Posted on 06/01/2023 3:03:13 PM PDT by thegagline
Hundreds of Amazon employees briefly walked off the job Wednesday, calling on the company to reconsider its return-to-office mandate and curb its greenhouse gas emissions.
Outside Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, standing underneath a banner that urged the company to stop its “short-term thinking,” Pamela Hayter told her colleagues she wasn’t nervous about speaking out anymore.
“We’re here today because it’s the right thing to do,” the Seattle-based program manager said. “I’ve not been nervous. I’ve been fired up.”
On Wednesday, nearly 2,000 Amazon employees joined the walkout, according to organizers who gathered pledges before action took place. Of those pledges, roughly 900 had planned to gather outside Amazon’s headquarters in South Lake Union while another 1,000 would join from offices elsewhere.
Amazon for its part estimated that about 300 people in Seattle walked out. By either measure, the protest amounted to a small fraction of the company’s workforce in the city.
During the one-hour demonstration, workers held signs that read “Amazon: Strive Harder,” referencing one company leadership principle stating Amazon must “strive to be Earth’s Best Employer.” They chanted “sound the alarm … we’re together, braver than ever.” They listened to speakers advocating a more flexible remote work policy, and for Amazon to make better progress toward its climate goals.
Outside of Seattle, workers set their status on the Slack instant messenger platform to “WALKOUT” and shut their laptops for an hour. In a Slack channel advocating for remote work, employees sent pictures of their own walkouts from Miami, Chicago, London and Brussels, as well as offices in Virginia and Idaho.
“Today looks like it might be the start of a new chapter in Amazon’s history,” Eliza Pan, a former Amazon employee, told the group gathered in Seattle. “Tech workers are going to stand up.” ***
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
“briefly walked off the job Wednesday”
well, if they “walked off the job” during their lunch hour, i don’t see much harm in it ...
Wait a minute ...aren’t these all the little wokesters who fell over themselves to wear masks and follow the government orders like obedient sheep?
Well, your “government” is now calling you back. And now they’ve ensured high gas prices and cost of living increases to boot!
And the cities you have to commute to will now be overrun with illegals pissing in the streets.
Wondering when the pain really sets in, how long it will take them to wise up.
The "WFH" experiment has been an enormous success for me. As soon as the stupid governor of my state declared my business "non-essential" and ordered my industry to shut down our offices, I immediately made plans to relocate elsewhere and move my entire operation into a walk-out basement office in my new home. Every employee was sent to work from home, and they've never been back. I even added a key staff member who lives 400 miles away.
I never stopped working during that COVID fiasco. I spent more time on the road visiting project sites and (for those who were willing) clients over the last three years than ever before.
The only loser in this mess was my former office landlord. Three years after the COVID fiasco started, the building was half vacant. I noticed last week that it is now on the market -- at a very steep discount from what it was worth in 2019.
I talk to peers in my STEM field all the time about this. Everyone seems to fall into three groups:
1. People who work from home and love it.
2. People who work in the office and hate it because (A) they are on a modified 2-3 day work schedule and they're sharing tiny cubicles with other employees; and (B) they hate pissing away 1-3 hours of their lives on those 2-3 days commuting to an urban dump.
3. People who work from home and feel like they're missing out on things in the office ... until they feel much better after talking to their peers in Group #2.
Maybe a few coders. Who are loners. And they find it fun. They'll be fine with the remote work arrangement. Obviously, that's not most of us.
No question that there are many employees who prefer WFH, and in a few disciplines, that will work out for the company as well. To those I say “well done”!
But I’m thinking of my own company’s experience, and that of my customers and vendors. They’ve all been moving back to co-location for the same reasons:
1. It’s almost impossible to foster and transmit culture.
2. Young professionals need mentorship and development, and no one has really figured out a good way to do that remotely.
3. Contrary to what some WFH employees insist (at least to me, and others i’ve spoken to) quality and output of remote teams is lower than collated teams. It just takes longer to get the same results.
David Sacks had a good summary of other reasons he things WFH has an expiration date on Twitter. Worth checking out.
Even our San Francisco location is back to full time on site. We lost one person who just didn’t want to come back to the office, but tbh, we didn’t miss him. Surprisingly, the people most interested in full time on site are the new grads. They had two years of “remote learning”, which everyone hated, and which they think left them severely shortchanged vs in person labs and classes.
Just my experience.
No, but the current fire sale pricing is tempting. Problem is that debt financing is so expensive as to be unaffordable, so it’s all PE in that market. And without debt, the ROI isn’t great, though patient money will probably be rewarded.
You want in?
Nailed it. Smart employers are allowing WFH. I agree it’s not for everyone. But I love it.
I would say fire them all and replace none.
If you see a slump in a department you know that person was actually doing a necessary job. You might want to consider replacing them.
But then Commiezon is evil and I hope it dies a horrible death so... don't follow my advice you hive of scum and villainy!
Well, Bye.
#35 California will be giving illegals $300 per week if a democrat lawmaker has her way.
“Wondering when the pain really sets in, how long it will take them to wise up.”
sadly enough, i’m not sure very many of them will ever wise up, instead piling on enough rationalizations to sink a battleship, thus making it impossible to wise up without incurring a severe cognitive dissonance mental implosion ...
Everybody has to be equally miserable (except for the pigs, who are more equal than others) is an article of faith of the new world order.
Yep. You are so right. Some people can work remotely, some can’t. Amazing how the same people who simply can’t work from home will be the same people who hold endless meaningless meetings, gossip around the water cooler and are entitled little brats at the office, isn’t it?
Virtual work makes it possible for subject matter experts from around the country to work together on projects—the quality of such efforts is heads and shoulders above cubicle land.
Senior management learns in a hurry that most of the middle management bureaucracy is a total waste.
Eliza Pan, a former Amazon employee, told the group gathered in Seattle. “Tech workers are going to stand up.” ***
Astroturf.
Just think what would happen if we made most of Washington, DC work that way.
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