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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

#521

Post by omegam »

vineyardmike wrote: post #317
bsder wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mentoring junior folks is a really big one that really needs in-person attention. It disappoints me that everybody is ignoring this. Sure, work-from-home is nice for senior folks like me who have lots of influence and have nurtured their career over several decades. We can allocate resources and people listen to us by virtue of position. For junior folks, work from home is terrible for their career. Nothing substitut…

So few people focus on junior employees! The junior employees on my team who onboard did in 2019 vs 2020 are much more than 1 year apart in terms of output and performance.

I think it's more dependent on your WFH practices. My current employer is fully remote (but always has been) and I think the junior engineers generally get up to speed with the senior engineers quickly.

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

#522

Post by onion2k »

Maxion wrote: post #502
deviation wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Australia, every company I have worked at (non-FAANG) as a Software Engineer has had a kitchen, stocked with food under a "Grab what you want, when you want it" policy. Is it really that uncommon in the US outside of FAANG companies?

In Europe your employer can't provide you with free food, it's value is counted as taxable income.

Europe is made up of 27 countries all with their own tax laws. You can't make generalisations like that without significantly more detail.

Here in the UK my employer can and occasionally, but not frequently enough in my opinion, does pay for my lunch.

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

#523

Post by redisman »

deviation wrote: post #427
p1necone wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think free food at work is particularly common outside of big silicone valley companies. Free espresso coffee (of middling quality) is pretty ubiquitous where I am though.

Here in Australia, every company I have worked at (non-FAANG) as a Software Engineer has had a kitchen, stocked with food under a "Grab what you want, when you want it" policy. Is it really that uncommon in the US outside of FAANG companies?

You mean like catering at all hours or a bag of bagels and some fruit and maybe some snack sized chip bags

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

#524

Post by xmprt »

itsokimbatman wrote: post #416
Buttons840 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I very much enjoy my co-workers. Several nights a week I find myself lying in bed and notice I'm grinning while thinking about some jokes or fun we've had together. We all work 100% remote.

Right?! My company was mostly remote pre-pandemic, and we've gotten more remote friendly during the last year. We share memes, conversation, movie reviews, etc. all over Slack/Zoom/Signal/etc. I'll just get random weird texts from one of my co-workers. It helps that a lot of us have worked together through multiple companies, but even the ones that haven't... I've honestly never met my manager in person just due to t…

Off topic, but how does switching jobs along with your coworkers work? Do you guys all switch around the same time or is it more of a coincidence? Was it luck that you all passed the interview or was it more of a package deal where your current company wanted to hire you all together (ie, all or nothing)?

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

#525

Post by xmprt »

threeseed wrote: post #501
ashtonkem wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My coworkers are great, but do you know who is better? My family and friends.

Most engineers don't have a family. And some don't have close friends. Don't assume that your view of the world is the same for everyone.

If you work from home, you can spend all that time you would have spent commuting finding friends instead. Go to bars, find common hobbies/interests, join a rock climbing gym..

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

#526

Post by SnowProblem »

SubuSS wrote: post #514

I remember someone trying to justify college over self-educating (quality varying all the way from coursera to Wikipedia to YouTube to Facebook): you just don’t learn the same way anywhere else. Being with your peers, having your ideas cross examined in real-time and having direct and personal feedback is invaluable. I think the same applies to wfh. Yes it is fun, yes I like that I avoid commute, but I’ve also become…

Funny. I felt the exact same about college classes as wfh. 90% of the time, classes were unnecessary, and I could do the readings and exercises on my own to learn the material better. Everyone also said office hours were so great, but I always found them a waste. On the flip side, no professors know my name, and I can't remember them either. In contrast, my wife went to a popular liberal arts schools, has several professors she still keeps in touch with, used her classes to make connections, and generally had a totally different experience. I think people are just different.

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

#527

Post by anarazel »

dcolkitt wrote: post #368
area51org wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a postgres dev, I do feel that the lack of in-person conferences over the last 1 1/2 years caused a perceptible slowdown in some areas. But I also can't stand working full in an office most of the time.

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

#528

Post by TranquilMarmot »

plantain wrote: post #497
gnicholas wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did not own a fridge or any cooking appliances for my first year at Google. 3 meals a day at work + takeout on weekends.

This is disgusting

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

#529

Post by YuriNiyazov »

xmprt wrote: post #520
threeseed wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of IT people in Silicon Valley can yell on the street and get a job. So then it becomes which company has the best culture, values, people, environment etc.

I think that line of thinking will be quickly replaced. Better culture, free food, people, environment, etc. all mattered when employees were expected to spend 8 hours a day at work (and often longer). If more companies allow working from home, then that trumps a lot of the other perks because employees can make their own perks such as more flexible hours, shorter/no commute, living where they want to instead of bein…

"culture" is not just what happens in the office, it is the processes and norms of the company. They are more important remotely, not less.

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

#530

Post by warkdarrior »

heavyset_go wrote: post #410
ashtonkem wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commutes also cost the one thing we can't get back; time.

Sometimes people say they're making a time trade off for more money, and plan to use that money to buy more time. While money is fungible, time is not. You can't buy more time with your kids while they're young if they're already grown. You can't buy more time with someone who has passed away. And you can't buy your way out of missed opportunities in your personal life, once they've gone they're gone.

I would rather pay the maid to spend 5 hours to clean the whole house once a week, while I take the kids to the park or to the beach.

Same thing applies to cooking, groceries, errands, etc.

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