Amazon employee says company tracks office hours, calls it ‘infantalizing’

An Amazon employee has revealed that the e-commerce giant tracks how many hours employees spend in the office, calling the practice “infantalizing”. The employee was among a dozen others who spoke to Business Insider about Amazon’s strict 5-days-in-office mandate, life under the shadow of layoffs, AI pressure, and more.The Amazon employee vented about the company’s strict return-to-office policy (Representational image generated using AI)A total of twelve employees opened up about their experience of working at Amazon at a time when layoffs in the tech industry have become all too prevalent, and fully remote work has given way to in-person attendance.(Also read: Amazon employees slam CEO Andy Jassy’s return-to-office mandate: ‘It’s just going backwards’)‘Felt like a gut punch’Among them was an employee who works out of the company’s Seattle headquarters. The employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said they are on the lookout for a job that offers more flexibility for working remotely.“RTO isn’t the worst thing in the world — I’ve gotten used to it. But finding out they’re tracking office hours was a gut punch. It feels infantilizing, like they don’t trust us,” they said.The Amazon employee revealed that most days, they aim to reach the office 8:30 am and leave 2:30 pm. This way, they can avoid rush-hour traffic.Of late, however, they have been asked to stay back more and more, often under the pretext of completing urgent work. “I’m now frequently having to stay later to keep up with lots of ‘urgency’ — where we’re told everything is high priority — thus making my afternoon commute longer. I sometimes even have to take 8 pm meetings at home,” the employee said.(Also read: ‘RTO, monitoring phone use’: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy enforces ‘hardline approach’ to employee management, report claims)Looking for a remote roleOf one thing this Seattle resident is clear — the Amazon job is a stop-gap solution, not a long-term career path. Despite a recent promotion, they are actively applying for new roles.“I recently got promoted, so I’ve been looking pretty hard at the new jobs and applying a lot. I’m eager to find a much more flexible company,” the employee said.They explained that they are okay with working in-person two or three days a week, but would prefer a fully remote job.“A hybrid role of two or three days a week in the office would be fine, but I’m more inclined to look for a job that’s fully remote because there’s always the risk a hybrid company will change to five-day RTO, like how Amazon did, and then I’ll have to start the whole process all over again,” the employee told Business Insider.