AWS engineers employed various tactics to avoid returning to the office, many of which were highly creative. Some the techniques they used are such as follows.
- The Classic: Engineers would badge in during lunch, grab a free coffee or snack, and immediately leave. This approach worked for a short time, until the company began tracking the amount of time spent physically in the office.
- The Wi-Fi Trick: Another inventive method involved renaming home Wi-Fi networks to match the office network. This tricked the company’s tracking software, which initially only checked network names to mark employees as "in office." Eventually, IT updated the system to detect more than just network names, making this strategy ineffective.
- The Badge Swap: Some engineers arranged for others to badge in and out on their behalf. Though risky, a few managed to maintain this strategy for several months before being caught.
These tactics demonstrated significant ingenuity, though more effort was placed on avoiding the office than on delivering solutions for customers.
