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Comment by aurareturn | Hacker News Reader

It’s great that it works in your case.

But one thing HN community does not mention enough is when executives make these policies, they are looking at overall productivity and not individuals.

Also, HN posts may have selection bias. Perhaps people who perform better in office do not want to admit it. Perhaps people who work in the office don’t have time or the opportunity to post on HN as often.

Many HN posters still spout conspiracy theories like real estate investments by executives as the reason why RoT is enacted. When in reality, it’s highly likely that the executives see overall productivity being down and that HN posters do not represent the majority.

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HN is not the majority. But we've seen many studies that say tech WFH has either no/minimal efficiency loss, or even has better productivity. Most tech companies in fact made record revenue (maybe profits, but hard to say) over COVID, so the business logistsics do not imply a loss in production.

>Many HN posters still spout conspiracy theories like real estate investments by executives as the reason why RoT is enacted.

I mean, there's many reasons an otherwise unwarranted RTO happens. Maybe there's executive conspiracies, but the simplest two reasons are

1. We're still in layoff mode and RTO is a soft layoff without paying out severance. Especially to people that are physically unable to move back

2. managers and executives are in fact not rational actors. They can make decisions based on vibes, or because they need to make some shakeup (any shakeup), or because some other executive made a decision and they are mimicking. I would not take their decisions as gospel. Otherwise they would have shown some shred of evidence of productivity loss (which they cannot, because again: many tech companies have record revenues).

It could be. I sense that it's simply because the overall productivity/creativity is down but HN posters are disproportionately pro-WFH. This creates an echo chamber where people here are constantly confused why RoT is a thing.

If that was the case these execs would be sharing the data so it was harder to argue against. They will share any data that backs up their decision and when they don't share any data you can know it's because they don't have any that supports them (or doesn't support their public position. The data probably shows that people voluntarily leave because of RTO mandates, but that's not their public argument) but they've decided to do something anyway.

They're not going to share that data because it's confidential. Imagine Amazon sharing data that their employees are less productive... their stock price would tank and they'd garner a ton of bad PR.

Why would they not share that data as a justification for this decision to return to office for five days a week? That would give investors a reason to believe that Amazon productivity and share value will increase soon.

No company is going to publicly admit that its productivity has been bad. It'd also destroy morale more than it does. And the PR backlash. And what kind of data would they release? Data for productivity will always be imperfect. People will scrutinize it. Disagree with it. Competitors might be able to use it to their advantage.

Low reward, high risk.

They would absolutely show data that shows productivity was down during the pandemic years of full remote if they had it. It's several years in the past at this point and everyone in the world had an excuse, but studies show that productivity increased or stayed about the same instead.

They would also show data for increased productivity from ending full remote and going back to the current 3 days in office if they had it, instead they claim it's the case but won't let you see the data. It's just bullshit corporate talk

They wouldn't show it. Zero reason to show it. PR backlash. Employee backlash. Distraction from main business. Mainstream media is very pro-WFH.

No company wants to show confidential metrics on employee productivity to the world. Yet, many companies have recalled employees. Maybe you think every single of these companies are incompetent and stupid? Or the HN go-to conspiracy theory that executives own real estate and want it to recover?

Is anyone preventing those people working in the office?

You often hear about HN posters complaining that when they do go into the office, they’re just having Zoom calls in the office instead. That’s what Amazon is trying to fix here. Everyone in office 5 days a week.

> when they do go into the office, they’re just having Zoom calls in the office instead. That’s what Amazon is trying to fix here.

Not really. At a company the size of Amazon teams are often in other buildings, if not other cities or countries entirely. The zoom calls continue unabated.

I think they're talking about their own team. Cross country or cross team meetings might always require Zoom.

If you have 3 days of office, you'll always be in Zoom calls because at least some of the team members will be at home.

I'm not sure about Amazon, but in some of these large companies the team is still distributed even when they are "in-office". So everybody is still on zoom calls.

> But one thing HN community does not mention enough is when executives make these policies, they are looking at overall productivity and not individuals.

Most likely Amazon has zero data supporting the argument that WFH is less productive and probably has data to the opposite. They went from 'we're super data-based, data-oriented and objective' (which was a joke to begin with) to the complete opposite on this topic.

> When in reality, it’s highly likely that the executives see overall productivity being down and that HN posters do not represent the majority.

The reality is you have no idea what you're talking about, you have no data to back up your claims, you just can't resist licking the boot.

And you do? You’re a lot smarter than Amazon execs it seems. /s

I have some insight based on working at Amazon and being part of RTO/WFH-related discussions.

That being said, you shouldn't confuse your personal hallucinations as the opinions of Amazon execs.

You're not working hard enough. That's why they want you back in office for 5 days/week. Should stay off HN and get back to work. :)

I don't work there anymore, but when they introduced 3 days/week RTO I just said 'Nope, fire me if you want. Also, I want a 15% raise'. I got the raise and continued working fully remote until I got a better offer. It's amazing what you can get when you have self-respect you're not focused on deepthroating the boot all day long :)

Now, I think you might want to take your own advice :)

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