• Caveman
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    15 minutes ago

    I’ve heard that this is the new type of layoffs big tech is doing. Massive layoffs that are required lower the stock price but people quitting is not news. So the best strategy to get rid of staff is to create a hostile work environment temporarily until you reach the right amount.

    This is a really bad idea for long term health of a company. The people that stay are the ones that will struggle to find new jobs and the people that leave probably already have another job at a competing firm lined up.

    It’s just straight up dumb but keeps the stock price high and the CEO gets his bonus.

  • @[email protected]
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    7 hours ago

    Any manager high up enough to be talking on a news channel doesn’t have the degree of interaction with workers to know what they think.

    Source: every job I’ve ever had

  • @[email protected]
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    198 hours ago

    They have no idea how shitty their company has always looked to prospective employees. Be careful what you wish for.

    • @[email protected]
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      7 hours ago

      I have had multiple offers to work at AWS. I won’t because I know how shitty they treat their employees.

      if they make a dude piss in a bottle shuttling boxes, imagine what they’re making higher paid engineers do. sleepless nights? impossible deadlines? insane scope creep?

      no. thank you, but no.

      • @[email protected]
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        66 hours ago

        The psychology of abuse is the worst aspect. They make their workers question their own abilities and value, while demanding higher and higher output. It’s a grinder mentality.

  • @[email protected]
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    3512 hours ago

    As an Amazon employee…the man blatantly lied about the figures for those happy to RTO. He probably got them by seeing that ~10% of corporate staff are in the remote advocacy channel, and assumed that everyone else was…happy?

    Regardless, Amazon is known as a place that values data above anything else. If you are a fresh grad PM and you’re caught fudging or misrepresenting numbers to suit a narrative, guess what happens to you. You are more than likely PIP’d or fired

    I’d say that Matt Garman should be fired for lying about the data, but given that Jassy has a habit of lying about figures also, the rot is at the top.

    • haui
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      210 hours ago

      I think people working at amazon and shopping at amazon, both without clear necessity, are part of the problem.

      • @[email protected]
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        810 hours ago

        As someone that has worked for/with several small companies, including those involved in wellness and promoting mental health, that’s a load of shit. Lots of employers are ruthless and evil, including many of the ones people here work for. Amazon is no different, they’re just much larger.

        • @[email protected]
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          138 minutes ago

          I’ve spent most of my career working at small companies and they’ve all had fantastic work/life balance policies while also not skimping out on compensation packages. I guess you’ve just got to know how to pick 'em ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

          Having no tolerance for being treated like a machine rather than a human also helps.

        • haui
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          -99 hours ago

          You have exactly the attitude of someone able to work for a monster like amazon. Unnecessary aggressive and condescending.

          Thanks for making my point.

          • @[email protected]
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            138 hours ago

            1 out of every 169 people work for Amazon. Your stance is that they’re all evil.

            How privileged you must be to have loads of employment options at your fingertips.

            • haui
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              -78 hours ago

              My stance is that most people have poor reading comprehension. Thanks for making my point.

              I said „without necessity“. Having no other comparable options qualifies as necessity in my book.

              Activism is great but the moment people shun others for not ruining themselves for the cause they become radicals.

              So no, thats not my stance.

              And no, I havent been born privileged in the typical western way. But I have the privilege of being pretty smart which enabled me to escape the prison of an uneducated, violent household.

              And yes, I hold people accountable for not giving a shit about others. Deal with it.

              • @[email protected]
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                45 hours ago

                People have low reading comprehension because they didn’t assume that “necessity” meant some specific thing in your head? If you want to be understood, maybe share more context.

                Regardless, you sound super judgy of people whose situation you have no concept of. This tracks very well with your insistence that you care about others. People who care about others don’t need to state it. It shows in how they treat people.

                And you’ve been needlessly mean in just this simple conversation. So no, you don’t care about others. You just want to project that persona.

            • haui
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              -78 hours ago

              And more condescension. Its as if more of the same thing will do different things.

              Maybe add some racism or climate denial to the mix. Just for some seasoning.

      • Pika
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        -27 hours ago

        I buy on Amazon because quite frankly it’s cheaper. It used to be the case where you could look up an item on Amazon search the supplier and buy it directly many times with it cheaper than Amazon. Nowadays that’s not the case.

        Principles can only go so far, there is no reason anymore for me to go through the hassle of searching for the item on amazon, searching up the merchant online to see if they have a web page(many don’t), going through the hassle of having to fill in the payment information and then also having to worry about each and every company’s return policy; when I can just order it through Amazon, usually get free shipping on the item which already saves me seven or eight dollars a purchase, and not have to worry about any of the hassle and if something goes wrong I know that more than likely Amazon will have my back during the return process.

        People buy from the company because they’re able to offer a service that many other businesses do not do strictly because of their size, and unfortunately I don’t think that’s fixable

        • @[email protected]
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          128 minutes ago

          I don’t think you should be downvoted, but where I will disagree is on price. Amazon is rarely the cheaper option nowadays, and more often than not I can find the same product for the same price or cheaper elsewhere.

          Where Amazon used to have the market cornered (and still do to some extent) is in logistics. Few companies can easily commit to next day delivery (let alone same day), but that’s quickly changing with companies looking to take on Amazon in this market.

    • @[email protected]
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      1015 hours ago

      Thanks a lot. Now, whenever I see a quote from one of these types of leadership people, I’m going to hear the quote in a southern slave owner voice like Leonardo Dicaprio in Django.

  • @[email protected]
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    12118 hours ago

    Well yeah, driving people to quit to save money on severance from the impending layoffs is the whole point of forcing them to return to the office

    • @[email protected]
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      817 hours ago

      My guess is that by going fully onsite, they can probably avoid layoffs entirely. The majority of tech roles are hybrid or remote so the departures are going to be often and steady which will naturally select out anyone not interesting in making their life Amazon. They want employees that live and breath Amazon and this is how they get that (or just keep desperate people).

      • @[email protected]
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        2515 hours ago

        The hilarious thing is that the first ones to go will be the high performers. They’re executing a dumb as shit layoff that will set them far behind competitors.

  • @[email protected]
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    6118 hours ago

    So in this instance would quiet quitting lead to the desired result? Just doing the most subpar work until they’re forced to fire you with a severance…

  • @[email protected]
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    1515 hours ago

    Why is even the writer of the article lying about the reason? Everyone knows this is about real estate value propping up the stock price.

    • @[email protected]
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      37 hours ago

      Why would Amazon give a shit if real estate values go down? Amazon isn’t a real estate company.

      • @[email protected]
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        17 hours ago

        Are you actually interested in the answer to that or just running in here to argue? I figure it’ll save me effort if you tell me before I answer.

        • @[email protected]
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          17 hours ago

          Umm…good question. I think I came in here expecting to see some braindead takes and prepared to argue against them, but tell you what, I promise I’ll be respectful and attentive in this thread. You sound like you might actually have a good answer to my question.

            • @[email protected]
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              11 hour ago

              I’ve only watched the first of these, but having done so, I’m not sure I want to bother with the second. The guy in the first video repeated the (likely true) claim that WFH impacts commercial real estate value and then dunked on a couple of articles about return to work policies. But the question was, why does that sway Amazon’s thinking?

            • @[email protected]
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              12 hours ago

              I generally don’t watch videos. I can read an article in a few seconds, I really don’t like having that stretched out to 10 minutes or more while youtubers try to hawk ads and endorsements. Thank you for the response though.

    • peopleproblems
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      713 hours ago

      Man, there are people who will argue until they are blue in the face that the purpose is not real estate.

      The “only” evidence I can provide is that the values of proximal commercial properties is rapidly losing value because the workforce that provided business to those properties is no longer there. And just because the properties have investments made by the company doesn’t mean they own them outright (despite the value tying into their businesses net worth).

      Of course they would lie about this. It doesn’t benefit the real estate owners and the business to publicly share that investments are losing value because of natural economics. The entire financing industry is based on lies to begin with, can’t change that now (/s).

      • @[email protected]
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        15 hours ago

        One Youtube channel suggested it was tax incentives. Cities give tax incentives to large corporate offices in order to bring customers, er… employees to the cities.

        Work from home means offices no longer meet qualifications for tax breaks. Ergo CEO freakouts.

        Don’t know if it’s true, but it does sound plausible to me.

        • peopleproblems
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          11 hour ago

          That one sounds plausible, but I can’t imagine that property taxes are so large in Seattle that they would force their employees back. Seems like a good way to lose that tax benefit

        • peopleproblems
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          07 hours ago

          No. They invest in funds that own buildings that rent to small businesses.

          They need businesses to stay so they can charge them rent. The Amazon owned buildings then maintain and grow their value with inflation.

          Think about inflation - who does it benefit? Only property owners.

            • peopleproblems
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              37 hours ago

              Not directly but any big company that has any form of corporate retirement benefit has it through private equity. I highly doubt any of it is publicly traded. But Amazon itself owns 25 buildings in the South Lake Union area of Seattle.

              • @[email protected]
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                13 hours ago

                Amazon doesn’t do pensions or any sort of corporate retirement benefit…it’s all 401k like most US companies. Pensions are very rare here.

        • peopleproblems
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          07 hours ago

          I’m not sure which locations they are forcing employees back to, but Amazon itself isn’t likely paying rent, they do own some buildings. That is an investment they use in their listed assets.

          What’s happening is that other businesses that do rent building space aren’t getting enough revenue due to decreased traffic (think the corner coffee shop that had a steady stream of regulars every morning but now doesn’t). This causes them to leave, driving up the rent of other renters, and you get a “mortgage backed security like” crisis. Amazon doesn’t give two shits about the businesses that leave, or what they pay in rent - they care that their building value grows. Can’t do that if real estate is vacating in the nearby area.

          Which to that I say: good, fuck em

          • @[email protected]
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            26 hours ago

            Maybe the “risk takers” who invested in corporate real estate, just before corporate real estate became useless, should all fail. Idk why anyone believes the bullshit that they should be jacking up prices to cover their failures. Their whole existence is avoiding risk while calling themselves risk takers and then blaming everyone else when gambling for a living doesn’t work

            • peopleproblems
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              11 hour ago

              Risk means sometimes shit goes south. I’ve seen a lot of shit not going south.

              Credit Suisse folded, Archeagos folded. The whole Evergrande thing in Chinaa. But I think that’s it in recent history

            • peopleproblems
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              17 hours ago

              Yeah, something stupid like 25 buildings, and they payed some stupid high price per sqft too.