Business Insider reports that some Amazon employees have noticed an increasing number of colleagues are leaving the company over its strict return-to-office mandate.
Amazon’s strict return-to-office policy is pushing more employees into quitting::undefined
Amazon has always been hostile to it’s employees. The culture of “step up or fuck off” permeates the entire organization, from warehouses to executives.
They’ve even had meetings where they express worry over running out of a viable pool of people to hire from. Because they know they are abusive AF and working for them is miserable, so turnover is extremely high. At some point turnover could surpass a population’s ability to absorb it.
It’s economics, but with people as the commodity being valued.
Amazon currently has a wide labor pool to pull from, and so the value of any individual person is very low. As they saturate the market with people who are bitter and angry about working for Amazon, the pool will shrink, in this case, faster than the rate they lose people. There is a critical point where the growth of the “will never work for Amazon” pool of people will grow exponentially, and as they struggle to hire replacements, workplace conditions will improve. They will not improve before that moment, however.
Because Amazon doesn’t see people as people. They see people as a resource to extract value from.
This isn’t a problem unique to Amazon, everyone reading this can probably name at least one company they’ve worked for that did something similar, but Amazon is an outlier for how aggressively they’ve embraced that idea.
This is a problem endemic to capitalism, as Amazon succeeds, more companies will be forced to adopt those practices on order to compete. Reducing the options people have to avoid Amazon like conditions, and lowering the bar for acceptable workplace culture.
The only defense we have against this is to unionize. Aggressively. The current push should look like nothing more than a warning shot.
If you can organize your workplace and get 75% of the employees in the union, you can write your own check. At a word, 75% of the workforce walking out absolutely cripples any employer. They know that, they don’t want the union because they don’t want you to have any power in the relationship. It’s your life, and they want the keys to it. Take the keys back.
This is a problem inherent to capitalism. It only seeks to raise capital and will exploit every resource to do so. As soon as a resource is no longer useful, it is discarded.
True, yes, I think so, too. Though I have heard working for AWS is brutal for a white collar job. Obviously not as bad as being a driver or warehouse person.
Just go to youtube and lookup videos of programmer youtubers. Everything revolves around “FAANG”. Facebook, Amazon, Air-bnb, netflix and google. They would drown a puppy to be able to work at these places. I don’t get it as it honestly seems very boring and stressful to me.
Edit: just curious why people are downvoting me. I cant honestly see where i was wrong. A lot of programmers i see would love to work for these corporations. Some purely make videos about preparing for interviews for these specific companies. Or is it because i said it seemed boring?
People are staying because the job market is currently cold, especially in tech right now. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc are all on a hiring freeze or at least a very slow hiring rate.
However, you better bet that for the 3 days required by me, I’m only going into the office for only 2-4 hours. Showing up around 11/12 and leaving around 2/3. I’ll actually be able to work after I get home.
Is the implication here that only untalented people would ever put up with working in an office?
I know it’s not a commonly heard notion around these parts, but unlikely as it may seem, some people genuinely don’t mind working in an office. Some even prefer it. Has nothing to do with talent, everything to do with preference and the level of compensation they get for doing it.
Is the implication here that only untalented people would ever put up with working in an office?
Not directly. The Dead Sea Effect says “those who can find an acceptable new job the fastest will leave first”. That usually means the super-stars and more-talented, but the residue behind all that evaporation isn’t all salt. Some people, even the most employable, will stick around, while their benefit/cost/risk/tolerance kind of equation still allows it.
For some people, RTO doesn’t hit their cost and tolerance all that hard. The more unsuitable a person’s home environment is for work and how easy their commute is, that’ll greatly affect forced RTO acceptance and the Dead Sea Effect.
I disagree with the layoff angle. Know who’s quitting? The talent that can find another WFH job. Know who’s staying?
OTOH, maybe Amazon’s big enough to survive the brain drain.
Amazon has always been hostile to it’s employees. The culture of “step up or fuck off” permeates the entire organization, from warehouses to executives.
They’ve even had meetings where they express worry over running out of a viable pool of people to hire from. Because they know they are abusive AF and working for them is miserable, so turnover is extremely high. At some point turnover could surpass a population’s ability to absorb it.
And then the problem will correct itself.
It’s economics, but with people as the commodity being valued.
Amazon currently has a wide labor pool to pull from, and so the value of any individual person is very low. As they saturate the market with people who are bitter and angry about working for Amazon, the pool will shrink, in this case, faster than the rate they lose people. There is a critical point where the growth of the “will never work for Amazon” pool of people will grow exponentially, and as they struggle to hire replacements, workplace conditions will improve. They will not improve before that moment, however.
Because Amazon doesn’t see people as people. They see people as a resource to extract value from.
This isn’t a problem unique to Amazon, everyone reading this can probably name at least one company they’ve worked for that did something similar, but Amazon is an outlier for how aggressively they’ve embraced that idea.
This is a problem endemic to capitalism, as Amazon succeeds, more companies will be forced to adopt those practices on order to compete. Reducing the options people have to avoid Amazon like conditions, and lowering the bar for acceptable workplace culture.
The only defense we have against this is to unionize. Aggressively. The current push should look like nothing more than a warning shot.
If you can organize your workplace and get 75% of the employees in the union, you can write your own check. At a word, 75% of the workforce walking out absolutely cripples any employer. They know that, they don’t want the union because they don’t want you to have any power in the relationship. It’s your life, and they want the keys to it. Take the keys back.
Preach it!
Agree with everything you said. They will also aggressively replace human workers with robots, AI, etc.
These technologies should make life better for working people, but in general I fear they will not. They’ll just concentrate the wealth even faster.
This is a problem inherent to capitalism. It only seeks to raise capital and will exploit every resource to do so. As soon as a resource is no longer useful, it is discarded.
That’s mainly for their blue collar jobs afaik
True, yes, I think so, too. Though I have heard working for AWS is brutal for a white collar job. Obviously not as bad as being a driver or warehouse person.
Just go to youtube and lookup videos of programmer youtubers. Everything revolves around “FAANG”. Facebook, Amazon, Air-bnb, netflix and google. They would drown a puppy to be able to work at these places. I don’t get it as it honestly seems very boring and stressful to me.
Edit: just curious why people are downvoting me. I cant honestly see where i was wrong. A lot of programmers i see would love to work for these corporations. Some purely make videos about preparing for interviews for these specific companies. Or is it because i said it seemed boring?
AirBnB? Don’t you mean Apple?
Oh its apple? How the hell did i forget about apple… 🤦🏻
People are staying because the job market is currently cold, especially in tech right now. Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, etc are all on a hiring freeze or at least a very slow hiring rate.
However, you better bet that for the 3 days required by me, I’m only going into the office for only 2-4 hours. Showing up around 11/12 and leaving around 2/3. I’ll actually be able to work after I get home.
That’s kinda how I roll currently. Going to office is mainly to bullsh and chat with the peeps about current events and video games.
I can’t get shit done at the office. Way too much distraction
Is the implication here that only untalented people would ever put up with working in an office?
I know it’s not a commonly heard notion around these parts, but unlikely as it may seem, some people genuinely don’t mind working in an office. Some even prefer it. Has nothing to do with talent, everything to do with preference and the level of compensation they get for doing it.
Usually they are the people that don’t have hard skills and/or love to hear themselves talk. They’re the people that make me love WFH.
Yes?
If you don’t have the skills or experience to sell yourself then obviously you don’t have a lot of options.
Not directly. The Dead Sea Effect says “those who can find an acceptable new job the fastest will leave first”. That usually means the super-stars and more-talented, but the residue behind all that evaporation isn’t all salt. Some people, even the most employable, will stick around, while their benefit/cost/risk/tolerance kind of equation still allows it.
For some people, RTO doesn’t hit their cost and tolerance all that hard. The more unsuitable a person’s home environment is for work and how easy their commute is, that’ll greatly affect forced RTO acceptance and the Dead Sea Effect.