Amazon staffers slammed the company for being sorely underprepared after forcing them to return to the office five days a week — with not enough desks for everyone, packed parking lots and a startling surge in workplace thefts, according to a report.
“Our upper ‘leadership’ has botched this so hard along with so many other things,” one Amazon worker said via the company’s Slack, Business Insider reported.
“Makes one wonder what other poor decisions will impact the company in the coming year.”
Among the complaints was that despite the return-to-office mandate, which went into effect at the start of the year, many still spend large parts of the day on video chats they could have done from home.
In September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy — who took the helm in 2021 — announced the return-to-office mandate, which was a sharp turn from Amazon’s then-hybrid, three-day-a-week policy.
He said the in-person strategy was an effort to foster collaboration among Amazon’s corporate staffers — about 350,000 out of a global workforce of 1.5 million workers.
“We want to operate like the world’s largest startup,” Jassy said.
But it’s hard to foster in-person collaboration under the current conditions, according to seven Amazon employees who were interviewed by BI about their in-office experience and shared their Slack messages with the outlet.
Some meeting rooms have not had enough chairs — and there also have not been enough meeting rooms for everyone, one worker told the publication.
Staffers grew used to taking private phone calls throughout the day at their homes, the source said.
Now, back in the office, they’re ducking into empty meeting rooms to take these calls, which is causing a shortage — and leading some managers to have private chats with employees out in the open, the worker said.
An Amazon spokesperson dismissed the complaint.
“Of the hundreds of offices we have all around the world, there are only a relatively small number that are not quite ready to welcome everyone back a full five days a week,” the rep told The Post in a statement.
“It’s incorrect and misleading to suggest that we aren’t ready for the vast majority of our teammates to be back in the office.”
Still, simply reaching the office is a challenge in itself, according to the report.
Some complained they were turned away from company parking lots that were full, while others griped about having to join meetings from the road due to excess traffic on their way to the office, according to the Slack messages.
Once staffers conquer the challenges of reaching the office and finding a desk, some lamented the lack of in-person discussions since many of the meetings remain virtual, according to BI.
“Very little team discussion while here,” one employee wrote on Slack.
The Amazon spokesperson told The Post: “While we’ve heard ideas for improvement from a relatively small number of employees and are working to address those, these anonymous anecdotes don’t reflect the sentiment we’re hearing from most of our teammates.”
Staffers have also groused about a lack of office etiquette — including theft, according to the report.
Employees at Amazon’s Toronto office said their personal belongings have repeatedly been stolen from their desks.
“Despite being adults that are well-paid, it’s shameful that we can’t trust each other with leaving personal belongings unattended,” one worker wrote on Slack, as viewed by BI.
Hygiene has also become an issue, forcing one employee to post a “survival guide” on Blind, an anonymous message board site for corporate workers
“Deploy personal hygiene protocols BEFORE leaving your launch pad (home). Yes, that means actually using the shower you’ve been avoiding since WFH began,” the message said.
Another post pleaded with colleagues to flush the bathroom toilets after use: “The bathroom stall is not a ‘serverless’ environment.”
A third post reminded co-workers that “footwear is not optional.”
“This isn’t a beach sprint retrospective — keep those toes contained in their proper containers (shoes),” the message said.
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