[HN Gopher] Amazon Is Selling Its 29-Acre Bay Area Property as R...
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Amazon Is Selling Its 29-Acre Bay Area Property as Return to Office
Stalls
Author : A4ET8a8uTh0
Score : 104 points
Date : 2023-01-30 21:22 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.msn.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.msn.com)
| narrator wrote:
| >Amazon Is Selling Its 29-Acre Bay Area Property as Return to
| Office Stalls
|
| So you're telling me Amazon is trying to sell us on a new office
| concept where we work in stalls like we're horses?
|
| /didn't read the article
| GaryNumanVevo wrote:
| I thought I was crazy when _my_ office started handing out feed
| bags to go around our necks
| cheriot wrote:
| Sadly building offices in places that prohibit new housing will
| not make sense. Your staff will have a hellish commute and/or
| extremely high housing prices. The hardest possible sell to
| employees accustom to WFH.
|
| Love the Bay Area, but we've plucked the golden goose.
| muzz wrote:
| The title now says "as Sales Growth Cools" instead of "as Return
| to Office Stalls"
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| It is my bad. Please see the source below[1]:
|
| [1]https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/amazon-milpitas-
| propert...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I'm so torn on RTO. I really miss working with my team. I don't
| miss commuting. I enjoy the flexibility WFH adds to my day.
| space_fountain wrote:
| Yeah, these people who are so all in on remote work are a bit
| foreign to me. Before trying it I too thought it would be
| great, but I can see what it's done to company culture and my
| engagement with work. I'm sure there are people it's better
| for, but there are definite downsides especially if you aren't
| 40 with partner and kids
| rootusrootus wrote:
| As someone in my 40s with kids, I'll say for sure that the
| only reason I've survived this WFH experience is because of
| that. The very few times I tried remote work when I was in my
| 20s, living alone, it made me stir crazy in a matter of days.
|
| But surviving is all I can say for it. I worked with people
| that I would call friends, who I haven't seen now in a couple
| years. I don't want someone to tell me they weren't really
| friends, either. They were.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| For every company forcing a return to the office they'll always
| be the smaller company that can't pay as well offering fully
| remote roles. I'll gladly take a pay cut to never be confined to
| an office again.
| charlie0 wrote:
| This. If I really care about purchasing power, I'll take the
| lower salary and move to a lower cost area or country. I'm not
| going back to an office unless it's my dream job.
| mvc wrote:
| As someone who lives in a "lower-cost area", consider that
| the grass may not be greener on the other side. My sister
| just bought a place in the city. Tiny compared to mine up
| north. And almost as much. But if the next 10 years are like
| the last 10, she could likely sell hers and buy my whole
| street.
| eYrKEC2 wrote:
| So, live in a shoebox in the city and then what? Completely
| sever all contact with your in-person social network and
| start from scratch in a place where you can live like a
| king? I know that's a choice some folks make, but it seems
| odd to me.
| btbuildem wrote:
| That's a bit of reassuring news, it's nice to see a tech giant
| forced by circumstances to pump the brakes / perhaps even
| reconsider the whole RTO thing.
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| I work for a huge health care company. Throughout the early
| 2000's they were busy buying up multiple large commercial
| buildings to house all of their employees.
|
| Then Covid hit and we went through several iterations trying to
| get people back into the office.
|
| The company spent tens of millions renovating the majority of
| their buildings to open office concepts less than 18 months
| before Covid hit and was still in the middle of finishing several
| of the buildings when C19 hit - thus having people back in the
| office was a huge risk without cubes and people using "hoteling"
| and they immediately went to assigned areas and desks to try and
| get people to come back in.
|
| First it was in two week shifts of A and B with assigned seating.
| Clean, rotate, repeat. Then it was VP's who wanted everybody back
| in the office and wanted badge reports so they could go after the
| people not coming in. They got a metric TON of pushback from
| managers who were telling their people not to come in if they
| didn't feel safe. In the end, the executives relented and
| approved full-time telecommuting to a majority of the employees.
|
| The company has already sold off four of its buildings to out-
| state real estate companies and over the last year have been
| consolidating everybody down to one or two of the larger
| buildings.
|
| I've been about half and half. Its a good break to just to get
| out of the house once in a while and have lunch with the other
| devs who are essentially doing the same thing.
| jahewson wrote:
| Looks like Bloomberg has invented a new reason why Amazon is
| selling this property. It's not RTO after all! who knew!? The
| title is now "Amazon to Sell Bay Area Office Complex as Sales
| Growth Cools".
| gweinberg wrote:
| Did anyone else parse "Stalls" as a plural noun rather than a
| verb at first?
| barbazoo wrote:
| I did and just assumed that that's how they make people work
| there now. I think that's what comes after open concept offices
| or whatever they call it.
| diggernet wrote:
| Yes. Amazon is returning to office stalls. Which I interpret as
| workplaces that look like this:
|
| https://i1.wp.com/stablestyle.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/04...
|
| Edit: On second thought, that pic is way too nice. It'd be an
| upgrade from my current cube. I was really imagining something
| more like this:
|
| https://i.pinimg.com/1200x/24/64/1b/24641b4dbede7e32232ebdab...
| dpcx wrote:
| Near the beginning of the pandemic (May/June '20) I interviewed
| with AWS, specifically in the Lambda space. Before even speaking
| with the hiring manager, I made it clear that I wasn't interested
| in relocation, but they pushed for it anyway. After I reiterated
| my statement, I was told that WFH wasn't an option, and they
| moved on to other candidates.
|
| I'm glad to hear they're coming to their senses.
| paxys wrote:
| > Amazon in October 2021 paid $123 million for the 29-acre
| property in Milpitas, California
|
| Talk about buying at the exact peak of the market.
|
| The cat is out of the proverbial bag for all these large tech
| employers. Doesn't matter if you are Amazon or Google or whoever
| else. Once people got a taste of WFH life they were never going
| back to the hour plus commutes, weird social structures and power
| dynamics, noisy environment, lack of privacy.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| I think "As Return to Office Stalls" is a bit of wishful
| thinking. 18000 employees gone, probably more to go, trimming
| real estate is just another cost cutting measure.
| chrsig wrote:
| I'd been reading this as returning to Office Stalls,
| comparing the open office to a barn. Or bathroom.
|
| Took me a moment to parse it properly that returning to the
| office is stalling.
| k__ wrote:
| Good point on the weird social structures.
|
| I always found dating in the workplace kinda alarming,
| especially when people would date their subordinates.
| mshake2 wrote:
| How about the CEO and director of HR are married, and your
| department head is married to the head of a department that
| your team supports, and the heads of finance are married to
| each other. All in one company! Strange power dynamics
| everywhere in those nepotistic little fiefdoms.
| jacquesm wrote:
| That's a reason to ask for immediate relocation within the
| company to ensure your love interest isn't in your chain of
| command/review and vv. Many companies have pretty explicit
| rules around this.
|
| https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/how-
| google-f...
|
| Just a couple of things you might open the company (and
| yourself) up to (from the POV of the person in the supervisor
| role):
|
| - a sexual harassment lawsuit in case things end on a bad
| note
|
| - colleagues complaining (possibly rightfully so) about
| favoritism
|
| - inability to set policy because you yourself violate policy
|
| - a potentially very toxic situation in case the relationship
| ends and you have to continue to work together
|
| It doesn't really matter whether the person in the supervisor
| role is a male or a female, either way it looks bad and will
| likely lead to trouble.
|
| And for an encore: between founders the risks (but also some
| of the potential rewards) are even higher. I've seen a start-
| up that was doing fantastically well end up in shreds because
| the co-founders got romantically involved, got married, had
| kids and then divorced, the divorce pretty much killed the
| company.
| arcticbull wrote:
| About 22% of US married couples met at work, and that number
| is increasing. Of course, dating subordinates is a clear no-
| no.
| grujicd wrote:
| I get that power imbalance can be abused, and even if not -
| things can get complicated. But on the other hand, love
| does not know about org chart and if you meet your soulmate
| that way, why should potential long-life happiness of two
| people be less important than what HR says? Disclaimer: met
| my wife on the job 22 years ago, although we were both
| developers in same positions, not subordinate situation.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I completely agree, and IMO, if you find yourself in that
| position and you genuinely want to pursue the romantic
| relationship - it's time to end the subordinate
| relationship.
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Sure, but is it a "good thing"? Or is it that people spend
| so much time at work it's the only chance they have of
| meeting anyone?
| eddsh1994 wrote:
| It is if the divorce rates are lower than the average, it
| isn't if it's higher (indicating less-optimal marriages
| due to lack of social life)
| chrsig wrote:
| No, it's really a terrible thing -- both for what you
| noted, and the fact that if a relationship sours it could
| impact coworkers.
|
| Any given relationship sprouting from coworking isn't
| terrible, but in aggregate, I think it warrants a decent
| amount of frowning.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| It's a good way to meet people with shared interests.
| Everyone with more free time, not everyone wants to
| attend meetups outside of work. Not saying meeting at
| work has no downsides.
| [deleted]
| philwelch wrote:
| It's probably better than relying on Tinder.
| raz32dust wrote:
| Given we spend a significant portion of lives at work, I
| think it's a good thing that people find life partners at
| work and a loss from remote work
| MuffinFlavored wrote:
| > Once people got a taste of WFH life they were never going
| back to the hour plus commutes, weird social structures and
| power dynamics, noisy environment, lack of privacy.
|
| Unless managers/directors/VPs/SVPs/C-suite executives get even
| more strict and companies around the country band together to
| not offer remote work closing any/all openings, forcing people
| back to work.
|
| 3 options:
|
| 1. get lucky enough to find a job that allows work from home
|
| 2. be unemployed
|
| 3. suck it up and work for a company that demands you work in
| the office unless you can find an alternative (aka a remote
| job)
|
| if you can't find a remote job, you're out of luck.
|
| whether this breaks down in reality (aka... what % of open jobs
| right now after all of these layoffs are in person vs hybrid vs
| full remote)
|
| is it a fairytale dream that there's a ton of remote jobs out
| there? especially with microsoft + google + apple + amazon
| being relatively against remote work.
| scifibestfi wrote:
| This also shows how the overhead of unions aren't needed in
| tech. Employees already have the leverage they need.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| mostly agree, but for some work at a workplace was more
| coherent and peaceful than working from home
| barbazoo wrote:
| Just a couple of hours ago I was kicking off a build that would
| take about 20 minutes. It's a slow sprint so I went and put the
| laundry in the dryer and then had a quick coffee with my
| partner before going back to work just in time for the build to
| finish. It's heaven. This is the best work life balance I've
| ever had in my career and I love it. I can't think of anything
| right now that would get me back into an office in the city.
| ttul wrote:
| How about a $10K pay cut?
| lsaferite wrote:
| You could easily spend 10k on commuting. That's only about
| $40/day. Between fuel, maint, tolls, and maybe food, you
| can easily bust $40/day in the Bay Area. That's not even
| considering the _time_ spent commuting.
| barbazoo wrote:
| Absolute numbers are kind of meaningless but I for sure
| would take a 10% lower pay at a company that did 100% WFH.
| Thow in another couple percentage points for a 4 day work
| week.
|
| I feel for all the folks that work at a place that
| implemented a hybrid model because I don't see that working
| ever if some people are in the office and some are
| permanently remote. I bet collaboration and feeling of
| togetherness suffers. When everyone's remote, you have to
| adjust your processes and ceremonies to account for that.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I'm saving money that would normally be used for office
| space; if anything I expect a pay raise. A cut would cause
| me to seek other opportunities.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Depends on how much 10k represents to you, many have
| explicitely chosen to be paid less to get a better life
| balance.
| meindnoch wrote:
| No thanks. How about a 10k pay _raise_ you would otherwise
| spend on office space?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Sounds like providing 10% less effort and picking up more
| income on the side. How much is it going to cost to replace
| them when they eventually leave? Usually runs at least
| $10k-$30k per req/role.
|
| Alas, no one else said management made good decisions.
| Marissa Meyer ended remote work and then drove Yahoo into
| the ground like a 737 Max.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| sounds like you need to run your build on a m2 max!
| nostrademons wrote:
| Edifice complex:
|
| http://www.ipglossary.com/glossary/edifice-complex/#.Y9hFf-w...
|
| As I was visiting the new space-age buildings at Meta, Google,
| and Apple in 2021 (and reading about Amazon's new HQ), I was
| thinking "Wow, all 4 are building new headquarters. I wonder if
| this means we're at the high point of Big Tech." Seems like
| that was prescient.
| wildrhythms wrote:
| _Unpaid_ commute... I know lots of folks in the Bay area
| spending hours per day commuting (and NOVA /DC area, if you
| live there you know). I'm not sure why it isn't considered
| stolen wages.
| chaostheory wrote:
| It's probably more accurate to say wasted hours. Aren't we
| all salaried and not hourly?
| skyyler wrote:
| I wish we were all salary.
|
| I drive 85 minutes one direction to work a $25/hr helpdesk
| job right now.
|
| Barely making ends meet. Gas + car maintenance is killing
| me slowly.
| notyourwork wrote:
| Generalizing an entire population, not everyone is salary
| in the world.
| webdood90 wrote:
| consider the audience of HN
| notyourwork wrote:
| Not only are there non-salaried workers on HN, that is
| also a narrow view of the world.
| smeeth wrote:
| Just because you can theoretically perform your job from the
| location of your choice doesn't mean you have a right to
| restitution for doing it somewhere else.
|
| Your employer has a right to set their terms of employment
| and you have a right to tell them to pound sand if you don't
| want to abide by them.
| ok_dad wrote:
| A massive power imbalance to be sure. I have a right to my
| time, and an employer located in a place with zero
| affordable housing closer than an hour or two away should
| definitely be responsible for providing restitution for
| that time. An employer doesn't have the right to my time,
| but they currently have the power to force me to accept
| terms via the "wouldn't it suck if you and your family
| lived on the street" tactics.
| raincom wrote:
| Maybe, tech companies should build company towns and rent out
| cheap apartments.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Yes, good idea, and they can pay with scrip that you use at
| the company store. And then we can sell our soul to the
| company store like it's 1850.
| nojs wrote:
| Aren't the FAANG SF - south bay shuttles paid time?
| sokoloff wrote:
| If your employer dictated where you worked AND where you
| lived, the time traveling between the two would logically be
| their responsibility. Since they've only dictated at most one
| of those two things, I don't see it as reasonable for them to
| pay you to move between a place they didn't pick and one they
| did.
|
| My office used to be just outside of Boston. Could I move to
| Utica, NY and claim that my 8 hour round-trip was the
| entirety of my work obligation and that I was, by definition,
| "meeting expectations" merely by driving back and forth every
| workday?
| sneak wrote:
| Stealing implies unilateral and without consent.
|
| People opt-in to jobs and the associated commutes completely
| voluntarily and consensually.
| itake wrote:
| Also, your commute time is your commute time. Your employer
| does not control how you go to your work nor what you do
| while traveling. Your employer also doesn't choose your
| housing.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| > Also, your commute time is your commute time. Your
| employer does not control how you go to your work nor
| what you do while traveling.
|
| Not necessarily true. Some employers offer company buses
| to/from certain cities, with wifi, and they count that as
| working hours.
| uberduper wrote:
| Hasn't the last couple years demonstrated that employers
| do exactly that? - You can work remote, but you must live
| within X miles of an office. - You can work remote, but
| you must live in one of these states / countries. - You
| can work remote N times per week. - You can work flexible
| hours! Choose any 10 consecutive hours from this list of
| 13 hours! - You can work from any one of our N offices. -
| We're closing this office. You can continue with your
| duties if you relocate to one of our other locations. -
| Here's a laptop and travel bag. Give us your cell # so
| you can work from anywhere at any time we need you.
|
| edit: I can't be bothered to fix the formatting of this
| message.
| Teever wrote:
| I bet that if employers were legally mandated to pay
| their workers for the time they commute that those
| employers would suddenly appreciate the importance of
| effective public transit and increased urban density.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| "wage theft" in general includes things like forcing
| employees to clock out before the end of their work or
| clock in after the start of their work (e.g. "first clock
| out, then do this long procedure, then you can leave").
| People "opt into" those jobs too, but that doesn't mean
| they shouldn't get paid for all of their work. It's not
| unreasonable to draw a parallel to commuting, and when the
| alternative is work-from-home, expecting to get paid for
| commuting seems perfectly reasonable.
| bestcoder69 wrote:
| Makes sense - kinda like taxes.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Sure, just like how coal miners used to spend their
| paychecks at the company store, and came home to pay rent
| at the company town.
|
| In society, we recognize that one cannot always have a
| fully 'consensual' agreement between parties of wildly
| different levels of power. The only reason this hasn't been
| extended to corporations is because our political system
| serves _them_ , not the common man.
| aetherson wrote:
| Software engineers in historically well-comped roles in
| the 21st Century: "My commute is _exactly like_ being a
| 19th Century coal miner in a company town. "
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| No of course not. I just took issue with the idea
| presented that an agreement between a corporation and
| worker is always 'consensual and voluntary'.
|
| It's not. It never has been. If I disagree with the terms
| of my employment, me being unemployed is a far higher
| burden than the company not having one extra worker. To
| act like the employee and employer are equals in
| negotiation is laughable.
| wwweston wrote:
| It's good to appreciate the privileges that come with
| being a well-paid 21st Century knowledge worker.
|
| It's also good to appreciate what even a well-paid 21st C
| knowledge worker has in common with other labor,
| including coal miners. Solidarity helps achieve goals.
| cardamomo wrote:
| This doesn't really ring true in large urban areas, where
| many people cannot afford to live near their workplace--the
| rent is too damn high.
| mvc wrote:
| Companies choose to do business in a certain state and yet
| I hear many "pro-business" types claim that all taxation is
| theft.
| hangonhn wrote:
| Sure but both parties can be wrong. Saying taxation is
| not theft and commute expenses for salaried workers is
| not wage theft seems non-contradictory to me.
| notyourwork wrote:
| > hour plus commutes
|
| Commuting is my biggest complaint with forcefully going back to
| office. If I have a bus or train that requires no brain power
| for me to get to office, I am more tolerable to it.
|
| Perhaps this will be a kick in the improve US public
| transportation for the masses? It is the only silver lining I
| can think of here.
| monksy wrote:
| Just wait till you get a mayor who has decided to kill public
| transit. Trains/buses don't show up, they're packed with
| homeless using it as a bed and a toliet, and gangsters who
| smoke it up. On top of that they're not running the schedule,
| but "keeping the schedule intact". That's what's been
| happening in Chicago. (Thanks Lori "we're a car city"
| Lightfoot)
| jacoblambda wrote:
| This is really the kicker. I would have no problem commuting
| 1+ hours into the city for work if I could actually make use
| of my time.
|
| I can't do anything while driving beyond listen to music. An
| audiobook is either going to get my full attention and I'll
| be distracted while driving or I'm going to miss 30-40% of
| the book trying to stay alert on the road. At that point I
| might as well just not listen to the audio book at all if I
| care about the contents.
|
| However if I could just take trains/buses into the city,
| provided they actually run regularly (i.e. they don't turn a
| 40 minute drive into 6 hours), I'd have 1-4 hours a day I
| could allocate to reading, listening to an audio book,
| watching TV, playing a game, working on personal projects, or
| continuing my education.
|
| Sure it might be a long commute but I could do the things
| that I'd otherwise barely have time for so it's not really
| lost time. Doubly so if I could actually do work on a company
| device while I commute (no surprise team meetings if you
| aren't actually on site yet meaning work would actually get
| done).
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I would like to be as optimistic as you are, but CEOs are
| clearly bent on returning to the old ways[1]( the gist of the
| article is:"it is not your decision to make").
|
| [1]https://fortune.com/2023/01/20/work-from-home-remote-work-
| mo...
| pklausler wrote:
| "it is not your decision to make"
|
| I think that it is, actually.
| TillE wrote:
| The long-term financial benefits of remote work are likely to
| outweigh the emotional / speculative resistance from certain
| leaders.
| jensensbutton wrote:
| Agree. I worry that many companies will maintain notional
| "support" for remote roles, but it will revert to a two
| tiered system where in-office workers have better career
| growth.
| Swizec wrote:
| > "it is not your decision to make"
|
| Sure it is! Free market competition was made for exactly this
| sort of scenario. As long as _some_ employers offer WFH,
| workers can make the choice. If we put a $$ figure on WFH and
| this makes salaries cheaper for employers that offer WFH,
| they may eventually win out the market.
|
| Saying "employees can't choose to WFH" may eventually be seen
| as silly of a decision as saying "we only buy inputs from
| countries with the highest import tariffs".
|
| Let the market decide. It's going to either way.
|
| Say I'm a company saving $50,000,000/year on office leases.
| That's a lot of room for higher salaries and nicer bonuses
| for my employees (including execs). And I still get to keep a
| huge chunk as extra profit.
|
| Long-term what sounds better to the board: A CEO who says "I
| saved us 50mil" or a CEO that says "I lost 30% of our
| workforce but we got them all back to the office! Btw I need
| another 50mil for the office"
| grapescheesee wrote:
| More so, I cut and saved 50,000,000. What salary increase
| allotments should go to increase in pay? I'll just say we
| saved n roles with the move.
| perfecthjrjth wrote:
| Property Address: 1001 S Milpitas Blvd, Milpitas, California
| https://www.google.com/maps/place/1001+S+Milpitas+Blvd,+Milp...
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