Even more unpopular, you have a choice to work. To work at Amazon.

We haven't really hit a true recession yet, esp for the laptop class. I think you will see more of this.

> Even more unpopular, you have a choice to work. To work at Amazon.

I had coworkers at Amazon who never lived near any office and were hired with the understanding that they'd always be remote. After several years, they were told to "return" to an office that they never worked in before hundreds or thousands miles away or to resign (without severance of course, since it's "voluntary", and of course refusing to quit or move would lead to firing "for cause"). Are you saying that this is okay because it's Amazon, and their employees don't need to be treated as fairly as anywhere else, or are you arguing that this should be allowed anywhere? I can't imagine why this would be reasonable at any company, but I can't tell if this is an anti-Amazon sentiment or just a consistent opinion that seems crazy to me.

Ex-Amazonian here, but outside the US. How come refusing to quit would lead to firing “for cause”?

Wouldn’t that be some constructive dismissal, or am I misunderstanding the US labor law?

When I was laid off through the PIP’s way just before the 2022 official layoffs, the first thing I questioned was if they were firing me for no cause, and I collected both Amazon’s severance and the government mandated severance for non-cause dismissals.

Correct. Every job that can be done remotely can equally be done very remotely. At home tech workers compete in a global marketplace. My job requires me to be in the office, not by anyone's choice. It's a legal requirement. That offers me protection should cuts ever come.

Hah. One of my clients is in German insurance tech. They thought the same as you and started recruiting from around the world. They said that German employees are just too expensive. For comparison, a PHP software developer in Germany usually has a salary between 50k and 70k (between 31 and 42k after taxes), which is far from what's being paid in the US. But of course, you can still get cheaper ones from other countries.

Well, it turns out that these specific German business cases, which are hard enough for the average German developer to understand, are even harder to explain to someone if there's an additional language barrier between them. Most people using that software don't speak English, so there's always a proxy between the developers and the stakeholders.

I could write a lot about this (I actually deleted two very long versions of this comment here already), but I really would not recommend that any company recruit too many people from outside of its own country, apart from a few exceptions where that fits the business model. Having some diversity in your team structure can help, but as with most things, too much is not good. But many companies will have to learn that for themselves. I have already seen some that did not survive that lesson.

Yes and no. Everyone on the team tries to be cognizant of time zones and coworkers availability. Trying to schedule meetings across multiple time zones quickly limits available working hours.

This isn't necessarily true -- language, cultural, and timezone barriers do exist and will come up, which makes it still advantageous to keep WFH employees domestic

We love legally backed job protections.

The laws are just the embodiment of the requirement, not the requirement themselves. Many jobs involve information and processes that simply cannot be handled in a home office environment. For instance, there aren't any work-from-home air traffic controllers. Nor do many companies let certain trade secrets be discussed outside dedicated facilities.

especially when our friends in tech get laid off

Maybe not _equally_ but yeah, this is a key point. There's not a good way to place this bet, but I bet the day comes when the full-remote advocates will rue that advocacy, or at least, many of the Americans will.

At the risk of caricature, it seems like there are two camps:

1. WFH is amazing and just as good for productivity and back-to-office is just a flex by evil managers.

2. WFH is bad for global productivity and so we need back-to-office.

Seems pretty straightforward that if #1 is right, then full-remote companies will have a massive competitive advantage, and the issue should be adjudicated decisively once more companies implement b-t-o.

The game is rigged. There is always more behind the RTO. Examples include - political pressure to prop up downtown businesses (and real estate), easy ways to lay-off without having to announce it, hiring cheaper younger workforce as opposed to expensive senior workers, etc.

You’re assuming a fair world. It isn’t. As an employee the game is rigged against you.

I agree the world isn't "fair" for most definitions of the word. Unlike many, I don't attribute zero weight to human pettiness that desires a sea of toiling workers as a prestige accent to an executive's self-image.

But also unlike many, I believe that that weight, whatever it is, to be overwhelmed by the colder calculation of profit, growth, etc.

If our corporate overlords could get it done with 50% of the present workforce fully remote, they would, happily. Even better if they were in Bangladesh. Which is another reason to be careful what you wish for.

Yes and the profit in this instance is from resignation. That profit motive is also short term over longer term, who cares if it's not in the long term interest of the business, think of their bonus.

What about "whether WFH is more or less productive is irrelevant because people hired with the understanding they would work remotely shouldn't be forced to 'return' to an office they never worked in?" Sure, maybe it's more profitable for the company to have all of their employees in the office, but plenty of other things are more profitable that we also have decided as a society aren't reasonable, like paying below minimum wage or flouting safety regulations. If a company didn't think it could make a profit while employing remotely, they shouldn't have hired remote workers in the first place.

I think you're arguing with someone who isn't me.

I don't know why I have to commute 90 minutes just to open AWS consoles, terminal tabs, Microsoft teams and Outlook. Then any communication I have with my team members and leaders must be written before I can do anything anyways.

Do I just have to sacrifice 5% of my lifetime to corporate gods? Because I gladly sacrifice more, and there is an opportunity to negotiate for better mutual terms.

Let me counter by saying in-office work should be just for poor performers who need to be watched, or socialites who like to pretend to work but maintain their role by being popular with the right people.

I can be reductive as well!

I'm the latter of the three, so I guess I'll keep working 100% remote.

Now we know where the phrase, “Grandma, this salad tastes like $hit” comes from.

This is very sad. On comparing city safety. SF has 1M people and 55 homicides. Jacksonville, FL has 1M and 162. Is there a reason people in the US seem to highlight SF more in situations like this?

There’s an agenda.

Possibly this is the real reason the order was cancelled. Once the unit/case thing was figured out, the distributor realized they’d have to pay 6x more or the seller realized they were getting paid 6x less. The deal fell apart.

Elon on Twitter recently has reminded me of the headache I got from Trump on Twitter. Non stop. Every day. I know it’s my choice, but I’m worn out by it.

Apple Watch rings sort of did the same for me. Helped to also have done at the same time as my wife - so I guess that is similar to your motivation.

Maybe I missed it. What classifies as a workout in your model with your brother?

For me, I weigh myself every morning and have that go to an app. I use an Apple Watch and close my rings every day. Some days I get the exercise ring through a long walk, sometimes more aggressive exercises. And when I was really trying to lose weight I used the Lose It app to log food (and learn about what I eat). The combination worked for me.

I think it can still work and be helpful. It lets you triage the most important emails first and the. Go through the cc folder after. The only issue is your iPhone, as you might only see main inbox come in there and you could not notice something g timely.

  Re: project 

Is a common subject line from clients. Heuristics that work internally, those that allow emails to be ignored, fall by the wayside when big money detail oriented customer service is the job.

What matters is how the client used email. If it is confusing and more work than it should be, so what? Sucking it up is what legal professionals are paid to do. When a deal crashes, there’s no debug and recompile cycle.

  Re: kickoff

The "rule" also depends on what happens if you don't act. If you're in a large organization and CC'd by default and nothing bad really happens if you don't read your emails because your action is rarely needed, then sure.

If you're CC'd but the work won't be done if you don't read the email, because you are the one who will do the work, then it's not viable to skip CC's.

Not great, not terrible.