We also envied people who had in-law help all the time. My sibling lived close to my parents so they got that benefit whereas for us, it would be more out of our way to take them there or for them to come to our house so we barely got the âfree babysittingâ package.
Speaking of jealousy⊠thatâs another issue with WFH. For certain departments, they canât WFH because their job requires physical presence in office so they communicate this to upper management. Previously this was only relegated to Sales as they were never in office (supposedly out on sales calls) but itâs harder to track non-Sales productivity (someone tried to bring up lines of code quotas and everyone stared at them with the side eye).
My parents help me out quite a bit on weekends for child care.
But they did just ask for $20k for their vacation. Still probably worth it in the long run for just sanity.
There is always a give that people wont announce.
It seems like upper management want people back in the office because some upper management individual may feel like a somebody (of importance) when they walk the halls and sit in their corner office whereas their home life lacks that same kind of respect. Mentally and emotionally this manager/director/exec needs the office more than the people who work below him/her.
I think Toronto was the only city that did not offer any subsidies for HQ2 (not sure if they were a contender anyways) but that turned out to probably a smart move. There were all kinds of perks thrown around including amazon-only airport lounges or something like that.
I work for a business with similar roles and am experiencing the same thing. Even staff that live within a 10 minute commute of the office do not come in unless it is mandatory.
Any office space that comes up for renewal we are no longer moving forward with it. I think the future vision is to just use co-locations/we-works when needed or lease significantly smaller spaces within our hubs.
My place is doing a hybrid schedule which I like. I donât typically mind going into the office but they donât really make it easier. Since we started coming back after covid we no longer have assigned seats which is very annoying because the main reason they gave to come in was to collaborate- hard to do when my team is spread across several rows. Add in overpriced cafeteria and city income taxes (that I donât pay when Iâm at home) and it sucks most days.
Separately my boomer boss was distraught when we originally were sent home for covid. He was a in the office everyday from 6 to 6 guy - after about a year he bought a condo out of state and started spending half his time there wfh. Once we started going back into the office he had made a full 180 and tasted âlifeâ and decided to just retire instead
Donât see how it has anything to do with the new blue check system, there was clearly bloat in the company ranks and if Musk is about anything, itâs trimming the fat.
Saw this today and thought of your post. The subsidies Virginia paid are going down by the day. Very unlikely Amazon is going to be able to hit the hiring targets needed to achieve all their state and local incentives.
Yep, the question is how well was he able to evaluate personnel in only a few weeks. Twitter had too many people for what it was doing but just cutting 50% doesnât do it. You need to cut the right 50%.
Interested on your perspective from people at Twitter. I talked to a friend I know at Google who is pretty involved in tech scene. His view was that Tesla and SpaceX are cool. They are doing groundbreaking things and people want to work there. TwitterâŠis not (which admittedly is no different at this point from Google or Amazon). If you make it a less appealing place to work compared to any other big tech company, the best people will simply leave. Good developers are always going on have options. He has a good friend at Twitter that is hoping to get layed off and get severance. He doesnât want to give up telework nor is he particularly excited to work for Musk. He is a good programmer who isnât worried about finding a new job.
Here is my $0.02 based on my personal experience and observations. I am going to preface this by saying that I am not a software engineer or developer.
Iâve worked at tech companies for 15+ years, mainly at startups in the Northeast. There are folks who wouldnât mind working for one of the FAANGs (Facebook/Meta, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google). In the past, these companies were known to pay well, create cool products and were great for oneâs resume.
However, from my experience speaking with recruiters this past year, I was shocked to hear what the compensation was for some of the tech roles I had interviewed for at Amazon - they were on the lower end compared to some other companies (both public and private). Their vacation policy was pretty weak - I believe it was 2 weeks of paid time off after the first year and then 3 weeks after the second year (someone can correct me if I am wrong).
As for companies working on ground breaking technology, such as the Metaverse, web3, etc, time will tell whether the ROI was worth it.
Personally, I enjoy learning new tools and technologies, and working with a diverse group of folks (diverse in knowledge and ideas). I work closely with product managers, developers, designers and UX researchers. I am at a stage in my career where I can be picky as far as my next role goes. A few other things that are important to me (in no particular order):
Working remotely (not negotiable)
Flexibility in schedule (I have two young kids that are in school)
Career growth opportunities and professional development
Leadership and company trajectory (Is the company making money and are customers happy with the product)
Base compensation (Iâve had stock options at all the startups I have worked for, and at one company they ended up being worthless after we were acquired).
Based on this and other discussions Iâve had on the various forums Iâm in, most favor WFH, some hybrid and it seems the smaller percentage are for in-office 100%.
Maybe thatâs because the C-suite people donât spend time in forums.
Which is a bit ironic because I saw very few owners/Cs in office at the medium companies Iâve worked with⊠only the small businesses was the higher-ups in office more. Never worked for a large company 1000+ EEs, so not really sure of the in-office presence of top level management.
Iâm pretty sure car salesmen would prefer WFH and by appointment only vehicle showings⊠but I guess they might get the highest commission on walk-ins. Thatâs why the brokers on LH interest me⊠it seems like a great WFH job and they rarely have to deal with buyers in-person.
