Amazon Indicates Employees Can Quit If They Don't Like Its Return-to-Office Mandate 143
AWS CEO Matt Garman has harsh words for remote workers: return to the office or quit. TechCrunch: The Amazon executive recently told employees who don't like the new five-day in-person work policy that, "there are other companies around," presumably companies they can work for remotely, Reuters reported on Thursday. Amazon's top boss, Andy Jassy, told employees last month that there will be a full return-to-office starting in 2025, an increase from three days for roughly the last year.
its all up hill from here (Score:5, Funny)
https://automattic.com/work-wi... [automattic.com]
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It's named Automatic 'cause youngsters can't work a stick-shift ... :-)
Pretty sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty sure employees always had the ability to quit for any reason they like...
Re:Pretty sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed, but this is more quiet firing as working conditions are eroding to the point that you'd rather not be there.
Easier in US to make people quit than sack them and pay the benefits isn't it?
Re:Pretty sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
>"Indeed, but this is more quiet firing as working conditions are eroding to the point that you'd rather not be there."
You realize you are equating actually going to work as some horrible "working conditions eroding". Sounds a bit extreme. Just a minute ago, it was a given that people would go to work each day. I do. Countless millions do. Boo hoo :)
>"Easier in US to make people quit than sack them and pay the benefits isn't it?"
Again, it is not like they are being asked to do something bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected. And while I strongly agree there are people who CAN work productively with little in-person supervision and interaction, and CAN separate personal stuff from work stuff, there are probably tons and tons more who cannot.
Ultimately, it is Amazon's decision to make, and employees' decision to stay or not, not ours. Could it be they are just using this to weed out some less dedicated people? Maybe.
Re:Pretty sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
[...] it is not like they are being asked to do something bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected.
Disclaimer: I don't work for Amazon, but for another company with a Return-to-Office policy. But in my case, the company does aks for something strange, unusual, radical and unexpected. In the last five years, but especially during the Corona pandemic, the company was systematically closing down sites. Now, the nearest site to my home is 300 miles away. The company now is asking me to travel 600 miles a day or pay for four accommodations per week close to their office. And to add insult to injury, I work with an international team, and none of my coworkers will be at the same office than me anyway. I have to do the same remote work as if I worked from home.
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>"The company now is asking me to travel 600 miles a day"
OK, well there is no question that is unreasonable.
Re:Pretty sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
>"The company now is asking me to travel 600 miles a day"
OK, well there is no question that is unreasonable.
If someone 2000 miles from the office doesn't have to come to the office, then someone 2 miles from the office with the same role, capabilities, and pay should not have to be there either. Commute distance has no impact on the value the company gains from the employee being at the office. If the company truly cannot get enough value from their employees without them being in the office, people who live far away should simply be fired. Either that or admit none of the employees should be forced into the office.
The cognitive dissonance people who support "return to office" mandates is astounding.
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That's more than sufficient to qualify for unemployment.
Make a copy of the demand to relocate or quit, quit, or better wait to be fired, then take that to the unemployment office.
Between now and then start job hunting.
Been there, done that, albeit for a different reason.
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And when being in the office does not make an employee more productive? How about paying people extra to come into the office if those who are "beyond commute range" are allowed to continue working at the same pay as those who are expected to go into the office? I have a 130 mile round trip to get to/from my job, and some are allowed to be fully remote. Should they get the same pay as I do while I have a non-trivial commute?
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In theory, if being in the office makes one more productive, it would show up in the paycheck one way or the other. Either directly or due to greater likelihood of promotions and bonuses. But we all know the world isn't ever tha
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If someone 2000 miles from the office doesn't have to come to the office, then someone 2 miles from the office with the same role, capabilities, and pay should not have to be there either.
Except that the guy 2 miles away can actually get there, and it's not an unreasonable request. And all you're going to do with that attitude is get the guy 2K away shitcanned.
The cognitive dissonance people who support "return to office" mandates is astounding.
No it isn't. It's your job. If your employer says "We require you to physically be here", then you can do it or you can find another job. The arrogance of employees telling employers "I'll work wherever I want, and you'll have nothing to say about it" is quite more astounding.
Working from home can make a lot of sense in many cases, and
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No it isn't. It's your job. If your employer says "We require you to physically be here", then you can do it or you can find another job. The arrogance of employees telling employers "I'll work wherever I want, and you'll have nothing to say about it" is quite more astounding.
The arrogance of employers telling employees, who previously had the freedom to work from wherever they want, that they must come into the office, without providing any actual evidence that this benefits the employees or the business, and without providing any compensation, either in the form of financial remuneration or additional time off to compensate for the additional time spent by workers, is even more astounding.
For many, it's the corporate equivalent of "We're going to increase you from 40 hours per
put in 3-4 hours of commute an day with only 2-3 h (Score:3)
put in 3-4 hours of commute an day with only 2-3 hours left for real work at the office!
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I work with an international team, and none of my coworkers will be at the same office than me anyway. I have to do the same remote work as if I worked from home.
Some years ago, I led a meeting that was held between 2 sites over a teleconferencing system. This was pretty radical at the time (mid-'90s) and the system used several ISDN lines for the connection.
One week, my boss suggested that I host the call from the other site, so I drove to the other location (another country, about 300 miles away), only to find that the team in that country blew off the meeting that week, so I was left teleconferencing with the team at the site where I normally worked.
Re: Pretty sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's a very cold-blooded take on the situation.
Neither "move" or "quit" are words that indicate a simple solution.
When a company imposes this kind of arbitrary rules, they don't only (severely, in some cases) affect the employee. They also affect the employee's family.
Something pretty easy to overlook, if you never had a proper family to begin with, which is likely the case for those CxOs, and probably you as well.
Re: Pretty sure... (Score:2)
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Ah, yes, and the kids moving school and changing all their friends, I guess they can move or quit as well :)
Re: Pretty sure... (Score:3)
If you count "normal" as starting in 1980s, maybe, but before that, yeah, staying in the same city for life was standard. I don't know when it flipped over, but it is within the lifetime of many people living today.
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Historically, the move was at the start of life, coming of age thing, but once moved, people largely stayed in one city. The resources required to move repeatedly just weren't common until the automobile became common. It's one of the things that made the CCC successful pre-WWII: the federal government moved people around to where jobs were. That kind of mobility was not common. The Dust Bowl era of the 1930s in the Oklahoma era was indicative: people stayed in the area and sent their kids off for the early
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good god you need an UNION bad!
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The "move or quit" message is the only honest reaction a company could have in this situation (most of the time). They either need to admit no employees should be forced into the office, or admit anyone who cannot relocate needs to either quit or be fired. The only other honest response is to reduce his pay enough to justify the loss in productivity they feel their getting from allowing him to remain remote.
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Why would you say it's an "honest" reaction?
I see it as anything but. It's a reaction based on a position of force, akin to "would you like your death to be slow or fast?"
Here's the honest reaction: analyze each case individually and see whether the decision is fair to the employee. If the company closed an office down, and that leaves employees from that location far away from the nearest existing office, they should be exempted from coming to the office. If the employees' work type does not require to be
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I don't think so either; you're using "honest" for the case I would call "fair". "Honest" tends to involve saying what you mean, and what they mean is in fact "come in or go away"
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Businesses, particularly Amazon, aren't in the business of being warm-blooded. They're trying to provide a product or service to their customers. When employees believe the conditions set by the company don't apply to them, the company can, and most likely will, take action.
If a company institutes a dress code, and someone doesn't believe it's fair/warranted/whatever, do you think the company will let it slide? For as much as you and others don't
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There are several problems with your response:
1. The person I answered to isn't a company. While I expect a company to be cold-blooded and soulless, people have different expectations from me. yes, I am naive that way.
2. You equate a dress code with forced relocation or forced job quitting. It's like putting an equal sign between a slap on the wrist and a beheading.
3. When essential policies change with total disregard for various situations they put people in (like the example in GGP where his company clos
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This isn't a drastic change. Amazon is returning to what they did before. That people thought they could stay at home forever is on their end. I am reasonably certain if they were to look at Amazon's announcement of people being able to work from home there is a clause in there which says this could be modified or rescinded as needed.
As to everyt
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If a company institutes a dress code, and someone doesn't believe it's fair/warranted/whatever, do you think the company will let it slide? For as much as you and others don't like it, the company decides its policies. If you don't like those policies you are free to work at another company whose policies you do agree with.
Yeah but all these suckers were already working their asses off for a vested stock plan, nap rooms, long lunches, and free mouthwash in the bathrooms. They went through hell for these jobs and now Amazon (and other companies) are clawing back comforts to make people quit.... and it is to make people quit, i've talked with some HR ghouls about it, it's the industry hotness at the moment.
Sure they technically can do this but that's accepting an unjust world. When you're in charge of peace you let your infl
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Here in the UK our work location is specified in our job contracts. An employer can't just vary this at will, and if such a change has a material impact on somebody's life, it triggers some laws. If they try to change the work location of multiple people then it triggers TUPE regulations that require the business to engage in employee consultations (whether or not the place is unionised). I'm sure other countries like Germany with its works councils have even stronger laws. If somebody's normal workplac
and if the only office left is 200 miles away then (Score:2)
and if the only office left is 200 miles away then saying you must go it is an big change that they can't just say go to or quit.
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I imagine many of those people were hired under the pretense that their positions were to be either fully remote or hybrid.
The only reason to do this is to lower the headcount, and getting people to leave rather than laying them off avoids the costs of severance. There isn't meaningful data supporting the productivity of in office vs. remote workers.
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Something has changed since "just a minute ago" (which is actually several years ago now):
1. Many people got to experience working from home, and found that it was outright superior for them.
2. It was proven that working from home works fine and does not harm productivity, thus removing the false notion that working from an office was a practical necessity (depending on the nature of the work, of course).
So, the cultural norm here has changed. Many people consider "working from home" to be good working con
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You realize you are equating actually going to work as some horrible "working conditions eroding". Sounds a bit extreme. Just a minute ago, it was a given that people would go to work each day. I do. Countless millions do. Boo hoo :)
Again, it is not like they are being asked to do something bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected. ...
My son-in-law's brother works for Amazon. He was hired before remote work was the norm (before Covid) and was allowed to work remote then because there is no Amazon office near him. He's been working remove for like 6-7 years. Therefore, this mandate is really means he has to move his family to a new city or quit. That seems at least 1 of "bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected".
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Again, it is not like they are being asked to do something bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected.
My commute is regularly all of those things.
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>"If I had zero commute before, and now I have one, and it's not my choice, then my working conditions have eroded. "
If you had a commute, then lost it, then had to "return to office", you are back where you originally were. I would feel differently if you were hired to work remotely and then something like this hit, but that wouldn't be "return to office" it would be "come to office". I don't deny it would be upsetting to many. And it could be quite sticky if the person was hired non-remote, then all
Re:Pretty sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
If you had a commute, then lost it, then had to "return to office", you are back where you originally were.
An employee who has a promotion and raise reversed (through no fault of their own) would also be going back to where they originally were.
A prisoner who is released and then jailed again (through no fault of their own) would also be going back to where they originally were.
A slave who is freed and then enslaved again (through no fault of their own) would also be going back to where they originally were.
Do all of these people also have nothing to complain about, just because they are returned to the old status quo?
I don't deny it would be upsetting to many.
If you admit "return to office" would be upsetting to many, then it seems you understand their working conditions have eroded. You may think it is justified because employees shouldn't have been given the perk in the first place, but their working conditions have still eroded.
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I doubt the issue is benefits. It's more likely that they wish to avoid announcing layoffs and the impact that would have to their stock price.
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Pretty sure employees always had the ability to quit for any reason they like...
Yeah, but now they also have permission.
Be careful what you ask for (Score:5, Insightful)
In my experience those who opt to quit are often the best worker bees.
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I actually quit some years ago because of a return to office mandate. Not suggesting I'm the best worker bee, but I had options and didn't have any difficulty finding another job. The market was pretty good then, but I haven't looked lately.
I made it very clear to my new employer that I wouldn't be in the office more than a few times a years, and as it worked out I've been there even less than that. I live about 3 hours from the office anyway.
Meanwhile I see there are companies still struggling to hire peop
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considering this is what they wanted... (Score:5, Interesting)
considering this is what they wanted, for head count to drop.
What i find weird though at how transparent they have become with this, is that apparently all of these companies don't see a difference between any employee... .. that every employee is a just a cog in the machine. If they saw value in employee performance, they would take steps to ensure staff are happy, and the best staff are retained.
When you show staff the door... the first ones to leave, are your best performers... they know their worth, and will get another job in short order. The ones remaining, are likely to be too apathetic or unqualified to find another job, so they stick with it. Just the crowd you want driving innovation at your organization.
But also... thanks guy, for letting the staff know they can leave... they didn't know it before and thought they were serfs for life. The effin ego on these tards.
Re: considering this is what they wanted... (Score:4, Insightful)
Depending on the role, your best performers may not even need to find another job. Certain parts of aws, meta, google and apple are paid fuck-you money⦠if they leave hcol areas.
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People who get paid fuck you money typically have fuck you debt. Sure you would think you could retire with your current lifestyle if you got paid $500k / yeah, but you wouldn't have your current lifestyle. You wouldn't be making repayments on a $600k house, you'd be making repayments on a $5m house. You wouldn't be driving a Ford, you'd be driving a Porsche, etc. Your cleaner won't be working for free, etc.
People who earn a lot tend to not actually have significantly higher savings than the average middle
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Not everybody is incompetent handling money...
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What makes you think they didn't take steps? They have been "3 days a week" in office for a while, but the only two people I know who work for Amazon have remained full remote and will continue to do so. Likely because they are both high value employees.
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What i find weird though at how transparent they have become with this, is that apparently all of these companies don't see a difference between any employee... .. that every employee is a just a cog in the machine. If they saw value in employee performance, they would take steps to ensure staff are happy, and the best staff are retained.
Companies that see employees like that do not have a long-term future unless the employees are not needed for anything more complicated than burger flipping...
Re:considering this is what they wanted... (Score:4, Insightful)
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The scale of the business is such that one outstanding employee isn't going to make or break anything. Everyone working there is talented, no exceptions. That's why they got hired to begin with. They have more brilliant employees than they need, so they invite them to leave, instead of firing them. If you're good enough to stand out in that crowd, you've definitely got better things you can be spending your life and years on, than whatever Amazon is doing with you.
When everyone is special, no one is special
Of course they want you to quit... (Score:5, Interesting)
Then they don't have to pay you severance (in the case of layoff) or unemployment (for termination).
I have to ask though... are they so desperate not to layoff the managers that need to look busy that they're willing to fire the people who actually get the day to day work done in order to get bodies in the door? Are the VCs and investment banks that desperate to see Amazon packing bodies in buildings, and clogging up highways and roads with cars that they're essentially imposing these policies through Amazon C-suite management, or is this all some genius idea by the latest rotating cadres of VPs desperate to put accomplishments on their resume for when they jump to their next job?
Seriously, it's kind of stupid to force you to show up into the office when it is highly likely that a large portion of your team and/or your clientele are not in the same location. That is, unless everybody has an office to take remote conferences in, and there are sufficient conference rooms for when you want to get multiple members of the same team in the same room?
I've been in the hell that is doing a engineering team conference when you're colocated in an open plan office with both the sales and customer service people, and accounting in the corner... and they're all on individual calls the entire day.
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It could be any number of those things, though none of us will ever know how productive is the work-from-home crowd at Amazon. Maybe they're all doing a great job as remote workers. Or... maybe not.
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This is about quiet firing
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This is about quiet firing
I prefer to think of it as coerced quitting. It should be illegal.
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Some might argue that sitting engineers next to sales, marketing and customer care people gives them a better education about what is that their implementation is supposed to do ;)
Re:Of course they want you to quit... (Score:4, Insightful)
Problem is actually quite well established at this point, and it's the good old 20/80 rule at work.
About 20% of people working remotely are more efficient that they are in busy office.
About 80% of people working remotely are far less efficient that they are in busy office.
citation needed
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By all published independent (!) research on the topic, this is simply a lie. Not your first one.
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I would need a new career if I had to work full-time in the office. I can't do it. The distractions, the conversations, the lack of good toilet paper. How does anyone write code like that?
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I am young, only 44 years old. When I was young young I worked in a office, a real one with offices or at the very least cubs. What we work in now are giant hellscapes of tables. Working in a office means noise canceling headphones or booking phone booths to hear yourself think.
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I'd also point out I've been remote since 2015.
huh (Score:2)
I blocked them.
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Ironic, as I got a solicitation for a job at Amazon.
I blocked them.
Before you blocked them, you should've told them you were doing it - and why.
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The internet sure does miss the Usenet's kill files and the good old passive-aggressive "*plonk*" replies!
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It's funny, I hadn't heard "*plonk*" in decades, and a couple of weeks ago I commented somewhere "I miss being able to *plonk* someone into my killfile and not have to see them on the internet anymore..."
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Smart decision. Amazon will find it harder and harder to get access to competent employees.
I've heard of 'server huggers'... (Score:2)
You know the bosses that just have to see the servers? Sounds like they hate the idea they can't scrutinize and control every movement.
But that's opinion, and as geeks, we deal in facts, correct? (ha ha!)
So where are the KPI's that show in office versus out of office? I'm not talking about "Buy your results" like J.D. Powell, I mean real evidence based metrics.
Yes, I've seen those that show profitability is up with in office. Look below the fold and they are using smoke and mirrors on office space costs tha
Take him up on it (Score:2)
If enough people take him up on his offer to work elsewhere, Amazon will be crying in it's beer over this decision.
WFH is the future, and companies that don't get on board are going to be left in the dust as distributed organizations eat their lunch.
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WFH is the future, and companies that don't get on board are going to be left in the dust as distributed organizations eat their lunch.
Indeed. And it is quite a big cost-saver. As a bonus, you get to identify all the no/low performers that coast along in an office setting.
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I work my ass off because I'm working from home. My company hired me fully remotely and did a hybrid RTO for all employees who previously were full-time in the office before COVID. I was called before the announcement to ensure I knew I was not required to RTO as I was hired explicitly to be remote. I never want them to have the slightest idea that I'm under-performing. I'm not alone. My other fully remote colleagues are the top performers on the team. It turns out you can find great talent when you can sea
Quitting is the entire point (Score:2)
Laying people off is expensive, making them quit is cheap. Forcing people back to the office is an asshole move intended to make people quit. We've seen IBM, Yahoo and other companies do similar.
The problem with being assholes is that all the people with in-demand skills will quit and all the deadwood will cling on tenaciously. So enjoy the brain drain Amazon. And the people remaining will take the reasonable attitude that if everything is by the contract then work the exact hours required and not a second
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Actually, making people quite is hugely expensive unless you very carefully isolated the people you want to retain. Still reduces your access to new talented people pretty strongly. Hence probably still a strategic loss.
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Getting rid of employees (Score:2)
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I think it's true. I had a company offer us buy outs to leave on our own rather than wait for a layoff. It was open to all employees. Just like that buyout this kind of 'self-selection' culls your strongest employees, not your weakest.
Who is more likely to be able to find a new job and move on? The top tier SRE or Bill over there who can't reboot a Linux box without a friend?
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Do they have to say that explicitly? (Score:2)
Recruiters are strugging to fill RTO positions (Score:2, Insightful)
I get a call, linkedin, or email at least every day from recruiters looking to hire for full-time or hybrid in-office positions. I used to always ask salary first to see if it was worth my time. Now I ask "Is this position fully remote?" They say no and I tell them "I have a fully remote position now. This is my salary. I will need 100k a year more to return to an office.".
RTO might be something Amazon needs, but there is no end of fully remote positions out there paying just as well. You just need the righ
Smile when you say that (Score:3)
Keep it light, Amazon, maybe show a little skin? Wouldn't hurt now, would it, doll? See here what happend to ole Howie when his panties got all abunch. [cnn.com]
Some advice (Score:4, Informative)
If your job changes in ways you don't like you can and should talk to your boss about it. And, if they cannot or will not change to keep you then you have two very simple options. Roll with it, you may find that in time you either are able to deal with it or things will change again as they almost always do. Or, you can leave.
I personally have lived through my job being very sucky and found that time and again it changed back to being better later on. Was I frustrated? Yes. Should I have just chosen to move on? Probably, it would've been better for my mental health at the time I came darn near close to burnout on several occasions and I don't recommend letting yourself get there.
I have seen coworkers get so bitter about their jobs that it soured even their personal lives. Some left of their own accord. Some had to be fired because they became poison to the office place. In every case when I heard back from them later they were happier once they landed on their feet. They were still bitter about how things ended but they were so much happier about where they were afterwards and were able to recognize that they had let their jobs drag them down. Given the choice between leaving and being fired I would recommend leaving.
When you let your job or your workplace define you and consume you then you are in an unhealthy state. You are worth more than that. You are a son or daughter. Maybe you are a husband, wife, significant other, or a parent. Those are infinitely greater things to be than just a job. At my last church they would end every service by reminding us that "you are a child of God loved beyond measure." Let that identity be stronger than your workplace. I dearly would love to know that it helps someone not come to an end like my friend who recently died from drinking himself to death when he lost his job and apparently couldn't see the value that he had to his family and his friends.
The problem here is employment-at-will (Score:3)
Employers can unilaterally change terms of the employment at any time and with no notice. These changes can be subtle, and can happen over a length of time. This can be used to entrap employees in unfavorable decisions by careful manipulation of the terms over time.
For the employee the only option is a binary decision and a Hobson's Choice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice) : Stay and accept the shitty new terms or get a new job, quit, and go elsewhere.
The rest of the industrialized world use employment contracts which spell out the terms of employment. What happens here is if the terms of the contract become difficult to satisfy for the employer, and cause the employer economic hardship, the employee is let go and there rehired under less favorable terms. In the UK for example, some companies practice fire-to-rehire to reset the terms of the contract if the business can no longer support the original terms of the contract. (https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/guides/fire-rehire-employer-guidance/) Fire-to-rehire is a much more formidable process then the CEO just deciding one day to change the terms of the employment arrangement.
This is not to say that fire-to-rehire isn't practiced. Some UK companies use it often.
However, as of 2024, The UK government is planning on cracking down on fire to rehire according to the link above:
"The Government has indicated that it intends to replace the statutory code with a strengthened code of practice. The plan acknowledges that businesses may need to restructure where there is no alternative, but that there must be a proper process based on open dialogue between employers and workers. The plans propose restricting fire and rehire to very limited circumstances if the alternative is bankruptcy and mass redundancy and improving remedies against abuse."
Now, some people may think that employment-at-will is what made the US great. But in recent times, this has not been the case. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate?continent=world
So American employers have it easy. They can "alter the deal further" (Apologies to Darth Vader) at any time. In the rest of the world it is much more difficult to change the terms of employment unless it is mutual.
If all my employees are back in the officeâ&# (Score:2)
Re: We need a fight club moment (Score:4, Funny)
Mmmmm... I'm gonna need you to come in on Saturday... That would be just greeeeeeat....
Re:We need a fight club moment (Score:5, Insightful)
Less violent to just form a union. That's what they are for.
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Less violent to just form a union.
Not for those forming the union. I'm sure the means have changed whilst the ends remain the same.
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Union just means employees get to be thugs like their bosses are. Balance of Bullying. Corporations bash unions for doing what they themselves do.
No, it means they can hire thugs just like the bosses. The unions pulled in the mafia to fight the Pinkertons, private "security" of the day.
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Small picture thinking.
These are people with plans to become warlords if society falls apart. I also wouldn't put it past them to harvest organs if they thought they could get away with it.
Look at the wealthy in Russia and China, they're not much different than they are here, they're just less controlled.
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Everyone telling you this has an agenda, and it's likely not in your best interest to listen to them. The world is pretty freakin' awesome if you look at it with a clear head.
Well thank goodness there's someone here on social media with my best interests at heart . . . thank you!
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Diplomacy ALWAYS flows from the barrel of a gun... as much as we wish it wouldn't.
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It was more of a joke, honestly, and even more of an inside StarTrek TNG joke. But for sure, you're not wrong.
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Diplomacy ALWAYS flows from the barrel of a gun... as much as we wish it wouldn't.
That's not quite what Carl von Clausewitz said.
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I'm actually quoting Captain Picard (sort of).
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You are morally bankrupt if you think the answer is violence..
Moral bankruptcy seems like table stakes if you want to play at the mangers' table.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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And this is what we've come to. I'm not a fan of commuting to work so I can 'look busy' all the time but sitting in a comfy air conditioned office and drinking bottled water while sometimes needing a reminder you should stand up every 15-30mins is NOT comparable to working 18hr shifts getting black lung in a coal mine.