WWAWD Hybrid Work

[Leonard Rhomberg]

Amazon CEO says 'it’s probably not going to work out' for employees who defy return-to-office policy

Amazon employees have been pushing back against the company’s return to office policy for months — and it seems the ecommerce giant’s CEO has had enough.

apnews.com

Why are so many CEOs who's employees worked completely fine at home during covid now forcing 3-5 days back in office? Is it real estate, control, out of touch billionaires?

 

[Dog Eater]

Because the employees are being lazier at home and there is significant value in working as a team and being able to spitball ideas with someone face to face.

That said sometimes I’ll work from home if I forget to wash any clothes or if I need to concentrate on something.

 

[Mick_Mickerson]

The most legitimate reason is mentorship for junior employees. The students who graduated college during COVID and started their first real office job during it, especially, were definitely not getting the full experience and were likely stunted profesionally being 100% remote.

A less legitimate reason has to do with the fact a lot of this office space is already rented through X amount of time and a CEO hates walking around an empty fiefdom. When people are in the office they all react to your presence, etc. Imagine how much less gratifying a CEO or Senior Exec position is remote vs. in your big office?

And, remember, senior execs were already essentially hybrid before the pandemic. They go off to various sites when they want to, or work from home due to travel, etc. They were never chained to their office 9 to 5 before the pandemic. The only thing that changed is now their workers aren't either.

*Edit* obviously what a company like Amazon is doing is happening for different reasons than smaller companies, etc.

 

[guest]

member in 2020 when everyone (including people here) thought (((their))) plan was for everyone to work from home forever. "you will stay in ze pods and be happy!"

now everyone's complaining that they can't work from home forever.

fucking queers.

 

[Mick_Mickerson]

Because the employees are being lazier at home and there is significant value in working as a team and being able to spitball ideas with someone face to face.

That said sometimes I’ll work from home if I forget to wash any clothes or if I need to concentrate on something.

I agree with the value of collaborating in person, and I'm happy that we're back in the office, but I don't know if the stats have shown the "lazier at home." Yes, people do shit like throw in a load of laundry or take their dog for a walk, but think of all the bullshitting that goes on in the office? People take longer lunches to get out of the office, shoot the shit about nonsense with people around them for a huge part of the day, etc.

 

[Mick_Mickerson]

member in 2020 when everyone (including people here) thought (((their))) plan was for everyone to work from home forever. "you will stay in ze pods and be happy!"

now everyone's complaining that they can't work from home forever.

fucking queers.

Nice broad brush, stupid.

 

[Saddam Hussein]

The “Return to the Office” mandates are also a de facto lay off. A number of people will quit and the company cuts down on labor costs

 

[Leonard Rhomberg]

Because the employees are being lazier at home and there is significant value in working as a team and being able to spitball ideas with someone face to face.

That said sometimes I’ll work from home if I forget to wash any clothes or if I need to concentrate on something.

I can see that but I guess it depends on the job. Like for me to go into the office to sit on calls with people in India and California is completely pointless. And in my experience most people in the office seem to have more social interactions than business. Most issues can be cleared up with an IM or email.

My issue is the authoritarian stance some companies seem to be taking, which as @Mick_Mickerson pointed out may be different in small vs. big companies. Like tracking in-office statistics, less flexibility with working from home due to appointments. It just seems that where before covid if you needed to stay home a couple days, nobody said anything, but now if life events come up and you can't meet your days for the week, you have to answer for it.

Again, probably a big difference between small and big companies and how they handle this stuff.

 

[johnnynoname]

A less legitimate reason

this ni....

My issue is the authoritarian stance

....tgus ni5g

 

[johnnynoname]

...this thread broke me

 

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

Amazon CEO says 'it’s probably not going to work out' for employees who defy return-to-office policy

Amazon employees have been pushing back against the company’s return to office policy for months — and it seems the ecommerce giant’s CEO has had enough.

apnews.com

Why are so many CEOs who's employees worked completely fine at home during covid now forcing 3-5 days back in office? Is it real estate, control, out of touch billionaires?

It’s part real estate (they pay a lot for the buildings and all that goes with it) but they know they can’t push too far and make people back in the office 5 days a week so 3 is what they decided. I was just talking to my dad about it - Covid is done (until the elections but that’s a different story) but the hybrid model looks to be here to stay as a way to keep employees. It’s a pain in the ass to hire new employees so they know to keep people they have to do the Hybrid plan because if they say “everyone back 5 days a week” you’ll have people going elsewhere.

Plus the company’s are in a weird place - I work for a global company and they tell you “if you feel sick stay home - think about your co workers etc.” so you could claim you were around some sick / had Covid etc. to stay home more and they can’t really punish you for it.

 

[Cyberatorquer]

"Homo-Office", otherwise no opinion.

 

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

I agree with the value of collaborating in person, and I'm happy that we're back in the office, but I don't know if the stats have shown the "lazier at home." Yes, people do shit like throw in a load of laundry or take their dog for a walk, but think of all the bullshitting that goes on in the office? People take longer lunches to get out of the office, shoot the shit about nonsense with people around them for a huge part of the day, etc.

Yeah the idea that people “lazier at home” doesn’t apply to everyone - I feel like I fuck around more when I’m in the office - going for long walks, taking my full hour lunch, making excuses to fill my water bottle / use the bathroom in a further away location / floor etc. but at home I get more done since I’m just at home.

We had hired one guy out of college during Covid and once he got back in the office he turned out to be a real problem - wonder off for long periods of time, use inappropriate language in the office which he didn’t even realize was bad, lie about what he’s actually doing instead of working (claim he’s “on a project” that didn’t exist instead of his responsibilities) etc. and we couldn’t do much because it was past the probation period. We didn’t know he was a shit employee because we were all working remote.

 

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

The most legitimate reason is mentorship for junior employees. The students who graduated college during COVID and started their first real office job during it, especially, were definitely not getting the full experience and were likely stunted profesionally being 100% remote.

A less legitimate reason has to do with the fact a lot of this office space is already rented through X amount of time and a CEO hates walking around an empty fiefdom. When people are in the office they all react to your presence, etc. Imagine how much less gratifying a CEO or Senior Exec position is remote vs. in your big office?

And, remember, senior execs were already essentially hybrid before the pandemic. They go off to various sites when they want to, or work from home due to travel, etc. They were never chained to their office 9 to 5 before the pandemic. The only thing that changed is now their workers aren't either.

*Edit* obviously what a company like Amazon is doing is happening for different reasons than smaller companies, etc.

We had a guy hired right out of college during Covid and once he got into the office we all learned real quick he should have never been hired because he didn’t understand what is and isn’t appropriate for the work place and just the last person you would want on your team because he was such an arrogant piece of shit. Stuff that everyone who had worked in an office picks up from just being in the office was lost on college hires that worked from home for 1-2 years. For example on a large conference call he told everyone one of our teams we work closely with in Middle Office had “Daddy Issues” which you can imagine was not received well. He didn’t last long once we were back in the office and being around each other.

 

[HH Brother]

I make the mid six figures a year, farting into a couch cushion, funsters.

 

[Petworth dude]

If you define hybrid work as coming in three days a week, it's the best compromise. Younger employees get the mentorship they need, older employees get the flexibility they want, and everyone benefits from a regular frequency of in-person collaboration.

It's a contentious issue in the DC area where I live because there are a lot of pissed off, lazy feds who don't see a point in commuting to the office ever because they only do a few hours of work a day. Either way, the federal government will be moving to hybrid work schedules pretty aggressively over the fall and winter, so some people better grow up and get used to it.

 

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

If you define hybrid work as coming in three days a week, it's the best compromise. Younger employees get the mentorship they need, older employees get the flexibility they want, and everyone benefits from a regular frequency of in-person collaboration.

It's a contentious issue in the DC area where I live because there are a lot of pissed off, lazy feds who don't see a point in commuting to the office ever because they only do a few hours of work a day. Either way, the federal government will be moving to hybrid work schedules pretty aggressively over the fall and winter, so some people better grow up and get used to it.

My place does 3 days in the office a week which I don’t mind, especially over the summer so I wouldn’t have to run the AC all day while Working from home (summer electric bills were high when I was working home 5 days a week) and like I said I think that’s just gonna be the new normal because if my company told everyone now has to come in 5 days a week they would lose a lot of employees to their competitors.

Hiring is such a pain in the ass now, especially when people have to get clearances / access to programs / etc and to do that only to have the person not last because they’re lazy / always late etc.

 

[Dusty Dan]

If COVID taught me anything it's that I'm one of the few people left with a work ethic.

 

[NoBacon]

Real estate is a big thing. They don’t want to lose the value of their office spaces so they plant stories everywhere remote working is harmful.

Ultimately though, it comes down to one thing.

Most management at most companies are archaic vindictive cunts. They’d rather see you at your desk miserable than happy and productive working remotely, which is traditionally a perk only management enjoy.

I manage a team and I allowed them all to work remotely, I didn’t micromanage them or monitor them. I didn’t care what they were doing or where they were doing it if they completed their work on time and did it well. It worked flawlessly, of course people abused it and abused my good nature but I didn’t care because results had literally never been better.

The budget was lower, the absences were gone, there was less staff doing more work than ever before and my departments results had never been better.

Awesome right? Everyone is happy and it’s working great. Wrong. I was cucked by upper management to go back to the boomer mindset of policing everything, surveillance and not letting anybody work remotely. They looked and saw people were not at their station for 45 minutes at a time and things, we can’t have that! They’d rather be punitive and controlling than successful.

The outcome? All the best people quit, nobody is happy, nobody cares, everyone is miserable and everything is going down hill fast.

Office politics, office in fighting and negativity is the only reason boomer management have jobs. They love it.

Tl;dr

It doesn’t matter if it works, the driving factor in management and business isn’t efficiency or even profits, it’s being vindictive dickheads.

 

[Mick_Mickerson]

Stuff that everyone who had worked in an office picks up from just being in the office was lost on college hires that worked from home for 1-2 years.

I'm actually enjoying the antics of the zoomers at my office.

They seem to genuinely not care as much about hierarchy and don't get all nervous and deferential around senior management, which drives da suits down da hall nuts.

They'll say "fuck" on a conference calls with people they don't know and there was a problem our last internship class of them just emailing our senior management directly with stuff lulz