Summary
Amazon’s rollout of its return-to-office (RTO) mandate, requiring employees to be in offices five days a week starting January 2024, has sparked backlash due to logistical failures and poor communication.
While some employees are granted delays due to insufficient office space in cities like Phoenix, Austin, and New York, frustration has grown over unclear planning and crowded conditions.
Critics say this highlights leadership’s mismanagement, risks talent loss, and worsens morale, with many employees considering leaving.
Amazon’s approach mirrors broader dissatisfaction seen with RTO mandates across the tech sector.
An RTO mandate is proof of a company’s path to bankruptcy. Many executives mostly view work as a social club or a hobby, rather than an actual place of business. RTO mandates are undeniable proof that corporate leadership cares about the wrong things. Some just want to spend their day shmoozing. Some are psychopaths who just get a sick pleasure out of lording themselves over underpaid workers. Some are just sex perverts and dislike WFH because it makes it hard to rape employees. But regardless, a RTO mandate is damning evidence that a company is circling the drain. It’s evidence that leadership has lost the plot, and that they care more about vibes and then their own vanity than they do actually running a successful company. Short any company that uses RTO, as it’s a surefire sign they’re on the decline. They’ve officially lost the plot. An RTO mandate is as damning as a going out of business sale or having payroll checks bounce.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say it is a surefire sign they are circling the drain, but I would agree the RTO mandates are vanity decisions. If not the vanity angle it screams that the leadership does not trust their employees or they don’t want to invest in the architecture required to make WFH feasible.
Realistically the mandates are due to tax breaks that the company gets for having a certain number of seats filled each day since these employees have a chance at fueling the local economy by eating out or getting gas.
Either way it is a bad look.
It’s been years since I’ve worked at Amazon, but even before Covid the cracks in the system started showing. When I joined “consultant” and “MBA” were dirty words. But by the time I was leaving these same “does nothing, demands everything” leaders were all ex-consultants with MBAs. They were all “Program/Product Managers” that seemed to just create requirements out of thin air for no reason to justify their jobs. Engineers had a high bar for promotion, while these jackasses seemed to get one every 6 months. When I left, I was told I was not wanted back and was a “non rehire”. I now get hit up every week to come back and I remind recruiters that I’m a “non rehire” and they are so desperate they are willing to look past that and give a promotion. I usually end the convo by demanding a crazy amount of money so they will stop messaging, but there is always a new recruiter every week
I’m sorry, but I sincerely doubt that Amazon doing an RTO mandate is evidence of financial demise. Vanity and control? Absolutely, but let’s stay in reality here.
This was 100% about downsizing their workforce without having to do mass layoffs. It just didn’t work like they hoped it would.
Absolutely, as most major companies have been doing the last couple of years to shed their COVID weight. My point though is that, in the case of Amazon, it doesn’t directly point to financial distress.
I see the analysis about how this is a stealth layoff, but let’s give some love to the employees who have dragged their feet and said no, and still haven’t left, who have made this process so messy and stupid that even the largest companies are giving up in exasperation.
Once Jassy took over as CEO, there was a slow march of the executives and board abandoning the Leadership Principles and data driven values that made Amazon the beast it is today.
Amazon has left the growth phase of their business and is now in value extraction mode, which means they have to enshittify everything, treat their educated staff like shit, and charge more for all of it.
So glad to be done with that shit hole.
I see this as proof that the true purpose of the RTO mandate was to encourage people to quit so they wouldn’t have to do layoffs that would #1 effect the stock price and #2 mean they would have to pay unemployment.
Good on everyone who stuck in there to make this as uncomfortable as possible for the dipshit CEOs.
They want people to leave. This is a way for them to have layoffs without spending a dime.
