this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2024
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One of Amazon's (AMZN.O) top executives defended the new, controversial 5-day-per-week in-office policy on Thursday, saying those who do not support it can leave for another company.

Speaking at an all-hands meeting for AWS, unit CEO Matt Garman said nine out of 10 workers he has spoken with support the new policy, which takes effect in January, according to a transcript reviewed by Reuters.

Those who do not wish to work for Amazon in-office five days per week can quit, he suggested.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Let them enforce it. Don't quit, that's what they are trying to accomplish anyway.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Or just skip ahead and unionize.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Both things should be done simultaneously!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Along with eating the CEO with a side of Jeff Bezos

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

How would that work? People are just going to stay home in front of a disconnected PC and somehow not get fired?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 days ago

Institutional inertia is real. Obviously every situation is different but in most cases they are not blocking remote access, they're just tracking if you badged in that day. If you are still doing work, it's going to take them awhile to respond - they are hoping you quit rather than having to fire you.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Why would the PC be disconnected?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (3 children)

If the company doesn't want you to work from home they're not going to let you connect to their system.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

That's constructive dismissal

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

They want people in the office, but they still want people to be able to work when they're at home too. No shot RTO comes with blocking remote access to corp systems, or even prod for that matter.

How would oncalls be handled without it even?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm guessing by going into the office haha.
Fuck'em.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Oncall is usually a 24/7 type of thing, where speed is a major factor, and I doubt they would want to restrict oncall engineers to on-site only.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I'm not seeing anything about 24/7 on call workers. The article is about five days a week employees. Did I miss something?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Bork is saying a blanket ban on computers connecting remotely would not work in a company that has a huge operations department who need to be on-call.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Ok, I understand that. But I didn't say anything about either of those things.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You kind of did?

Unless I'm misinterpreting your comment.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

I don't know what comment exactly you're referring to. So probably yes.
Nothing I've said has been complicated or profound.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago

Usually it's phased and they don't cut off remote access entirely. They still want you to be able to work on the weekend at home...

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Would really suck if people said "fuck it", did return to work but intentionally decreased productivity. Best to get laid off than quit.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago

Amazon policy is to stack rank all of its employees and regularly fire anyone in the bottom tranche. So any kind of deliberate slowdown would need to be incredibly well-coordinated. Even then, there would inevitably be a ton of attrition as the automatic Fire Everyone triggers started kicking in.

Its not enough to play by the rules with a company as vast and encompassing as Amazon. You need to take it a step further and start sabotaging the anti-organizing functions of the company. Start shoving monkey wrenches in the employee monitoring systems. Start dismantling the automation that allows the business to function at such a breakneck pace. You've got to get in there and break the machine before it breaks you.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

Sometimes union take actions that are less severe than outright striking:

[–] [email protected] 59 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"9 out of 10 workers support the policy" he decided to imagine and then say out loud

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

9 out of 10 dentists recommend our toothpaste.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I've always wanted to meet that 1 out of the 10 who don't. Probably would be interesting to have a beer with.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

It’s probably one of the dentists I visited while in the army.

“Toothpaste! Use sandpaper you bitch. No, I’m serious. Then floss with it.”

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

CEO Matt Garman said nine out of 10 workers he has spoken with support the new policy

Got news for you, Matt. 9 out of 10 workers are kissing your ass.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

More likely it's an outright lie.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I'm willing to believe he asked ten of his VPs and nine of them agreed with him. Also, that he's currently looking to fill a newly opened tenth position.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 days ago

RTO was always lay-off without compensation

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This was always what he intended. Get people to quit instead of paying redundancy when he has to reduce the work force. Classic stuff done by many big orgs over the years. Make the place shit to work at and people quit for you.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Good for the market i guess, since mostly people who have it easy tho find a new job (highly qualified) leave that way.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"ceo of cloud company says employees must work on premise."

must do wonders for the marketing of the capability of their platform.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

I mean, they aren't reporting to the data center...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 days ago

Operation: Eat the Rich is a go! I repeat: Operation Eat the Rich is a go!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

This lines up with their marked decrease in service quality. Azure is eating AWS' lunch.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

That worked out great for Apple, Microsoft, and others. Good luck, Amazon.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I beseech you god of Irony, make it so Amazon workers can vote him out of office.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

AWS SLOs are going to shit aren't they?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

At least he is honest about their intentions I guess?