Amazon RTO 5 days a week

[Anonymous]

Husband says he’s sticking it out. Says this is just Amazon culture. Maybe if he ever gets to L7 we’ll officially move. Used to jump around to move up since internal promotions have been so hard at FAANG but the market is just bad right now.

[Anonymous]

Amazon had always been the place for people who can't get jobs somewhere else. Lowest paying, lowest benefit, most abusive management in Big Tech.

They thrive on desperate people (mostly immigrant new grads) who are willing to overwork themselves until they find something better or get laid off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Amazon had always been the place for people who can't get jobs somewhere else. Lowest paying, lowest benefit, most abusive management in Big Tech.

They thrive on desperate people (mostly immigrant new grads) who are willing to overwork themselves until they find something better or get laid off.

Not necessarily true. Husband made the jump from another FAANG I think during pandemic when hiring was going crazy and got a big bump in salary after getting passed over for the usual politics. Not because he was a bad performer. He was not.

He’s still making quite a lot more than he was making at his previous FAANG company, which is supposed to treat their employees amazingly but actually was a dysfunctional sshow.

Honestly, they are all kind of evil, but those golden handcuffs! It makes it hard to go to other places. He’s worked at a few. I’d say Microsoft was the nicest and chillest but paid the least. Amazon seems to be the roughest in terms of office politics.

I remind him, and he knows, that he makes way more than most people, and that is a combination of talent and ambition and luck. Amazon is evil but he still is getting paid a lot of money and his work life balance is not bad, as some people here are saying.

[Anonymous]

Fancy state of the art building...lots of promises to the state, county for home purchases, shopping Rev, schools.... you better bet they have to come to the office

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazon had always been the place for people who can't get jobs somewhere else. Lowest paying, lowest benefit, most abusive management in Big Tech.

They thrive on desperate people (mostly immigrant new grads) who are willing to overwork themselves until they find something better or get laid off.

Not necessarily true. Husband made the jump from another FAANG I think during pandemic when hiring was going crazy and got a big bump in salary after getting passed over for the usual politics. Not because he was a bad performer. He was not.

He’s still making quite a lot more than he was making at his previous FAANG company, which is supposed to treat their employees amazingly but actually was a dysfunctional sshow.

Honestly, they are all kind of evil, but those golden handcuffs! It makes it hard to go to other places. He’s worked at a few. I’d say Microsoft was the nicest and chillest but paid the least. Amazon seems to be the roughest in terms of office politics.

I remind him, and he knows, that he makes way more than most people, and that is a combination of talent and ambition and luck. Amazon is evil but he still is getting paid a lot of money and his work life balance is not bad, as some people here are saying.

I assume you don’t work. That’s the key to Amazon. It works you like big law but pays way way less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On call weeks just got harder...up 5 times last night? No matter, up and out of bed, get dressed and head in.

Exactly. My spouse gets calls all hours. And, a lot of his team works in Seattle or internationally and its expected they flex.

What is the pay for being on call for amazon like that?

[Anonymous]

Amazon has never been a tech friendly company with tons of perks etc. Yes, plenty of people will be upset but tech jobs are very difficult to get right now so they will have no problem replacing the people who leave. It could be a subtle downsizing where they don’t have to pay severance. If you have real career ambition, WFH is not a good thing.

[Anonymous]

For workers used to WLB this is bad. But with workers in the office full time five days a week where you can micro manage them, make them work through lunch if busy and make them work late you do on average get 18 percent more productivity.

So lets say I have 100,000 workers. I drive them all back to office. 18,000 quit. Well I have roughly same productivity.

Amazon also has a bit of a rest and vest culture. You get a lot of stock as a sign-on that vests over four years. Then you get stock with performance reviews if you do good.

However, KPIs keep going up and people start slipping. My time in a FAANG around 18 months was apparent. My shares were vesting but with KPIs was not going to get a pile of new shares. So most folks just do enough it to stay off a PIP while plan next course of action.

Those folks will be job hunting and moving on with RTO. They will be replaced with new bright fresh faced younger people with a big sign-on grant that vests over four years who in 2-3 years will be also gone.

The star performers will stay. They will get deals. But the 90 percent of staff this is just weeding out with no severance

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Husband says he’s sticking it out. Says this is just Amazon culture. Maybe if he ever gets to L7 we’ll officially move. Used to jump around to move up since internal promotions have been so hard at FAANG but the market is just bad right now.

It’s near impossible to get an l7. And, sometimes the pay isn’t any more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For workers used to WLB this is bad. But with workers in the office full time five days a week where you can micro manage them, make them work through lunch if busy and make them work late you do on average get 18 percent more productivity.

So lets say I have 100,000 workers. I drive them all back to office. 18,000 quit. Well I have roughly same productivity.

Amazon also has a bit of a rest and vest culture. You get a lot of stock as a sign-on that vests over four years. Then you get stock with performance reviews if you do good.

However, KPIs keep going up and people start slipping. My time in a FAANG around 18 months was apparent. My shares were vesting but with KPIs was not going to get a pile of new shares. So most folks just do enough it to stay off a PIP while plan next course of action.

Those folks will be job hunting and moving on with RTO. They will be replaced with new bright fresh faced younger people with a big sign-on grant that vests over four years who in 2-3 years will be also gone.

The star performers will stay. They will get deals. But the 90 percent of staff this is just weeding out with no severance

Thus isn’t all exactly true but you’d know more if you actually hung around after 4 years. They hire young folks to save money as L4s. Getting piped is normal even if you work hard but it’s focus first, then pip which makes me question if you were Amazon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On call weeks just got harder...up 5 times last night? No matter, up and out of bed, get dressed and head in.

Exactly. My spouse gets calls all hours. And, a lot of his team works in Seattle or internationally and its expected they flex.

What is the pay for being on call for amazon like that?

Same pay. Only higher pay for clearances. My spouse takes calls all day usually up till 7-8, but on a on call rotation at night. Regular calls can start around 6. They have lost a lot of really good people with all this and will lose more. Supervisors often cannot actually do the work so it makes it hard when no one is there to train the new people. It’s a bad idea as with the rto my spouse works less on those days due to commute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:More than one of my friends are in software engineering management roles over there. They have been complaining about productivity issues related to people not being in person for a while now. Real product development that is of any quality isn’t done completely siloed. Sole exceptions for things like Linux kernel development, where distributed teams of people who are highly interested get the work done, and they are all afraid of Linus calling them out anyways.

My husband complains that it’s because half the people are idiots. Doesn’t have much to do with RTO.

However, it is going to affect the good people who were hired remote, then told they had to come in 3 days a week and are doing crazy commutes from hours away and now will either have to move or lose their jobs.

We had to get an apartment and spend a lot of money so he can go in 3 days a week or drive 2 days each way 3 days a week. He’s been looking for something else for over a year and a half now but at his level it’s not easy. Now maybe we just sell our house except the COL is crazy higher in Arlington.

L
If your husband is senior level at Amazon, you can afford a house in Arlington

L6. We have a child who just graduated and aging parents who won’t move. House is worth 700,000-750,000. We bought it a long time ago for a lot less but have also made a lot of improvements so it’s not paid off. Comparable houses in the Arlington area at like 1.5-2 million. We considered and looked but were disappointed with the quality of life difference.

it’s normal in Amazon to have a commute. Not sure how an l6 can afford Arlington.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read about the Amazon RTO order and think it’s great. It’s high time the federal government got this done too.

Why is it great? 45-90 minute commutes, worked at home before Covid, having to work during the commute which is a safety issue, cost of commute, environmental issues for commute, then do calls and work when you get home.

It’s to make government happy to get spending in the area which will not happen for us as we’ll bring food, etc or to get rid of people. When they get rid of the experienced people productivity and quality of work decrease. And, it’s very hard to be on the phone all day in large open spaces. Nor is there enough space.

[Anonymous]

I saw this coming from the moment businesses went remote during Covid. I never imagined it would’ve been a permanent solution frankly, I’m surprised it’s taking them this long to go back to the office. so many people aren’t putting in their hours.

I thought it was foolish for people to move away from their Jobs back in 2020 because they thought remote work would be permanent.

It’s also foolish of Amazon office workers to comment on Facebook, etc. with complaints about childcare because they are precisely why there is a push to return office, how can you effectively work when you’re also taking care of your babies and toddlers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Amazon had always been the place for people who can't get jobs somewhere else. Lowest paying, lowest benefit, most abusive management in Big Tech.

They thrive on desperate people (mostly immigrant new grads) who are willing to overwork themselves until they find something better or get laid off.

Not necessarily true. Husband made the jump from another FAANG I think during pandemic when hiring was going crazy and got a big bump in salary after getting passed over for the usual politics. Not because he was a bad performer. He was not.

He’s still making quite a lot more than he was making at his previous FAANG company, which is supposed to treat their employees amazingly but actually was a dysfunctional sshow.

Honestly, they are all kind of evil, but those golden handcuffs! It makes it hard to go to other places. He’s worked at a few. I’d say Microsoft was the nicest and chillest but paid the least. Amazon seems to be the roughest in terms of office politics.

I remind him, and he knows, that he makes way more than most people, and that is a combination of talent and ambition and luck. Amazon is evil but he still is getting paid a lot of money and his work life balance is not bad, as some people here are saying.

op would YOU want to go into the office 5 days a week?
if it were me and this happened to dh i'd encourage him to find a new job. He has one life to live, be supportive.