Amazon employees in dismay over return to the office policy

[Hillbilly Deluxe]

I find the whole thing hilarious. I had to go to work everyday and deal with all the changing rules, seemingly daily.

#metoo

Guess what folks? Welding pipe, structural steel, fitting components, manufacturing this and that, it doesn't get done at the kitchen table between laundry loads, Starbucks runs and TikTok sessions.

There's a lot of work out there that can't be done at home via the internet connection. Most of that work makes the world go 'round....

 

[oggb]

We should all really remember that the people doing well for themselves in (seemingly) enviable careers aren't our enemies. They have nothing to do with any of our day to day lives. They have no idea who any of us are. You have no idea if they're lazy or entitled. Remember the phrase "...and the pursuit of happiness" when you're so quick to admonish the people actually pursuing it while praising yourselves for kissing your employers' rings.

Anyhow, the real headline is that Amazon's core businesses are stagnant just like most of tech in general and return to office is a good way to pare down the workforce. Plenty of places out there still offering WFH. The employees will be fine and Amazon will be fine.

 

[Hall]

Employers are as loyal as the employee is.

My point is, it's a 2-way street. Well, it should be if the employer expects loyalty from the employee.

I've never seen someone who is valuable to the company be laid off or not treated fairly.

Many years ago, I worked for a company that "laid off" every employee in every department except (1) person. That one person would slowly transition all work out to elsewhere (in my department, it was Bangalore). All of us were invaluable ? And how loyal could those remaining people be knowing that one day soon, they'll be laid off too ? What the company did was strictly for financial reasons and any "loyalty" the employees had didn't mean squat.

 

[John105]

Employers are as loyal as the employee is.


I've never seen someone who is valuable to the company be laid off or not treated fairly.

Let it be known I have never worked at a large company and never intend to. If you do, if you want to, you should know that those places operate completely different. I don't know what attracts people to them, there must be an enormous salary difference, but there's also a huge risk in major layoffs frequently.

I agree. Suddenly my career is over 2 decades, and getting towards the next one, how did that happen?

I've not been laid off before. My brother, who is 10 years younger and at the VP level, prolly 5 or 6 times. And each time, he waits until the severance is almost done to get back in. I have to admit, that one where people were getting paid more through unemployment than their actual pay, was an insult to those who showed up on the front lines during the pandemic.

Anyway, it's amazing how many hats I wear, and not by choice, by the same thing that drives crime. MMO.

I actually see people at my co who can barely walk--and wonder if that's me in the future? My employer seems to respect those loyal to them, as we have many over 70 y.o. and some over 80 y.o. When I started, a woman had 55 years seniority which shocked me.

Once we accept that we'll never be rich, we accept working hard as being the way to do things

 

[alarmguy]

Timing is everything. Amzn telling employees to return to the office seems to work for two reasons:
Layoffs at the big high tech firms demonstrates demand for their skills may not be as valuable as they were just two years ago.
Elon Musk insisting that Twitter workers produce or get separated.
How fast the tide appears to be turning. This thread is not a discussion on the merits of remote working, it is how high tech employees appear to be losing leverage.

Yup, supply and demand, Tech companies cutting their work force what better way then tell employees to start coming into the office again. That part makes it more easy.
I think moving onto the next decade tech workers will become less and less valuable or maybe better said, still valuable but less of them will be needed.
My reasoning? AI its already here and we are just at the cusp of AI writing computer code, making human decisions, formatting, handling of data much more efficiently and cheaply. The companies that institute all the benefits of AI the fastest will be the most successful.

Goodness, college students cheating on term papers and research now by having Chat Bots do their "homework" BIG scandal at a world renowned college in Florida recently.
Im actually excited to try the new Bing AI Chat Search algorithm. Even though MS cut down the response's of AI to five because they learned if you went on to long AI would start getting noticeably upset, arguing, lying, and some scary stuff coming out to it. *LOL*
Anyway, Im on the waiting list.

 

[AZjeff]

Still wishing I could work from home…

Drone pilot baby!

 

[KrisZ]

The reason so many of the tech workers are shocked is because many of them are young and straight out of school. They never experienced a downturn before.

They also got lucky on the timing. Their skill set was in really high demand, so many thought that that’s how it’s going to be, hence their feeling of entitlement and shock that their skills are not in demand IMO

Time to start learning how to weld. Maybe there will be a pipeline that’s needed

 

[John105]

I find the whole thing hilarious. I had to go to work everyday and deal with all the changing rules, seemingly daily.

I told my boss from mid 2022 to today, the changes make me feel like the detective who goes to the crime scene, solves it, then goes back to the office for the paperwork. Just to throw out analogies--people like me used to setup a 1 mil. sq ft facility, all by ourselves. Now we have teams doing it. It's hard for the operations to understand when they asked for 4 laptops and 3 desktops back around Thanksgiving 2022, why, here in late Feb., they haven't gotten them, nor have they even been ordered. When we used to handle say in 2019, they would have them in 7-10 days, 14 when we were busy. The sad thing? I'm using a real example.

 

[RooflessVW]

I agree with you it’s all about freedom and I served this country with the intent to protect that freedom. I just feel like people talk about it without regard for morality or in place of it.
I will not do something that is sound financially but morally repugnant. “It’s just business” is usually meant as a moral get out of jail free card.

Yes! Please say it louder for the people in the back!

 

[97prizm]

Didn't Alexa cost Amazon something like a Billion dollars but very little return on their investment?

 

[PimTac]

I've never seen someone who is valuable to the company be laid off or not treated fairly.

It does happen in larger companies and especially during mergers. I have seen excellent people in their profession be the odd person out.

Fortunately in every case that person was able to get a position elsewhere and gave the competition a boost.

 

[fantastic]

Timing is everything. Amzn telling employees to return to the office seems to work for two reasons:

Layoffs at the big high tech firms demonstrates demand for their skills may not be as valuable as they were just two years ago.

Elon Musk insisting that Twitter workers produce or get separated.

How fast the tide appears to be turning. This thread is not a discussion on the merits of remote working, it is how high tech employees appear to be losing leverage.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/02/21/ama...may-about-sudden-return-to-office-policy.html

Looming recessionary fears are prompting the layoffs.

 

[alarmguy]

No sooner that I posted about 6 posts up from this one and I see this on CNBC -
Nvida up 13% at 11AM today...

"Goldman Sachs upgrades Nvidia, says A.I. growth should help drive outperformance"​

A.I. I suspect will make Tech Companies much more efficient. This might allow tech companies some room to breathe and cut down all the perks and pay of what will be the remaining workers.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Tesla just opened up more that 700 engineering positions for its expansion in Palo Alto.

 

[GON]

That might’ve been me, THIRTY years ago…

Comon, we all know you still got it, just like Brad Pitt....

Is Brad Pitt becoming a cliche by reportedly dating a 27-year-old model?​

Who does Brad Pitt think he is? Leonardo DiCaprio?​

https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/08...che-by-reportedly-dating-a-27-year-old-model/

 

[99Saturn]

Employers are as loyal as the employee is.


I've never seen someone who is valuable to the company be laid off or not treated fairly.

Let it be known I have never worked at a large company and never intend to. If you do, if you want to, you should know that those places operate completely different. I don't know what attracts people to them, there must be an enormous salary difference, but there's also a huge risk in major layoffs frequently.

Big company employee here. Four employers in 13 or 14 years. Seen at least 7 maybe 8 or 9 layoffs or reorgs between all the companies. 4 or 5 in the last 7 years at the same company. And for the most part (3 of the 4) employers are what most would consider steady growing and reputable. Plenty of good people get reorged out be it personality, friction with the new boss or whatever.

 

[Hall]

Drone pilot baby!

I've read that many places that operate drones, including the military, look at "those lazy kids who waste their lives away playing video games".

 

[Hillbilly Deluxe]

Since there's some subjects that hurt peoples' feeeeelings here, I will keep this short and sweet.


From what I hear, a yuuuuge majority of the people being let go at the gigagantic tech companies are those that were hired in the last 36 months to create these D E I departments and foster new idiotic policies..... that have nothing to do with the betterment of the production of a company...

 

[skyactiv]

I’m surprised we haven’t heard about the environmental impact commuting to work has vs working at home.

 

[Rmay635703]

The reason so many of the tech workers are shocked is because.
Time to start learning how to weld. Maybe there will be a pipeline that’s needed

Seems like I mentioned what is the topic of this thread a year+ ago, richcession here we come.


The average age of a tech employee is 42 years old.

Tech employees are shocked because they were given a remote work perk, spent triple what they should on a home 1500 miles away in Appleton WI and now have to move back and nobody wants their home and the local pay is a fifth of what they are used to.