I will take $20,000 off of my pay if you will give me my own office with a door I can close.
Don't give them any ideas. The whole open office dumpster-fire has probably been a cover to further reduce software engineer salaries. Edit: added probably.
Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
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Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#292One solution to this problem would be for Apple employees to form a union and collectively bargain for better working conditions. Probably just threatening to do this would lead to significant concessions. Any Apple employees interested in this should contact Maciej Ceglowski on Signal at +1415-610-0231.
Interesting you'd recommend him, I enjoy his writing but didn't know he had expertise here. Any reason why? Also isn't "unionizing" a quick way to get a black mark in Silicon Valley? I vaguely remember Michael O. Church was essentially exiled just for accusations of unionizing.
Maciej (and others) believe the best way to get your company to stop doing things you may not like:
- keeping user history around forever
- donating more from the company PAC to Republicans than Democrats
- keeping engineers in open plan offices
- providing services to election campaigns of anti-immigrant politicians
- not paying the same amount of money to men and women for the same work
- provide less-than-livable wages to cafeteria staff
Is to form a union and strike or negotiate for more worker-friendly policies.
Notably no one is suggesting striking for higher engineering wages, just the avoidance of bad policy and a say in the company's future direction.
As to your second point, I can't speak to that, other than to say it's illegal to retaliate against someone for discussing or organizing to form a union.
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#293I'm sure Jony Ive's office is nice and quiet.
The new building is based on his ID lab.
https://www.cultofmac.com/303396/design-studio-behind-iron-c...
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#294I will take $20,000 off of my pay if you will give me my own office with a door I can close.
Don't give them any ideas. The whole open office dumpster-fire has probably been a cover to further reduce software engineer salaries. Edit: added probably.
Since when has anyone reduced software engineer salaries?
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't give them any ideas. The whole open office dumpster-fire has probably been a cover to further reduce software engineer salaries. Edit: added probably.
Since when has anyone reduced software engineer salaries?
One way I can think of is this (slightly applies to me): when my large company with generous benefits and RSUs went to the open office plan, it (amongst other reasons) caused me to leave. They were likely able to hire more junior staff to backfill (as was their practice) netting them a net reduction in wages.
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've had two different earplugs. I don't remember the first brand, it was close to 20 years ago by now. The second pair is a discontinued Skullcandy. They work well enough but they're not really noise cancelling ... more like noise blocking . They're wearing out though. Last week I pulled one out of my ear and it left the rubber piece in my ear. That wasn't fun to fish out. I bought a pair of Bose QC35 on Sunday. Ove…
The recently launched Sony MDR1000X does the job for me (and also has a voice-passthrough option that is handy at times). It's around the same price as the Bose.
How long have you had them? Any issues with the headband cracking?
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#297Working in open office plans is simply awful. Personally I believe remote work, for any tech-enabled employer, makes the most sense. The impact on infrastructure by removing commuting alone could maybe help save the planet. And our collective sanity. Wouldn't it be nice to have ISPs that can provide an infrastructure that could actually support that? I think so. The hideous effects of cluster-fucking hundreds of thou…
No, it’s not simple. I am awfully bored of these “everything is simple, open offices are uniformly awful, everybody should be remote” arguments. Yes - this works for some people, in some workplaces. In other cases, it doesn’t work. I’m fine with my open office space, and I prefer working from an office - which is a bike ride away and better equipped than I am. How about instead we accept that there are almost certain…
And when you've built this office and nobody chooses to work in the open office?
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#298Working in open office plans is simply awful. Personally I believe remote work, for any tech-enabled employer, makes the most sense. The impact on infrastructure by removing commuting alone could maybe help save the planet. And our collective sanity. Wouldn't it be nice to have ISPs that can provide an infrastructure that could actually support that? I think so. The hideous effects of cluster-fucking hundreds of thou…
Nah, it's fine. If it gets noisy, put on headphones or go sit in a different place for a few hours. Individual offices can be awful and isolating. Cubes can be an acceptable compromise but it still kills a lot of spontaneous conversations. You gain a lot with open space plans: more interaction with coworkers, cultural gel and socializing. And of course, the company can cram more people in the same place.
If it gets noisy, put more noise into your ears?
> more interaction with coworkers, cultural gel and socializing.
Yeah, I like wasting time as much as anyone else. It's still bad.
Good work interactions either happen better in offices, or are meetings.
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#299God I hate open office layouts. The only job I've ever had with a proper cube was a marketing agency, and it was glorious.
My team recently got little flags for our desks that explicitly say "open for business" and "busy, come back later"... but even with those people still bother you!
Re: Apple staffers reportedly rebelling against open office plan
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can improve upon this by giving everyone VR headsets to shut out visual noise. You'll still need to come into the office though. Face time is important.
Ironically I have a Vive at home and it would be one of the reasons I'd never get much work done
Mostly, in my experience, the struggles of working from home are precisely the opposite of that, in basically every way - people half-jokingly half-enviously chuckle about how many video games you're playing, because that's what THEY imagine they'd do if they worked from home, and they've never actually put themselves in the position to find out.