There is no logic in RTO for most tech workers. I'm glad they're backtracking.
Edit: spelling
A cherry on top, HR scripts don't properly account for partial vacation weeks, so if you have 3 vacation days in a week, you are still supposed to be in office 3 days a week, or else your VP gets notified.
If you’re wondering why I stay, it’s cause Amazon was my first real Software job, I started as an intern in 2020 and was always remote. I’m on a team that rapidly grew during covid and I happen to have been on the team the longest so it’s hard for me to find a position with an equivalent staff level scope with my level of experience.
The final straw was when we got the word that we would be required to move so that we would be co-located with our management in the HQ2 offices, or we would have to find alternative employment elsewhere.
We weren’t given a timeframe on when that was going to happen, but based on the timeframe I saw from the announcement of RTO to the enforcement of RTO, I knew it wouldn’t be long. So, I chose to leave as quickly as possible.
I gave my manager early warning that I was actively looking for alternative employment, and I kept him appraised of how the interview process was going, and then how the decision process was going, and then how the hiring paperwork process was going. When everything was finalized, he then got my official two weeks notice.
That was also when I told a few people inside the company that I was leaving and where I was going, but my official notification to the team wasn’t made until my actual final day — my manager requested that he be the one to make that announcement.
During my final two weeks, my manager also told me that he decided to also leave, and move back to India. I don’t know if he was forced out because too many people had left the team within the past year, or if it was truly a personal decision. But I do know we lost a lot of good people.
So, RTO is not the worst thing that can be done to you by your employer. Wait until they force you to move to be co-located with your manager and the rest of whatever team remains. And all without any kind of assistance with the moving costs, because you’re just that damn lucky to still have a job at all.
But that’s the Amazon way. RTO, forced co-location, stack ranking, unregretted attrition, the whole nine yards. Humans really are one hundred percent disposable if you work at Amazon.
This tracking is reported all the way down to your immediate manager on a weekly basis. Or, at least it was back when I worked at Amazon.
So far, they do seem to be the only company I’ve heard of so far that is doing the forced co-location with your management, specifically for people who were hired as remote and promised that they could stay remote.
I’m sure they have some other practices that may be common amongst other companies, and probably some that are not common amongst other companies. But in terms of the main ones I mentioned, there is a great deal of overlap.
The logic of RTO has always been about two things:
1. A desperate attempt by investors higher up the food chain to salvage the commercial real-estate market.
2. A "work force reduction" technique that avoids too many negative headlines.
Anytime you see RTO the logic is always coming from one of the above, and has nothing to do with productivity. Reduced push for RTO in tech is primarily because the commercial real-estate market is increasingly looking doomed regardless of efforts to get people back into office buildings.
So how does that work - CEOs are being pressured by, not their VCs I assume, but like... hedge fund managers?
Every startup I've known that's attempting RTO is definitely doing so from VC pressure. Of course the announcement from the leadership will never phrase it that way, but when leadership suddenly has some inspiration about the value of working in proximity immediately after a board/investor meeting you can be sure where that inspiration comes from.
Most recently IPO'd startups are also strongly influenced by small numbers of institutional investors that have major sway in decision making. All of those investors have broad portfolios and have a keen interest in keeping commercial real-estate healthy.
At a certain level that pressure comes from the CEOs themselves since they likely have a large number of assets (and/or the company itself does) tied up in commercial real estate. All of those mega-campuses are real estate investments and have a certain value on the books. If the commercial real estate market crashes, the value of those assets does as well.
I'd RTO if somehow I could guarantee being at an office 10-15 minutes.
Many if not most managers believe people aren’t working if they can’t see them. Others just like the lifestyle of coming into the office and saying hello to the lackeys.
I'd lose literally dozens of hours of free time per month I currently use on chores, hobbies, naps, and quality time with loved ones.
My effective hourly rate (salary / active hours) would plummet. Going remote many years ago has skyrocketed my wealth when you account for time.
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/mining...
My day is full of too many impromptu meetings that require me to be on zoom, and the environment at the office is utterly counterproductive to having those conversations or getting real work done. If I had to stop what I was doing and find a conference room every time I needed to communicate with a remote co-worker, I'd spend half my day walking to and from a room.
I go to the office and I'm still remote!
Management doesn't care you come to the office just to do your work remotely anyway since your other coders are not in the same geographical location as you, they just want you in the office because they are also in the office because the CEO also wants them in the office.
RTO mandates are lobbied by landlords and shareholders who also hold stocks in commercial property.
Empty offices lose value and the push is to use workers to artificially prop the value of offices.
At very least those who come to office should be given share of capital gains.