Amazon CEO Andy Jassy threatens employees to return to office or "things are probably not going to work out for you"

[pendragon1]

Sorry, but my European brain cannot process that. What do you mean no contracts? You work for a company based on verbal agreement only, and just hope the company keeps their word and actually pays you at the end of the month? With no set job description and responsibilities etc, etc?

yes. so stop trying to apply your eu ideas on the US.

 

[Sir Beregond]

Sorry, but my European brain cannot process that. What do you mean no contracts? You work for a company based on verbal agreement only, and just hope the company keeps their word and actually pays you at the end of the month? With no set job description and responsibilities etc, etc?

No, I'm not sure what you mean here. I always sign papers and stuff when starting a new job. Usually outlines salary, PTO benefits, other benefits, bonuses, etc. Now as for job responsibilities, they are usually outlined along with a very convenient line of "other duties as assigned" which is a catch all for your job responsibilities can and will change.

That said, part of these documents also state that either party can terminate the employment for any reason at all at any time.

 

[LodeRunner]

I'm not sure it is even possible to do without an employment contract change. As the place of work is written in the contract. So you need a new contract drafted if your place of work is moving.
I know my contract was immediately changed as soon as government lockdowns were implemented.

That’s interesting. At every job I’ve had, at least that I can recall, the location was not explicitly nailed down on the agreement.

So, if your office moved, even like to a different suite or just down the street would you have to sign a new contract or an amendment? Or is it more generalized?

Also as others have indicated, in the US, most full time people, other than unions, have a work agreement, which I guess is an open-ended contract (as in there’s no duration set). Contract worker has a fairly specific meaning in US law as I understand it that sets it apart from regular part- or full-time employment.

 

[Newbie_52]

Saying there are no contracts in the US is false, there are many contractors in the US, especially in IT. all though the terms of those contracts i have no idea and probably greatly different than other countries i assume.

 

[TheSlySyl]

Someday they'll find a way to make it possible for me to make a living bartending from home. Until that day, guess I'll go to work. I'd love to WFH but the entire reason I'm in my career instead of sitting at a desk is because I need the social and mental engagement of a public facing job. I'm also pretty damn good at the whole thing.

My partner has been WFH almost exclusively for 18 months now and once I got her desk setup for it, it's been great. Especially because it saves a 45 minute commute each way.

A few months back her boss asked if she wanted to return to the office so they could give her workspace to someone else.

 

[MrGuvernment]

The majority of companies are renting - especailly non-megacorps, and I don't know many smaller businesses that have more than 3-5 year lease. That means by this point, a significant number of companies COULD have chosen to go full WFH and saved tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands on a lease, but they didn't.

CEOs bringing people back to work USUALLY has nothing to do with real estate, as their balance sheets would look way better if they just ditched the office. I renewed my 3 year lease in 2021 and could have easily gotten rid of it and eliminated a six figure liability from my balance sheet, but I determined I would make more money overall with the office. I don't regret it.

Here in Calgary, you have office buildings throwing space at companies to not leave for considerable discounts. And while closing down offices can look good, companies then need to spend on infrastructure and security tools to allow safe and secure remote work, the cost just shifts, for companies that do it right. Companies that just allow people to use their own insecure devices with no control over company data or device security, they are going to find out the hard way what a compromise really feels like.

 

[MrGuvernment]

Skilled workers i can see the WFH not being a problem, if you as an employer can trust that person to maintain the same level of effectiveness without being watched 100% let them WFH.
My issue is with entry level call center type jobs that need to be babysat, force them back to the office, I am sick of calling in for service and being on hold 3 times longer then pre covid to get less service.

This is also more on companies cutting back and still using covid as an excuse for things being busy. Plenty of vendors had crap service before covid, now they had an excuse. Thing is those entry level call center jobs are one of the easiest to actually see how much work someone is doing, or not doing by pure hard numbers and reporting.

 

[Sir Beregond]

Here in Calgary, you have office buildings throwing space at companies to not leave for considerable discounts. And while closing down offices can look good, companies then need to spend on infrastructure and security tools to allow safe and secure remote work, the cost just shifts, for companies that do it right. Companies that just allow people to use their own insecure devices with no control over company data or device security, they are going to find out the hard way what a compromise really feels like.

One would hope that if you worked for any legit company worth their salt, that they already had the infrastructure and mechanisms in place for data and device security. Unless you are some mom and pop shop with 10 employees, why the hell wouldn't you have those mechanisms in place?

 

[pendragon1]

One would hope that if you worked for any legit company worth their salt, that they already had the infrastructure and mechanisms in place for data and device security. Unless you are some mom and pop shop with 10 employees, why the hell wouldn't you have those mechanisms in place?

wfh wasnt the norm, so plenty of places had to quickly implement a bunch of new security....

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

One would hope that if you worked for any legit company worth their salt, that they already had the infrastructure and mechanisms in place for data and device security. Unless you are some mom and pop shop with 10 employees, why the hell wouldn't you have those mechanisms in place?

wfh wasnt the norm, so plenty of places had to quickly implement a bunch of new security....

Agreed, I tend to think of it in a non-binary fashion.

It's not "we have it" or "we don't". It's how much capacity can you support? If WFH represents ~2% of hours worked it is going to put a much lower load on VPN's, etc. than if it represents 60% of hours worked.

And then there is the client hardware. I've personally been issued a laptop at every job I've had since ~2003, but some companies were trying to be smart and save money by issuing desktops or even thin clients, and those are much more difficult to bring home with you....

Certainly at least some upgrades need to take place.

But compared to the ridiculous cost of even current discounted real estate, these costs should be rather marginal and save the company money in the long term.

The day to day operations are not the problem here. I think the bigger challenge is how do you do big training sessions, huge company events, all hands meetings, and other things that you may want to have in person every once in a while, when you no longer have the real estate that fits all of your employees.

 

[M76]

We don't sign a contract, we sign a agreement to work and it outlines the job, either of us can walk away anytime. Almost all of it is dictated by labor laws here. Union jobs are closer to what you would expect.

We have contracts for salaried employees as well, an agreement is not enough to employ someone. And it is dictated by labor law as well, except labor law here says that neither party can walk away just like that. If the employee quits the notice is 30 days unless agreed otherwise in the contract. And if the employer wants to get rid of someone the notice period is 30-90 days depending on how long were they employed.

yes. so stop trying to apply your eu ideas on the US.

This is not about US vs EU law this is about the benefits of working from home. No matter what any law says I'm against dragging people back to the office.

No, I'm not sure what you mean here. I always sign papers and stuff when starting a new job. Usually outlines salary, PTO benefits, other benefits, bonuses, etc. Now as for job responsibilities, they are usually outlined along with a very convenient line of "other duties as assigned" which is a catch all for your job responsibilities can and will change.

Since for us no employment is possible without a contract, I assumed no contract meant you are not signing any papers before you start to work somewhere.

That said, part of these documents also state that either party can terminate the employment for any reason at all at any time.

You can terminate the employment for any reason here as well as long as the notice period is given and severance is paid. And the employer can't lower the notice period in the contract bellow the lawful minimum, they can only deviate upward.
The only exception would be gross misconduct by the worker, where the termination can be immediate. For example one of my colleagues was fired like this for using a company car on a personal road trip. But not going back to the office would not qualify as a fireable offense unless the active contract says you have to be at the office.

That’s interesting. At every job I’ve had, at least that I can recall, the location was not explicitly nailed down on the agreement.

So, if your office moved, even like to a different suite or just down the street would you have to sign a new contract or an amendment? Or is it more generalized?

It's only down to zip code level, you don't need a new contract for moving from the second floor to the sixth.

Also as others have indicated, in the US, most full time people, other than unions, have a work agreement, which I guess is an open-ended contract (as in there’s no duration set). Contract worker has a fairly specific meaning in US law as I understand it that sets it apart from regular part- or full-time employment.

Employment contracts are always open ended here as well. A contract worker is a very different animal, which I believe is fairly similar if not the same as the US definition. Contract workers always have the duration set, and they get none of the employee benefits and protections.

 

[Sir Beregond]

wfh wasnt the norm, so plenty of places had to quickly implement a bunch of new security....

So supposing you were an office worker with a laptop, these companies never had people working from home when sick, or traveling?

I get what you are saying, but its 2023.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

yes. so stop trying to apply your eu ideas on the US.

Well, if things work better for people somewhere else, we would be foolish to not look at how they do things and consider doing it ourselves as well.

There is no inherent value in "the way we do things" anywhere. All laws can be changed. And should be. We should be considering everything, be it a business or a country and its set of procedures or laws an eternal work in progress subject to continuous improvement as we learn better ways to do things.

Absolutely nothing should ever be set in stone. That's how you become irrelevant.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

So supposing you were an office worker with a laptop, these companies never had people working from home when sick, or traveling?

I get what you are saying, but its 2023.

Again, it's a difference between occasional, and the norm.

Prior to the pandemic, you may have had low single digit percentages of employee hours worked from home, under special circumstances (Sick child, etc.)

If suddenly everyone works all of their time from home like during the pandemic for some companies, you are going from 2% to 100%.

That's a 50-fold increase. It's not difficult to imagine how internet bandwidth and VPN capacity might suddenly be insufficient, slow things to a crawl and need upgrading.

Now, in a post pandemic world, not very many organizations are going to hit that 100% figure, but 60%-75% is not unreasonable to expect. Your still looking at a 30x increase compared to the before times, which will almost certainly stress IT infrastructure.

Picture this:

Your colleague pings you on Teams and asks you to review a power-point he put together before that big presentation.

You navigate to the folder. The thing is full of pictures and effing 49MB. Your struggling VPN is downloading it at 35kb/s. That is going to frustrate and annoy you a lot, and certainly impact productivity.

I tend to think work from home is great, but to say that there is no IT work necessary to make it possible is not realistic.

Firewalls, and VPN's will need to be upgraded. Internet bandwidth possibly increased. Employees transitioned away from desktops and thin clients to laptops wherever necessary, etc. etc.

All of that said, I don't see how any company made it through 2020-2022 without already passing this hurdle.

At my company, sure, infrastructure could be better, but the IT manager worked his ass off to make things work well when we moved to remote work overnight in March 2020, and in general it has worked better than I could ever have imagined.

If you had asked me in 2019 if we - as a startup - could have brought a product to market including getting FDA authorization in a almost 100% WFH environment, I would have told you you were crazy, but we did just that. ("Ain't no small feat" to quote Deltron 3030) There were some pandemic related delays, but most of those were external to our organization, with external test labs and regulators.

 

[M76]

The day to day operations are not the problem here. I think the bigger challenge is how do you do big training sessions, huge company events, all hands meetings, and other things that you may want to have in person every once in a while, when you no longer have the real estate that fits all of your employees.

Just as you do training sessions for outsiders, book a conference hall in a hotel.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Just as you do training sessions for outsiders, book a conference hall in a hotel.

Yeah, event space is expensive though. It's going to eat into that real-estate savings over time.

And getting everyone there and back to a separate place they are unfamiliar with away from the known office will cost you in employee time.

It is a well known fact that meetings are one of the most expensive things companies do, especially when you have senior personnel in them. Multiply this by a factor of X as you take a minimum of a half a day to get everyone to and from a particular location.

To make this work, I think we'd need more business parks with flexible shared spaces that can be booked as needed. That way they are close to the office, everyone knows where they are, and they are more flexible.

 

[Sir Beregond]

Again, it's a difference between occasional, and the norm.

Prior to the pandemic, you may have had low single digit percentages of employee hours worked from home, under special circumstances (Sick child, etc.)

If suddenly everyone works all of their time from home like during the pandemic for some companies, you are going from 2% to 100%.

That's a 50-fold increase. It's not difficult to imagine how internet bandwidth and VPN capacity might suddenly be insufficient, slow things to a crawl and need upgrading.

Now, in a post pandemic world, not very many organizations are going to hit that 100% figure, but 60%-75% is not unreasonable to expect. Your still looking at a 30x increase compared to the before times, which will almost certainly stress IT infrastructure.

Picture this:

Your colleague pings you on Teams and asks you to review a power-point he put together before that big presentation.

You navigate to the folder. The thing is full of pictures and effing 49MB. Your struggling VPN is downloading it at 35kb/s. That is going to frustrate and annoy you a lot, and certainly impact productivity.

I tend to think work from home is great, but to say that there is no IT work necessary to make it possible is not realistic.

Firewalls, and VPN's will need to be upgraded. Internet bandwidth possibly increased. Employees transitioned away from desktops and thin clients to laptops wherever necessary, etc. etc.

All of that said, I don't see how any company made it through 2020-2022 without already passing this hurdle.

At my company, sure, infrastructure could be better, but the IT manager worked his ass off to make things work well when we moved to remote work overnight in March 2020, and in general it has worked better than I could ever have imagined.

If you had asked me in 2019 if we - as a startup - could have brought a product to market including getting FDA authorization in a almost 100% WFH environment, I would have told you you were crazy, but we did just that. ("Ain't no small feat" to quote Deltron 3030) There were some pandemic related delays, but most of those were external to our organization, with external test labs and regulators.

I totally get what you are saying with say VPN bandwidth, so sure there could be some growing pains. At this stage, the pandemic was over 3 years ago, so what's the problem now? "It's bigger than it used to be". OK, welcome to the modern world? Shit changes?

I'm not saying there isn't work to do to scale up, some companies can do it easier than others for sure. At this stage, over 3 years post pandemic start, I don't see the relevance of this to what's going on now. Perhaps the scaled up remote tools, infrastructure, and security is a better investment than commercial real estate or leasing. "Its too hard" sounds like you have a shit infrastructure or shittier processes.

 

[pendragon1]

lol ok. boss says get back to work, you get back to work or find a new job. no matter how you guys feel about it, thats the reality. argue amongst yourselves, im out.

 

[TheHig]

Idk the company my sister in law works for went full remote. Gave everyone 5k to outfit the home office however they see fit. Invested in good IT support and permanently closed the brick and mortar office. One a month they have a full staff meeting and catered lunch in a conference space in person. Apparently everyone loves it and those that didn’t left so.. Many ways to get things done these days. Just have to have a plan and good leadership as well as good employees.

 

[TheHig]

lol ok. boss says get back to work, you get back to work or find a new job. no matter how you guys feel about it, thats the reality. argue amongst yourselves, im out.

Ultimately yes if a job has requirements of any kind then those are the breaks. Take it or find another.

 

[OutOfPhase]

I have my own motivations, but I completely agree with pendragon1's summary.

If you think something could be better, talk with management. If they don't agree, either live with it or leave.
Those are realistically the options. And yes, leaving can mean finding a better fit for you.

I have a very effective remote workforce, but I also hand-picked them for that ability / interest.

 

[Sir Beregond]

I have my own motivations, but I completely agree with pendragon1's summary.

If you think something could be better, talk with management. If they don't agree, either live with it or leave.
Those are realistically the options. And yes, leaving can mean finding a better fit for you.

I have a very effective remote workforce, but I also hand-picked them for that ability / interest.

Oh 100% this is the case. The thread has just evolved into a discussion of remote work vs work in the office. Personally I find the discussion interesting.

But ultimately yep, if you are given the "order" to return to the office, well not much you can do but return or look for another job.

 

[III_Slyflyer_III]

Oh 100% this is the case. The thread has just evolved into a discussion of remote work vs work in the office. Personally I find the discussion interesting.

But ultimately yep, if you are given the "order" to return to the office, well not much you can do but return or look for another job.

If you are WILLING to quit, this is a good card to play from the employees' standpoint too (if you are good at what you do). I did, and won because I'd have just walked anyway. Then as I mentioned a while ago, when our company got bought, the company that bought us had over 50% of it's force WFH anyway, so then there was no debate. Been WFH for 3+ years and love it. Get more work done, have more personal time, save a ton of money on gas/food and save the wasted time in a car driving every day. Also get an extra hour of sleep easy!

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

I have my own motivations, but I completely agree with pendragon1's summary.

If you think something could be better, talk with management. If they don't agree, either live with it or leave.
Those are realistically the options. And yes, leaving can mean finding a better fit for you.

I have a very effective remote workforce, but I also hand-picked them for that ability / interest.

I totally agree.

I even start wondering what is wrong with people if they stay at one company for more than - say 5-10 years.

Switching every 2-3 is the norm. Surely something better must have come along by now?

That said, I live in a large urban area with countless companies in my industry all fighting over the same employee pool. it's relatively easy for me. Some people live in places where there are fewer options and thus feel stuck I guess.

And some people are trapped by their own way of thinking about things. Leaving a job and finding another can seem daunting to some personalities, so they just stay even if it hurts them. These are the people management take the most advantage of.

 

[OutOfPhase]

That said, I live in a large urban area with countless companies in my industry all fighting over the same employee pool. it's relatively easy for me. Some people live in places where there are fewer options and thus feel stuck I guess.

This is why I love the new remote work tools.
It is a constant competition between "what can you do for me" (employer) and "what can you do for me" (employee), without a mortgage being the major deciding factor.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

This is why I love the new remote work tools.
It is a constant competition between "what can you do for me" (employer) and "what can you do for me" (employee), without a mortgage being the major deciding factor.

Yeah, that is a potential HUGE upside.

To be fair though, I don't think I'd take a job in a different geographical region than mine, even if the remote work percentage were very high. I wouldn't want to be traveling all the time for the periodic in person check-ins.

I get recruiters reaching out from the likes of east bumfuck, nebrahoma all the time, sometimes with with ridiculous salary figures close to twice what I am making (apparently they are desperate to get someone to actually go there?) and they go straight to the spam folder.

 

[DooKey]

If you are WILLING to quit, this is a good card to play from the employees' standpoint too (if you are good at what you do). I did, and won because I'd have just walked anyway. Then as I mentioned a while ago, when our company got bought, the company that bought us had over 50% of it's force WFH anyway, so then there was no debate. Been WFH for 3+ years and love it. Get more work done, have more personal time, save a ton of money on gas/food and save the wasted time in a car driving every day. Also get an extra hour of sleep easy!

Sometimes quitting works. Unfortunately, some pay the price and don't find that holy grail of WFH. Too many people think it's what they deserve. Nope, you get what your employer offers or you move on.

 

[III_Slyflyer_III]

Sometimes quitting works. Unfortunately, some pay the price and don't find that holy grail of WFH. Too many people think it's what they deserve. Nope, you get what your employer offers or you move on.

100% true... some win, some lose. Either way, would not recommend that tatic unless you have a backup plan in place already or are more than comfortable.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Sometimes quitting works. Unfortunately, some pay the price and don't find that holy grail of WFH. Too many people think it's what they deserve. Nope, you get what your employer offers or you move on.

Well, the number one rule of employment is never ever quit a job if you don't have a replacement job already lined up.

You don't just quit and then start thinking about what is next... Only a bloody fool would do that.

If a job isn't working out for you, then you start interviewing. Only once you already have an accepted job offer do you ever resign from your current job.

If the new job doesn't work out? Rinse and repeat.

Working is a two way street. They have to be happy with you, but you also have to be happy with them, and if you aren't, move on.

The era of an expectation of spending years or entire careers with the same employer is dead, gone and buried. Employers have no loyalties to their employees, so in return employees have no loyalties to their employers.

 

[OutOfPhase]

And some people are trapped by their own way of thinking about things. Leaving a job and finding another can seem daunting to some personalities, so they just stay even if it hurts them. These are the people management take the most advantage of.

Can confirm. I was / am incredibly conflict-avoidant.

But when it was clear at a point I was being exploited because they knew I was conflict-avoidant, I on a whim said no. Pushed the paper back, and left. That was a very scary time.

My life improved dramatically after that. YMMV, of course and all those disclaimers.

 

[M76]

I totally agree.

I even start wondering what is wrong with people if they stay at one company for more than - say 5-10 years.

Switching every 2-3 is the norm. Surely something better must have come along by now?

That said, I live in a large urban area with countless companies in my industry all fighting over the same employee pool. it's relatively easy for me. Some people live in places where there are fewer options and thus feel stuck I guess.

And some people are trapped by their own way of thinking about things. Leaving a job and finding another can seem daunting to some personalities, so they just stay even if it hurts them. These are the people management take the most advantage of.

I totally disagree, I've been working at the same company for 15 years now, there were some ups and downs, I was on the brink of quitting a few times, but I'm glad I endured.
I saw many of my friends and colleagues quit chasing those golden opportunities. Some even quit, came back, then quit again. Some wanted to come back but they didn't hire them back. I'm keeping in touch with some of them and they are all worse off somehow. Some got worse working conditions, or outrageous amounts of overtime with no pay (which is illegal here BTW), or having to work for minimum wage then get paid under the table. It's nothing but horror stories and some of them even admitted they wish they had stayed put. Even the ones who switched for a much larger pay and a hefty signing fee are unhappy. More stress, boring tasks, worse work-life balance.

So I say if you have a decent job where you get along with people don't you dare switch to an unknown for a few dollars more.

 

[Sir Beregond]

I totally agree.

I even start wondering what is wrong with people if they stay at one company for more than - say 5-10 years.

Switching every 2-3 is the norm. Surely something better must have come along by now?

That said, I live in a large urban area with countless companies in my industry all fighting over the same employee pool. it's relatively easy for me. Some people live in places where there are fewer options and thus feel stuck I guess.

And some people are trapped by their own way of thinking about things. Leaving a job and finding another can seem daunting to some personalities, so they just stay even if it hurts them. These are the people management take the most advantage of.

Well said. I've now hit a record at my current job at 4 years. My previous record was a tie of 3 years between two places I worked, and less for other jobs. Only reason one might stay longer now is if the culture is good (it is), and they value you appropriately, meaning not just bullshit 2% raises every year. So far they have. They threw some "please don't leave" money at me with some situations that happened and I hadn't even threatened to leave yet. So I am content to stay where I am for now until something changes whether that's the culture, the compensation, or something else.

My problem now is that if I ever do reach a point where I need to look for another job, I know most places are toxic as hell for the kinda work I do, and its become very easy to read job reqs and figure out they are bullshitting you.

I totally disagree, I've been working at the same company for 15 years now, there were some ups and downs, I was on the brink of quitting a few times, but I'm glad I endured.
I saw many of my friends and colleagues quit chasing those golden opportunities. Some even quit, came back, then quit again. Some wanted to come back but they didn't hire them back. I'm keeping in touch with some of them and they are all worse off somehow. Some got worse working conditions, or outrageous amounts of overtime with no pay (which is illegal here BTW), or having to work for minimum wage then get paid under the table. It's nothing but horror stories and some of them even admitted they wish they had stayed put. Even the ones who switched for a much larger pay and a hefty signing fee are unhappy. More stress, boring tasks, worse work-life balance.

So I say if you have a decent job where you get along with people don't you dare switch to an unknown for a few dollars more.

I guess it depends on what kind of job. I've never switched a job without making $10k-25k more than the previous job, maybe less if it has a pretty reliable annual bonus vs a job without one. Figuring out overtime, after hours, etc. expectations is just part of the job interview and too many people don't treat job interviews as an opportunity to also interview the prospective employer and team to figure those parts out.

But like you say, some also get blinders on and think everything is greener grass on the other side until they find out it isn't. Sometimes you find a gem and there's not much reason to leave if they take care of you and you are happy.

 

[M76]

Yeah, event space is expensive though. It's going to eat into that real-estate savings over time.

And getting everyone there and back to a separate place they are unfamiliar with away from the known office will cost you in employee time.

It is a well known fact that meetings are one of the most expensive things companies do, especially when you have senior personnel in them. Multiply this by a factor of X as you take a minimum of a half a day to get everyone to and from a particular location.

To make this work, I think we'd need more business parks with flexible shared spaces that can be booked as needed. That way they are close to the office, everyone knows where they are, and they are more flexible.

Meetings cost money even if everyone is at the office. You save 1-2 hours on every employee who is not commuting to the office, so you have quite a head start there. Loosing a few hours once a month for organizing an in person meeting is not that high of a price to pay comparatively. My company used to have many offices, and we used to do monthly meetings where the top people of every office would drive to the main office with a company car. Some literally from hundreds of miles. So you can't convince me that bringing employees in for a meeting is an unbearable cost, or that it is more expensive than having them commute every day.

 

[M76]

I guess it depends on what kind of job. I've never switched a job without making $10k-25k more than the previous job, maybe less if it has a pretty reliable annual bonus vs a job without one.

It also depends on what kind of country you live in, because where I'm at, the median salary is $10k, after income tax.

Figuring out overtime, after hours, etc. expectations is just part of the job interview and too many people don't treat job interviews as an opportunity to also interview the prospective employer and team to figure those parts out.

Ironically that's probably the reason why I didn't get a job elsewhere, because I tried to interview the prospective employers as much as they did me. They didn't take kindly to that here apparently. But I'm really glad in hindsight I didn't get either job. One was a government job, which would've been unbearably boring and bellow average pay. The other was a startup which probably folded within 1-2 years if not months. I even sought a job at a game developer.

But like you say, some also get blinders on and think everything is greener grass on the other side until they find out it isn't. Sometimes you find a gem and there's not much reason to leave if they take care of you and you are happy.

TBH the biggest reason I sometimes stayed put is because I have terrible anxiety, things really need to get unbearable before I go off into the unknown.

 

[MrGuvernment]

One would hope that if you worked for any legit company worth their salt, that they already had the infrastructure and mechanisms in place for data and device security. Unless you are some mom and pop shop with 10 employees, why the hell wouldn't you have those mechanisms in place?

You may be suprised, security for on-prem vs remote workers is a whole new ball game for many companies, and even then, more on-prem "security" companies use is so basic and never maintained or properly monitored.

Most companies dont think they need it until they get compromised MGM anyone? Solarwinds, Microsoft....to name a few...

Companies see IT and Security tools as a cost and thus avoid it or cut corners, again, until they get compromised and go "why did this happen to us!"

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

It also depends on what kind of country you live in, because where I'm at, the median salary is $10k, after income tax.

In the U.S. we usually quote salary annualized, pre-income tax, so $10 - $25k more would amount ~$800 - $2000 more per month, before taxes. And since taxes on a raise wind up falling in the highest incremental tax bracket, between state, federal and other deductions (like Social Security and Madicare) the actual take home per month of that increase is probably about half of that.

 

[MrGuvernment]

I totally agree.

I even start wondering what is wrong with people if they stay at one company for more than - say 5-10 years.

Switching every 2-3 is the norm. Surely something better must have come along by now?

That said, I live in a large urban area with countless companies in my industry all fighting over the same employee pool. it's relatively easy for me. Some people live in places where there are fewer options and thus feel stuck I guess.

And some people are trapped by their own way of thinking about things. Leaving a job and finding another can seem daunting to some personalities, so they just stay even if it hurts them. These are the people management take the most advantage of.

So long as your role and title change it is not bad, and looks good, to some degree. People who are always moving jobs often, can show instability, but we know as people applying it can be due to boredom, or no where to move up, which are also legit.
As you noted also, you do not always have the option to move around much in a specific field due to limited options.

100% agree though, companies are not loyal to their employee's any more, so now we are turning the tide on them...

I was 16 years at my first "career" but it was also my first real full job for IT, so i went from knowing little to supporting all the infra top to bottom for the entire company. But like most companies, when I finally asked for a raise...after 5 years...they said no...couldnt afford it..HA (i was part of all weekly meetings and we made stupid profits - online poker) CEO just liked "yes people" so I quit..

Once you quit from that first job, it certainly feels easier after that!

 

[Sir Beregond]

It also depends on what kind of country you live in, because where I'm at, the median salary is $10k, after income tax.

Is that annually?

Ironically that's probably the reason why I didn't get a job elsewhere, because I tried to interview the prospective employers as much as they did me. They didn't take kindly to that here apparently. But I'm really glad in hindsight I didn't get either job. One was a government job, which would've been unbearably boring and bellow average pay. The other was a startup which probably folded within 1-2 years if not months. I even sought a job at a game developer.

To me, that just sceams an employer trying to hide the bad shit, I wouldn't want to work there.

TBH the biggest reason I sometimes stayed put is because I have terrible anxiety, things really need to get unbearable before I go off into the unknown.

I used to be like that, but honestly after you do it a few times and get to a point where you know your value in the job market, know how to weed out the bad jobs, and know what to look for, its fine. That said, different people have different risk tolerances. I was once presented with a full time opportunity for one price, or a 6-month contract to hire for $20k more (no benefits though) years ago for two different job offers I got from two different companies. I took the contract to hire and was glad I did. It got a little dicey at one point with "to hire" part and went month to month for a bit, mainly because of weird HR crap going on at the time with a reorg that happened, but then they hired me full time and I learned a lot during my few years there before I reached a point where I did what I could there, and needed to move on for myself. On the other hand I was desperate to get out of an extremely shitty job situation another time, interviewed at one place for a contract to hire. Well the money was good, but they basically completely lied to my face about what the job would be, so when I started and it wasn't anything that was going to move my career the direction I wanted it to go, I was very unhappy and reached a snapping point, told off the director and was promptly let go (problem as a contractor).

So all to say, I've had both good and bad from taking risks, I'd say mostly good in the long-term as even the short-term bad moves propelled me to much better places. Had I stayed at say the place I was at 5 jobs ago, I'd probably be bored and making half of what I make now if even.

But to be fair, I am really happy at my current place, so unless they like doubled the money, I wouldn't have any monetary incentive to move from where I currently am as the culture and work/life balance is just too good.

 

[M76]

In the U.S. we usually quote salary annualized, pre-income tax, so $10 - $25k more would amount ~$800 - $2000 more per month, before taxes. And since taxes on a raise wind up falling in the highest incremental tax bracket, between state, federal and other deductions (like Social Security and Madicare) the actual take home per month of that increase is probably about half of that.

Yeah, 10k is the annual median net income.

 

[M76]

Is that annually?

Yes, here in Eastern Europe this is what passes as a decent salary considering half of all people take home less than that.

To me, that just sceams an employer trying to hide the bad shit, I wouldn't want to work there.

They looked at me like I'm an alien when I started asking about employee parking and bonus situation.

I used to be like that, but honestly after you do it a few times and get to a point where you know your value in the job market, know how to weed out the bad jobs, and know what to look for, its fine. That said, different people have different risk tolerances.

I'm in a small country and my expertise can only be used at a handful of companies, and I'm aware of all of them (I think). So unless I wanted to move out of the country, which I don't, there is not much I can do. Sure I could switch my focus, but I like what I'm doing and don't want to put 10+ years of experience on a shelf to do something completely different and start from the bottom of the learning curve again.

So all to say, I've had both good and bad from taking risks, I'd say mostly good in the long-term as even the short-term bad moves propelled me to much better places.

I don't like to take risks at all, I need to have a plan. I can't even go to a place without double and triple checking on street view where I'll park my car and how best to get there.

But to be fair, I am really happy at my current place, so unless they like doubled the money, I wouldn't have any monetary incentive to move from where I currently am as the culture and work/life balance is just too good.

It is similar for me, unless some of the other players came out with an outrageous offer, one where I could save up enough money in a year or two to last me until retirement I'd not budge.