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Amazon CEO tells staff ‘it’s probably not going to work out’ unless they visit office three days a week
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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Justification of office size is becoming an issue for large corporations and the top leadership doesn't like it. They say seeing an empty office has a demoralizing effect on those whose jobs require them to be in the office while teleworkers get to be home. Additionally what's the point of having a big office if no one is there to see you in it. It's all about the top earners wanting to feel important.
When COVID hits, I was in a software company, ~300 people, who were there daily for years, as everyone in this kind of company around the world... Then we worked from home, I went there after 2 or 3 weeks to take a computer/monitor, there was maybe 10 people in the building, max. And it was like this for 3 years, I then quit and went there to bring back the computer/monitor, still thousands sqft of office, empty. Now work for another company 100 miles from me, remote work for life it will be for me.
Make a skatepark.
I mean... it is very demoralizing. At my old job, I legitimately had responsibilities that required me to be on site (even during the height of the pandemic). And it increasingly led to me feeling like I was in a ghost town where I was getting forced to do all the charlie work because nobody else wanted to come in. Not only was I doing my job responsibilities but I was constantly being asked to do the "one or two things" that other people needed to do because they didn't want to bother to come in one or two days a month. And it genuinely felt more "lonely" to be in the office than it does to work out of my home office. I am not overly familiar with how Amazon handles their corporate offices, but I assume there are a lot of people in a similar boat for the data centers.
So you are risking pissing off the people who CAN work from home in an attempt to not lose the people who can't. Because... there is a reason that was my "old job".
And the other aspect is just planning and meetings. Completing jira tickets and filing bugs? You can do that from home. Planning major features or new products? Having co-location and the ability to just grab Susie on the UX team because you vaguely recall she worked on something like this is incredibly valuable. Because yes, you can ping them on Teams, but you have no guarantee that they are sitting at their desk or that this is a good time to pull them into a quick meeting.
And then you just have 'business meetings". Having a place where you can talk to new clients or partners goes a long way.
Personally? I think that, funny enough, the answer is those coworking spaces but heavily geared toward meetings. Basically conference rooms for rent that have high speed internet and working teleconferencing setups. But that still is a problem for the impromptu meetings and nobody is going to want to say "Look, we can't present until Tuesday because Amazon is in town and they booked out all of fifth street".
Which is why I like how my current job handles it. We are a fully remote company but we do have office space. That office space is primarily used by the c-suite and doubles as our server room. And a few times a year, the various teams head to HQ for a "planning week" where we basically iterate on and figure out what we are doing. And, depending on the goal, we might overlap two or three teams at the same time.
"I didn't get a good deal so fuck the people who did" is misplacing the anger. If they can't retain staff because some people have to work on-site, maybe get people who want to do that. Those people exist.
Yeah... any time people wonder why a workforce won't "just unionize": It is because of shit like this. The moment a person is slightly inconvenienced or needs to compromise, it becomes "Fuck them. They didn't work hard enough. Why should I suffer for that?"
For primarily remote companies? Yeah. There are plenty of people who love to work on site and you can work toward hiring and relocating them. I interviewed three candidates for an on-site sysadmin a few weeks back and we sent an offer yesterday. Great person and I look forward to "meeting" her when I head in for a planning meeting next month.
But that is not what we are talking about. We are talking about companies that were primarily on-site that became hybrid or remote because of the pandemic. Which is a very different situation.
Because, using my example: In 2019, I spent maybe 10-12 hours a week in fancy rooms that didn't have internet access. And, depending on the week, I might help out with fixing issues where physically touching hardware is beneficial another 1 to 6 hours (wasn't entirely my job, but I had the skill set and didn't mind helping out).
Suddenly? The vast majority of my co-workers have a MUCH better work life balance. They are spending time with their kids, not having to commute, eating much cheaper (and better) lunches, playing POE over lunch, etc. But, because I had done some paperwork a few years prior, I didn't get that. Instead, I got to instead spend 20-30 hours a week in the fancy room (because it would be so easy for me to just do the 10 or 15 minutes of work that twenty other people needed to do...) and the rest of my time was being full time "check if it is plugged in".
And I am not gonna pretend I wasn't immensely pissed off when I saw the company slack full of people who were ENRAGED over the idea of having to come in two or three days a week. You know, in my off time because of being in an airgapped room for most of the week. Again, it is "demoralizing"
So yeah. The people who do want to be completely isolated and never get to do anything "fun" will eventually take those jobs. But you also lose a lot of institutional knowledge. And yes, you run the risk of losing the people who can do their jobs entirely remotely. But the vast majority of people still live in the area and can do a hybrid work week. As for the rest? It is a lot easier to hire a new remote employee than someone with the credentials and skillset to do the on-site work...
And considering my old field is relatively small: I know most of my counterparts. Hell, I play Warframe with a couple of them. And we all had similar stories of suddenly getting the shit end of the stick AND being ridiculously isolated. Like, my buddy Greg at REDACTED was outright ignored for a "leadership" role in a new effort for what was literally his specialty because most people making those decisions had "kind of forgotten about" him.
What a long winded way to disprove the entire point you're making. You're the little crab in the bucket pulling the other crabs down not the hero you see yourself as. If you're that unhappy with what happened did you ever bring this up to management? Put any effort into it at all? Because according to the info you've provided so far it sounds like all you did was silently seethe and now want to take all that pent up anger out on your coworkers for finding what works for them and the company as agreed upon by both parties. Do you have this same amount of energy for other people's salaries//benefits packages? Clearly with the attitude displayed no one should be making more than what YOU decide they should make regardless of any other agreements with the management and worker.
Your solution is putting the onus on your coworkers to make your work life less "isolated", not on making your employer update your job description and pay to account for new responsibilities, hire someone for all the random crap that was getting saddled on you, or give you the freedom they had. They and people criticizing you for that aren't the crab in the bucket impeding worker solidarity.
How do you have any more guarantees that she's at her desk in the office and not busy with something else than you do by pinging her on Teams?
This is probably the dumbest take of the entire thing. Let me just leave the conference room, go see if Susie is available, maybe wait for her to finish something, then go back to the conference room and have no clue what I missed. Vs, ping Susie on Teams while still listening in on the meeting. She then joins the meeting without having to get up or anything.
Maybe it's because I'm in a UX team and you hit a nerve, but "pull them into a quick meeting" summarizes my contempt for office life. The lack of boundaries and constant distraction was relentless.
I've met many Susies who, like me, dreaded the "Hey Suze, you got a minute?" because everyone vaguely recalls that we've worked on something related to their project. It was not as valuable or productive as you think. Pinging the person on Teams and not expecting an instant reply was the right thing to do, even back in the old days.
You sound like someone who's stuck in 1985 IBM world. There are tons of companies out there that literally have no official in location and no office and have been around for decades... saying you're unable to do collaboration work is bullshit.
Ignoring the pointless need to open up with an ad hominem:
Yes, there are plenty of fully remote companies and many don't even have an official office location. That does not mean that higher level management and design don't have in person meetings. Maybe they are "retreats" where a cabin in the woods is rented. Maybe it is just hanging out in a hotel room at a trade show. There is still immense benefit to co-location for that kind of planning where even just seeing "Hey, Fred, you look like you want to say something?" goes a long way.
Companies with more democratized management/design models benefit from more co-location. It is the idea of being willing to take feedback or advice from even low level employees because the middle managers know they have insights. And, again, there is a big difference between checking someone's office on the way back from a bathroom and pinging them to ask if they have time for a call. If it is important? You ping them and tell them to call in on their phone. If it is just about thinking? Maybe you check if they are available or you schedule a meeting for later but... you often just don't.
Are there companies that are truly 100% remote where nobody ever meets in person? Sure. And the successful ones are usually built around a core group of people who have known each other for decades. And... those have different management/planning problems.
Yeah no one likes assholes that show up to your office without pinging you, it's a dick move.
I'm guessing you're middle management and are seeing your bullshit job disappearing. You sound like it and you sound like all you did was micro manage people as well.
Remote work is cheaper on the company, has better morale for it's workers, collaboration is just as good if not better, and you don't have just local talent to pull from.