though in productivity with resentful employees though IMO.
Amazon has just officially made itself a dinosaur. Remote work is here to stay.
Yes, 💯% agree! Amazon is like the business that insists on using horse and buggy 🐎 drivers after the invention of the automobile 🚗. No matter how much they hate the change, remote work is not going back! 😆🤣😆🤣
I heard one speculation that they were only doing it to avoid doing layoffs and thus preserve their stock pricing. I tend to agree and suspect this is not their long-term plan.
ok so whhat is yr alternative if u work for amazon ? quit and then how will u pay yr bills ?
I doubt that. The corpos want control over their employees and they're getting it back, one layoff after another. Things look even grimmer with the two presidential candidates who see no reason to change anything at all.
Given how hard it is to find work and people eschewing all the local stores in their areas I doubt Amazon will go anywhere. Yeah some talented people will quit and maybe that’s the point. Maybe Amazon wants them to quit so they can replace them with outsourced developers who work at smaller salaries and don’t get benefits and all that.
And here’s the kicker: there are many skilled and equally talented developers who are capable of doing the work that locals can do. Especially after they are trained.
People here are complacent about this fact. Developers in other countries doesn’t necessarily mean lower quality even if they are cheaper to hire.
Take the Ukraine for example. So many amazing developers come from there.
So they'll be paying more so people can afford to live near corporate offices, right?
You sound like one of those arrogant disgruntled managers who is insecure and only gets an egoboost by making your employees as miserable as you are. @@maryjanesnow
Amazon: Just say you don’t want to or can’t give up the office spaces. Anyone going into the office is going to be doing the same work they could do remotely, and if other companies don’t follow suit, you will have to pay more for your positions to remain competitive. People will literally take a pay cut to be completely remote.
One thing in RTO (return to office) especially on tech companies is that bean counters realized this hard truth: if it's remote then it can be anywhere. So if it's not in the office let's move our workforce for India or the Philippines where the cost per hour is less than a fifth of the United States. I've seen this with many of my friends and peers. They moved and the jobs that stayed remote are slowly being replaced by cheaper overseas workers. These tech companies have campuses in many other countries. So, reality is that if you have a remote job the chances that you will be outsourced increase dramatically.
But people who WFH will tell you that they are super special and smart and bring tons of value so outsourcing will effectively doom the company.
My old company just off-shored some functions. The teams they off-shored did come into the office most days. The teams that weren't off-shored happened to be strenuously WFH people who haven't set foot on campus in years. The bean counters looked at what jobs were easy to fill remotely, not which jobs were already staffed by in-house people vs. remote people.
The bean counters have massively short memories, though. The last time they off-shored a function (for a deprecated product) we saved at least NEGATIVE $2 million due to low quality out-sourced staffing but it looked good in concept.
This comment is EXTREMELY underrated. Big picture thinking here. We have to remember how these large companies became large companies.
In my opinion, whether intentionally or not, worker productivity may decline as a result of this decision. Many employees who, while working remotely, put in extra hours and maintained high engagement, might now feel that their preferences have been dismissed. This could lead them to adopt a more minimalist approach to work-doing only what's necessary to avoid being let go, rather than going above and beyond as they might have done when they had more flexibility.
I'm sorry but going above and beyond doesn't equate to more money being added to your paycheck. Just more responsibility for the same pay. I do what I am paid to do and nothing more. These greedy jobs care nothing about their employees and would post your job probably the very next day if something happended to you. I've seen these dirty rotten companies let go of employees who were getting ready to retire just to keep from giving them what they worked for.
@@truthhurts...6574 If you've worked at a company for a long time and are near retirement, it's not in the company's interest to make you redundant, as they have to pay you a severance for every year you've worked there.
If you'd been there say 25 years, your severance pay would be huge depending on the company and their individual policy.
They're better off just letting you retire.
Yeah, they don't take into account that the commute savings are often turned over to the company. I've always worked remote, since 2011 when I graduated, and the fight we have in my sector is limiting people from over-working since they're all at home.
@@Longlostpuss every company is not the same. I'm speaking from what I have witnessed in my 20 years of working. Believe it or not some people are very spiteful and do not want to see you have a good life. It angers some to see you retiring getting out the rat race especially if you are not broken down and in bad health able to start a new venture in life. I've seen it in the military too with them trying to kick out people before before they can get retirement. Those asre the ones that then go to try to get medically chaptered out to get something for their years of service. It's a dirty game.
Exactly.
When our new CEO announced his plan was to bring us back to the overcrowded office 5 days a week I let my manager know that my availability outside of office hours would be much less, my after-hours response time would be much higher as I'd be powering down my home office each day at the end of the "normal workday", that I wouldn't be checking in on things over the weekend and in the evenings before bed, and that I'd be claiming on-call pay anytime they called me after hours, something I've never done before unless it was an excessive amount of time in one day.
Apparently that was a common sentiment from many of us salaried workers and the CEO shelved that plan, at least for the last two years. Hopefully that lasts at least a few more years until retirement.
I've been trying to move out of my toxic tech startup for years now. It has never taken this long for me to find a job, ever. All the competition from the layoffs and RTO policies is making it impossible.
I’m in the exact same boat. Working for a startup where I got stuck under a toxic manager and I am desperate to get out, but there’s no hope on the horizon. I’m actually pretty depressed
It is time to leave this field, it's crowded and doesn't priduce anything good anymore. There are other jobs that the people should start doing again.
The company I was working for folded in January, outside of about 2 months of contract work I have been unemployed and looking. Hopefully picking up a long term contract soon, it's extremely rough out there right now though, especially for those of us working fully remote.
Same...been laid off for a few months now..haven't had one interview..at this point I don't even care about going in 5 days...I need a job.🫤And I won't even mention the low paying salaries.
I bet Amazon's top talent is already polishing their resumes for remote-friendly companies. This could be a huge brain drain! 🧠💥
Cope
@@bapa39cope? You sound so jealous. Why not just get a skill?
@@bobsemple9341 cope
I doubt it. More and more companies are curtailing remote work.
Managers and business owners need to be held accountable for this. Good software devs are scarce, this is gonna slow down things alot and tbh they deserve it.
Amazon being out of touch isn't a new thing.
💀💀💀
They don’t want to explain to shareholders why they have so much empty office space
5 days back in the office is the last straw, never doing that again.
Me either. I work from home five days a week. On weekends I work at a local school kitchen. Its a mile down the road. Not going to change nothing.
One guy gets to decide how thousands of other people spend their days.
Yes!! That's why he is the CEO. He makes decisions in the company's best interest, NOT for the employees.
@@michaelisherwood9096Yep that why you get paid for your time.
@@michaelisherwood9096 By the looks of your profile picture, you'd like to be him.
@@michaelisherwood9096What is a company without it's employees, a business model?
@@michaelisherwood9096 what is a company without employees?
I think the executives want the real estate to be used.
Correct, once the rental lease is up or if they can sale the property, they will be happy to have remote workers to save a ton of money.
@@lifecyclestyled6732 They don't care about the money, the money belongs to the company. They want to have a big fancy desk in a big fancy office and boss around underlings.
Yeah they had to spend money on that stupid biodome thing instead of paying people fairly
You "think" this because everyone else says this. And?
most executives (and their friends) are likely highly invested in commercial real estate. Do the math...
"collaboration" is the new buzz word synonym for impending layoffs.
The "End Remote Work" stuff is just a way for companies to force employees to quit in order to avoid providing employees WARN / unemployment benefits in mass layoffs...
It's just to save some money.
Our business used remote work to expand 30% and avoid a $10 million office add on. Instead, we are adding a $30 million laboratory complex expanding our core business.
We proved the model during covid. We have been continuously breaking revenue records. Our CEO said we are never going back. Over 30% of our employees are Remote. It allows us to attract higher quality professionals at lower salaries than would be required to get people to relocate to our area.
It’s just a way to lay off without severance
My boss is in Detroit, my co worker is in Souix Falls and our director is in Alabama. Yeah, not moving.
Are you working for Amazon ?
GM?
Your video inspired me to lower my pay expectations to $7.25 per hour (minimum wage) as an experienced Data Engineer. I would rather get minimum wage than return to the office. Life is better at $20K remotely than $130K in the office.
I assume you're speaking hyperbolically, but I can agree with your setiment to some degree. Some of IT jobs in my area (legit,customer facing IT jobs,not just resetting passwords over the phone) are still paying about 50-60k a year in my area. Long hours with no ovetime, stresful, projects that go on along with your already assigned duties, if you take vacation or a sick day your work sitting there waitig for you. Meanwhile, some fast food / retail jobs with no experience are paying18/20hr. Is all the BS really worth the extra 10k a year?
File that under things that never happened.
😢😢I was an auditor before I retired in 2019. Most of my work was either at the client location or working in my office cubicle. However, the last few years they started letting us work from home some of the time. They found that we had higher productivity by getting us out of office cubicles.
Why does it seem like corporations are dead set against people having a better quality of life? Remote work would cut way down on my stress and the money I spend on gas.
For those of us staying remote, management has decided they can squeeze more juice out of us. "You get the benefit of working in your pjs." They no longer take into account the overhead savings they are reaping and are jealous of our time. They are demanding increased productivity ONLY for the remote team members.
You are asking if remote workers are lazy? Check the quarterly profit reports. Last one was +13% profit for Amazon. And the raises they offered didn’t even cover inflation!!
Good point.
remote work reduces expenses for the company, which increase profits, the increase in profits is not intrinsically related to remote work
He likes the "culture" of having enough money to give thousands of people raises, but instead decides how they get to live their lives and have no say.
Of course they have a say. It's a simple yes or no question, wether you like to jump through the hoops or seek employment elsewhere.
It's not a nice situatuation for the most, but each and every worker gets to make that choise.
@@konzza looks more like an ultimatum rather than a choice
@@also307 Absolutely an ultimatum. That wasn't my point at all. It's a matter of "take or leave it", but there is a choise.
I might be mistaken, but i don't think that Amazon has been at the top of the totem pole for the most desirable employes even for office workers for many years. Those poor bastards unfortunate enough, not to employ elsewhere will probably also have to start peeing in bottles, like other Amazon workers allready do. It never was a secret that Amazon has worse corporate culture than medieval slaves.
@@konzza I agree with @also307, it seems like more of an ultimatum, given the current state of the job market.
All they really want to do is track you while you go into a huge office building they've rented and sit with people you don't know and them go into a teams meeting - with a coworker in a different office on a different coast
These employers are gonna have karma come back to bite them in the ass. They’re gonna go from not being able to get top tier talent to getting less then average, to barely have people knock on their door for job opportunities.
Great point about middle managers. They have slowly taken away all the decent paying jobs that were middle managers. They have done an excellent job replacing living wage. Jobs that paid 80k-150k now pay 40k.
I’m not saying that they should, but if they were going to end remote working, they should have done it in ‘21 or ‘22. The fact that it’s been a thing for 5 years, makes ending remote working that much more ridiculous!
They tried back in 2022 but had a lot of resistance then. People were still scared of the "big C", and companies were still bleeding employees who were jumping ship. I know I was hit with a lot of solicitations for 100% remote jobs, so were a lot of my colleagues who took them. Now those are drying up, but people are still used to the last almost 5 years as you noted.
They would have, but got massive pushback. The economy is slowing down now, so they cant afford the poor productivity that comes with remote work.
I think if people were willing to take a 30-40% paycut to bring productivity back in line management would be fine with remote work.
@@Shadow_Banned_Conservative By that point, the Big C was just an excuse to not come back to the office. Sort of like the teachers that pleaded to stay on remote school, so they could stay 'teaching' from a hammock, and taking vacations.
Being in the office doesn't increase collaboration....CEOs just want to see their worker bees
Tell your CEO to pound sand. You aren’t getting out of your pajamas for anybody!
and the crappy coworkers want to bother people. lie about good workers and keep up drama. no thank you. i love working in my pjs
may be, but there certainly is an increased risk in terms of information and system security
exactly. We can "collaborate" over Zoom just fine. Worked fine for the past few years.
Except the CEOs don't come watch us. They have managers to do that menial work.
I think remote work needs to be a priority. The office work place is fully of bullies, sabotaging, harassment and drama. No thanks. I don't want people counting how many shits I take a day.
Remote work doesn’t stop any of that.
What are these words? Get over yourself and get to work
So stop standing outside the restrooms with a notepad then.
Amazing how corporations are all about money, except when it comes to leased office space.
After 38 years in the office, post-COVID I worked remotely until I retired with mixed emotions, considering bringing my team back in to the office or not. Most of the team was always available on Teams, and most always had their cameras on, but some were screwing us. I had one new hire that objected to our core hours and with further investigation we found she was working two full time, 8-hour a day jobs at the same time. But in the end, there are dozens of reasons to continue remote work and dozens to terminate it, from every perspective… the employer, employee, community, etc.
This is a bad decision. Here's why. Remote work allows companies to see other candidates, highly experienced candidates, and potentially game-changing productive employees who could play an integral role in the success of a company but doesn't live near that company's HQ or main office. If you're a company President or CEO why limit yourself to just the talent that's available in your market? The best employee for your company could be someone living on the other side of the country. Why do you think Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meets was invented???
Actually it goes beyond what you talk about with remote meeting software. Almost 30 years ago when I was hired with my employer they used to look for the best candidates. We'd fly people in from anywhere in the country if their resume impressed us. Put them up for 2-3 days in a hotel and after a day long interview, if we liked them we'd pay relocation costs, temporary residence (I had 30 days paid), and other assistance if needed to make them happy new employees. Somewhere around the 2000 timeframe we wouldn't spend money anymore to attract people and HR required that we "hire locally". Things have never been the same quality-wise since HR dictated more who we hired than the actual department managers.
I wonder why I was censored for elaborating on your post. Am I at least allowed to say I agree with you 100%?
The cheapest employee may be living in India and be perfectly competent to do YOUR job. Does RTO seem better NOW?
They'll change their policy back once they're not worried about layoffs. Companies know how attractive remote work is to potential applicants, so when they want to hire more/better talent for the cost they will look remote. Right now, most big tech companies are more concerned about needing to lay off existing employees; hence the lack of new hires and policy changes designed to get people to quit.
@@SeattlePioneer Unless it's a company that already has employees working overseas, then no. If it's a company that only has its employees working domestically, they won't want to have to deal with the payroll hassle with foreign taxes and foreign exchange rates for one employee.
If these companies want to improve and create healthy workplace cultures, they'd at the very least allow hybrid work. Productivity improved while employees worked remotely. I'm currently looking for optimal remote work opportunities.
I left the traditional 8 to 4:30pm healthcare job because the work environment was toxic. Especially post pandemic. I have PTSD from my last job. A lot of toxic employees and supervisors are in these companies and they're not being held accountable for their bad behavior.
I agree. No one size fits all model but hybrid is a good compromise between company and employee. I do also find occasion face to face interaction is very productive.
Im going to be canceling my prime account, something ive had for 10 years.
Unless there's an organized mass movement of that kind of action, and at a big enough level to have an affect on Amazon profits, don't bother. They don't care and won't notice. If it's convenience and service benefits you, keep it.
They're a huge global corporation (there's an Amazon for most countries and languages) that's too big and successful (and too convenient and popular to its users) to be affected by anything like a few people here and there cancelling prime in protest.
😂Ok
How can you have had it for 10 years when you are an 8 year old? 😮
This is a back stop for Commercial Real Estate and maintaining the valuation of their real estate assets.
I enjoyed listening to your perspective. I have worked remotely more or less for a pretty long time now. Back when I did physically work in the office the bulk of my team was in a different city so my reality was there were a lot of nice people in the office and I didn’t necessarily mind being there. However, the people I saw every day in the office their jobs had absolutely nothing to do with my job and nobody I worked with directly was in the building. But the reality of it was, I was on teams that did not work in the same office, I did so in my mind I really saw no difference between an office and remote because even when I was in the office I was still a remote employee and I spent my entire day either on the phone or on teams
This is going to backfire horrendously.
Depends on what the goal is. If they want voluntary layoffs, it will be great and their labor costs will look great without having to pay out.
It won't. In a capitalist society/economy the Companies dictate. Not the Employees. Simple as. People will eventually be happy just to have a job, believe me.
I don’t know about AI, but tech companies had tried outsourcing ever since the 90s and failed horribly each time.
@learntoplumbwell you know what AI stands for… An Indian
Yeah, corporate America will be brought to its knees without your daily 15 minutes worth of work.
My viewpoint is this. If companies can outsource jobs to other countries, they can let people work from home. This is likely just about control and to make sure they have eyes on everyone at all times.
An anxious staff is a much less productive one. It's so idiotic. As a boss (and or manager) what do I want? For my staff to be anxious and distracted, or physically and mentally comfortable and focussed / so they can focus on their work? That's a no brainer to me but higher ups and corporate c-suite types aren't often the wisest bunch when it comes to people.
I've read some articles that theorize that it's a lot of it is about the big execs and their egos.
They don't feel as big and important when they can't see & be seen, and wave their arm across a physical spread and domain of people who work for them - and who HAVE to acknowledge and smile at them cuz they're dependent on them for their jobs. It's like plantation mentality.
Most “office” companies are owned by bigger giant companies that own 10+ smaller companies.
These mega corporations often own and rent the office buildings to their smaller companies.
Just follow the money.
@@roberth4395 of course, that makes a lot of sense. 👍 All I was thinking was that the company owned the building but rented to other stores and businesses on the street level floor and or other businesses in other floors of the building. And that they're street level floor renters like coffee shops etc have more customers from a full building of people.
But yeah, basically many reasons but none that have to do with how useful for the employees and productive for the company WFH is.
If you can do your job WFH, can't it be done WFI (work from India) at far lower cost?
Do you REALLY want to encourage companies to replace WFH employees with WFI (work from India) employees?
Think carefully about that.
Thanks a lot, Amazon. As if it already wasn’t hard enough in this tech market to get a different position. I’m stuck under a toxic boss at a dysfunctional startup and I’ve desperately want it out for many months now. Trying all the things that the experts say when looking for a new job and I’m coming up With nothing. It’s depressing, and I feel like my walls are closing in
Execs who push office work, especially in a company with offices around the globe, are just egomaniacs that thrive on the power trip and adulation and deference they get in the office, and/or the access to extramarital activity. Change my mind.
They always get rid of the middle managers, the ones who are actually in the trenches, and instead keep the large numbers of top heavy executives.
They just announced at my workplace that they are going back to full-time in-office again. They claim that the reason why is that working remotely is a security liability and that the project wants us back in office 100%. We were scheduled to eventually go back in a hybrid schedule where we would only go into the office 2 days a week. Apparently, from my I've heard from the rumor mill at work is that our off-shore IT folks violated processes that lead to security breaches that cost the company money, so they are going to take it out on us American workers. On top of that, they gave us all crappy merit increases this year even though we did so well throughout the year. The only benefit my job had was it being remote/hybrid. If that goes away, I'll just start looking for other jobs where I can get a nice pay bump.
You do that.
Great work culture in which you aren't allowed to have toilet breaks during shifts.
All hail forced collaboration! It is now a part of our great culture to make people waste thousands precious hours of their lives commuting to work and stressing out! We could compensate for the "lack" of collaboration by coming up with some creative ways to fix it, like setting up more company parties or informal out-of-office offline meetings and seeing each other in person during some fun stuff outside of work, but we're too lazy for that, and it's much easier to just try to force you back! That's our culture!
I had no desire to see 99% of my co-workers at "a party" or any function outside of work. They are co-workers, not friends.
Retired since 1/2020. Y'all can have it.
As a employee I refuse to do anything outside of my job with coworkers. A lot of other people feel the same and would not attend anything either.
Working remote is proven for four years to be effective, plus improves quality of life, plus is the easiest way to improve the environment.
Exactly, several layers up is where things get stuck and the gaslighting is birthed.
Those window offices won't be admired by remote workers and the executives can't have their pointless all hands where they can brag about their bonuses and have their butts kissed by *that* employee who always asks the questions at the end of an all hands. Who else will appreciate the executives' parking spaces? Who will laugh at their lame jokes? They're just a spouse or partner or parent at home. But, they are royalty in the office. What executive would give that up?
LOL! But they still get to flex on LinkedIn. That's gotta count for something.
Agreed. I hate All Hands meetings. Just a waste of productive time. Shameless cheerleading and butt kissing.
Another small thing that's being overlooked that I picked up on when the pandemic happened was that a lot these men were desperate to get back into the office because they didn't want to be around their families 24/7 at home. Also they couldn't get out as freely to meet up with their mistresses and hookups buddies. I knew of at least 2 men cheating on their wives who were mad that we all didn't get called back into the office during the pandemic. The office was available to anyone to use if they were having internet issues or needed a quiet space, but nope those individuals wanted all of us back in the office because they ran out of excuses to tell their spouses. I just laughed them.
I got diagnosed with PTSD, aggravated by being placed into Focus at Amazon, a situation so ugly that ended up with my supervisor being fired , after he threatened me during a phone call. Despite the admission of guilt, they did not take me out of Focus. This was less than a year ago. I think the reduction targets were being demanded from L8s and L7s for a while now, but maybe PIPs were not doing the job fast enough? Good ol’ Andy helping the boys with a 5 days mandate, gonna send those middle managers out of the door much faster.
If they let you work remotely as part of reasonable accommodations, you'll be stigmatized as not a team player.
I don't understand why people would work for such a company.
@@JustinHitt funny thing is that I live close to their offices, I was there 5 days a week on my own will. I guess even more reason to try to make me leave by other means…
Was your supervisor.... Indian?
@@cpK054L no, and he was a tenured amazonian , 10 years with the company
The only reason management hates remote work is that their little tinpot dictator souls can't bear the thought that people might not have their nose to the grindstone every living second. Being remote keeps them at arms length and they hate that. Instead of being concerned with the real work and whether it gets done properly by the deadline, they obsess over making sure people are 'busy' every second. Trivia fact... people can't work that way because we aren't machines. So what ends up happening is that either people make themselves sick by stressing over being watched incessantly, or they spend all their time figuring out how to evade panopticon culture and not working...
Bingo!
So you are POed because you wont be able to goof off any more?
No one works effectively when under constant surveillance. This is why the panopticon was used in prisons... it dehumanizes and discomforts the observed, to the point of declining health and sanity. And, thus, was eventually removed from the prison system for being inhumane. And yet the workforce, of people who are not imprisoned, are expected to submit to the same thing? Curious...
Frankly, I am a professional, and when hired to do a job, expect my employer to recognize this fact and let me do my damn job without interference. If they're so insecure about my productivity, then it seems like they should have hired someone they like better from the get go? I just have no time or patience for overweening managerial nonsense.
@@vectorwolf Only people with dirty secrets worry about being seen.
@@Tugela60Spoken like someone that's had the privilege of never having to deal with a bad situation. You'll learn.
As an SWE, lately I’ve been thinking of downsizing everything, be a minimalist, move to a small town, learn other hard labor skills while using my tech skills to build a business. I think we’ve been spoiled with lucrative tech salary and having all these materialistic stuff is unnecessary. I’m starting to use my car mechanic skills now too by fixing friends cars for lower rate. Can’t rely on big companies anymore. We are all expendable to them. Gotta have backup plans.