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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

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should get dressed properly and prepare even if you're working from home.

Our CISO made a deal with us that we'd wear collared shirts when we need to be on a video call but are free to wear whatever we want otherwise. I keep a polo shirt with the company logo in the closet of my home office for those occasions. Works well. Sometimes I wait until lunch to shower but if I have a video call in the morning, I'll be sure to shower so my hair looks presentable.

Where do you work that they care if your shirt has a collar?

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

#472
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are also plenty of people who like their coworkers and enjoy spending time with them each day. I don't think everybody finds work to be an unfulfilling drain on their leisure time

>There are also plenty of people who like their coworkers and enjoy spending time with them You can do this without forcing them to be around you. That's apparently a new concept to a lot of people.

Sorry; but no. This weird virtual interaction is nowhere close to the real social environment of seeing and working with people face to face.

We shouldn’t be forced to come in; but I for one would freakin’ love the option.

This is a primary cause of concern for kids at school; that the social aspect is missing in that way.

Nowhere close, really.

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

#473
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…

You have some strong anecdotes there but I'd like to see some stats from this previous year and see if there was actually a drop, an increase, or relatively neutral change in productivity/sanity amongst those who worked from home.

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

#474
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a large proportion of interactions with remote work is formal, in a sense. No casual chat, no social “grease”. Why? You have to put in the effort to be social, but you need to do that in person, too.

Maybe that’s a touch too specific. But Igor me, it’s a lot easier to strike up a rapport on a walk to get coffee than scheduling a 30 min quarantini, a word I have grown to detest

Ah. While my company does have a semi-daily "30 minute meetup" on "random topic of the day", that's not how I chat socially with coworkers. We have a few channels that are just "shoot the shit" channels. I us those to discuss random topics. And there's several private channels for the occasional need to rant. Overall, not all that different from the water cooler.

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

#475

"Cook wrapped up the memo by saying that he's looking forward to seeing employee faces. "I know I'm not alone in missing the hum of activity, the energy, creativity and collaboration of our in-person meetings and the sense of community we've all built," he wrote." CEO's all spout the same nonsense. The majority of people work because they need to earn money. They're not working to make a new 'family' or change the wo…

I’m convinced the majority of members of a previous team were secretly rich and could retire at any point if they so choose. Great team but there was a touch of “we are going to work on what we think is important, what are you going to do, fire me?” It had a really healthy team culture (largely due to the efforts of a few individuals) and I quite enjoyed going to work for that reason. Hated the commute.

Don’t know if it’s your situation, but I also saw that in an extremely poorly managed company. A chunk of the non management team had gained huge power (and money, I believe) because they were the only ones that were able to understand how the core product did works. The management were useless and nobody ever encouraged knowledge sharing.

A lot of people complained about the under market salaries but those technical guys never complained or even speak about it.

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

#476
post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus Christ. I eat well and spend maybe $400 a month on groceries and food. I’ve heard that Google recruiters attempt to con potential employees into some ridiculous assessment of the “free” food as a compensation benefit with numbers like those that you posited above. I can’t imagine valuing daily meals that highly.

I'm glad others are shocked by that $60/day on food. I would say food takes up the largest percentage of my expenses and $60 is easily 5 days worth of food for two.

Lol I spend about 5-10$ a day on food. Where do these people eat at lol

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

#477

"Cook wrapped up the memo by saying that he's looking forward to seeing employee faces. "I know I'm not alone in missing the hum of activity, the energy, creativity and collaboration of our in-person meetings and the sense of community we've all built," he wrote." CEO's all spout the same nonsense. The majority of people work because they need to earn money. They're not working to make a new 'family' or change the wo…

There are also plenty of people who like their coworkers and enjoy spending time with them each day. I don't think everybody finds work to be an unfulfilling drain on their leisure time

> There are also plenty of people who like their coworkers and enjoy spending time with them each day.

Not saying you are wrong, but

The vast majority of people first get jobs to earn money THEN meet the coworkers AND having no other option besides interacting with coworkers during work hours, will try to get along

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

#478
post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I guess I just can't comprehend a mindset where 3 meals a day at a company is this huge win. On the occasions when I went into an office with a non-free cafeteria, I didn't even always eat lunch. ADDED: This subthread to me is such a bizarre look into a certain bubble of SV. [See also apparent disagreements with the statement that spending $60/day in restaurants is somehow abnormal.]

depends on if you're giving them 4 hours of work extra a day for them (12 hour workdays)

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

#479

"Cook wrapped up the memo by saying that he's looking forward to seeing employee faces. "I know I'm not alone in missing the hum of activity, the energy, creativity and collaboration of our in-person meetings and the sense of community we've all built," he wrote." CEO's all spout the same nonsense. The majority of people work because they need to earn money. They're not working to make a new 'family' or change the wo…

I still struggle to tell if CEOs are lying to our faces, or whether they've become delusional with their time on top.

They just live in a totally different world than us. They don’t struggle making ends meet each month. They don’t have a soul crushing commute. They don’t worry about child care or whether their kids are getting a proper education. They are surrounded by thousands of people utterly dependent on them for their lifestyles, and who will never tell them No. They REALLY think that the general employees care about the “hum of activity, the energy, creativity and collaboration” just because in the exec’s world he actually does.

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

#480
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…

food and water at home is more expensive ? How do you manage that ?
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