Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: ‘It’s probably not going to work out’::Amazon CEO Andy Jassy responded to employees’ reluctance to return to the office by telling them that “it’s probably not going to work out,” according to Insider.

  • @[email protected]
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    681 year ago

    I’m anything but a soothsayer, but we’re already seeing remote work become a pretty important factor in people choosing employers, and it seems like most of the larger players in their respective industries are the ones trying to force people back into the office.

    I could see this become a huge boom for low-mid tier companies that are able to put in more affordable offer packages but with work from home options attached and pry away talent from the high tier companies.

    This could go a long way towards hopefully rebalancing the scales for quite a few things and hopefully reeling in some of these companies who have been able to take so much for so long.

    • @[email protected]
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      321 year ago

      Big companies pulling employees back to the office isn’t pulling them back to the office. It’s laying off higher wages and making room for lower wages.

      All it does for the industry is lower the barrier for entry. Id take a pay cut to keep working remotely, no problem. 100k jobs at 80k remote means smaller employers can compete.

      • @[email protected]
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        211 year ago

        Being forced back to the office is a paycut itself. It adds commute costs (fuel, wear and tear if you drive) and wastes more of your time you could spend doing other things. It also increases pollution and traffic for no good reason.

        • @[email protected]
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          1 year ago

          I had a headhunter come to me with what they thought was an aggressive offer to pry me away from my current company, but they believed in full office time all the time.

          I calculated the commute time + gas + wear and tear into my calculation and it came in under my existing pay.

          Went back to him and said unless you’re willing to do much better or move on the remote situation I’d be losing money by taking your offer.

          I’ve heard from him a few times since asking if we can discuss it and I always ask, what’s the remote situation? “Oh maybe we can do a couple days a month.” Yea. No. Thanks for the offer, not interested. I recommend your company takes a second look at their office attendance requirements to stay competitive.

          I know I’m not the only one as well. And I’m really hoping people start taking the opportunity to stand up to these useless requirements.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        US companies have much more “freedoms” to rob their “workers” from benefits. By law we have the following benefits

        • Yearly 20 days payed holidays
        • Payed maternity leave (both parents)
        • Must be payed while sick (call immediately)
        • Can’t be fired during sickness
        • Can’t be fired after sickness

        I could tell a similar story about our healthcare (much cheaper and better)

        • @[email protected]
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          81 year ago

          The US has no law mandating paid time off and you can be fired for being sick unless you’re out on FMLA.

          • @[email protected]
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            21 year ago

            FMLA => unpayed

            Our leaves => payed

            And our healthcare, things you pay a lot for in the US, are actually free here.

    • @[email protected]
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      131 year ago

      Exactly this. Companies that offer remote work are going to get their pick of employees, while companies that live in the past are going to subsist on what’s left. Remote work can easily substitute for a huge amount of pay, because for a lot of employees that pay cut is less than what they’ll save by not having to live in, say, San Francisco.

  • bean
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    431 year ago

    What an out of touch wind bag. Oh sorry I meant douche bag. I’ve literally never seen a single positive story in the news about Amazon like ever. Plus their shit is filled with cheap Chinese ripoffs, exactly why I stopped using eBay too.

      • @xePBMg9
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        111 year ago

        What do you mean? The CEO’s job is to extract as much value as possible from of the worker, fucking over customers just enough that they don’t stop buying stuff from the company and generating short tern value for stock owners. If he has shown himself able to do that; he will get the CEO position.

        • @[email protected]
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          31 year ago

          Again COVID people have already been working remote. Do I have to explain agin.

          “Fucking over customers”, personally I don’t want RATS as CEO.

    • @[email protected]
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      1 year ago

      Yeah Amazon is both a danger to society killing of small businesses left and right, while also being run by an incompetent idiot like the former CEO of AWS, clearly a struggling wing of Amazon.

      Really, take 20 seconds to evaluate the absurdity of your comments before posting.

    • @[email protected]
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      101 year ago

      I think it’s the intersection of a lot of different issues (most things are), and most of them are about keeping workers beaten down and under control, but real estate is definitely a big part of the push we’ve seen in the media to suggest that remote work is somehow bad and going to go away.

    • @[email protected]
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      61 year ago

      But why though?

      Wouldn’t it be more cost effective to not pay for huge buildings?

      And even if you can’t get out of the contract, wouldn’t it still be more cost effective to just leave it empty without paying for electricity, water and heat?

      • @[email protected]
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        81 year ago

        Because the executives have money in, or relationships with, investments funds that are heavily vested in commercial real estate. So it might save money for the company, but the knock on effect of devaluing that real estate is a threat to many wealthy. So no matter how wasteful it is for the companies in question, the personal conflicts of interest at exectutive/board levels will ensure the farce continues until those companies are replaced or have no alternative.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 year ago

        Yes, for the companies offering remote work downsizing your real estate footprint can be a huge cost savings.

        For the real estate industry, however, the effects are devastating and the future looks terrifying. These companies are absolutely shitting themselves.

        Outside observers tend to get these effects mixed up, because there is some bleed over, albeit in weird ways. Basically, yes, Amazon would be better off using less office space, but Amazon share holders all have huge investments in real estate (because it’s considered the safest bet in the universe) and they’re watching their portfolios with mounting horror. So even though it doesn’t benefit the company, the shareholders are all big on getting people back into the office so that the unbelievably valuable global office real estate industry doesn’t face an existential threat.

        This happens to align nicely with all the ways in which managers prefer having employees in the office because they prefer keeping people on a short leash (extra time to do all the shit you want to do means extra time for things like learning new skills and hunting for a better job), and of course many of those managers are also heavily invested in real estate themselves.

        Its all a big complicated mess with many other factors that I’m glossing over. Real estate is in there, and it’s certainly a reason, but people are oversimplifying when they say it’s the reason, at least in my opinion.

    • @[email protected]
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      51 year ago

      It’s gotta be. If they were concerned about collective action they would be all for remote work, it’s much harder for coworkers to bond or fraternize in remote positions.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        Yes and no. While it’s harder for workers to fraternize, I think they’re also concerned that more of that fraternization would take place through channels that they can’t observe.

  • @[email protected]
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    191 year ago

    Holy crap. He seriously has the most punchable looking face I’ve seen in months.

    I am just so damn sick of every CEO.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    91 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Thousands of workers signed a petition against the mandate and staged a walkout in response.

    In a recording of the meeting obtained by Insider, Jassy told workers, “It’s past the time to disagree and commit,” adding that “if you can’t disagree and commit… it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon because we are going back to the office at least three days a week.”

    The Verge reached out to Amazon with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.

    On top of ongoing layoffs, Amazon has been cracking down on employees who refuse to return to the office.

    In July, leaked messages seen by Insider suggested that Amazon would force a “voluntary resignation” on employees who don’t relocate to the in-person hubs where their teams work while others just began quitting on their own.

    The company has also started sending warnings to workers about their in-person attendance, according to Insider.


    The original article contains 286 words, the summary contains 155 words. Saved 46%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @[email protected]
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    41 year ago

    I don’t know about the meeting part, but the rest of the stuff in the article is correct. Can confirm.

  • @[email protected]
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    -41 year ago

    A lot of people were bragging about using their mouse wigglers, running errands while working or having multiple remote jobs during the pandemic. What did they think it’s going to happen?