Amazon exec says it’s time for workers to ‘disagree and commit’ to office return — “I don’t have data to back it up, but I know it’s better.”::“We’re here, we’re back. It’s working,” an Amazon Studios head said in a meeting, before acknowledging a lack of evidence.

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    You should also pay everyone 2 million dollars a year. The company will do great and your employees will be happy. I don’t have the data to back it up, but I know it’s better!

  • StereoTrespasser@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    I wish these assholes would just come out and tell the truth: they need you in the office to justify their multi-decade office leases that they can’t get out of.

  • xantoxis@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Oh, that’s interesting, because lots of people have the data. It says the exact opposite of that, though.

  • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    “I don’t know how to micro-manage people unless I can see them sitting in an open floorplan.”

    • dual_sport_dork 🐧🗡️@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      AKA, he is so out of the loop he has no idea what his subordinates actually do, so he has no way of assessing their productivity. Thus his only recourse is to fall back on his gut feelings on whether people “look busy” and other nebulous bullshit .

  • kescusay@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    How about… No?

    I’m one of the folks who actually likes to go in to the office every once in a while, but I’m never making it a daily commute. Never again.

    Hell, I’m on an international team now. Over the course of the pandemic, we built ourselves up with folks from multiple states and multiple countries. There is exactly one person on my team I could see regularly if we went back to the office. Literally everyone else is hundreds of miles away at a minimum. Many would need passports.

    And that one person? He’s got an immune-compromised family member, so he’s never going back to the office and risking his loved one’s life.

    Fortunately, my employer knows it would make zero sense to require all of us to go back to the office. My boss doesn’t even live in the same state as me.

    • silverbax@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Yeah, I’m never commuting again, either.

      For companies, your laziest employees are the ones who want to be in the office, because they know that’s the only metric the company is measuring, so they go in and fuck around doing nothing all day.

      Companies who don’t get with the remote work program are dinosaurs and will die off over time.

      • Magister@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Same, winter is coming, with snow a commute could be 2h forth and 2h back, to do ~20 miles ; never again.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      There was not a single thing at my last job that I needed to do in the office that I couldn’t accomplish at home. Not one. I know, because it was a hybrid schedule and I did the exact same thing both places. They didn’t even need to get me equipment to do my work at home. I just did it on my computer I already had. Everything was either done directly on the company’s website or was Google cloud-based and all of our meetings were via Zoom.

      And yet, I had to come in half the week. It wasn’t even a saving money on real estate thing because it was an office that was part of a big warehouse/factory, so they would not only need the space regardless, they could actually put more production lines in if they could take out the office space.

      It made absolutely no sense.

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    It really sounds like he thinks workers are refusing to return to work purely out of a sincere belief that wfh is better for the company and not “go fuck yourselves this is really nice and I’m able to do my job just as well from my home”

    • Dojan@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I’m able to do my job (and life) better with work from home.

      I don’t crave the social interaction as much as others. Social situations wear me out, and the ability to schedule my work fairly freely means that I can work around my debilitating neurological condition. Work from home has given me the opportunity to function mostly like a normal member of society, and I really value that.

      Honestly don’t think I’d last long if a return to office was made mandatory. If I don’t burn out I’ll jump off a bridge or something.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        2 years ago

        Yep. My last job was a hybrid schedule and I was always far more productive at home than at the office. Because I was comfortable at home and had no distractions.

        • III@lemmy.world
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          2 years ago

          They give people adjustable chairs at work, so the concept that every worker isn’t an identical and replaceable cog exists somewhere in their brains. Sadly it is behind the intense desire for money and will likely never be given the space to grow.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I guarantee they haven’t changed their minds on this. Maybe we should keep talking about it.

    • dustyData@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      A variation has been viral for years in the Hispanic sphere of the internet. “No tengo pruebas pero tampoco tengo dudas”, “I have no proof, but I have no doubts either”, said in relation to something that is inferred or assumed, specially when describing something negative about a third party who is mutually disliked.

  • reddig33@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Amazon exec is about to lose good employees to other places that pay better and have better benefits (like work from home days).

    • dustyData@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Amazon, the store, is already in a downward spiral of quality. Other stores like Shein, Ali Baba, Wish, etc. are slowly gaining market worldwide. Plenty of people are preferring quality brick and mortar stores than online shopping more and more. It’s small but it is a trend.

      • BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca
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        2 years ago

        The more I hear about how crappy Amazon are treating their employees the less I want to buy from Amazon again.

      • gian
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        2 years ago

        True.
        And not only for the quality. In the last weeks I noted that, aside being basically impossible to look for a product even querying with the full brand and product name/code, that buying the same item from the brand own on-line store is ofter less expensive than buying it from Amazon (even with Prime) also accounting for the shipping costs.

      • fuzzzerd@programming.dev
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        2 years ago

        I’m not so sure. Black Friday shopping barely kept up with inflation this year, but cyber Monday shopping was up over 12%, so while I’m with you in the minority that prefer a real quality store, it seems most folks don’t.

    • Prox@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      Amazon exec doesn’t give a shit. Their whole model with tech workers is to recruit them based on the “prestige” of working for Amazon, dunno increasingly more talking on them, burn them out before they start asking for real raises, rinse and repeat.

      • gian
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        2 years ago

        Their whole model with tech workers is to recruit them based on the “prestige” of working for Amazon,

        At some point the “prestige” of working for Amazon will become less attractive than having a life…

  • Magister@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Since March 2020 I work from home. 2 years for a company ~20 miles from me, I went there 1 time to take a PC and 1 time to bring the PC back at the end of my contract. Then a year in a company ~100 miles from me (did 4 trips to bring HW), and for next year I should have a 2+ years contract for a company ~375 miles away.

    Never ever I will RTO commuting useless hours. If the job is 5 minutes from me I may, but else, never.

  • Skaryon@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    My company subleased 3 out of 4 stories of the office building when they realised most people could happily and effectively work from home. Crazy eh?

  • likelyaduck@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    RTO is only “better” for the owning class.

    RTO makes it harder to micromanage > employees realise they can self-organise > employees form unions and demand “better” employment contracts

    Also the money saved by not commuting has allowed (some) office workers to save up for emergency funds, which comes in handy when it is time for a strike.

    RTO = preventative union busting

  • NoLifeGaming@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    People don’t want to because WFH is much better for employees. Why waste time on commute, gas, and get out from the comfort of your home?