Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/23/tech/amazon-walkout/index.html

by GiorgioG • 3 years ago

301 325 3 years ago

cnn.com

chrisbrandow• 3 years ago

I didn’t see a description of the policy in the article. Did I miss it? It would be helpful context.

mnfx• 3 years ago

Short answer is 3 days a week in the office.

Long answer is effectively things will go back to how they were pre-pandemic. Except you now have to average 3 days a week in the office instead of the 5 that it was before. Some people can get exceptions, but it's basically going back to 2019 rules where the default is office.

The funny part for me is that if they had of announced these new rules in 2019, they would have been heralded as forward thinking employee first visionaries... but because it is a step back from the temporary COVID rules, it's all pitchforks and walkouts.

Eisenstein3• 3 years ago

Of course, that's why they refuse to give even an inch except when they absolutely have to -- because people will fight to retain something that benefits them much more than they will fight to gain a possible benefit they have never experienced.

WatchDog• 3 years ago

Previous discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36038992

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36037225

nancyhn• 3 years ago

How do the Amazon warehouse workers feel about that?

I could guess, but I don't know for sure.

inetknght• 3 years ago

I would absolutely support warehouse workers who stand up for their own collective bargaining rights.

gaze• 3 years ago

I’m curious where you’re going with this

gumballindie• 3 years ago

“If I cant have it neither should you.“ probably. I am not sure whom their thought leaders are but i have been seeing this more often in the recent months on reddit.

jrflowers• 3 years ago

I agree. “I’m imagining a scenario” is an interesting thing to post.

paxys3• 3 years ago

I imagine it's the usual "someone else's life sucks so yours must suck as well" argument that is used against workers.

Eisenstein3• 3 years ago

Divide and conquer, that's where.

satvikpendem• 3 years ago

Well, you can't remotely pack items in a box.

great_psy2• 3 years ago

You’re looking at it in a backwards way.

I want to work from home. And while I understand warehouse workers cannot wfh, I think they should get paid regular wage for their commute time.

Don’t go back in time.

shagie• 3 years ago

Paying a person for a commute opens up many and large cans of worms.

Do you trust all of the workers to accurately report when they left home?

How do you handle a person who carpools and has an extra 30 minutes of diversion for that carpool drop off route?

When I was in Eau Claire, one of my coworkers commuted from Minneapolis (for various reasons) - 1.5h each way. As we were not exempt workers (and I suspect that warehouse workers aren't exempt either) should he get time and a half for working 6h in a day? When we had a blizzard one day and he decided to not take a day off and ended up with a 5h trip in (and I suspect a at least 2h on the way back) should he be getting time and a half for that?

Can I get fired for moving further away from the place of employment even if I show up on time for work each day? This year my commute is 30 minutes each way, and then I move another 15m further away next year... and another 15m away the next year...

Alice and Bob are neighbors. Alice drives in (30 min commute) while Bob takes the bus (2h with transfers).

Those crazy SF2G people commute in on bike ( https://sf2g.com ). The half moon bay route is about 4.5h...

Charlie bikes to work in the summer (and drives in inclement weather). Biking to work is 2h while driving is 20 minutes. Does he get paid 2h if he shows up on a bike (and then needs to take a shower and change) vs only paid for 20 minutes if he drives? Could the employer mandate that he drives to work?

David drives through McDs each day for breakfast (adding 7 minutes to the commute in). Does he get paid for that additional (unnecessary) time? Today the drive through is broken so he stops, gets out, orders in and eats breakfast in (15 min). Does he get paid for the entire "left house" to "arrived at office"? Only in the car (+7 min drive through)? Or did it reset when he got out of the car at McDs?

Edward normally has a 20 minute commute. Today, his kids missed the school bus today and so he drove his kids 20 minutes in the other direction resulting in 1h total commute time. Does he get paid for 40 more minutes (turns out it pays better to drive the kids to school rather than the bus pass!)

Freddie normally drives in (it's a short commute - only 10 min), but today is a nice day and the shift doesn't start until later this afternoon and decides to walk to work instead (1.5h).

George lives up north and in the winter snowmobiles in to the warehouse rather than taking a car. It's another 15 min because he can't take the highway (and yes, I've seen snowmobile parking at a distribution center up north).

---

I'm not going to say that it is wrong to compensate someone for commute time. I will say that compensating someone for commute time will create things that other people regard as profoundly unfair and may incentivize things that we would rather not have be the case.

refurb• 3 years ago

Paying for commute time is ridiculous.

Ok, my job is in Seattle? I live in San Francisco and commute 30 hours a week. Pay me.

bunbun69• 3 years ago

Seems like you’ve been indoctrinated by Elon as well

cebert• 3 years ago

I’m so proud of these workers uniting and fighting back on RTO mandates. It has been proven that knowledge workers can work productively and efficiently without being required to be in the office a set number of days.

Mistletoe• 3 years ago

AI doesn’t mind working in the office and works 24/7, I’d tread lightly here if I was a knowledge worker. There are much worse things than being asked to come to the office to work. Like being told you aren’t needed at all ever again.

rybosworld• 3 years ago

What a nonsensical line of reasoning.

trts• 3 years ago

are you suggesting that a worker who does not protest an arbitrary mandate to log onto their computer at a specific corporate office building, would receive greater clemency from the management team when the opportunity arises to replace them with automation?

bcrosby952• 3 years ago

Companies aren't a charity. The minute knowledge workers can be replaced with AI they will be. Regardless of how much you obey your masters.

ThorsBane• 3 years ago

When that happens, it’s because AI is doing all labor. That point is the singularity.

VincentEvans• 3 years ago

Silliness. Willingness to come to office, or wear a tie, or carry a briefcase - will have about as much effect on pushing back progress as puffing your cheeks out to blow away a hurricane.

0fox• 3 years ago

Your argument is that employers will eventually have the leverage to say, “come in to the office or else we’ll replace you with AI”.

If it becomes overwhelmingly obvious that AI is the more cost-effective employee, then it won’t come to that; employers will just replace their employees with AI. Office presence is completely unrelated.

taftster• 3 years ago

My ability to work in an office efficiently or at home efficiently has zero bearing on whether my job can be replicated by an AI.

  - If a job can be outsourced, it will be outsourced.
  - If a job can be eliminated, it will be eliminated.
  - If a job can be replaced by AI, it will be replaced by AI.

Work location does not factor on these decisions. It's just simply an evaluation of production efficiency.

roarcher• 3 years ago

If they're ever in a position to replace me with AI, they'll do it regardless of where I'm working from. Might as well enjoy WFH while I can.

postalrat5• 3 years ago

They can be as productive and efficient but choose not to.

seattle_spring7• 3 years ago

What exactly is your claim?

superfrank• 3 years ago

It has been proven that knowledge workers can work productively and efficiently without being required to be in the office a set number of days.

I'm a big proponent of "I don't care where you work as long as your work gets done" and have been since before covid, but I haven't come across anything that actually proves that, so... source?

If there's a good study out there that shows that that is true, I'd love to see it so I can use it as evidence, but so far every study I've seen that claims this tends to either have some very narrow definition of productivity (like number of emails sent) or fails to take overall impact on the organization into account (more work completed, but less coordination between teams may not be a net positive).

s1artibartfast5• 3 years ago

It's obviously not true as a generalization. If your job is bolting together cars, you can't work from home effectively. There might be some individuals and job classes that can do it effectively

kcplate8• 3 years ago

It’s my opinion that people feel like they are more productive at WFH, but it’s a bit of a hard metric to actually measure. I get the sense that the freedom and flexibility might create a feeling of personal productivity to accomplish many things (not just career related) they couldn’t before WFH, but as for job productivity…I bet it’s probably a wash overall.

I say this as a remote worker who wouldn’t want to RTO—because I feel like I am more productive at work from home. However, I wouldn’t bet the farm on that if there was a reliable way to measure it.

Swizec2• 3 years ago

more work completed, but less coordination between teams may not be a net positive

Here's one anecdata: I have never in any job coordinated as much with my team mates and other teams as I have in the past ~3 years of working remotely.

The trick wasn't that we're remote or on-site, what increased our level of coordination was how we work. As a team instead of as a random grouping of individuals.

8note4• 3 years ago

There's no actual difference in interteam coordination when all the teams you have to coordinate with are far away in timezones, or distance.

Calling a conference room from another conference room is strictly worse than a laptop to laptop call

hn_throwaway_99• 3 years ago

Glad to see this is the top comment here. If anything, I think jobs where productivity can be easily measured (think customer service agents that handle a particular volume of calls, radiologists that already have a very well defined "Relative Value Unit" system for calculating productivity, etc.) are the ones that make the most sense working from home, and these are also the types of tasks most likely to be compared in these remote work studies.

But the thing that tech companies are the most worried about is a long term slide in innovation and competitiveness, and the effect of WFH on that has definitely not been proven one way or the other.

faddypaddy34• 3 years ago

Yeah fighting back, by walking out during lunch only if a thousand people sign the petition. So brave.

vogt• 3 years ago

My good-faith two cents: one step is better than zero here, even if this isn’t, as you plainly state, much more than a hollow gesture. I doubt Amazon senior leadership are thrilled that this has been in the headlines since this past weekend.

dontlaugh• 3 years ago

Industrial action build up from even smaller actions. Strikes don’t come out of nowhere.

LouisSayers• 3 years ago

... and my old housemates have proven to me that some people just slack off and do hardly any work when "working from home".

Am4TIfIsER0ppos4• 3 years ago

As I said last time "Please remember to turn the servers off when you go on strike".

viraptor• 3 years ago

There's a line between a strike and sabotage. That idea is on the wrong side and either a reason to fire you or sue you. I hope nobody seriously considers it.

some_furry• 3 years ago

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" - Marco Savio

__turbobrew__• 3 years ago

When factory workers walk out on strike nothing in the factory gets made. It doesn’t seem insane to me that when engineers walk out the systems they maintain stop working.

It would obviously be career suicide to do something like turn off S3 for an hour, but it would definitely make a point.

Am4TIfIsER0ppos4• 3 years ago

When bus drivers go on strike you cannot continue to use the buses. When air traffic controller go on strike you cannot continue to fly. When teachers go on strike you are forced to stay home and look after your kids (which isn't actually a bad thing).

It isn't a strike if you aren't inconveniencing others.

typon• 3 years ago

The corporate workers were okay with hearing about the warehouse workers peeing in bottles because they were getting their fat paychecks on time. Remember, capitalists will come for you no matter how comfortable you feel.

joncp• 3 years ago

The corporate workers were okay with hearing about the warehouse workers peeing in bottles

Were they really? No Amazombies I know felt that way. You're going to need a source for such a claim.

AgentOrange12342• 3 years ago

As a corporate worker, I feel equally powerless against both situations.

tadeegan• 3 years ago

You can refuse to work for such an evil employer...

smcleod2• 3 years ago

By corporate workers are you suggesting anyone working from home / office? If so - source?

seattle_spring7• 3 years ago

How exactly do you propose a mid-level software engineer affect the working conditions in a warehouse?

trophycase• 3 years ago

Don't be a cog in the machine of an unethical company? Everybody's trying to act like it's soooo difficult, and every FAANG SWE is like some Obama-platitude "single working mother with 3 kids working 2 jobs"

malermeister• 3 years ago

It's time for tech workers to finally realize that union is not a dirty word.

andsoitis4• 3 years ago

over return-to-office policies

... though reading the article, it sounds like it is really motivated by a desire to see certain climate change action taken by Amazon.

neom2• 3 years ago

I still think out of all the...unique... things Elon has said... work from home is morally wrong has to take the cake. I try to spend time looking at things as radically as I can. I think it's helpful to accept folks views as widely as possible, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around work from home being morally wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5OHFt8QyiU

I was on a bicycle ride listening to this interview when he said it and I literally pulled my bike over and sat for a half hour or so thinking about what I think about the idea, I'm still not sure what I think. (Intellectual dishonesty or a valid view point?)

At least he got me thinking I suppose, heh.

throwaway675309• 3 years ago

His argument also boils down to the idea that since other jobs such as manufacturing require employees to be on site, that all jobs should have the same requirement. Smh...

Also the idea of a ruthless capitalistic multibillionaire invoking morality as a defense is just kafkaesque.

vkou• 3 years ago

I like his argument, and I would like to extend it to something like 'Since some people get through life on a salary of $7.75/hr (Or less), we should take away Elon's billions of dollars.' It'd only be fair - he can, after all, do well without all the comforts and power that his wealth affords him.

voisin• 3 years ago

It’s really no different than other forms of wealth inequality. Some people get to work in palaces and others have to work in the salt mines, and most of us are somewhere in the middle, mostly (not totally) due to our status at birth. It isn’t moral or immoral in and of itself - it is a direct consequence of our economic and social system. I don’t think there is any value inherent to it at all.

LapsangGuzzler4• 3 years ago

Pure speculation, but my guess is that he’s invested in the commercial real estate market and hoping for a turnaround. I don’t think it’s some profound or insane ideology he has, I think he’s just trying to prop up CRE like he does with crypto.

He’s famous for buying distressed commercial properties and for gaslighting, it just makes sense and the whole moral argument was a great way to get people talking about it.

908B64B1973• 3 years ago

He's hedging his bets by not paying rent for Twitter's offices.

adverbly• 3 years ago

I don't think its a CRE angle. He has multiple companies built around transportation.

Remote work => less demand for transportation.

JustLurking2022• 3 years ago

Less commuting = fewer miles on your car = less frequent need to buy a new one.

ed25519FUUU• 3 years ago

Also he’s welcome to have his opinions.

operatingthetan2• 3 years ago

Pure speculation, but my guess is that he’s invested in the commercial real estate market and hoping for a turnaround. I don’t think it’s some profound or insane ideology he has, I think he’s just trying to prop up CRE like he does with crypto.

We should assume any public statements on morality from powerful people out of the blue are motivated by a secondary factor.

opmelogy2• 3 years ago

He’s famous...for gaslighting

This is an excellent way to put it and a great observation. I was never able to put my finger on it even though the BS meter was off the charts. Here it is. Thanks.

quicklime• 3 years ago

But he's not the only business leader using heavy-handed techniques to get workers back in the office. I think it's likely that he genuinely believes that working from the office is better - he's not playing 4d chess.

The morality argument is just him rationalizing what he already believes. This isn't the "first principles" thinking that he demands from others.

jredwards2• 3 years ago

I don't think you have to get that creative.

The man sells cars. He's invested in people commuting.

geodel2• 3 years ago

He’s famous for buying distressed commercial properties and for gaslighting

In his case, it could be solar lighting or else he is not about renewables as he claim to be :)

colordrops• 3 years ago

Elon's argument makes no sense on multiple levels:

1. Every job has different requirements, and you can't arbitrarily apply the same standards to every one. It's no different from saying that "Cooks have to de-grease the grill, so desk workers have to de-grease their desks at the end of the day as well." You'd think that someone so ruthlessly focused on productivity and efficiency would acknowledge this.

2. He speaks as if the current hierarchical capitalist structure with all its particular corporate idiosyncrasies is a fundamental aspect of reality rather than a very specific and arbitrary social construct. We should be fighting to move away from it rather than submit to it further.

3. He does not apply these standards to himself, flying around in his corporate jet and rarely "in the office" himself. So apparently he does believe some roles are not bound by the same rules and requirements, which is inconsistent.

Realistically he likely understands all this, but just can't say the truth directly because it's not so palatable.

favorited• 3 years ago

It makes a lot of sense when you consider how much of his wealth is invested in a car company.

Even in a hybrid work environment, the vast majority of the miles I put on my car are commuting to and from the office. And if a household has 2 adults who need to commute, they're more likely to want 2 fuel-efficient vehicles.

lettergram3• 3 years ago

I have a farm and work remotely. I'm awake 18 hrs a day, spend 6 with my family & 12 working -- 8 for tech job, 4 for farm. I do this 6 days a week. I'm insanely productive by most metrics (many many launched products, side gigs, work 1.5 jobs, etc). I schedule my day down to 15 min increments (though obviously, adjustments are always made).

Remote work affords me that opportunity and I work as hard as anyone. It's fun to wear the blue and white collar at the same time to be honest. I have survivalist friends, guys who work on cars, tech folks where wee discuss AI, etc.

I think Musk is wrong here, but do agree people need to roll up their sleeves and do legit work. You should always be contributing to your community, family, etc.

NegativeK• 3 years ago

I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that, morally, we should all be working like you do?

mwint• 3 years ago

What does your planning process look like? I’d like to get more structure in my workday, maybe not that much… but how do you deal with the Stuff that inevitably Comes Up?

moneywoes2• 3 years ago

How do you do this 15 minute scheduling, google calendar?

Ancalagon• 3 years ago

Your work ethic is very impressive, but what do you mean by 'legit work'? Are you implying remote work is not legitimate? I'm confused because you even state that you spend your days working remotely - are you are obviously very productive at it. Is that not legit work, and only the blue collar is legit?

Frondo• 3 years ago

people need to roll up their sleeves and do legit work.

I don't like this kind of Calvinist attitude toward work. Increasing productivity via technological advancement should free us all up to do more of what we want.

drewcoo• 3 years ago

Harrison Bergeron

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Bergeron

full text: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsd...

That used to be standard reading in my high school. Elon is full of deepity. And high school reading.

stuaxo• 3 years ago

He owns a car company and wants people to use cars.

marricks• 3 years ago

That is such an incredibly obvious take I somehow never thought of. Thanks!

Not to mention, his main consumer would be exactly that white collar worker who'd rather not drive to the office.

It's a sort of sick inversion of Henry Ford's

"I want my employees to be able to buy my car"

to...

"I want all employees to be forced to own one"

zaptheimpaler• 3 years ago

Taking the argument seriously is exactly what he wants - debating the position makes it a valid position. There is really no argument there, just self-interest. If its immoral to have more or different privileges than someone else, thats literally communism. He should give up all his wealth in that case.

whitemary• 3 years ago

If its immoral to have more or different privileges than someone else, thats literally communism

This is not quite the Marxist definition of communism, but it is a lot closer than I would expect to find on HN. I am surprised.

s1artibartfast5• 3 years ago

I generally like feeling spouting off in the reflection that comes from it. I wouldn't want to put words, but I can see some individuals claiming a human right to work from home as an example of moral hypocrisy. That's sad, of course I don't work from home as a mutual agreement between consenting adults has any moral questions

rossjudson• 3 years ago

Farhad Manjoo wrote: "Office Workers Don’t Hate the Office. They Hate the Commute."

That's true for a decent number of people...but definitely not all.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/opinion/elon-musk-remote-...

And another thing -- the "morally wrong" is remarkably selective. Musk is clearly saying that it's "morally wrong" for white collar workers to be remote while insisting that blue collar workers be fully present.

In a CNBC interview this week, speaking about service and manufacturing workers, Musk said “it's messed up to assume that, yes, they have to go to work, but you don't. It's not just a productivity thing, I think it's morally wrong,” suggesting “the laptop class is living in la-la land.”

What if the headline was "CEO phones in 20 hours/week from Hawaii while threatening to fire workers who clock < 60 hours/week"?

kitsunesoba• 3 years ago

The commute and the open office layout. If getting to the office doesn’t take a big bite out of my day and salary and I’m given an environment that makes me more productive than I am at home, I’m happy to go to the office.

That’s unusual, though. Usually getting to/from work takes at minimum of an hour (30m both ways), either due to traffic or from being pushed out way from where the office is located in order to be able to afford the rent/mortgage. You’re also usually stuck with an open office where maintaining focus for any period of time is impossible, as opposed to cubicles or private offices.

plagiarist2• 3 years ago

If Elon finds it morally distasteful that blue collar workers' commutes are unpaid, he could simply pay them for their time, or have them work fewer hours for the same pay and benefits.

ghaff• 3 years ago

I think it's mostly true. Yes, people have gotten used to the flexibility and maybe their very particular setups at home. But, if people could walk 10 minutes to their office and people they knew would be there I'm pretty sure you'd see a lot less pushback--especially for coming in a few days a week.

BLKNSLVR3• 3 years ago

Couple of interesting implications:

1. Fewer people commuting would make commuting faster / more bearable

2. Employee's who's work requires physical presence at a specific place could / should demand higher pay because of the new convenience differential

(#2 is fraught with assumptions and state / country based situational sensitivities)

ulfw• 3 years ago

I hate the office. Shitty equipment, loud distracting environment, uncomfortable, need to keep appearances up, notion of ass-in-seat rather than creating output that matters.

deeg• 3 years ago

Musk is clearly saying that it's "morally wrong" for white collar workers to be remote while insisting that blue collar workers be fully present.

If that is his justification then it's just as silly. Does Musk think it's morally wrong that white collar workers live in bigger homes than blue collar workers? That they send more of their kids to private school? Has Musk gone full communist?

grensley• 3 years ago

I think it's that he doesn't feel enough power over remote workers.

Also Elon Musk accusing anyone of being in "La La Land" is hilarious.

kryogen1c• 3 years ago

but I'm still trying to wrap my head around work from home being morally wrong.

Are you? Have you tried seriously considering his position instead of watching 1 second sound bites OBVIOUSLY taken out of context?

I was on a bicycle ride listening to this interview when he said it and I literally pulled my bike over and sat for a half hour or so thinking about what I think about the idea

Oh? This musk interview was the first time you learned about unfairness in the world? I'm glad he "got you thinking". Heh.

It is not some extreme, radical position that shutting down your company by staging a strike because you _deserve_ to work from the comfort of your own home is morally tenuous. You can disagree, but acting like musk is a raving lunatic for sympathizing with minimum wage workers who bus to work is nothing short of supreme stupidity.

Honestly the anti musk sentiment around here is so braindead and reactionary its beginning to feel like an astroturfed psyop.

mediasavvy• 3 years ago

acting like musk is a raving lunatic for sympathizing with minimum wage workers who bus to work is nothing short of supreme stupidity

It’s called concern trolling

campbel• 3 years ago

It is not some extreme, radical position that shutting down your company by staging a strike because you _deserve_ to work from the comfort of your own home is morally tenuous.

Why? This is just a negotiation. Striking is one bargaining chip that labor has that they can play. Striking isn't morally tenuous.

You can disagree, but acting like musk is a raving lunatic for sympathizing with minimum wage workers who bus to work is nothing short of supreme stupidity.

How is Musk sympathizing with minimum wage workers? Did the minimum wage workers ask for the "laptop class" to comeback to the office? Do they even care? What about people in other lines of work where remote isn't an option? Do they care? It seems more likely that Musk is just using this false comparison as a way to pit labor classes against each other.

Honestly the anti musk sentiment around here is so braindead and reactionary its beginning to feel like an astroturfed psyop.

Come on...

jpeg_hero• 3 years ago

I read it as a direct opposition to the moralizing here oh HN about how it’s morally wrong to not let people work from home. (the “noise” argument, the “I’m individually more productive” arguments and all that)

w_for_wumbo• 3 years ago

If I had to try and think of an angle, I guess it could be around the protection of intellectual data. In the office, it's a controlled environment. Whereas working from home is essentially taking corporate assets into an uncontrolled environment.

kbos87• 3 years ago

I think a lot of the speculation about his motivations and just how long of a game he is playing give him too much credit. The past 12 months have been a complete backslide in his credibility. I chalk it up to the fact that he has literally become an attention seeking soundbite machine.

throwawaylinux• 3 years ago

Hard to judge from the truncated context provided there. Was he just saying anybody who wants to work from home is morally wrong? It actually sounded like the conversation was about people who thought they had a right to work from home. If they expected others not to, I can see that as being somewhat hypocritical.

judge2020• 3 years ago

Eh, the more mindshare these people think they have the more crazy they become. Pre-2018 Elon was more focused on the companies, although he still made mistakes (Taking TSLA private tweet, borderline self-dealing with the SolarCity acquisition). The cave rescue fiasco and how he was sleeping on the floor of the factory during the 2018 Model 3 Ramp[0] (which also supposedly had Tesla a month away from bankruptcy[0]) must have triggered something, perhaps he'd already done the hard work and wanted to celebrate by increasing his fame/clout and by eventually purchasing his favorite social media platform.

0: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/elon-musk-says-he-is-sleepin...

1: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/musk-tesla-was-about-a-month...

sottol• 3 years ago

It does sound good on the surface. Equality for all. Right? Only selectively. But nice touch invoking immorality.

Is it moral to fly around the US and the world while the guy that's hiring the chef that cooks your food stays grounded?

nonethewiser• 3 years ago

There are some exceptions, but I think that the whole notion of work from home is a bit like the fake Marie Antoinette quote, ’Let them eat cake,'″ Musk told CNBC.
"It's like, really, you’re going to work from home and you're going to make everyone else who made your car come work in the factory? You're going to make the people who make your food… that they can't work from home? The people that fix your house — they can't work from home? But, you can? Does that seem morally right?" the billionaire asked. "That's messed up."

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/elon-musk-working-from...

jxramos• 3 years ago

Interesting, haven’t seen this exchange till now. He’s basically talking about what is increasingly becoming identified as the “laptop class” who can do the whole virtual life, live in lockdowns indefinitely, carry on with delivery stuff, etc etc. He’s building a set of claims about the morality of that set of arrangements for our subpopulation who are members of the laptop class. I’ll have to think about that one, that’s a novel claim to view those affordances critically in terms of special treatment and how that all intersects in the morality angle.

dataflow• 3 years ago

Of all the people in the position to claim people are morally obligated to commute to work, a rich billionaire focused on minimizing carbon emissions isn't one.

8note4• 3 years ago

He's certainly not focused on minimizing carbon emissions - otherwise he wouldn't be making a luxury car company

He exploited tax incentives intended to reduce carbon emissions, sure, but that's not the same thing as focussing on reducing carbon emissions

GiorgioG• 3 years ago

I deactivated my twitter account over it. It’s just complete nonsense.

hanniabu• 3 years ago

I'm still trying to wrap my head around work from home being morally wrong.

By being a selfish individual and wanting to work remotely you are devaluing a wealthy investor's commercial real estate all because you didn't want to waste a tenth of your day pointlessly commuting to the office to do something that could have been done at home

WesternWind• 3 years ago

Hasn't work from home been shown to improve worker efficiency and happiness too?

missedthecue• 3 years ago

I think it's been shown to increase isolation. The number of young people going days without seeing another human being should startle and upset.

thybag• 3 years ago

It does seem like most studies show WFH workers being happier/healthier/more productive. Wouldn't necessarily take that as conclusive, but i've certainly not found much evidence beyond random anecdotes saying the opposite.

e.g.https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2022/02/04/3-new-...

Timon3• 3 years ago

There is no way Elon doesn't know about this. I think for him, poor people should feel unhappy. He feels it immoral for poor people to be happy and content.

notyourwork• 3 years ago

At least he got me thinking I suppose, heh.

Wealth doesn't automatically give credence to valuable perspective. Further, I tend to just disregard Elon for what he is.

Thorentis• 3 years ago

when he said it and I literally pulled my bike over and sat for a half hour or so thinking

Meta comment, but seriously? A comment from Elon made you pause your commute for 30 minutes? I can't imagine ever being this affected by a podcast.

s1artibartfast5• 3 years ago

Your response is interesting in its own right.

Half the fun of this life is exploring and questioning new ideas and podcasts are a great way to do that.

I don't think I pulled over, I've definitely spent some time sitting and thinking once I get to my destination

neom2• 3 years ago

Yeah seriously! I was riding beside a river (for fun) listening to the interview and it came to that section, he said it and I laughed out loud... thought what a weird perspective. I'd never considered that before and there was a bench over looking the river a ways down so I pulled over, sat on the bench and debated it with myself for a while... let myself agree in one direction... see how I feel, let myself agree in the other direction, see how I feel. Just think it back and forth with myself for a while. As the other reply to this comment said, it's a great deal of fun to do this and I enjoy it a lot!

somethoughts8• 3 years ago

My two cents on this is that he is saying "working from home is morally wrong" - for his companies... but he left out the for his companies part.

He owns a car company and a space ship company - both of which have assembly lines with tons of workers. A majority of his employees will need to be working in a factory or with physical equipment/prototypes. Therefore they must be at the office or at the plant.

In that environment - allowing a small percentage of people to have the flexibility to work from home all the time, actually can seem amoral as that will create two classes of workers - the in-office class and the laptop WFH class - within the same company.

Friction could be generated if for instance the laptop class is making decisions/mistakes from the comfort of their PJs which negatively impacts the production line class. Its much easier to just make that 8% laptop class of the company RTO and experience the impact of their decisions.

Similar issues would be apparent at Amazon (distribution center workers versus AWS staff) and possibly Apple (i.e. HW Apple engineers have to be in office, but iCloud workers can WFH).

I think it'd be hard/impossible that a small cloud first company or small remote only startup like GitLabs would be amoral for being WFH.

Twitter could probably be WFH, but in order to make statement that would not possibly be construed as hypocritical he unfortunately can't make such a distinction.

hamburglar3• 3 years ago

allowing a small percentage of people to have the flexibility to work from home all the time, actually can seem amoral as that will create two classes of workers

This is kind of absurd, though, since they are already two classes of workers. Information workers and factory workers are different.

But also, the deciding factor on whether you can work from home should be: can you do your job from home? Look at nurses. They have to be in a hospital, walking into rooms and tending to patients, right? Not phone nurses and poison control center nurses. They work from home nowadays.

8note4• 3 years ago

It seems weird that the office workers are working from the office and not in the production line too, no? Do your meetings while assembling a car, I'd you're worried about the people assembling cars feeling bad

rover02• 3 years ago

Why stop here?

Some workers have shifts, some have to work outside in the rain.

It's only fair that everyone works outside in the rain in shifts?

scott_w6• 3 years ago

But those aren’t moral issues, they’re productivity issues. My younger brother used to do his computer job from the office because it was attached to the factory. It meant he could talk directly with the people manufacturing the steel frames he specified in the building dressing to get the right thing built quickly. This was a USP of the company vs other design shops.

This could be true for Tesla, there’s no morality to this. The fact Musk brings morality in suggests he’s talking out his arse.

Twitter is a different company. If he doesn’t bring morality into it, he doesn’t have to be a hypocrite. He could easily say “working on site is necessary for Tesla, not for Twitter.” Being dogmatic is not good business.

dhx• 3 years ago

"But role XYZ can't work from home therefore no one should work from home" is the silliest of all arguments. It's similar to "Back in my day, we didn't have parental leave and it was very hard, so why is it fair that young people should not have to go through the hardest experience too!".

Here's just some of the benefits to on-site workers in role XYZ of other workers being able to WFH:

* Quicker commutes (less congestion from people needlessly traveling) and thus more free time.

* If a partner is WFH, they haven't wasted time commuting and thus have more time and energy to assist with the household.

* Higher salaries as the jobs requiring a commute become less desirable vs. WFH jobs.

* Higher salaries as the business wastes less money on having unnecessary office facilities and (theoretically at least) workers could demand these savings be reflected in their salaries.

* Improved health from reduction in pollution caused by commuting.

* Reduced cost of living from less wasted land used for offices that are only used 30% of a week.

* Lower taxes or improved government services as less money needs to be wasted on infrastructure that is overwhelmingly built to cater for the 12% per week that it is used to needlessly shuffle everyone around.

* Increased productivity from reduction in illnesses transferred on public transport and within office facilities.

* Improved happiness and productivity resulting from workers being able to setup a workspace/home office that is most productive for their needs. Fresh air, lighting, seating, etc are all controllable by the worker at home.

* Households could switch to having a single car.

If one were to debate against WFH, more sensible arguments would be things like:

* Greater heating / cooling efficiency to cram more people in a single cramped building than to have those same people heat / cool their homes individually. Passive houses largely solve this.

* More efficient access to some services such as getting a haircut, buying goods from a specialist retailer, etc if they're all centralised in a CBD as opposed to requiring individuals to travel all across a city. Increased deliveries to home negates this.

* Forced exercise (on average) due to workers needing to walk between transport options and an office building, whereas at home they don't have to walk anywhere unless they are motivated to do so.

nimblegorilla• 3 years ago

My two cents on this is that he is saying "working from home is morally wrong" - for his companies... but he left out the for his companies part.

If you watch his interview you see him say WFH is morally wrong for almost everyone in the "laptop class" and not just his companies.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-work-from-home-morall... "You're going to make people who make your food that gets delivered [that] can't work from home; the people that come fix your house, they cant work from home, but you can?"

"Does that seem morally right? That's messed up," Musk said.

lumb63• 3 years ago

I saw this first-hand at a defense contractor. A lot of the work is classified, so it needs to be done in-office. The group of in-office workers definitely harbored a lot of anger toward the out-of-office “no-work-from-home” workers. It doesn’t help that it was mostly true (there) that the work-from-homers were doing nothing; I know because I was one of them, at one point.

lIIllIIllIIllII• 3 years ago

It's pretty textbook behaviour for narcissistic manipulators.

Harm the victim in some way, when victim complains about it, turn it around so as to frame it as the victim doing the wrong thing all along, and the victim should feel like a bad person.

langsoul-com• 3 years ago

Makes sense given his position. He has a vested interest in his workers coming in.

He, unlike others, can afford to be extremely close to the office. There's all benefits and no detriments for his statements.

george-in-sd• 3 years ago

Upper class is fighting for a perk that the working class will never have. Maybe not morally wrong but working class is treated pretty badly in a place like SF.

davidw• 3 years ago

I think all the casting doubt about some recent mass shooter being a nazi has a viable claim in terms of cake taking.

I used to think he was eccentric but did some cool stuff too.

I now have a very negative opinion of him as a person.

mouzogu• 3 years ago

Musk presenting wfh as a moral argument frustrates me, and comparing office workers with manual workers strikes me a false dichotomy.

Everyone is different, and flexibility should be a recognition of that.

If anything the arbitrary denial of flexibility is much more of a moral argument.

xwowsersx3• 3 years ago

That was a real head scratcher for me too. I really think it was some kind of a virtue signal. He framed it in a way that evokes a kind of righteous indignation from people...like calling out the privilege of people who work from home when there are nurses who have no choice but to be at their workplace. I too tried to see the argument, but I just don't get it. I _can_ work from home and some people can't...therefore I ought to travel to some arbitrary place...for what exactly? As a show of solidarity with people who don't have a choice? I just don't get it...

friend_and_foe2• 3 years ago

Take it to it's absurd conclusion... Is it morally wrong for you to have a job sitting at a desk while someone else digs ditches all day?

It's obviously not. The fundamental differentiator is what is the nature of the job? What are the needs to accomplish the work being performed? If it's typing on a computer and talking to people, it can be done from home. It's not morally wrong to do it that way.

As someone who generally likes what Musk has to say, this one threw me for a loop. He's smarter than that and I don't think for one second he truly believes that. I think it's a public position he is taking on the subject, moralizing to dismiss criticism, he has other motivations. I don't think they're "his ego" but I don't think he genuinely believes it's morally wrong to sit down while typing.

Mizoguchi• 3 years ago

How about people with dangerous jobs? police officers, firefighters, miners and ironworkers, pilots, soldiers, drivers...

Would that make having a desktop job morally wrong?

I get Elon's point that manufacturing often requires some people to report to site, particularly in a company like Tesla.

But generalizing and saying that all positions require to report to office because of moral and ethical reasons is ridiculous.

How about incentives for commuting to work? Not flashy offices with free snacks and meditation rooms, how about money?

Companies usually reallocate to remote suburban areas to pay less taxes, and they expect people to spent over 40 hours per month, a full week of additional work, for free, to commute to the office.

That's morally wrong from all angles.

pragmatic• 3 years ago

He owns a car company. He needs people to need cars. Commuting in many places requires a car.

Cui bono?

spoonjim• 3 years ago

Nobody felt entitled to WFH pre-2020. Not sure why a virus changes things

harimau777• 3 years ago

Likely two factors:

The pandemic demonstrated that WFH works.

The pandemic made people realize how bad America's world life balance is.

throwaway29902• 3 years ago

The pandemic demonstrated that WFH works.

Can work.

“Works” isn’t correct as it’s obvious that it doesn’t just work. Some people don’t work well remotely. Collaboration is much harder remotely.

If you have clear work outlined working from home for some* people can be great cos they can focus well and get shit done and be super productive.

Other people cannot focus as well in a non work environment no matter how worky you make it. Being in the office gives them more focus.

p0pcult• 3 years ago

Nobody felt entitled to 5 day work weeks before the labor movement, either.

So, when are you going back to 7 days in the office, friendo?

Am4TIfIsER0ppos4• 3 years ago

The government will punish me and the company if I do that. I am also forced to take my vacation. Even when the government says I can't go anywhere. I. Must. Not. Work.

paulryanrogers• 3 years ago

Sure we did. And some of us walked away from companies who wouldn't budge. COVID just introduced the possibility to more folks, expanding our ranks.

dudul• 3 years ago

Nobody felt entitled to owning lands before the end of serfdom.

culopatin• 3 years ago

It’s only “the virus” if that’s how shallow you want to go and ignore the fact that the whole planet was forced to try WFH and people liked it, so that’s why they want it.

Worker rights came from events that you call “people feeling entitled”.

throwawaaarrgh• 3 years ago

Quit your jobs, peeps, or unionize. Gotta put your money where your mouth is.

paxys3• 3 years ago

Why should anyone quit their job? The company is the one who changed the terms of employment. Mass walkouts are a form of collective action, and are a good step towards unionization. Amazon can fire all the participants if they want (but something tells me they are not going to).

smcleod2• 3 years ago

The companies keep getting away with things like this for three reasons 1) Lack of regulation 2) Lack of consequences 3) They still seem to attract people.

The USA has shown very little interest in the first two.

anothernewdude• 3 years ago

Yeah, why fight to improve things when you can self-harm?

cheeze• 3 years ago

It's totally just that easy, right?

Most folks don't have the privilege of just up and qutting their jobs. Especially in tech right now.

Sure, FAANG salaries are high, but many people have mortgages, kids, etc.

captainkrtek• 3 years ago

If I recall, the walkout is from noon-1… so… lunch?

That’ll show ‘em.

victor90002• 3 years ago

lol, pathetic

gregwebs• 3 years ago

During the pandemic I had an initial meeting with a hiring manager at Amazon that didn’t care that I was multiple time zones away from her office. Even though the official policy was actually return to office when pandemic conditions change. Luckily I didn’t want to go through their interview process- I’m guessing I would have gotten axed in the layoffs for being newer on the team and not being able to come to the office.

sakopov• 3 years ago

I have a friend who was hired in 2019, moved to a city with Amazon office and then moved back in 2021 while keeping his job. He still works at Amazon and is fully remote indefinitely. From what he had told me, this is only impacting those who work within commuting distance of an Amazon office. Those who were hired as remote employees or relocated during pandemic years were pretty much grandfathered into fully remote roles.

pinkmuffinere• 3 years ago

This may be the case for your friend’s team, but certainly not everyone. I was hired during the pandemic and was fully remote for 1.5 years, but am now expected to be in office Tuesday-Thursday. If my contact had slightly different wording I believe my situation would be different.

saagarjha2• 3 years ago

I entertained a position at Amazon (that I ultimately didn’t take) that would have been remote. I’m sure that would have changed as I live about half an hour by bike from the nearest office.

TexanFeller• 3 years ago

These protesters are just going to accelerate outsourcing. If companies can't get the benefits of in-office Americans and are forced into having a remote workforce they might as well get them for 1/4 of the price from Central and South America.

seattle_spring7• 3 years ago

This has been a bogeyman for software engineers for multiple decades, all while salaries have increased considerably.

moneywoes2• 3 years ago

Does the hockey stick growth of companies like Deel today not change things?

908B64B1973• 3 years ago

they might as well get them for 1/4 of the price from Central and South America.

Where can I find these mythical Central and South Americans that are "just as qualified as US engineers" and 1/4 of the price?

I keep hearing about them, but the only devs I've met who would match that description were very much charging US rates.

avocabros3• 3 years ago

I'd guess that most software work doesn't require super-specialized roles. You can get good quality engineers for generalist tasks (web app dev, API dev, etc.) all over the world.

I agree, the end game for remote work for non-specialists isn't an obvious positive for those in HCOL countries

krainboltgreene• 3 years ago

This kind of sentiment is both in tech and also in every other field that has or could have unionization, and it's never true.

s1artibartfast5• 3 years ago

You tell that to car manufacturers in Detroit.

BLKNSLVR3• 3 years ago

Isn't that the opposite of the direction that (Western) countries are looking to go after COVID exposed the fragility of global logistics dependencies? (and China's manufacturing power and Russia's energy production power).

On-shoring, in-sourcing, are the trends, from a country perspective anyway.

dr_petes• 3 years ago

If that’s how your employer views your work, sounds like unions are in order. I don’t think workers should feel afraid of asking for better working conditions, and if workers are afraid, we’ll unions are the best answer to that problem.

paxys3• 3 years ago

If Amazon could replace workers for 1/4 the price then why haven't they done it already?

shmatt• 3 years ago

So they are fine with worst in class vesting schedule, pressure cooker, stack ranking, PIP good engineers, disconnected middle managers culture. As long as they can do it from home

victor90002• 3 years ago

Nevermind the arduous conditions they subject warehouse workers to.

givemeethekeys• 3 years ago

Hey, at least being able to work without having someone physically breathe down your shoulder makes everything else more bearable.

devsda• 3 years ago

There’s been good energy on campus and in urban cores like Seattle where we have a large presence. We’ve heard this from lots of employees and the businesses that surround our offices.

This is not about in office productivity and they are not exactly hiding who and what the real goal of RTO is.

l33tc0de• 3 years ago

So will it be a walk out from their home apartment, or will they drive to office and then walk out?

sacnoradhq3• 3 years ago

My neighbor at AWS did WfH pre-pandemic, went to "100% in-office" for about 3 weeks, and I think is at about 50/50% now. There's no real reason to go into the office without coworkers on the same team.

Offices = commute time and expense + noisy distractions - declining perks.

Butt-in-seat mentality (BISM) is antiquated.

klipklop• 3 years ago

The amount of class warfare here is hilarious. Will you really parrot elite coined phrases like “laptop class?” What even is the laptop class? It’s a meaningless term created so it’s easier to dehumanize a group of people that have a massive salary range. There are WFH making $50k. They are not all vest and resters.

Do we really need to make the conversation be about the upper middle class being “lazy” and completely ignoring the fact that these RTO orders come from billionaires?

geodel2• 3 years ago

I mean unless you could somehow dictate the agenda on who can dislike whom, a lot of people can just dislike upper middle class, no?

scott_w6• 3 years ago

Billionaires own the most widely circulated print media in the U.K. so it doesn’t seem impossible that this agenda is being influenced.

Especially when those exact papers spilt a lot of ink telling people to “get back to work” despite the fact those people were always working during the pandemic.

hn_version_0023• 3 years ago

Will you really parrot elite coined phrases like “laptop class?”

Sometimes, I think about the phrase "human resource" and how it's a nice linguistic nod toward "natural resources", which obviously are meant to be exploited. It makes it easier when you think about laying off thousands of people, or making thousands commute needlessly simply to boost someone's ego.

sacnoradhq3• 3 years ago

"Exploit" and "use" have multiple meanings, some positive and some negative.

It's the words people hear based on their own particular biases determine if those words associate with anything particularly positive, neutral, or negative.

The problem with creating abstract business jingo is it's typically viewed as an artificial "thieves' cant" between managers. A sublanguage meant to obscure and hide meaning.

mc32• 3 years ago

I don’t have a problem with the term Human Resources. It’s not trying to hide anything, it’s stating the obvious utility. It’s not trying to do anything extra or communicate something it’s not.

Worse would be something like Vanguard of the Revolution or Organization for the Workers, etc.

hamburglar3• 3 years ago

My company renamed Human Resources to "Human Capital Management" since it wasn't dehumanizing enough the other way.

sacnoradhq3• 3 years ago

Writers gonna artist. I wouldn't take it as anything but a colorful metaphor.

The strata who should be rightfully derided are the chauffeured-and-business-jet-class who have an embarrassingly-low tax rate while concentrating and keeping vast amounts of profits. Nearly 60% of the post-pandemic inflation was due to the profit price spiral. The "wage spiral" is a delusion and layoffs aren't actually necessary. They're business theater belying boosting corporate profits to keep up with the proverbial Jones' in other stocks.

whimsicalism2• 3 years ago

I wouldn't take it as anything but a colorful metaphor.

"Laptop class" is more than a colorful metaphor, it implies a set of values by the speaker.

flagrant_taco• 3 years ago

Nearly 60% of the post-pandemic inflation was due to the profit price spiral.

Any chance you have a source for this? I haven't seen that stat before and an not quite sure how we'd know that, or if the profit spiral was itself a side effect of monetary policy throwing new money into the system.

rayiner• 3 years ago

The laptop class’s interests are closely intertwined with those of the billionaires. When billionaires offshored jobs to China, there was an army of laptop class people who helped them do it. And they collectively benefit very much from the economic changes that have fueled billionaires’ fortunes. The top 10% have an annual income of over $6 trillion. The total income of all US billionaires is less than half a trillion dollars. Since 1970, the growth in median income of the upper middle class has vastly outstripped the growth in median income of the rest of the country.

If there’s anything standing in the way of more economically redistributive policies in this country, it’s the laptop class. They would take a huge and material hit in their standard of living in a more equal society such as Canada or Germany. Everyone from programmers to lawyers to HR administrators make a third to half as much as their counterparts in those countries.

s1artibartfast5• 3 years ago

This is only half the story. Government share of GDP and real dollar Revenue has also vastly increased since the 1970s. Redistributive policies and spending have had a massive increase.

zoklet-enjoyer• 3 years ago

Let the people who can work from home work from home. The money saved on office space can be used to increase wages for the people working in warehouses and doing deliveries

hmmokidk• 3 years ago

Remember at the start of covid.

There was no traffic. Even in LA!

How does one not yearn for that. I don't get it.

Also screw the office, coworkers are so distracting. I don't know how anyone gets anything done. Any amount of chit-chat throws me off and gives me a headache.

starside• 3 years ago

I hope these return to work policies get outdated. Remote work is the single greatest thing about high speed communication in my opinion. A lot of tech advancement related to computers has proven to be underwhelming. We have fancy 3D games and social media and search engines. None of these things are better than a climbing rope, mountain bike, or good library in my experience.

xwowsersx3• 3 years ago

If my company's office were close, I would return to it without much of a fight. But my roundtrip commute is over three hours. That changes my entire day/life. That's a lot of time and energy spent and the benefit isn't clear to me, at least not the way the office is currently structured or laid out. Our office is an open office plan and engineers are near sales and others whose job is to chat on the phone all day, making it nearly impossible to get any deep work done. The reality is that on the rare occasion that I do go to the office, no real work gets done. Constant interruptions, I maybe get 30 minutes of uninterrupted, heads down work done. There is so much socializing and roaming around and eating that goes on at the office. When I'm home, I'm just working all day. Being in the office is kind of cushy, actually. But a) I'd rather do my best work and b) I'm willing to work harder at home if it means I can avoid spending a large chunk of my day commuting. I think companies really need to make the office a place you _want_ to come to. Give me a space that's conducive to work. Make the office feel more inviting than home. Simply saying "you all need to be in the office" just isn't going to cut it. I know I've conveyed a few unrelated ideas here, but that's my ramble. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk :P

pnt122• 3 years ago

I just take my rare (and voluntary) office days as socialization days: more talking, longer lunch hours, longer breaks.

Its fine once in a while but I don't wanna get back to WFO again.

xwowsersx3• 3 years ago

Yeah I'm exactly the same way. I assume they are just days for face time and no deep work will be getting done. As you said, fine, maybe even necessary, every once in a while.

antoniuschan99• 3 years ago

• The laptop class is literally just white collar workers

• Remote work was the thing that kept the economy going during the pandemic and now phrased as morally wrong

• Flying Private is morally wrong in that it creates so much pollution from a small group of people

liampulles• 3 years ago

Here in South Africa, with electricity outages every few hours, driving through traffic with disabled traffic lights is a nightmare. So glad my job is fully remote.

dajtxx• 3 years ago

Why aren't these people walking out in support of the warehouse workers who are in much worse straits?

mensetmanusman• 3 years ago

Work from home hunting for the family, then

Work from home farming the fields, then

Work from factory away from home, then

Work from home away from factory,

(We are here)

maxehmookau• 3 years ago

"You need to be in the office because you will collaborate better" is corporate code for "we're unwilling to build up our internal documentation to make it possible to do your jobs without serendipitous meetings with colleagues which is actually an admission of our own organisational failures"

Change my view.

The remote working genie is out of the bottle. Trying to push it back in is pointless.

Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies

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