I know so many amazing people that were doing the work of their lives that quit or were laid off because of the RTO mandate. I can’t believe that they are doubling down on this, despite the human and financial costs associated with it.

Ultimately it highlights an important fact about working at WM (and lots of other companies, I am sure): you aren’t as special or irreplaceable as you think you are. Look out for yourselves and do what makes sense for you, always!

The strange part is that all of the stories I've heard covered different time periods, often not overlapping. Off the top of my head I can think of 4 people I've run into at local meetups who went from thinking Walmart Labs was a great place to work, to having nothing good to say about the place at all.

It's natural for new jobs to have a honeymoon period that wears off over time, but I've heard this same story arc so many times that, as an outsider, it feels like something must be wrong with how they approach long-term employees. Obviously the RTO mandate is a huge blow to one of their original selling points, too.

Then, as this part of the company grew, some bean counter decided it was a huge expense, and something had to be done.

I suspect these walmart labs people were costing triple the standard walmart webdev, and so to the bean counters, the path forward was obvious.

It's really unfortunate when non tech people make decisions like this. I've worked at a FAANG for 10 years, and before that was at HP and other mid-sized companies. HP's average principal engineer would be outperformed by our interns.

Maybe that is what's happening, and management is just cycling through the same way the engineers are. Walmart does have plenty of money to relearn lessons every few years, but I also would be surprised for the same reason - they didn't find billions of dollars under a rock. They're good at making money. Making the same mistake with personnel repeatedly is not a good way to make money (or maybe it is, what do I know).

For a software engineer this does lead to some pear shaped decision making, like adopting new UI frameworks every few years, or whatever the case may be but these kinds of things are overall pretty benign compared to the same problem in the management of the business.

In the management of the business, the correct decision may be to stay the course on something a lot of outsiders and pundits and new grads want to pot shot and second guess like what industry you should even be in or how you should structure the company itself.

Let's say you are Visa and your transaction processing runs on IBM mainframes as an example. Everything is working with known parameters and risks, has a long and predictable roadmap, whatever. Being the guy that says "ok we are going to keep doing this for 10 years and evaluate again periodically if needed but this is the plan of record" takes massive guts, and should be paid at least as well as the guy that says "throw everything out and do this risky untested thing instead" but very few managements actually work like that.

The same waffling happens with remote vs RTO and either having the guts to make a particular stand or kowtowing to what you preceive to be the popular/prevailing opinion one ought to have as a CEO at this moment.

It can also lead directly to the situation you are describing where a decision keeps getting remade, perhaps even in a flip flop loop, to the benefit of multiple generations of "decision makers".

Except, I don't even really agree with that. That's how companies treat employees all the time. Not just in software, but floor workers and warehouse folk and anything else.

We got a new CEO from Austin. They opened a new office there. Over the next few years they closed the most of the other offices and stopped WFH.

I'm a little confused as to why a company would pay bay area rates for remote workers given the higher competition for jobs.

Living on a private island in the South Pacific is expensive, too, but most companies wouldn't pay a premium to employ you.

I'm not saying that if you pick two random software developers, one from Nebraska and the other from San Francisco, that the SF dev will always be better. I am saying that, if we track a population of 100 developers from Nebraska and SF, more of the top 20 devs from Nebraska than those in the bottom 20 are going to move to SF, and in the SF group more of the bottom quintile is going to leave than in the top quintile, leading to better median developers in the Bay.

Bentonville is a company town with not too much nearby. It's a nice enough place, with good schools, a few surrounding towns, and a fantastic art museum, but above all it's Walmart town. If you move there from another state and ever decide to work somewhere else, you're probably going to want to uproot your life again and move your family across the country. It's a great retention strategy for Walmart, and the lower CoL doesn't hurt either. If you prefer a more cosmopolitan lifestyle and the option to work elsewhere without moving, the Bentonville deal is a pretty unattractive one.

At least they've put windows in some of the office buildings now, that's a plus.

Companies need to be humbled a little with these policies they want to force.

> You will be eligible to use the Company aircraft for (i) business-related travel in accordance with the Company’s travel policy, (ii) travel between your city of residence and the Company’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington and (iii) your personal travel in accordance with the Company’s policies, up to a maximum amount of $250,000 per year, which amount will be based on the aggregate incremental cost to the Company.

His offer letter [1] is available on edgar

[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/829224/0001193125242...

I remember the 1990s when it was common to see the same baristas day after day for years. Everyone seemed to enjoy working there. It's a bleak, dystopian contrast as of late.

You want me to move to Austin... Maybe. My wife and I could make it work, probably. Bentonville, AR? Nah.

Corpos don't want you to 'put down roots' unless they can keep you from leaving, gives them more leverage over you. Knock-on effect is atomized communities, made worse by internet-atomized culture. It's a version of providing meals/gyms/amenities: check out any time you want, never leave.

Remote work is so obviously better for society, efficiency, and costs that responsible executives and shareholders should demand it. Talented employees should turn down offers and tell recruiters why: RTO mandates are a sign of weak and even impotent management (you can tell by the hand-wavy B.S. they use to justify it btw).

> Walmart has asked many of its employees from smaller offices, as well as remote workers around the US, to move to the company’s larger corporate offices. Most employees are going to Arkansas.

Wow. Just wow.

Let me get this straight -- Walmart management actually wants people to up-root their lives, take their kids out of school, re-arrange their routines with childcare, move away from family that may be nearby...I could go on and on...and move to Arkansas?

"Move or go fuck yourself."

Clearly, Walmart management does not care about their employees.

As a side note, while I acknowledge the benefits of RTTO, working remote is something that increased the quality of my life tremendously. But management-types just can't help make their employees miserable -- pathological.

I can't imagine what it must be like to do this just to be subjected to an actual layoff within the following year. Out of work in a tech wasteland, stuck with a lease/mortgage in a place no one wanted to be, kids in the middle of a school year, etc.

Well duh. They've been on the top 5 companies with employees on food stamps for years [1] and, like Amazon, just love to set up shop in areas with lots of unemployment to have a captive audience of employees who can't afford to escape.

[1] https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/walmart-mcdonalds-larges...

14,500 out of 1.6 million US employees (i.e. less than 1%).

For comparison there are over 40 million people getting SNAP.

Let me rephrase it: Food stamps, social security and social housing should be something for those truly down on their luck, no matter why they are in the situation they are in, and it should be enough to live in at least reasonably healthy conditions. Any full-time employment, in contrast, should pay enough wages to live in a comfortable life without any sort of government assistance.

Everything else is just shifting taxpayer money to greedy, exploitative employers.

Is it more likely that the life circumstances of that 1% (the people that actually receive the benefits) differ from the other 99%, or that the employer's entire wage structure is based on subsidizing a fraction of a percent of wages in the most indirect and inefficient way possible?

If you're really that concerned about your tax dollars it doesn't make sense to segregate single parents, adults supporting elderly parents, veterans with partial disability, and millions of other workers receiving SNAP out of the workforce and onto more welfare just because you think they're too down on their luck to be allowed to work.

And if you care about people living in reasonably healthy conditions, it doesn't make sense to stigmatize public assistance and punish working adults for not being able to bootstrap on the same wage as everyone else.

especially if they can already afford to live in California

even the few wage workers subject to California’s taxes at higher brackets can become aware of all the other places with lower taxes

That totally makes up for moving to Arkansas.

I will never leave California.

It’s the best place for forward thinking individuals and the politics are what I imagine will lead to Star Trek and not a dystopian nightmare where we live under capital allocator warlords.

Gig work did not sprout from places like Arkansas.

Women are dying not only because they have pregnancies that should be terminated due to nonviability but also because doctors are afraid of treating them while they're pregnant[1].

Any company with a shred of care for their female employees and the families of their male employess should be leaving those states.

0: https://www.wired.com/story/states-with-abortion-bans-are-lo... 1: https://sph.tulane.edu/study-finds-higher-maternal-mortality...

And you're saying all of them must be "not in their right mind".

50%+ of them being in favor of restricting abortion means the rest don't like restricting abortion, but may not have the means to leave.

Maybe - instead of saying that a state of millions of people is filled with only helpless or mentally unwell women - maybe we can just say that different people can have different viewpoints on abortion while still being mentally normal.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religious-landscape-study/databa...

There is a world of difference between (a) a 10 year old child being raped and needing an abortion, (b) woman who will die if she gives birth and (c) woman getting an abortion the day before the baby is due simply because she feels like it.

And yet the poll lumps all of those together. Such a complex issue needs far more nuance.

Some compromises are not worth making when it could kill you.

Note this law is actually working as designed - they want pro-choice people to leave their state so they can entrench their power there.

  (a) A person shall not purposely perform or attempt to perform an abortion except to save the life of a pregnant woman in a medical emergency.

This is an interesting response in a thread defending an abortion ban.

No. On this topic I don't give a damn about people who have the wrong point of view.

https://www.propublica.org/article/nevaeh-crain-death-texas-...

I know you won’t care, because you’re a worthless monster. But just a reminder that you are, in fact, a horrible person who deserves a horrible life.

Arkansas isn't so bad because I can drive 300 miles to a different state if I need medical care. Ok.

> There is no place to live without compromises.

Sure but calling an abortion ban a compromise is like calling a nuclear warhead a nonlethal weapon.

Would just add that Republican lawmakers are trying to ban you doing this:

https://www.law.georgetown.edu/gender-journal/in-print/volum...

For example, Idaho became the first state to outlaw “abortion trafficking,” which it defined as “recruiting, harboring or transporting” a pregnant minor to get an abortion or abortion medication without parental permission. Which is obviously a problem if your parent raped you.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/ss/ss7209a1.htm

This is who they are. https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/local-regional-news/2023-03-...

There's a reason this twenty-four-year-old article is a classic: https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-...

I mean, why stop at 0.2 percent? Why not hurt even more people? Is 0.2 percent a magic number?

If they have been well compensated, they likely have other prospects and don't really care about money, so their friends and other relationships could be a priority.

The small downtown area of bentonville is neat, but the greater area is… meh.

California Attorney General's Office (2024-25 Budget): $1.28 billion total

California per capita spending: Approximately $32.92 per person, based on a population of 39 million.

Arkansas Attorney General's Office (2024 Budget): $36 million total.

Arkansas per capita spending: Approximately $12 per person, based on a population of 3 million.

https://www1.salary.com/Suresh-Kumar-Salary-Bonus-Stock-Opti...

It looks like they're one rung down the ladder so I'm sure they're doing just fine even in California, but they're probably making quite a bit less than $15M/year.

And as others have said, it's mountain bike heaven. Super low cost of living, too.

Not my thing and I wouldn't move there, but for some folks it's very attractive.

If they're not looking for tech that week then you're out of luck. Plus neither has much of a reputation for running 'labs'.

Smaller companies affiliated w/ WM may not have much to offer, esp. if you want to get away from that world or do something different.

Especially if moving from California. California has its share of problems but those complaining may not realize how good they have it until they try living somewhere else with totally different values.