Amazon to Close 4 of Its 5 US Call Centers, Shifts to Work-from-Home | Hacker News Reader

Amazon to Close 4 of Its 5 US Call Centers, Shifts to Work-from-Home

wolfstreet.com

130 pointstaubek153 comments

It’s always a mixed bag, but with the increase in work-from-home culture will come with a number of down sides for society - loneliness, a significant drop in weak bonds which significantly shrinks one’s social networks, local economic shrinkage as support businesses close (janitors, lunch spots, suppliers, etc), and a loss of general sense of belonging or even loyalty to your employer. Of course there are many obvious upsides which I’m sure HN readers will quickly defend and say they’d never be anything but remote again. That’s great when you have a choice, but when you’re a call center worker you have a low likelihood of having so much choice and autonomy over your not-quite-white-collar life. As far as a call worker goes, the inability to easily commiserate with coworkers on shitty calls, even between calls, I’m certain will lead to higher attrition and lower happiness. Humans need social support.

Definitely agree that the change will come with some immediate social drawbacks.

I wonder if, after 10 or 50 years, you'll start to see different social structures materialize to fill the void left by losing the second place of the office.

120 years ago, people still went to their 'worksite' every day. For some it was in a city, but for a huge number maybe it was on your own farm (thinking of the us). People coped. Isolation was a problem then too.

> People coped. Isolation was a problem then too.

120 years ago family and neighbors would just show up. Communities weren’t compromised of strangers who only slept there. Maybe we’ll adapt by getting to know our neighbors and being less exclusionary about our homes as time goes on.

I hope Meetup is replaced or fixes their problems. When moving cities or just traveling anywhere for a significant time it was an invaluable tool for meeting people with any kind of similar interest. But COVID crushed it, I don't know the financial particulars, but host I've talked to found it became particularly hard to continue groups that didn't have obvious financial backing (tech meetups that company's pay for to scout workers) or extremely passionate members willing to bear the cost.

I got lucky my previous city had extremely passionate members for my favorite group, but my new city is smaller and I think the fees have either killed the old group or are preventing a new group from forming

I can't speak to Meetup specifically but my sense is that a lot of activities that were plowing along mostly on momentum pre-COVID had to go on hiatus and with the break in continuity many will never return (although presumably new ones may take their place).

I'm involved with a big greater than century-old outdoor club and even we are more or less just getting back into the swing of things.

> Humans need social support.

I'll readily admit, that I have very little knowledge about the possible realities of call center workers. Do they usually include social interaction at the workplace or is the whole setup more so geared towards oversight? Because (as always) saving on the commute at the very least frees up some time to do with whatever works for you, although it might take some additional motivation to do something positive with.

> Of course there are many obvious upsides which I’m sure HN readers will quickly defend

No need to be defensive. We can try to be better, one non-defensive comment at a time.

"They're sharing a drink they call Loneliness, but it's better than drinkin' alone" - Billy Joel

Even if you don't talk every hour, you do have conversation. You are reminded that other people understand you, and they live your life. Conversations can happen spontaneously in a way they never will on zoom or slack.

A fully remote workplace is a lonely, sad place. I know.

> A fully remote workplace is a lonely, sad place. I know.

I know that it doesn't have to be true, depending on the person and where they are at. Anyway, I hope you are good where you are right now or, if not, will be soon.

Not for everyone. These conversations need to distinguish between different living arrangements. My fully remote workplace is awesome! When I need a break I play with my 3-year-old son. I eat lunch with my wife. I have no commute, so I can be with my family right at 5 every day and have a good few hours before bedtime.

For someone who lives alone, I can see remote being lonely. For someone without a place set aside for work, I can see it being hard to focus. But for me and my family, it's perfect. I won't be going back to an office at least until the kids are moved out.

> A fully remote workplace is a lonely, sad place. I know.

I disagree vehemently - looks like you're simply trying to pass off your own experience as fact for the rest of people, which isn't appreciated. I know companies that have been fully remote since day 1 and every employee has thrived, both in terms of productivity but overall morale and happiness.

Of course I am. Just like the majority of HN here passes off their experience with WFH, with their families and their huge houses and their established careers, as perfect with no downsides - how dare anyone think an office is useful for socialization, career development, collaboration.

While I am hard pressed to remember any instance where somebody got dared to think that, it's certainly a topic that is handled pretty lopsided on HN.

Having worked at one, the other call center workers are an important outlet of venting and source of camaraderie, because at the end of the day they too have been screamed at by some unpleasant person over the phone refusing to give you information yet expecting you to help them.

I wonder what that looks like in a WFH scenario.

maybe they could break them into teams and give them chat rooms to vent and discuss call topics?

One nice thing about venting in person: it's less likely to be permanently recorded somewhere. I've definitely held back online.

Preach, friend.

All the people saying remote is great aren't thinking about job mobility for new workers in a field, the cost of having to share your home with your job, having to have a larger home, not separating work and home life, etc. I am repeating myself a little bit.

We are in a transition period where we see more of the positives of WFH. Give it a decade and the crippling social and job mobility issues for younger workers will be apparent.

with respect, are you a member of the "support" class?

because your blindspots show:

-single caregivers can actually work from home. -low income workers that cant afford a car (let alone the soon to be mandatory expensive EVs) can actually work and not depend on broken cars, or crime-ridden public transport. - savings on fuel, insurance, and accident rates - the ability to keep employemnt and not need to change jobs due to a toxic workplace culture.

so no, depression et al are not problems of the "support" class. They have real problems (money, child rearing) making ends meet, and relationships/communities are one of the things they have lots of, particularly in immigrant communities.

So telecommute is a godsend for the vast majority of people. The more call centers close. The better. There will be plenty of spaces leftover for people to work together if they so choose.

These for me were lumped in the “obvious upsides”.

In the city I live having a shitty job is highly correlated with spending 3h-5h in public transport. WFH would be a blessing for those folks.

I generally don't care about WFH, but I have enough money to live close to our office.

On the flipside, starting a family when both parents are WFH is a fucking cheat code. 20 years from now, minority groups will be complaining about how white folks are lightyears ahead of them because they had WFH parents and they won't be wrong.

That probably correlates/causates to class much more than skin colour, and so minorities complaining that middle-class people are ahead of them wouldn’t be anything new.

To uphold in-person work for these weak social bonds would be myopic. We should have more robust forms of community outside of work. That isn't something that a workplace can ever reliably provide at scale, given the incentives of workers to maximize income and not connection.

Instead we'll get a new alter to worship at together one that makes us all poorer.

Can you elaborate? Are you saying we should worship at the alter of in person work? That it makes us richer than those who don't have to commute or suffer open office plans?

> given the incentives of workers to maximize income and not connection.

I don’t understand this point.

s/workers/employers

But also your fellow employees would not be wrong to leave their job (and hence you) if a better opportunity presented itself, and I don't think they should be disparaged for making that choice. Such is the peril of friendship via work.

Agreed. I happily use my old commute time to socialize with people I want to hang out with instead of the people I’m forced to be with through happenstance at work.

This also shifts the cost of the office to the employee.

Only marginally, if one cannot afford to heat/cool their home 40 more hours a week then it's unlikely they can afford 5-hours a week commuting. And folks with family at home aren't saving anything compared to in office jobs.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-26/remote-wo...

It always happens at the margins. Sure, a call center worker might not be eyeing that second home in the mountains, but maybe they and their partner got a two-bedroom apartment instead of a one-bedroom.

>… a loss of general sense of belonging or even loyalty to your employer.

I don’t think you have to worry about that one being lost anymore

Someone in my extended family used to do remote tech support/call center type stuff for Apple around 10 years ago, before WFH was popular. WFH was a huge draw for her because it allowed her to stay in a small rural town (75 min from a medium sized city, 30m from a small city) with her extended family, and easily balance her job around caring for her household.

I agree with your sentiment in general, that there are benefits to in-person work that we lose with WFH. But at least for her, WFH represented a no-compromise way of working. Her other options were don't work, work a local job that would likely pay at or barely above minimum wage, have a long commute to the medium sized city, or move away from her very close-knit family. Social support from coworkers was not a consideration compared to these things.

Culturally I think the idea of having a loose social network from your job is actually a pretty recent thing for most of society. Of course there have been professional organizations for millenia, but until the industrial/agricultural revolutions work for most people was done within the family. People can adjust back to spending more time with their family and local community, and less with extra-familiar coworkers. Long term, I don't think people will become more lonely from WFH - a lot of the loneliness issues were likely due to the abrupt transition to WFH due to COVID coupled with COVID-related social restrictions.

The ability for remote people to either work at all or get something higher paid I counted as obvious benefits in my original comment.

The concept of a company maybe relatively recent in humanity, but that doesn’t mean the social bonds with it are something worth throwing away, and given modern society is organized around it, with it will come a lot of loneliness. We don’t have a culture in the US that values community for the most part, with exceptions obviously. Hell, one of two parties does nothing but call half of the US the biggest threat and enemy to the country. This isn’t an environment to grow ties in.

> Hell, one of two parties does nothing but call half of the US the biggest threat and enemy to the country. This isn’t an environment to grow ties in.

I honestly couldn’t tell which party you were referring to. Which likely speaks to the extreme nature of the current divide.

Fortunately most local community groups are not tightly aligned with political groups - however there are obvious exceptions to this along with regional biases.

> Long term, I don't think people will become more lonely from WFH - a lot of the loneliness issues were likely due to the abrupt transition to WFH due to COVID coupled with COVID-related social restrictions.

Agreed. It's not just COVID—the other reason for the loneliness is because so many people have adopted a historically unprecedented way of living. We've severed ties with our families and with the people we live near in favor of forming our critical relationships around our careers.

I hope we'll see over the coming years a return to an older, family- and neighborhood-centric way of life. This would require restoring or reinventing institutions that are currently dying or dead, but the result would be healthier than tying our social lives to corporations.

For me, the solution to work-from-home loneliness (or even loneliness in general), would be having more local work spaces where you can meet other work-from-home peers from your local town.

Face-to-face interactions and sense of belonging are as important as sleep, exercise and nutrition.

But if it’s a random collection of people then you don’t really have a sense of belonging, unless there’s fixed people over the long term. Which is unlikely in a random work space. Certainly you don’t have a sense of shared work experience, or even people you can usefully talk trash about your bosses.

It could also create better proximity bonds with neighbors, increasing the cohesion in the local social fabric. Personally I know my neighbors better since the pandemic, and we are helping eachothers more now.

I mean do you seriously believe office life is some immutable law of nature and without it humanity will stop being social?

You have heard of neighbors, yes? Just had “block party” with my wfh neighbors.

I learned a couple are architects, one is in biology science, etc etc.

Far more diverse conversation than parroting IT jargon all week.

> a loss of general sense of belonging or even loyalty to your employer.

no call center employees should be missing this.

> That’s great when you have a choice, but when you’re a call center worker you have a low likelihood of having so much choice and autonomy over your not-quite-white-collar life. As far as a call worker goes, the inability to easily commiserate with coworkers on shitty calls, even between calls, I’m certain will lead to higher attrition and lower happiness. Humans need social support.

I'm in no position to have an opinion, but our development team constantly depends upon call center guys to pass the request related to bugs, and last week they had a meeting with the senior leaders to push for work from home.

If you are lonely because you aren't going into an office every day, you have issues in your life.

> significant drop in weak bonds which significantly shrinks one’s social networks

The "social network" is overrated, one good friend that can take care of your dog and house while you are away on holiday is worth more than 1000 "connections".

> local economic shrinkage as support businesses close (janitors, lunch spots, suppliers, etc),

On the other hand it boosts economy elsewhere.

> a loss of general sense of belonging

You need to think hard what happens when you leave or they fire you, are you going to lose your sense of belonging? is your life just your work.

> loyalty to your employer

Be loyal to your spouse, not your employer, if you find a better place to work for, go for it, your employer will do the same with you within a millisecond.

> Humans need social support.

Yes, they do, but if your main supply is work colleagues, you are screwed.

You don't have time between calls. Your breaks are scattered to provide coverage.

Better to get social support fun a partner at home?

This will also make it harder to unionize. Historically, having your coworkers together in one place was a prerequisite for collective action. If call center workers are atomized, even a thin hope of that will perish.

I don’t think so. All that is needed is a different way to organize. Unions need online social networks for workers to meet and communicate. That would make it impossible for companies to stop unionization.

IIRC, Ralph Nader once proposed a .union TLD that would mirror each employer's .com domain. If you worked for Amazon, you'd know to go to amazon.union to find out about the company union, or if it didn't exist, about unionizing activities. I'm sure there would be many implementation details that would need to be worked out, but it seemed like a pretty good way to empower labor at each company.

That would give monopoly power to one union.

Monopolies always abuse their power.

I think that would fall under the implementations details for me. It'd be a nice idea to show a listing of all registered unions when going to the amazon.union domain, with further subdomains for specific unions. (xxx.amazon.union, yyy.amazon.union, etc). I don't think this would lead to any monopolization of power.

The site could contain links to all unions that represent employees in that company. Not sure I've ever heard of any individual employee being represented by multiple unions, even if there are multiple unions covering different groups within a company, but I guess it's possible.

That was my first thought. If you're at a call center, you can talk to co-workers in the break room or bathrooms or on public transit or in the parking lot.

If you're working remotely and every one else is doing the same, your only communications method will be company-owned and searchable. Amazon will make it difficult to know where Jeff B. or Mary G. lives, what their last name is, etc. No making connections on Facebook or whatever. Anybody asking a co-worker for personal contact information would certainly be terminated immediately.

I work at Google, and when we came back to the office, we started having all sorts of hallway conversations about well-being and pandemic stress. If we were talking during the work-from-home period, we would have raised an alarm. Each of us had assumed we were the only ones struggling.

A sensible approach. On site work is a thing of the past. We need more remote people for a higher quality of life, less pollution and improved mental health. I appreciate there are those without friends or family that want to fill in the void with coworkers but your coworkers are simply not there for that.

> but your coworkers are simply not there for that.

Yes they are, many of them would be there in a similar situation. The work place colleagues is the main pool one draws "friends" from nowadays in very many cases.

You may be right, but that’s a sad ordeal: your boss is an arbiter of your social interactions?

That’s not healthy for you (those people), not for society, and especially not for local communities.

No, they're not. And no, I'm not. And no amount of using coworkers as a crutch for not having a private social life will change that.

There are plenty of reasons why many can't welcome coworkers into your private life. It's a huge discrimination risk.

Aside from that, coupling social needs with employment needs creates a form of codependence with the workplace. You have more incentive to stay at a job that is mistreating you because you'll lose your friends if you leave.

Maybe some people are ok with those dynamics, but I'm personally not, and I'll not have my colleagues forcing it upon me.

Perhaps, but that's not the way many people actually live. Maybe you would seek out alternates to socializing, but the institutions that once did that are dying or long dead.

> Maybe you would seek out alternates to socializing

I don't know if you intended it, but this directly equates work to socializing.

I don't seek out alternatives to socializing because I don't use work as a socialization tool. If anything, people using work for their primary socialization outlet are using it as an alternative to socializing.

Ask yourself what political movements killed those institutions. It wasn't organic. People naturally come to together but most of those institutions have been harassed or outright outlawed out of existence. Make freedom of association an absolute right instead of something to be demonized and those institutions will return, along with all of the healthy social outcomes they enabled.

> No, they're not. And no, I'm not. And no amount of using coworkers as a crutch for not having a private social life will change that.

You can say that, but the data says otherwise[0], with time with friends peaking at ~18 or so. Time spent with coworkers surpasses time spent with friends @ 20.

I agree this is a problem in some ways (the discrimination you mention, conflict of power, etc), but in many ways it makes sense. You're spending 40-50hrs/week on an activity that involves others, you're probably going to have some non-commercial relationship with them. And maybe the opportunity of a good life is in finding that non-commercial relationship, while making money?

To me - it's actually the suburbanization, the glass windows between everyone in cars on some "stroad"... of american life that causes this. The lack of literal physical interactions with others reduces your community to only the nuclear essentials.

I'm desperately searching for a life that combines meaningful work, large community, privacy, and space. I'm still searching.

[0]: https://ourworldindata.org/time-with-others-lifetime

Friendship isn't just spending time with someone.

Let's invert the problem. My coworkers are stuck with me. More or less, whether they love me or hate me, they don't really get to say no to being around me.

To that end, my goal around my coworkers is to be pleasant and not too opinionated. We'll talk about non-combustible sort of topics and I'll try to keep myself restrained on strong opinions.

I don't do that with my friends. I pick my friends and my friends pick me. I am very close to my friends and we know each other fairly intimately, including our thorny opinions and sex lives and non-HR approved behaviors. We are friends.

Do not burden your coworkers with your relationship. Be professional. Have real friends - and be real with them so that you may know them and be known in return.

Not everyone you have regular, unplanned contact with is or ought to be your real friend. On the other hand, nearly everyone who becomes a real friend is someone you previously had regular, unplanned contact with. We're headed for a world where everyone is either close enough to make explicit plans with, or a total stranger in a public place - we will no longer have this third category "coworker" or "classmate" that's conducive to deeper relationships. That's a real loss.

I am sure that companies would love that. Being tied to the company for your healthcare (in the U.S.) and also being tied by having so your friends in the company. Great “lock in”.

You are not tied to the company for healthcare. You are tied to a company. This means that healthcare is not much of a leverage to keep you tied to any particular company.

Similarly, I am not required to go through the company in order to socialize with friends I made in that company. Indeed, I maintain friendships I made in companies I no longer work for.

Lastly, making friends through your job is how it always has been. Talk to your parents.

The removal of the pre existing condition exception does make heath insurance more portable. On the other hand, getting a new job while you have a major health issue is much harder while keeping an existing job is not because companies can’t discriminate based on employee health, but it’s much harder to prove discrimination during highering.

So in theory it’s not a limitation, but in practice it often is.

> On the other hand, getting a new job while you have a major health issue is much harder while keeping an existing job is not because companies can’t discriminate based on employee health

As far as I know, employers are free to terminate anyone having health issues that render them unable to perform their duties:

https://work.chron.com/termination-employment-due-ill-health...

FMLA (if employer has more than 50 employees) or a state disability law might protect employment for up to 12 weeks or so, but other than that, there is no reason a business has to keep a sick employee who cannot fulfill duties on payroll.

People who are unable to function long term, qualify for SS disability. It’s the middle ground where people have significant issues but are still capable of working that’s at issue.

> You are not tied to the company for healthcare. You are tied to a company. This means that healthcare is not much of a leverage to keep you tied to any particular company.

Switching insurance is a hassle. Maybe in some areas plans are more fungible, but where I live there are two main insurance companies with two highly disjoint networks. Switching jobs has a 50% chance of forcing us to also switch pediatricians, which is a huge hassle when the kids have finally become comfortable with our current one.

Interesting, I have used BCBS affiliated insurance on both costs in 3 states with 3 different companies, and every doctor I have looked up has been in network.

You are not even tied to a company for healthcare. You just get to purchase insurance with pre tax money rather than post tax money. But if you are self employed, you can also purchase with pre tax money.

The people that get screwed are employees of employers that do not offer health insurance. They have to buy with post tax money.

Remember that your situation is not universal. The moment I change jobs, either I have to pay several arms and my remaining leg through COBRA to keep my insurance for a few months or I have to eat whatever I've already paid towards the deductible and annual out-of-pocket max with my old insurance, plus start spending towards the deductible and annual out-of-pocket max with my new insurance. For my family, it depends on the insurance company, but it's typically between $15 and $20k.

My wife and I have chronic conditions- we frequently hit our annual max within the first three months of the year. If I don't switch to a new job before that fills up, I've wasted $15,000. For me, switching jobs is essentially a $15,000 fine.

So yeah, insurance being tied to a specific company is very much an incentive to stay with that company.

The health care exchange plans usually aren't as good as employer plans, but they do exist and should remove a lot of the tie to employers.

It's not like the before times where you'd need to visit a bunch of brokers and hope someone could find a plan you might qualify for, if you're lucky.

What you usually miss out on is non-emergency coverage outside your home area, whether that's limited to the state or county you live in depends, and sometimes it's pretty bad if you live in an area where it's common to cross county or state boundaries but the exchange plans don't allow that.

> You can say that, but the data says otherwise[0], with time with friends peaking at ~18 or so. Time spent with coworkers surpasses time spent with friends @ 20.

And my time on the bus far surpasses the time I spend with my mother, so I suppose I love the bus more than my mother.

Not sure why this is being downvoted. True, not all coworkers are there for building a social life, but many are. The GP was just as single-sided in its evaluation of workplace comradery.

What we would benefit from is workplaces having a strong stance on which culture they belong to, and applicants understanding that, respecting it, and seeking employment in the desired culture.

I’ve always felt the “coworkers can’t be your friends” argument was as silly as saying “school mates can’t be your friends.”

Make friends where you make them.

Of course they can be your friends. But demanding they leave their families behind to hold your hand in an office is creepy.

no one is “demanding” someone “leave their families behind” to hold anyone’s hand in an office.

The context here is of 'work from home' vs 'go to the office' because coworkers need you to socialize with them, so yes, some are indeed demanding that workers leave their families behind to come hold their hand in the office.

Where I work, family time is family time and work time is work time. Working from home should very little difference, and if it persistently does then that's a problem.

It's pretty normal for people to take breaks. The last office I worked in had video game consoles that people used during the day, or they'd go on a walk to get coffee. No one cares as long as people are getting their work done.

Now that I work from home, I can take a break to go on a walk with my family, and we can eat lunch together. It's a huge difference even with no change in time spent working.

I don’t they’re saying you must go to the office because people need you to socializing them, I think they’re saying some people prefer the office because they have the opportunity to socialize. And at least for my part I was agreeing that these folks exist.

Actually it does happen and it is awful because those making the demands are really lame people that never grew out of high school mentality - all their work friends or school friends are their only friends. If you don’t join them you are to be expunged.

The snark in me wants to say "you live in a society". It's a free market of jobs. Want to be a yeoman, head to the farm.

> Want to be a yeoman, head to the farm.

How about "Want a friend? Go find one. We're at work." Work is the only place where people who aren't wealthy can get their pay. Work, a place where people are locked in for 8 hours a day under pain of starvation and homelessness, is the only place where some minority of people can make "friends." We shouldn't tailor everything around those people, even though they're likely to be the most vocal.

One of my arguments is that in the long term, full remote will hamper the ability for people to cross train, quickly pick up new skills, or network and be able to find new jobs effectively.

I feels like you're saying "fuck you, I got mine" to new entrants to the field.

I know wfh is great for others. It's terrible for others. No one is forcing you to do a thing. WFH is certainly here to stay for many companies.

And when you need to fire your friend, or report them for inappropriate behavior in the workplace, how is that going to go for you? What if you share something important with a coworker-friend and they dislike it? You are now stuck with that person.

I don’t want to be in management, so I just have to not report my friends’ inappropriate behavior. I wouldn’t do that to a friend anyway, short of something like murder.

You wouldn't report someone for accepting bribes, falsifying paperwork or sexually harassing someone just because they are your friend?

no.

I think it is reasonably to maintain professional distance from your reports for that reason.

I’m not sure what you mean by “something important” but I don’t think that’s significantly different than a risk you might take with a neighbor or a classmate. You can be stuck with those as well.

Because it’s a self perpetuating trap that a lot of young workers fall into and forces others to adopt it for career purposes. Companies love this behavior but it’s unhealthy as there is always a layer of work layered over those relationships. I’ve seen it many times where those friendships disappear when the gig is done, or where a night out veers back to work topics. Not to mention where is the variety in perspective in your social circle if it’s all work friends? I know better now to seek most friendships outside work so I’m not accidentally linking my entire social existence into the company I work for.

> What we would benefit from is workplaces having a strong stance on which culture they belong to, and applicants understanding that, respecting it, and seeking employment in the desired culture.

That just sounds like a strong stance that minorities (of any type) should be restricted to a tiny number of companies and fields, and that companies should be very opinionated and strict about aspects of applicants that are completely unrelated to their technical, organizational or communications skills.

That's a very unfair take. My point was that some companies can say "we're adopting a WFH policy so that people can prioritize their out-of-work wants and needs" and other companies can say "we have an in-office policy so that people can fraternize during work". Both are valid policies that can be enriching to employees, and the key to preventing frustration is to maintain proper expectations--don't hire people that want a policy out of line with what you offer.

I've had many people I would consider work friends I was happy to see and talk to every day and even hang out with, but Noone I kept a friendship with after moving on. Feels like it crosses a line to me about work and life being separate things.

On the contrary some of my best friends I’ve made at work and I continue to spend time with them years after we’ve all moved on to different jobs.

Thats just creepy. Sounds a bit like a communist collective where everyone sleeps, works, eats and lives together. But no, we are not there for you. Build your own private life.

Would you say the same about school?

I am not against making friends in either place. I am against demanding it, which forcing people into offices means.

I didn’t read anyone up the chain suggesting it be forced, just that there are some people who do like being together in person.

In places that don't suck, coworkers do support each other and are friendly, at least to some extent.

Work is 1/3 of ones life. I don't get how many people are hostile to socialization during that time.

What about neighbors?

> but your coworkers are simply not there for that

I've become friends with coworkers at every job I've been at. Most of the time when I leave that is pretty much it, but I've also retained some of those friendships for years now (one particular friend I go out with at least once a month still). Another group of friends from several jobs ago I try and meet up once a year at a particular conference we all attend - no, we aren't terribly close anymore but once we are back together it is like old times again.

In summary, I don't think there is any need to create "rules" on such things. Some people might become friends with their coworkers and some might not. Social bonds are important, and there is no need to try and draw lines on which bonds are appropriate or not - everyone is capable of deciding this for themselves.

I retained a few good friends from one particular small nerdy and young company.

But I joined that company because of it.

It was also very unique in itself.

If Homeoffice would become the norm I could imagine actually enjoying the people who life around me.

Due to covid I have seen much more of the people I actually life cloth. Neighbors etc.

It would also be much cooler if friends would life closer to be able to meet up etc.

But I still think it's

Something feels a little off in this particular case. I feel like there is an implied increase in flexibility with WFH for many of us here, but I doubt call center employees get that benefit at all.

They likely get some of that. For example, I do laundry, and for me, 70% of that is popping one load in the washer, transferring to the dryer and back out. After that, I quickly fold and put away. That sort of task could easily be done I suspect while on the phone with a wireless headset. There are probably other household tasks that don't take much brainpower that could be multitasked.

I think we're getting very close to a commercial office real-estate collapse in North America, and all the ensuing chaos that comes along with that. Commutes will plummet, houses will need space to work, neighbourhoods may need more services as people "stay local".

There's already a micro version of this happening in NYC the last 18 months.

Residential neighborhoods that are normally dead on weekdays daytime are suddenly filled with people while midtown/fidi office areas are significantly quieter. There's already been impact to relative apartment rents, especially with younger people who are picking neighborhoods based less on commute time and more on lifestyle.

I can imagine a lot of NYC commuter suburbs will see similar effect.

People I know in tech in NYC with high paying jobs have moved deeper into suburbs, banking on being WFH more than in-office.

In before-times, fully in-office, workers were commuting 60+% of the 365 days of year (after removing weekends/holidays/vacations/sick days)

Even in a median 2-3 days in-office case, people could be commuting as few as 20% of days of year.

Spending 90min/way on the train but only 20-25% of calendar days starts to feel manageable if you were previously doing 60% of your days on the train for 60min/way.

Yeah it was interesting to see https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup commercial estate videos how large portion of real estate is up for rent in NY but as the house of cards is built on cheap mortgage or black money no one is willing to bring down rent. Even NY government is unwilling to as that would mean they would loose billions in property taxes. But as interest rates rise landlords will come under pressure to sell the properties or lower the rent so that they can at least meat interest payments which will result in lower valuations and margin calls.

I'm all for it, honestly.

I’m so bearish on commercial real estate I’m hibernating in a cave and I’m not going to feel comfortable investing until I see it crash to earth. The fact the pricing is staying as high as it is, that’s nothing but total madness.

Work from home isn’t going to stop. We’ve been desensitized to how ridiculous the status quo is. Like driving to a callcenter so you can be next to people shouting at their phone as you stare straight forward at a computer screen before going home.

I don't like density. I understand where pro-density people are coming from, but I think there is a max density where people lose too much freedom.

Getting rid of commutes and letting everyone have a smaller required radius is a big winner. It's a winner for pollution, for transportation and for family/work balance.

A better way to look at it is as a large permanent general productivity gain. If you wonder how a falling population can manage to take care of its seniors, it's by wringing productivity out of technology when we can.

If Amazon is doing it, its the data that's telling that its more efficient cost-wise. They are still one of the most ruthlessly efficient tech companies out there. They are definitely NOT doing it to make it better for employees, but it happens to be a pro for employees too in this scenario.

Amazon has spent the last decade or so perfecting employee surveillance, and now home surveillance. They don't need people to be onsite anymore because they can just watch people at home.

This is fantastic news for the call center employees.

I'm not sure it's good news for customers who call for support, though. From my personal experience there's a pretty high chance the call will be disrupted by something. Kids, pets, toilet flushing, personal calls, someone ringing the doorbell, whatever.

The absolute worst I've experienced was a call with someone who was taking customer service calls outside on her cellphone. The heavy wind feeding into her microphone combined with an already not so good cellphone reception did not make a good customer service experience.

> The absolute worst I've experienced was a call with someone who was taking customer service calls outside on her cellphone. The heavy wind feeding into her microphone combined with an already not so good cellphone reception did not make a good customer service experience.

That seems very okay. We'll adjust. Also there's plenty potential for technology to solve actual issues for humans (one human not wanting to have to sit at the desk all day, the other wanting to have good phone support), which is a great thing.

The entire industry is shifting to WFH. I can tell because of the beeps.

I swear in 1 out of every 5 or 6 calls to a customer service line I hear an intermittent beep go off every few seconds in the background. I used to think it was a call center thing. But then I realized it was a smoke alarm beep.

Not only is every customer service rep working from home now, but for some reason they'd rather deal with beeping than change their smoke alarm batteries.

I’ve had coworkers like that. Tempting to ask for their address and Instacart a 9V battery…

Same but background dog barking

A regular intermittent beep could also a be signal that the line is being recorded.

A lot of companies are still trying to make hybrid work, though it remains to be seen how sustainable that is given the stark difference in experience.

Its funny, our workplace is the opposite now, the ones with lots of background noise and other issues are always met with "oh you are in the office today"

One of the worst things about call centres is hearing everybody else. Work from home makes more sense.

I'm surprised that Amazon of all gave up the "handcuffed to the desk" approach to management in favor of work from home. Apparently the cost of rent and infrastructure is bigger than the last 1% they could squeeze out of their workforce. Middle managers must have an existential crisis right now /s

I wonder if Amazon is using Amazon Connect to allows agents to answer these calls remotely.

https://aws.amazon.com/connect/

They probably use it in their call Centres.

I'm curious what kind of big-brother productivity/spy tools they are using. Something Orwellian enough that Amazon is willing to cede having these people in the office.

Call center may not need much extra. Track call metrics: time to answer a call, time to resolve a call. Calls are recorded for quality, so the boss was always watching. Any action on a customer's account is logged and audited.

I'm amazed more WFH for call centres wasn't a thing pre-pandemic.

20+ years ago definity extenders let a person working from home have a digital pabx extension like in the office and shared the network link with their PC - perfect for call centre work as you had quality audio the same as in the office.

I applaud the work-from-home option, but wish that companies would do more to have quarterly on-site events just in case, maybe even a yearly gathering that's mandatory. I'd be very interested in meeting many of my co-workers in face.

Would this then require you still have to work nearby, or take a costly and time-consuming trip into the office? (I imagine it's not easy for a parent to abandon children just to fly over for a few days to see the office). Would be rather expensive for the company to fly people in and house them in hotels and feed them for seemingly (to me) little benefit :/

Distributed teams have been getting together semi-regularly at offsites for as long as I've been working--which is to say decades. And while some people are adamantly opposed to travel of any kind, it's the norm for many professional workers, especially at more senior levels.

Expensive to travel relative to what? A developer salary is probably at least 90k, so that's a 1% cost to get someone on site for a few days, all expenses paid.

Now look at the big companies, devs make 4x that and don't require any extra accomodations for travel.

This is a big news both because it will help people who don’t want to commute and work from home and will cause trouble for people cannot work from home (small homes, kids, noisy environments, etc.)

I've worked from home since 2011 with no issues, but having a 3 year old in the house made it impossible to focus on anything of importance.

Wait.... if you could not focus then were you really working?

this is one of the biggest drawbacks I see, people wfh having less productivity because they are focusing on their personal responsibilities and not their professional ones likely meaning co-workers are picking up the slack to get the work done.

Can call centre employees afford their own workspace? I hope this comes with a big raise. Mom’s kitchen table is going to get busy!

Do WFH employees get compensated for exchanging office amenities for personal? Desk space, electricity, internet, coffee, etc?

Speaking as someone who has been WFH for the past 10 years: No, not typically, although I did get like $25/mo. credit for Internet at my past job. To be fair, I sought WFH it was not forced on me - they would have preferred I been in the office. It might be different if your position is specifically WFH.

There's definitely a tradeoff of having to buy your own desk and coffee, but not having to pay the transport costs and time of commuting.

where i live you can claim a lot of that stuff on tax

Capitalists constantly sing the song of capitalism as an economic efficiency driver.

WFH is economically more efficient for both employer and employee. It does cause a short term ground-swell as inner city businesses move back to the suburbs, but long term it isn't an increase or decrease, just a reallocation. The same pro-capitalist people are upset by WFH even while being entirely inline with their supposed beliefs, kind of showcasing that it was anti-labor all along. They're happy to benefits businesses, but the fact it may benefit employees even more upsets them greatly.

Personally I'm looking forward to more locally owned bodegas and sandwich shops opening near people's WFH homes, maybe so local that some people will even walk to them during lunch and start talking to their neighbors again. We may even see people vote for more pedestrian and cycling infrastructure improvements as they start to use it more.

You criticize capitalism and then look forward to locally owned bodegas and sandwich shops, who by definition are capitalists?

I think here it's a historical materialist view on capitalism, so if you work in your shop, it's not capitalism (basically).

I didn't criticize capitalism. I'm criticizing online commentary.

The comment was about how WFH is a boon to capitalists, because there are people/pundits who larp as capitalists who ignore productivity gains to bash it.

It's just when some people see their religion mentioned, they get triggered.

I sincerely don’t see the connection between capitalism and anti-WFH. To me, I see it reducing the cost of starting and running a business. It’s also very family-friendly (a lot of entrepreneurs seem to have families, especially older ones.) Is that based on a recent article or study?

I think you may be reading too much into pro or con “capitalism” here.

I am generally pro capitalist (to a point) but any also pro WFH (in many situations) and don’t see any conflict. It is a complex socio-economic issue and there are benefits and downsides to both office work and WFH.

Some businesses oppose WFH but others are embracing it. A lot are experimenting with many trying a hybrid approach of intermittent office work with WFH on other days. Some employees love WFH and would do it all the time but others find something missing or inconvenient about it and would rather work at the office or be able to have a choice about the mix between those options.

Whether you get more local engagement of those employees around their home may depend on the neighborhood they live in. Some may get a local convenience store but others may just drive to the closest Safeway.

At the bank I'm working at, last year with my coworkers, we decided to guess which managers/execs owned real estate in Paris according to how much they pushed against WFH. We had one outlier, and probably a lot of confounding factors, but the correlation do exist.

>>WFH is economically more efficient for both employer and employee

it can be, but it can also be inefficient

When done correctly, where the WFH employee has a dedicated place in the home , has set aside dedicated time for working, and has provided the correct technological resources for their home (i.e proper internet) then it is a win win

However when the employee instead uses WFH as an excuse to just be "From Home" and focuses on home actives such as child care, home maintenance, or even entertainment or when the employee attempts to use shared spaces (or even as one commenter mentions using a cell phone outside while doing customer service) then it can go very badly

my personal experience supporting WFH people is vast, and the number of times I have had to explain to people that your Huges Net Sat internet, or you 3G connection is not really good enough to do a 4K zoom call is not good enough

Or the number of screaming kids I have encountered on meetings...

or....

to be clearly, I am not anti-WFH. I WFH myself. From a dedicated office in my home with gigabit fiber optic connection

but I dont think it is universal good for all employees, nor do I believe it is universal bad, it like most things has alot of gray

> However when the employee instead uses WFH as an excuse to just be "From Home" and focuses on home actives such as child care, home maintenance,

Ah come on, who really does that? Usually people put in extra time. Especially when they unplanned had to suddenly care 2 hours for their child or another emergency, I saw those do that at least the time in the evening, sometimes more.

And what if not? In work you have days where lunch suddenly takes much longer, or you had a long but unecessary chat for an hour.. and just worked less time ""super productive"".

Sure there are exploiters and lazies.. but know what? They slack in office then too in one or the other way.. And unless they are super destructive its still better to have them at home too, so they do not stick on my desk or distract me from the next cubicle. (But yeah please get rid of them as quick as possible, nothing more demotivating for a team than such guys going long undetected).

> do a 4K zoom call is not good enough

Not doing 4K zoom calls is also a productivity gain.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com