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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

#361

Post by staticassertion »

ghaff wrote: post #353
gnicholas wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The food/drink part could be the most of it. A Google employee enjoying free food and drink could save $60/day versus buying prepared food ($10 for breakfast, $20 for lunch, and $30 for dinner). If you drink much coffee or other beverages, that could be another $15/day. If you weigh this against spending an extra hour or two commuting, then it looks like a lousy bargain. But if you are like many people, and ended up…

To a first approximation, no one is spending $60/day on restaurant meals unless they're traveling.

When Dropbox served food I valued it at 50k, ie: in order fro a company to poach me, given they don't have food, that's 50k they'd have to make up for. While I don't spend anywhere near 4k a month on food, there were a few things to consider:

a) 3 meals prepared for me saves me time and money. I love to cook but I don't have tons of time anymore and I don't have a a good kitchen. If I want to save time via delivery I end up spending tons more, and I don't think I eat as healthy.

b) The food was ridiculous. I've eaten a lot of good food, I've eaten in numerous countries, and Dropbox's food was god tier.

c) Tons of snacks, little treats, etc. Wine as well. Given the incredible quality of the food I wouldn't be surprised to find that I was eating quite a lot in terms of money.

It was such a quality of life win, especially as someone who loves food, to just have insanely good meals every single day. Even if ultimately it probably saved me closer to 1000 a month than 5000.

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

#362

Post by jtr1 »

colinmorelli wrote: post #252
pseudalopex wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preferring to spend time with friends and family is normal. It doesn't mean someone's coworkers are so toxic that regular interaction with them is an ordeal.

That very sentence has already suggested that your coworkers are not your friends (or else they'd be in the group of "friends and family" that you enjoy spending time with). I think the very point of GP is that there are many people who do, in fact, develop friendships with their coworkers.

I've certainly made many friends through work, but in my experience a for-profit workplace is an artificial environment with a lot of distorting incentives that make it more challenging to establish genuine friendship.

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

#363

Post by fullshark »

sam0x17 wrote: post #170

Curious to see how many quit over this. A lot in the tech industry (myself included) seem completely done with not working from home, especially when there is no excuse for working in-person. Tech offices for pure-software projects have also become morally indefensible from the perspective of resource consumption and climate change. That said it's true that Apple does do some R&D that requires an in-person presence,…

My prediction: Talk is cheap and all the bellyaching will amount to maybe a temporary increase in attrition for a quarter (2x perhaps?) but negligible long term.

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

#364

Post by area51org »

bootlooped wrote: post #292
lamontcg wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're engaging in the fallacy of "what is good for me is good for everyone else."

I didn't read that from the post you're referring to.

I did. The whole post is worded in a confrontational way, intending to piss people off and start arguments.

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

#365

Post by eyelidlessness »

amyjess wrote: post #198
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 do not care about being competitve. I work so I can draw a salary to fund my life. That's it. I don't care about constantly climbing a ladder. I don't care about advancing my career for the sake of advancing my career. I just want to enjoy my life, and working for a living is just my means to that end. If I'm making enough to be comfortable, I don't care about chasing a promotion or getting ahead of people. I can't…

Yo, start that discussion! I’m autistic, and while I can benefit from face to face, I often don’t. I don’t work for your company but I know I’m depending on you to work with and for your colleagues and to help set an example.

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

#366

Post by staticassertion »

mFixman wrote: post #334
gnicholas wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The food/drink part could be the most of it. A Google employee enjoying free food and drink could save $60/day versus buying prepared food ($10 for breakfast, $20 for lunch, and $30 for dinner). If you drink much coffee or other beverages, that could be another $15/day. If you weigh this against spending an extra hour or two commuting, then it looks like a lousy bargain. But if you are like many people, and ended up…

A Google Employee working from home could save $200/day versus getting a fancy limousine to go to work. Nobody buys prepared food every day, and the costs of food are negligible for a Google employee.

> Nobody buys prepared food every day, and the costs of food are negligible for a Google employee.

Of course they do? When I've been crunching, like just putting insane hours in, I've gone weeks without cooking and just ordering in. It costs a fortune, even at Google salary - or in my case, 'SF' salary. Not to mention the cost of living is already absurd due to rent - your salary gets eaten up faster than you might imagine.

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

#367

Post by gnicholas »

mFixman wrote: post #334
gnicholas wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The food/drink part could be the most of it. A Google employee enjoying free food and drink could save $60/day versus buying prepared food ($10 for breakfast, $20 for lunch, and $30 for dinner). If you drink much coffee or other beverages, that could be another $15/day. If you weigh this against spending an extra hour or two commuting, then it looks like a lousy bargain. But if you are like many people, and ended up…

A Google Employee working from home could save $200/day versus getting a fancy limousine to go to work. Nobody buys prepared food every day, and the costs of food are negligible for a Google employee.

I know Googlers who literally never buy groceries because they eat all of their big meals at the office, grab a bottled smoothie on their way out the door, and get restaurant food on the weekends. It is cheaper to get groceries than to buy prepared food, but there’s a lot of spoilage that happens when you’re only cooking 2 days/week.

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

#368

Post by dcolkitt »

area51org wrote: post #359
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…

If it's good for you, that's fine. But most of your ideas here are dead wrong. Things like "oh yeah real innovation happens because of hallways conversations" come from pervasive myth, not actual reality. Oh BTW pair programming is much easier over a shared screen, remotely, than it is trying to squish people in front of a single monitor.

The innovation argument is particularly frustrating. By far the most innovation in computing this century has occurred in open source software, which by its nature is completely distributed. People who work on the Linux kernel or Postgres or Rust would be pretty shocked to learn that whatever they’re doing must not be innovative since they’re not hanging out in the hallway.

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

#369

Post by swiley »

fullshark wrote: post #363
sam0x17 wrote: post #170

Curious to see how many quit over this. A lot in the tech industry (myself included) seem completely done with not working from home, especially when there is no excuse for working in-person. Tech offices for pure-software projects have also become morally indefensible from the perspective of resource consumption and climate change. That said it's true that Apple does do some R&D that requires an in-person presence,…

My prediction: Talk is cheap and all the bellyaching will amount to maybe a temporary increase in attrition for a quarter (2x perhaps?) but negligible long term.

Commuting means an immediate 14% pay cut in time alone (ignoring CoL due to required proximity and vehicle maintenance, so it's really closer to 20%.) There are real economic forcings on the worker side against required office presence.

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

#370

Post by ec109685 »

swiley wrote: post #268
dm8 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Is it twice-thrice as beautiful as the rest of the country though?

Your job only has to pay for the cost of living delta between the two places to be financially worth it. That isn’t twice-thrice as much.
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