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Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

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Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#221

Post by astrange »

d3ntb3ev1l wrote: post #89
andrei_says_ wrote: post #28

Why? Because of the already sunk cost into office space? Any other reasons? I know I can drive 40 min and stare at the same laptop and email/zoom with the same people. What’s in it for me? All I see is unnecessary agony, and a lot of it. I produce more from home. Why does an employer want me to suffer more, even if it will cost them? What’s in it for them?

Agreed. Pretty lame the logic is “imagine the hallway conversations that spur innovation.” Didn’t Einstein work on relatively writing papers and mailing letters to his peers?

He didn’t keep doing that once he got into academia.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#222

Post by dm8 »

swiley wrote: post #188
dm8 wrote: post #65

I maybe in the minority in this comments section but I genuinely enjoy working from office. I enjoy the social aspects. And commute never bothered me, albeit max commute for me was 45 mins (in the bay area). The only downside that I always felt was parking situation. Lot of my friends feel the same about office work. I believe going forward there will be companies (and employees) in 2 camps -- remote first and hybrid…

45 minutes means an hour and a half of your life every day that you don't get paid for and have to just throw away. (not only that but spending it doing one of the more dangerous things you can do in the US: driving.) That combined with the ridiculous housing costs in the bay area makes me wonder why anyone (especially more numerate people) would tolerate not working remotely.

> That combined with the ridiculous housing costs in the bay area makes me wonder why anyone (especially more numerate people) would tolerate not working remotely.

Maybe some people genuinely like living in the bay area. It is a beautiful place.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#223

Post by vineyardmike »

hwbehrens wrote: post #80
coldtea wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I save money by spending less on food, drinks, and electricity. Compared to commuting (car+gas) and time-to-commute opportunity costs (to use for personal house tasks, side projects, self health)? I seriously doubt it.

I'm obviously an outlier, but I live an 8 minute (peaceful) bike ride from work. I hate commuting, so I optimized for that for this job, and working from home last year was absolutely a net negative for me. Distracting kids, poor work-life balance, more expensive (AC, food, water, etc). I think the lesson here is, some companies can be remote-first, some companies can be in-person, and different employees will prefer…

The issue is that most people who want to be in office want to be in-person. The location is secondary to the fact that you’re with your coworkers in person.

If coworker A prefer digital communication, and coworker B prefers in person communication, then there is no way A and B can both be happy. A can stay at home, and B can go to office, but B is now far from home (commuting) but still over zoom. The only way to not waste people’s time is for All remote, or for A to completely not get their way and get dragged in person.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#225

Post by e_y_ »

heavyset_go wrote: post #196
Nbox9 wrote: post #51

I work for another company that is going to do a partial return to office. I will be looking at options for companies that offer full in person office (or 90% in person office) after things settle down. I have worked full remote for a total of 5 years of my career, and I believe working in the office is a competitive advantage. * Overhearing hallway conversations (and joining them) helps spawn invocation. * I often d…

> I save money by spending less on food, drinks, and electricity. For those of us who have to commute, it's not exactly the norm to be saving money while commuting. Commutes are responsible for a 10% drop in hourly wages[1], and the median commute time results in spending 10 full days commuting a year. The average commuter in one of the largest metro areas in the country will spend over 13 full days commuting a year:…

I think their calculations are based on 24 hour days (1 hour roundtrip * 260 days). Vacations and work are based on 8 hour days, however, so in reality it's more like 30 days (6 weeks) of vacation time. And 30 minutes each way is much closer than most of the places I've worked.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#226

Post by schoolornot »

anothernewdude wrote: post #145

Their turnover is about to spike if it hasn't already. People have seen the future now, and I'm sure they don't want to go back to the noisy and collaboration-killing open office

Don't think so. It is very difficult to walk away from RSU grants and I'm sure Apple is a great place to work at. Most people I know have already told their managers how they plan to work moving forward irrespective of company announcements on return to office mandates.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#227

Post by justaguy88 »

amyjess wrote: post #206
coldtea wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CEO's all spout the same nonsense. The majority of people work because they need to earn money. And Cook knows it. When he writes the above, it's just performative. The actual message is "come, or be fired".

This is going to backfire hard as soon as one disgruntled employee decides that, when faced with the choice of being forced to come into an office they can't stand being in or losing their source of income and ending up homeless, takes the third option of bringing an AR-15 to work, shooting up their workplace, and turning the gun on themselves. Desperate people do desperate things, and mark my words, we will see a ma…

The third option is actually just finding a new job.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#228

Post by astrange »

akomtu wrote: post #122
andrei_says_ wrote: post #28

Why? Because of the already sunk cost into office space? Any other reasons? I know I can drive 40 min and stare at the same laptop and email/zoom with the same people. What’s in it for me? All I see is unnecessary agony, and a lot of it. I produce more from home. Why does an employer want me to suffer more, even if it will cost them? What’s in it for them?

A wild guess: execs supplement their income by having stakes in food/rent businesses around the HQ offices. If employees don't come, those businesses will lose customers and the execs will suffer. I mean, if you were such an exec and knew the corp is about to build a large office somewhere, wouldn't you buy 40-60% stakes in key businesses there while they are cheap? And wouldn't you cry wolf if the new office never o…

Bold of you to claim that Cupertino would ever let someone build rental housing near the Apple HQ.

(The current city planning commissioner has actually said that Apple employees shouldn’t be allowed to live there because they are all single men and will hire prostitutes.)

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#229

Post by luffapi »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #147
hwbehrens wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm obviously an outlier, but I live an 8 minute (peaceful) bike ride from work. I hate commuting, so I optimized for that for this job, and working from home last year was absolutely a net negative for me. Distracting kids, poor work-life balance, more expensive (AC, food, water, etc). I think the lesson here is, some companies can be remote-first, some companies can be in-person, and different employees will prefer…

I don’t think you’re an outlier. I think online comment sections in general attract people whose preferred communication and socialization style is digital. That’s why at times HN comment sections feel like everyone unanimously agrees that in-person work universally bad. It’s great that we have more remote work opportunity post COVID, but it was never realistic to expect every company or even most company to abandon…

> Maintaining a remote team is significantly more management and communication overhead than simply having people in one place.

I’ve managed both types of teams and haven’t found this to be the case at all. In fact, quite the opposite. Asynchronous communication as the norm is a lot less demanding on ICs and managers. In person meetings are rarely an effective use of time or energy.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#230

Post by mikepurvis »

mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #167
mikepurvis wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kid also sometimes doesn't want to brush his teeth or eat his broccoli. Part of childhood is doing things that adults insist is good for you even if you don't want to.

Some people have a gene that makes broccoli much more bitter than it is to other people. Some people find 8 hours in the office harder to take than others. I agree with your point that sometimes we have to teach children to do things that are not fun in the short term for long term gain but not everyone has the same requirements. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4235829/ There are plenty of people who hav…

I totally agree. I'm someone who struggled at first but has since found it really good, and I think would ultimately choose the very sort of 2/3 scheme being discussed by these large companies— in office for meetings and team bonding, home for focus and flexibility.

But my parent comment was specifically with respect to the business about part of school being the socialization stuff, and if it's relevant whether or not your kids "want" that.

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