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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

#21

Post by alwillis »

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?

The entitlement I’m referring to is the how dare you tell me I have to work in-person some of the time vibe that comes through the letter.

Of course the average worker should get more; that doesn’t mean they should take what they have for granted. They have friends and family members with shitty jobs; they know they’re far removed from what they have to deal with or the so-called essential workers who drive their buses and deliver their food.

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

#22

Post by addicted »

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.

I don’t think this is as clear a worker working conditions issue as some are suggesting it is.

For example, a lot of people prefer coming to the office and not having to conduct meetings remotely. Would you be ok with them demanding that they have the right to conduct entirely in person meetings in cases where they feel they will be more productive doing so? What if they say that they are exhausted by Zoom fatigue and don’t believe they should have to conduct remote meetings when they are coming into the office already.

And they would have a strong argument that they have oriented their lives based on years and decades of Apple requirements (about coming to office everyday). Why should they be the ones to suffer because of the demands of people who made permanent changes based on what was obviously a temporary situation, even if it lasted about a year longer than many expected.

I don’t think the worker conditions aspect is as clear cut as some are suggesting.

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

#24

Post by bradknowles »

So, I did a six month consulting gig at Apple Retail Software Engineering.

I knew plenty of Apple employees who couldn’t afford to live closer to the office than way west of San Jose. Many had a ~30 minute commute to the place where they could pick up one of the ubiquitous Apple buses.

From there it was a minimum two to three hour ride to the office, but they had good wifi on the bus, so they could at least get work done while in transit.

Once they got to the office, they would have a meeting or two, or go to lunch, and then hop back on the bus to go back home. Rinse and repeat.

Virtually their entire work day was spent actually on the bus, and not in the actual office.

IMO, Apple could seriously benefit from a lot more people working remotely 100% of the time. I’ve never understood why Tim pushes so hard to force everyone to return to the “office”, when for many the office is actually the bus.

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

#25

Post by [deleted] »

rsj_hn wrote: post #20
dilat wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#26

Post by pseudalopex »

8note wrote: post #18
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.

Your other comment said "Companies are democracies because they need the people involved to do stuff."[1] How can both be true?

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684570

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

#27

Post by martindbp »

bradknowles wrote: post #24

So, I did a six month consulting gig at Apple Retail Software Engineering. I knew plenty of Apple employees who couldn’t afford to live closer to the office than way west of San Jose. Many had a ~30 minute commute to the place where they could pick up one of the ubiquitous Apple buses. From there it was a minimum two to three hour ride to the office, but they had good wifi on the bus, so they could at least get work…

Well, being stuck in the office or a bus seems pretty similar from the point of view of butts-in-seats management.
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