<story><title>Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies</title><url>https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/23/tech/amazon-walkout/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>somethoughts</author><text>My two cents on this is that he is saying &amp;quot;working from home is morally wrong&amp;quot; - &lt;i&gt;for his companies&lt;/i&gt;... but he left out the &lt;i&gt;for his companies&lt;/i&gt; part.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x2F;prototypes.  Therefore they &lt;i&gt;must&lt;/i&gt; be at the office or at the plant.&lt;p&gt;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 - &lt;i&gt;within the same company&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Friction could be generated if for instance the laptop class is making decisions&amp;#x2F;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.&lt;p&gt;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).&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;d be hard&amp;#x2F;impossible that a small cloud first company or small remote only startup like GitLabs would be amoral for being WFH.&lt;p&gt;Twitter could probably be WFH, but in order to make statement that would not possibly be construed as hypocritical he unfortunately can&amp;#x27;t make such a distinction.</text></item><item><author>neom</author><text>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&amp;#x27;s helpful to accept folks views as widely as possible, but I&amp;#x27;m still trying to wrap my head around work from home being morally wrong.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=y5OHFt8QyiU&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=y5OHFt8QyiU&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;m still not sure what I think. (Intellectual dishonesty or a valid view point?)&lt;p&gt;At least he got me thinking I suppose, heh.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>scott_w</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;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.&lt;p&gt;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.</text></comment>
<story><title>Amazon corporate workers plan walkout next week over return-to-office policies</title><url>https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/23/tech/amazon-walkout/index.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>somethoughts</author><text>My two cents on this is that he is saying &amp;quot;working from home is morally wrong&amp;quot; - &lt;i&gt;for his companies&lt;/i&gt;... but he left out the &lt;i&gt;for his companies&lt;/i&gt; part.&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x2F;prototypes.  Therefore they &lt;i&gt;must&lt;/i&gt; be at the office or at the plant.&lt;p&gt;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 - &lt;i&gt;within the same company&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;Friction could be generated if for instance the laptop class is making decisions&amp;#x2F;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.&lt;p&gt;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).&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;d be hard&amp;#x2F;impossible that a small cloud first company or small remote only startup like GitLabs would be amoral for being WFH.&lt;p&gt;Twitter could probably be WFH, but in order to make statement that would not possibly be construed as hypocritical he unfortunately can&amp;#x27;t make such a distinction.</text></item><item><author>neom</author><text>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&amp;#x27;s helpful to accept folks views as widely as possible, but I&amp;#x27;m still trying to wrap my head around work from home being morally wrong.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=y5OHFt8QyiU&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=y5OHFt8QyiU&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;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&amp;#x27;m still not sure what I think. (Intellectual dishonesty or a valid view point?)&lt;p&gt;At least he got me thinking I suppose, heh.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dhx</author><text>&amp;quot;But role XYZ can&amp;#x27;t work from home therefore no one should work from home&amp;quot; is the silliest of all arguments. It&amp;#x27;s similar to &amp;quot;Back in my day, we didn&amp;#x27;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!&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s just some of the benefits to on-site workers in role XYZ of other workers being able to WFH:&lt;p&gt;* Quicker commutes (less congestion from people needlessly traveling) and thus more free time.&lt;p&gt;* If a partner is WFH, they haven&amp;#x27;t wasted time commuting and thus have more time and energy to assist with the household.&lt;p&gt;* Higher salaries as the jobs requiring a commute become less desirable vs. WFH jobs.&lt;p&gt;* 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.&lt;p&gt;* Improved health from reduction in pollution caused by commuting.&lt;p&gt;* Reduced cost of living from less wasted land used for offices that are only used 30% of a week.&lt;p&gt;* 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.&lt;p&gt;* Increased productivity from reduction in illnesses transferred on public transport and within office facilities.&lt;p&gt;* Improved happiness and productivity resulting from workers being able to setup a workspace&amp;#x2F;home office that is most productive for their needs. Fresh air, lighting, seating, etc are all controllable by the worker at home.&lt;p&gt;* Households could switch to having a single car.&lt;p&gt;If one were to debate against WFH, more sensible arguments would be things like:&lt;p&gt;* Greater heating &amp;#x2F; cooling efficiency to cram more people in a single cramped building than to have those same people heat &amp;#x2F; cool their homes individually. Passive houses largely solve this.&lt;p&gt;* More efficient access to some services such as getting a haircut, buying goods from a specialist retailer, etc if they&amp;#x27;re all centralised in a CBD as opposed to requiring individuals to travel all across a city. Increased deliveries to home negates this.&lt;p&gt;* Forced exercise (on average) due to workers needing to walk between transport options and an office building, whereas at home they don&amp;#x27;t have to walk anywhere unless they are motivated to do so.</text></comment>