Totally agree that these are issues worth thinking about and mitigating.
One thing I’ve started doing at work is documenting workflows in various ways: not just docs but talks and screencasts where a new engineer could see my workflow. (I also give new engineers advice to keep a digital notebook! I still learn tons by doing this.)
For the isolation bit I just wonder what we will see replacing that. It’s possible we never see anything and everyone just deals with it but I hope shared office spaces or something similar picks up. I get plenty of socialization elsewhere but little breaks in the workday to not focus on productivity and just chitchat were nice and maybe important some days.
It’s interesting because he originally said he was buying Twitter because of the bots, and then later tried to nuke the deal claiming the proliferation of bots had created a material change in the business.. either way you’d expect that to be a priority for him to fix.
I think he believed it would be an easy project and a funny meme to own it, and it will soon be repossessed by Morgan Stanley.
I was gonna make a comment saying “yeah but those MBAs aren’t dictating minutiae about how they complete their tasks (in the way software CEOs are assured we work better in an open-office shared desk hours from our homes)”
But actually there’s a ton of micromanagement in medicine too. It’s equally insane there though and transparently driven by profit motives over patient wellbeing.
That’s correct. I have the smallest offering from the manufacturer you linked and it’s super portable (30lbs) but the ride is bumpy even on relatively smooth road.
You do get used to it but never feels quite as safe as a bike.
My theory is that they need attrition, and they need managers to be managing out employees at a higher rate than they’ve historically been comfortable. So they won’t typically fire someone directly for attendance (yet) but they will give the managers permission to do so. That’s what these memos are meant to convey.
Maybe we’ll see something similar from other big tech cos in the near future, since they all use the same consulting firms for these decisions.
The reality is they need office attendance to meet tax agreements with the cities they’re located in. All the “culture” hand waving is certainly a factor, but something so fuzzy wouldn’t fly at Amazon. It’s when data is presented that decisions get made typically, and they have no data that shows in office collaboration improves productivity - quite the opposite - I’ve seen the data collected by other megacorps I’ve worked at where we had these discussions. The only real data is the many millions they’re getting in tax agreements with seattle and other cities they’re located in.
Attrition is probably also a part of it. However, I’ve heard there’s a strongly negative bias working again Amazon in that attrition where only top talent is attriting and they’re loading up on bottom quartile who are coming into the office every day to try to cling to their job.
> The reality is they need office attendance to meet tax agreements with the cities they’re located in.
I don’t disagree, but that doesn’t explain these actions right? Amazon would be free to have a policy which was not enforced by badge tracking — leaving things up to managers and establishing a culture norm of in-office work with flexibility was pretty much standard pre-COVID. Surely the city isn’t asking for attendance records.
I guess it’s likely a confluence of factors (tax breaks, monetary incentives, old-guard management, real-estate portfolio losses, resentment toward engineers they perceive to be lazy) pointing in the same direction.
Salaries, total compensation, total net employment costs, tax credits, and special deals on electricity negotiated directly with utilities are tightly held secrets.
No, instead they sound gaslighty, dishonest, and manipulative. Is that less damaging to morale? Perhaps their employees are gullible or desperate enough to take these saccharine euphemisms at face value.
One thing I’ve started doing at work is documenting workflows in various ways: not just docs but talks and screencasts where a new engineer could see my workflow. (I also give new engineers advice to keep a digital notebook! I still learn tons by doing this.)
For the isolation bit I just wonder what we will see replacing that. It’s possible we never see anything and everyone just deals with it but I hope shared office spaces or something similar picks up. I get plenty of socialization elsewhere but little breaks in the workday to not focus on productivity and just chitchat were nice and maybe important some days.