91% of polled Amazon staff unhappy with RTO, 3-in-4 want to jump ship | Hacker News Reader

91% of polled Amazon staff unhappy with RTO, 3-in-4 want to jump ship

theregister.com

66 pointstaubek66 comments

Short term it doesn’t matter for Amazon, they are printing money but more challenging times are ahead and wouldn’t mind to reduce their headcount. Being “unhappy” has been the staple of most Amazon employees since the beginning - see Yegge blog posts.

Tech jobs do not abound right now, so if they are going to do this, the moment is now.

The discussion if this is the right move or not ( for the future of the company) is one we could have, but in a way it’s like the peasants discussing the latest drama in the Royal family, at the of the day: who cares? They’ll be fine either way.

About 250 years ago, some of the peasants in the Americas had beef with the royal family, and it changed the world.

Were they peasants or land owning gentry?

If I remember correctly, there was a “Continental Army.” It wasn’t drawn from the whole continent, but it was enough to fight a whole war with the British army and win.

Well yeah the peasants always do the actual fighting. But the impetus and leadership of the American Revolution was, I believe, mostly landed gentry.

At a time where the British were fighting an actual continental war in Europe lol.

But anyways, the real point to be made is that it's not the peasants that revolted. But a bunch of merchants from NE that were unhappy about giving the crown money.

The land owning gentry ofc. People still mistakenly romanticize the French revolution being about the poor killing the rich by guillotine, when it was actually the rich nobility (land owning gentry) getting the royalty beheaded via the publics' uprising. Same with the Russian revolution that got the Romanovs killed and replaced by the Soviets.

Most such conflicts are not the haves vs the have-nots but the just-gots vs the already-hads -- new money vs. old money.

Most of the enlightenment-era revolutions in Europe were the newly minted mercantile rich overthrowing the old medieval rich and the Church of Rome. The US revolution was the colonial rich throwing off the yoke of the British crown and its taxes.

Pretty much. It's just the poor getting new management.

Sometimes there are improvements for the poor though. My speculation there would be that the just-gots include some people who were poor recent enough that they or their immediate ancestors remember it.

Class turnover is often a good thing.

>Class turnover is often a good thing.

The results of the communist revolutions, especially in Russia, would beg to differ. Instead of being oppressed by the monarchy like they were before, the common people were then oppressed by the soviets. Whoop-de-do. You still have a gun to your head it's just who's behind the trigger that's different.

Would you also apply this logic today? As in, would like a new class turnover in the country you live in hopes to fix the rampant wealth inequality?

Because I don't think the poor would end up killing and robbing the likes of Trump, Biden, Zuckerberg, Bezos or Musk, but most likely the likes of you and me.

Getting new management isn't always a good idea. The rich have the resources to move their wealth and be welcomed somewhere safe like Switzerland or Monaco, while only the poor have to suffer the consequences of the uprising.

The french gentry very deliberately wanted a American style liberal revolution. But by the time the guillotine was rolled out, the revolution had turned into something they had 0 control over. Not to say it was in the hands of the peasants either of course.

It changed the USA, it didn't change "the world". Where I'm originally from, nothing changed after the US revolution. Why do Americans seem to think the world always revolved around their country?

Check out the constitutions of democracies founded after the United States. There’s a whole lot of influence.

Check out the constitutions of democracies founded after WW2.

Are you claiming that WW2 didn't change the world?

I'm claiming the opposite.

Are you saying that the American Revolution, which established the first modern constitutional republic, directly inspiring the French Revolution, Haitian Revolution, and rest of Atlantic Revolutions, famous for the "shot heard 'round the world", did not have any impact on the world?

Your examples are strictly former colonies of Britain. This was not the case in Continental Europe where the British had no colonies.

By that logic Nazi Germany should also be credited for improving democracy around the world since its war with Britain, France, Netherlands and Belgium made them so weak post-WW2 that it allowed their former colonies to gain independence.

French and Spanish colonies actually. Ironic since the French supported the American revolution to stick it to the British.

You're right, my bad

Nazi Germany definitely changed the world. They don't get "credit" for it because their goals were very different than the result and their methods were abhorrent, but their rise and fall is without a doubt one of the most significant events in world history.

Worth looking up the history of Activision for a less grand and more analogous example.

Mind linking the Yegge posts? I haven’t found the Amazon ones via google.

Not Amazon: back in 2021 we were still completely remote, but for new candidates they insisted they be near an office location. A coworker complained that we were missing out on good candidates when our team was already remote, but I told him what was up - over time you get more people who are ok with the idea of being in an office, and then once you hit some critical mass, you just flip the switch and say "everyone back".

Which is, of course, what happened. On the other hand, the company never got good at the idea of "remote" work anyway, it was the same stuff you'd do in an office but over Zoom. IMO truly remote companies are not just a physical difference from in-office companies, there's a whole way of doing business shift as well.

>IMO truly remote companies are not just a physical difference from in-office companies, there's a whole way of doing business shift as well.

Physical companies have office shaped brains and poor async communication skills.

> poor async communication skills

Without judging whether it's good or bad, I'd say async communication skills are still not the norm. Very few people are good at those. After all, human brain evolved for in-person communication skills. Collaboration over Zoom is so new that we need proper training.

Also add poor async management skills, which also is the norm.

Blind isn't exactly a representative sample of the Amazon workforce...

These days Blind has become quite an ugly dumping ground for racist, misogynistic, and generally unpleasant ignorant discourse.

It's always had those elements, but over the last year or two it seems that's all they promote to their front page anymore.

Can't even log in anymore without the first page load being full of far right screeds.

Is it really all that or you just disagree? Have to be kind and respectful of others - especially when they are not to you.

I think a lot of people are afraid to tell the truth. After years of pretending and keeping it bottled up inside there will be some unhealthy elements.

You can’t really be saying the bigoted, racist, sexist screeds that dominate Blind are “the truth”… what did I misunderstand in your post?

Keeping politics out of the workplace was been decorum for decades upon decades. It's only your modern braindead right wingers that can't stfu as their brain is ruined by doomscrolling.

I just logged in to see what showed up first

First post shown to me is: Amazon culture is bad because of Indian work culture.

Second is: Should Hindi be made the national language?

Next is one complaining about dei getting women into high paying tech jobs instead of plumbing.

The fourth is the first one that's not racist or sexist and is about openai.

So yes, I think it is really "all that"

But see! It’s actually GOOD to have racist discourse!!!

- HN

> ugly dumping ground for racist, misogynistic, and generally unpleasant ignorant discourse.

Cry me a river Dawson

Blind wants to be 4chan for some reason.

We are also going back 2 days per week and next year 3 days a week. Only thing I can do is to work from 10-4. Not gonna pay the 1-hour commute * 2 myself.

Why do you still work there?

It's not really easy to switch jobs right now, and TBH most of them ask for Hybrid at least.

Working as expected.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/09/rto_quit_study/

It might be working as expected, even though the number is quite high, maybe higher than expected. The problem I see is when they do need to hire later down the line, it will be much harder to convince people to move when the change in work/life balance is that drastic.

I agree. Usually your best people have an easier time finding new jobs and are the first to go. That will also work against future hiring when you no longer have the talent to draw in great people.

I think the visibility is important. After 20 years in the workforce, I've learned that it's more important to be liked than it is to do a good job. If people work from home, the managers have trouble knowing who to keep, and who to lay off, because they can't interact with you socially in person.

Wow, that is wrong on so many levels. Getting rid of good workers because you don't personally like them? Keeping your mates even if they're useless?

If a manager can't figure out who is productive from looking at what they deliver and how, then the manager needs to be finding another job.

> Getting rid of good workers because you don't personally like them? Keeping your mates even if they're useless?

Things are rarely so clear-cut. Usually there are shades of gray and humans tend to develop affinity for the ones they interact with in person. So if two colleagues are similar in performance, one in office gets preferential treatment due to unconscious bias.

That's just human nature and how we have evolved. If you want to learn more about it, here is a pointer - https://www.betterup.com/blog/proximity-bias

I don't work in Amazon nor I have any particular information about this (although I have friends working there) but isn't this the intention in most companies that implement RTO against employees' wishes? There's always some collateral damage when virtually irreplaceable people jump ship but this is definitely planned. It's a cheap way to get rid of headcount. It only works when most big companies agree to do it at roughly the same timeline, otherwise people will just switch companies - RTO is too big of a perk to ignore, specially if you have a family.

“Decisions like the one from Jassy are a big reason why I don’t want kids. I don’t need others to impose rules that ruin my quality of life.”

Long time lurker but had to sign up and comment on this statement made by the amazon worker.

The fact that he is not having kids is precisely due to rules imposed by people like jassy. And so do many workers in the western world. The fear of being controlled is just as bad as being controlled. You truly free once the fear, and the actions caused by said fear, are non existant.

Here's the lesson I hope people learn from this: your employer is not your friend.

Why are they doing this now? Because they can. 2-3 years ago when it was a tight job market, Amazon (and every other tech company) was all about remote work. This started out of necessity (ie the pandemic) but it became a way to lure employees who had moved during the pandemic.

I think a lot of us deluded ourselves into thinking tech companies were different to any other employer. They are not. You are a cost they want to reduce. RTO will cause a few to quit and the rest to be more compliant. Those who quit are cheaper than a layoff.

When there's a layoff (or people quit), they aren't replaced. Why? Their work is redistributed to those who remain. It's more work done at no extra cost. At some point there is more hiring but that's part of the "natural" 5% layoff rate that is now a permanent feature of your employment.

It is all about suppressing wages and getting you to do more for the same or less money.

This is going to be very controversial, but I think the technology industry of America is very smug. A lot of people will get very angry about not getting to WFH, but then have an issue when McDonalds's drive through is really somebody working from home. Silicon Valley has a hubris problem and it extends throughout the Wfh debate. How dare you make me come into the office, I'm important. I work for Amazon.

This is a crab in a boiling pot pulling the other crabs back rather than let them escape.

After we all demonstrated increased productivity during Covid, with record profits, everyone is happier and it’s better for the environment… we all have to go in because otherwise we’re somehow smug about our importance?

Does that make any sense? This just reads as jealousy to me; not really a good spot to make calls from.

I've always considered Blind to be a a source that's almost exclusively people unhappy with their company so the way I'm seeing this poll is "on a website of people unhappy with their employment, 91% are unhappy about the latest decision" or "in today's news, the sky is blue"

Amazon is going to experience a brain drain and loss of productivity. There are obvious consequences for these sort of ham-handed decisions.

The can comply or resign. Or strike.

So why they not decide ALL UNITED an impromptu sudden strike? Not only Amazon but ALL WORKERS able to WFH, together, with a single message: we are the people who made the tech, be against us and you'll get no tech, good luck with pen and paper.

but look at what they do not what they say

I thought that was the point.

>> 91% of polled Amazon staff unhappy with RTO

Really? I seriously doubt that 91% of people working for Amazon have ever done a single day of work from home. From drivers to warehouse workers, the vast majority of tasks within the Amazon sphere cannot be done via wifi. This is about the office-working elite of corporate Amazon. The actual company as a whole is very different and will continue regardless of how happy/unhappy the corporate office staff claim to be.

That is a good point. But 'Amazon' is really a few different companies. You have the warehouse people, the store front people, the AWS people, the twitch people, the movie/tv people, etc etc. So 91% is probably just office workers from a particular part of the company. My 'guess' is the people who own the buildings also are near the top in the company. Low capacity means low valuations of property.

I mean do businesses generally even consider employee happiness? I feel like they even get off on the browbeating sometimes.

Sure they do. If employees are happy it means you’re paying them too much.

I think it's worth exploring the interesting psychology behind WFH. If you ask anybody they would say they would want to work from home. Regardless of the efficiency, the job, all of that, WFH in my opinion has more to do with avoiding work than it does actual work. When you are at work, you can't avoid it, but when you are home, you can walk away, pretend, and make your boss think you are working.

yes, but this is still a loss in quality of life for people who work hard.

I think there's an element of truth to what you're saying, but there's also lots of work avoidance in office as well.

So basically you saying manager need to see people in order to know there stuff is working. If someone pretend to work at home he will pretend to work at work.

>When you are at work, you can't avoid it

lol, as if! People fuck about on reddit as much in the office as they do at home, probably more so.

If anything, its easier to avoid work in the office: when everyone is working from home there is a renewed interest in metrics and productivity monitoring, in the office you can just hop around the office catching up with people on endless water cooler chats.

Haven't you read HN in the last year or two?

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