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Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

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Re: Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

#11

Post by throwawaysea »

> I can’t help but think that the problem for Apple is that they’ve grown so large that they’ve wound up hiring a lot of people who aren’t a good fit for Apple, and that it was a mistake for Apple to ever hook up a company-wide Slack. Companies are not democracies, but the employees writing these letters sure seem to think Apple is one. It’s not, and if it were, the company would sink in a snap.

I do agree with this sentiment, especially when it comes to keeping personal politics out of the office. It can feel distracting, unfair, and suffocating for productive workers to be surrounded by loud, aggressive activists who seemingly don’t care about the company and its mission as much as spending their hours on letters, political discussions, and activist activities. That said I somehow feel differently about the “remote work” topic, maybe because it feels like it directly pertains to work and productivity and employee retention. This article feels a bit too dismissive and verges more on a blind defense of a potential policy misstep.

It seems that Apple already responded and is sticking to its decision per https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/29/22556615/apple-response-h...

Re: Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

#13

Post by ljp_206 »

I'm not FAANG material (nor do I desire to be), but boy am I glad I get to code my little marketing front ends from home for my team of three, if I so choose.

While I can understand one might see some reasons for remote work to be 'pandering,'* it's deliciously like the smug, hip Mac stand-in from the Mac/Windows commercials to suggest that a reduction in commutes and environmental improvement is "pandering." Again, if this kind of scorn is what people face for asking for a chance to self determine where they are productive, I'm all the more happy to be outside of Silicon Valley.

* while not Apple's problem, for those outside of Apple, I've heard that many disabled workers have had to fight tooth and nail for accommodations. Props to Apple for accommodations being easy, but - is it pandering?

Re: Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

#14

Post by alwillis »

dilat wrote: post #8

This article is surprisingly hostile to workers organizing for better working conditions against the world’s largest corporation. Even setting aside that whole thing, here’s what might happen if Apple doesn’t support remote work: talented people that want remote work will quit and go work at Facebook, Google, and other companies that now support full-time remote. Maybe that works out well for Apple, maybe it doesn’t.

This article is surprisingly hostile to workers organizing for better working conditions against the world’s largest corporation.

It’s not like their pre-COVID work conditions were harsh. I think Gruber’s point is that the group that wrote the letter seems quite entitled, especially given the lengths Apple has gone through to accommodate their employees.

Like it or not, what Gruber wrote is true: companies aren’t democracies.

The average worker in America would love to have half the amenities and perks these folks get.

Re: Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

#15

Post by ChrisArchitect »

zffr wrote: post #12

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684205 Related story just published by the verge

[dupe]

Yep this is just gruber's commentary on Verge source article.

main discussion over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684205

Re: Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

#16

Post by underseacables »

It might be extreme, but I think employee should have to earn the right to work from home. It should not be assumed nor automatically granted, unless it’s for a documented severe physical limitation. Reading over this letter, and others like it at similar companies just sounds like a lot of spoiled over paid people and think they are special. There’s a great sense of entitlement wafting up from the page.

Re: Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

#17

Post by 8note »

alwillis wrote: post #14
dilat wrote: post #8

This article is surprisingly hostile to workers organizing for better working conditions against the world’s largest corporation. Even setting aside that whole thing, here’s what might happen if Apple doesn’t support remote work: talented people that want remote work will quit and go work at Facebook, Google, and other companies that now support full-time remote. Maybe that works out well for Apple, maybe it doesn’t.

This article is surprisingly hostile to workers organizing for better working conditions against the world’s largest corporation. It’s not like their pre-COVID work conditions were harsh. I think Gruber’s point is that the group that wrote the letter seems quite entitled, especially given the lengths Apple has gone through to accommodate their employees. Like it or not, what Gruber wrote is true: companies aren’t dem…

Companies are democracies because they need the people involved to do stuff.

Just because most Americans are oin a position of either horrible conditions or death, doesn't mean they have to be.

It seems much more entitled to me that apples management expects to control where people are during the day, even after deriving all kinds of value from them

Re: Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

#18

Post by 8note »

throwawaysea wrote: post #11

> I can’t help but think that the problem for Apple is that they’ve grown so large that they’ve wound up hiring a lot of people who aren’t a good fit for Apple, and that it was a mistake for Apple to ever hook up a company-wide Slack. Companies are not democracies, but the employees writing these letters sure seem to think Apple is one. It’s not, and if it were, the company would sink in a snap. I do agree with this…

Employees looking for wfh are suffocating to the productive workers who are just looking to get stuff done, same as any other politics. There's no difference. Where you work is a subset of what you're doing, and the relation ship is for owners to tell you what to do, and for you to do it. The mission of the company is what the owners want, not you.

Re: Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

#19

Post by dilat »

alwillis wrote: post #14
dilat wrote: post #8

This article is surprisingly hostile to workers organizing for better working conditions against the world’s largest corporation. Even setting aside that whole thing, here’s what might happen if Apple doesn’t support remote work: talented people that want remote work will quit and go work at Facebook, Google, and other companies that now support full-time remote. Maybe that works out well for Apple, maybe it doesn’t.

This article is surprisingly hostile to workers organizing for better working conditions against the world’s largest corporation. It’s not like their pre-COVID work conditions were harsh. I think Gruber’s point is that the group that wrote the letter seems quite entitled, especially given the lengths Apple has gone through to accommodate their employees. Like it or not, what Gruber wrote is true: companies aren’t dem…

Why is your takeaway that the Apple employees are “entitled” , in a negative way, rather than that the average worker in America should be entitled to more?

Indeed, companies are not democracies, but comparing them to countries isn’t really accurate, because unlike countries, people can and do just leave. If they’re dictatorships, they’re dictatorships in a world of open borders, where each dictator is competing to attract citizens.

Re: Internal Letter Circulates at Apple Pushing Back Against Returning to the Office

#20

Post by rsj_hn »

dilat wrote: post #19
alwillis wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is surprisingly hostile to workers organizing for better working conditions against the world’s largest corporation. It’s not like their pre-COVID work conditions were harsh. I think Gruber’s point is that the group that wrote the letter seems quite entitled, especially given the lengths Apple has gone through to accommodate their employees. Like it or not, what Gruber wrote is true: companies aren’t dem…

Why is your takeaway that the Apple employees are “entitled” , in a negative way, rather than that the average worker in America should be entitled to more? Indeed, companies are not democracies, but comparing them to countries isn’t really accurate, because unlike countries, people can and do just leave. If they’re dictatorships, they’re dictatorships in a world of open borders, where each dictator is competing to a…

> Why is your takeaway that the Apple employees are “entitled” , in a negative way, rather than that the average worker in America should be entitled to more?

It's a good question, and I could also turn it around and ask what makes someone think that they aren't entitled to something they don't have the power to obtain? Bottom line, there are big frictions in hiring, so just because a worker does something that doesn't get them instantly fired doesn't mean that, in equilibrium, this is something that businesses have to put up with. By the same token, just because a company makes a decision that doesn't instantly result in most of their workers leaving doesn't mean that it's a decision that workers need to put up with over the long term. It takes time for these adjustments to work out.

At the end of the day, the labor market is a market with really big frictions, and you should think of sustainable agreements as something that happens over a decade or so rather than something that happens over the course of a week. You may get the ocassional situation where a company shuts down a plant that decides to unionize right away, or you may have a situation where lots of workers instantly walk out when the company restricts their ability to bring more demands into the office, but in both of these cases, the exception proves the rule in that these are considered newsworthy events due to them being so rare. In most situations, the resulting equilibrium takes a while to reach, especially as it has to be settled over the entire business cycle. During each recession, workers have less bargaining power and during each boom they have more. Immigration policy, trade policy, labor law all adjust and influence the relevant bargaining power as well. Over time these ebbs and flows settle on an accepted level of what workers can and can't do that applies to most companies, but you can always cherry pick examples where a particularly desperate company or a particularly desperate local labor market caves. This type of cherry picking isn't going to tell you what the stable equilibrium is.

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