[Spivak]

This is so unbelievably stupid. Making it three days a week but not specifying which three days is a full-on admission that remote work is fine. Every meeting will be partially remote, all your team conversations still have to be in chat for someone on the team, you're just turning your physical offices into WeWorks and pretending that means something. Even when we were still in-office the thing you thought might benefit from physical presence, pairing, we did over teams because it made it easier to share screens.

The fact that you need the line managers to track and enforce the rule is the real kicker because it means you can't actually tell who's just on their two days or someone who doesn't show up at all. And no manager would be stupid enough to enforce this rule because they already have so little to offer their reports for retention that letting them break the rules a bit for QoL is basically a golden ticket.

[humanrebar]

There's no real way to measure productivity to start with. There's no logic underpinning any of this. It's all instinct and bias, and nobody want to say that out loud.

[cj]

(Devil's advocate) if someone is in a physical office, you know there's at least a possibility that they're working. If someone is fully remote, they can do chores around the house, watch TV, run errands, work 3 jobs - you can even schedule "focus time" on the calendar to guarantee you look productive.

Faking productivity is a lot easier when remote.

Yes, you can also fake being productive in an office, but in an office not being productive usually means reading HN, or whatever. When remote, it means you're probably not even at a computer.

Having managers enforce the rule encourages the transition to appear as though it's a org-wide culture shift rather than a blanket executive decree.

FWIW I run a 100% remote 20 person team (remote before covid)... personally I believe in remote work. At the same time, I can easily see why companies would want employees to go back.

[vrosas]

I maintain that I’m equally productive at home as I was in the office. The only difference is the amount of time I spend _pretending_ to to be productive.

[willsmith72]

Why would I employ someone who makes me worry about whether they're "actually productive" or just doing housework? If their productivity seems up-to-scratch, and they're working less hours, than my other employees, I don't care.

If I'm so worried about employees sneaking hours off work, I probably need to either hire better or stop worrying about the wrong things.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

> at least a possibility

Absolutely no possibility that work is being done by remote employees?

[kcplate]

I say it out loud. But it’s on both sides though. Neither side has real data to slam dunk prove their preference is better…but one side has decades and decades of history behind their position where the other side has just over three years…and the first year didn’t count because everyone was still learning how to do it.

[Spivak]

* at the margins, which is what we're talking about really. I wouldn't go so far as to say you can't measure productivity at all. You could probably tell if I just up and stopped working.

[Aurornis]

> Every meeting will be partially remote, all your team conversations still have to be in chat for someone on the team

I've worked hybrid for a while. It's not that hard to coordinate when everyone is going to be in the office for certain meetings.

Giving teams flexibility is better. If someone is maliciously changing their WFH schedule all the time to avoid meetings, it's obvious. You deal with that person individually.

[Spivak]

I was more getting at that above a certain size you'll have someone remote every day.

But like also a person is allowed to not like in person meetings. Feels weird to force it. Honestly the live captions, running transcript, side chat, multi-screen share, and hand raise feature alone make remote meetings better than in-person for actual work.

[SpicyLemonZest]

Is it true that Amazon doesn't specify which three days? I've seen a lot of companies where individual teams or departments pick the days, but I think most people would agree that just everyone coming in whenever they'd feel like would be silly.

[ToucanLoucan]

All of these enforced back-to-office measures are to ensure middle-management has something to do and to try and prevent the crash of commercial real estate values, change my mind.

[colinjoy]

why would it make any difference for the workload of middle management if their reports are in the office or remote? are they responsible for restocking the coffee machine?

[ToucanLoucan]

Not their actual work, the tangential stuff like sitting over your shoulder, making awkward small talk, making sure you're "really working" and all the other nonsense.

A ton of these people are powertripping goofs and they can't power trip nearly as effectively when their employees are remote. And, even to the degree they can, it isn't nearly as enjoyable for them outside of real exchanges when they get to enforce their presence and authority in person in uncomfortable ways.

I absolutely loathe this garbage. As a general rule I work odd hours, some days I work for barely an hour, other days I work from sunup to sundown. "Am I really working" changes drastically depending on the work day it happens to be, and my remote managers know this. I remain accessible for meetings during office hours but "am I working" at any given point in the day? Who fucking knows.

You know what they do know? My assignments are completed on time, usually early, my work is excellent, and I show up when needed. If you need to know more than that, you're a meddling manager and I wouldn't work for you if I could possibly avoid it.

[add-sub-mul-div]

Yes the local Seattle commercial real estate market has Amazon by the balls. Perfect theory, no notes.

[Raptor22]

I'd say it's the opposite, actually. If Amazon embraced WFH, the Seattle commercial real estate market (and the city itself) would suffer major damage. So the mayor and many CRE groups are lobbying the C suite to go back to the office.