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Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

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Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#201

Post by tombert »

CSSer wrote: post #107
dnathi493 wrote: post #5

I left Apple after years of lack of any flexibility on the remote work process. They wouldn't allow transferring to any alternative office for most teams. From what I understood, VPs could protect a small minority of some of their employees if a senior leader made a case to them. Unfortunately, this just seemed to lead to the most politically connected folks going remote and directors friends and favorite hires getti…

They seem very rooted in the past for lots of ideas, which is ironic given the image and culture they try to project. For example, I've heard at least one story of someone being asked lots of irrelevant CS questions for a front-end role when they interviewed there. He did fine, but he said he felt like the interview somehow felt fifteen years out of date, which really stuck with me.

There were times at Apple that people were given a "no" on the interview because, despite knowing the solution to the problem, had compilation errors in there code. I thought (and still think) that was idiotic.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#202

Post by tharne »

birken wrote: post #171
tharne wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Elections coming up as well This is the big one. Ever since the upset in the Virginia governor's race, the Democrats have been very eager to end COVID restrictions no matter what. The Republicans have never cared about COVID so, at the moment there's a rare bipartisan unity on this issue.

So for example, you consider the 3 Democratic Governors of California, Oregon and Washington ending their state's various mask mandates 4+ months after the VA election to be "eager to end COVID restrictions no matter what". Do you think the Omicron wave might have had more to do with the COVID restrictions than the VA governor's race?

> Do you think the Omicron wave might have had more to do with the COVID restrictions than the VA governor's race?

I don't.

The case numbers in many, if not most areas, are still higher than they were during the delta wave in the Summer and Fall that led to the lockdowns and restrictions being implemented in the first place.

If this were truly just about the data then you'd expect the restrictions to lift once the case counts returned to pre-delta numbers.

Edit/Clarification: I say this as someone is/was generally been in favor of a very cautious response to COVID.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#203

Post by heyitsanewacco »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #15
bch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If "real estate" were the real reason, that'd just be an example of throwing good money after bad.

Personal investments in Bay Area housing by senior execs.

This is exactly it. We've been spending money in our suburbs for too long and it's killing the restaurant businesses that they own.

The Gov of New York has basically come out and said exactly that.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#204

Post by bmarquez »

roastytoasty wrote: post #132
dnathi493 wrote: post #5

I left Apple after years of lack of any flexibility on the remote work process. They wouldn't allow transferring to any alternative office for most teams. From what I understood, VPs could protect a small minority of some of their employees if a senior leader made a case to them. Unfortunately, this just seemed to lead to the most politically connected folks going remote and directors friends and favorite hires getti…

Quoted post unavailable.

It's likely a throwaway account and I understand the reasoning behind creating one. Apple has a very secretive, almost paranoid, workplace culture. If I were in the parent poster's shoes I'd make one too to avoid blowback.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#205

Post by throwawaymanbot »

nostromo wrote: post #16

More people are dying with Covid now than were dying most of the previous two years, minus 4 peaks of various waves. I'm happy we're returning to normalcy, but it just makes me wonder "why now?" It's like the government and big business just decided overnight to declare "mission accomplished" when nothing substantial has changed. Last summer, for example, could have been the reopening, and we'd have better data and "…

No post body was provided.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#206

Post by majormajor »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #68
nostromo wrote: post #16

More people are dying with Covid now than were dying most of the previous two years, minus 4 peaks of various waves. I'm happy we're returning to normalcy, but it just makes me wonder "why now?" It's like the government and big business just decided overnight to declare "mission accomplished" when nothing substantial has changed. Last summer, for example, could have been the reopening, and we'd have better data and "…

Politics plain and simple. COVID protocols are very unpopular at this point and not every effective. Florida and Texas are having big inflows, california and New York huge outflows. Whatever your viewpoint this is the fact politicians see. And yes taxes and cost of living are a huge driving force not only COVID, but as long as remote work goes on people will keep moving to low cost of living and low tax states.

The not-just-poll-driven view of this is that you also should take into account:

- for many - not all, but many - of the more vulnerable to hospitalization and death, it's now a matter of choice.

- As a result, a bigger spike in cases caused much fewer hospitalizations and deaths than previous spikes, meaning less impact on the rest of the health system.

- behavior has changed dramatically in terms of things like event attendance even in areas with more cautious government policy. Compare how many people went to movie theaters in late summer 2020 when they reopened in limited capacity in California with now. The limited capacity isn't the biggest difference, it's the behavior.

- we can see that, say, California has fewer cumulative deaths per capita than Texas or Florida despite the urban areas being somewhat denser[0] (which itself seems to play a big role), and Arizona has more than NY or Massachusets despite being far less dense and with much milder winters... but the differences aren't orders of magnitudes.

- masks are cheaper and more available than they were earlier, and treatments are becoming more widely available too

So this is a reasonable point to say "we aren't able to eliminate this thing, but fortunately, it's much less dangerous to most of us than it used to be."

But make no mistakes: the biggest factor there in terms of danger is the vaccines, which have now been available over a year.

[0] https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/cumulative-covid-1...

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#207

Post by mehlmao »

briandear wrote: post #190
NoSorryCannot wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person you responded to mentioned all-cause mortality. Remove the base rate, then you're left with excess deaths. How do you explain excess deaths if they are not covid? And that's not to say an explanation other than covid is impossible, but it would need to be compelling.

> How do you explain excess deaths if they are not covid? Delayed medical care because of Covid fear. I missed my annual physical two years ago and ended up with a heart attack I barely survived last October. People were delaying routine screenings such as mammograms, physicals, and other preventative care. There are also increases in suicide, deaths of despair, especially in younger people. Addiction especially. Nob…

Suicide rate was lower in 2020 and 2021 than it was prior to the pandemic.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#208

Post by angryasian »

asd88 wrote: post #142
angryasian wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in how you accomplish this. Everything has to be scheduled in a meeting these days, and meeting burn out over zoom is real. Where as in the office it was just walking around and seeing someone in an elevator, the hall, "hey lets catch up" or "you have a minute" or "lets get lunch" these types of interactions just don't happen anymore

In true remote companies everything happens on Slack channels and meetings are minimal. If you want to see what a team is up to, you just have to lurk their Slack channel. Basically almost everything becomes more visible because of Slack.

even slack is too much these days, I'm in so many channels. theres so much noise and if you're not part of the conversation you may miss it completely depending on if people are using threads or not.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#209

Post by throwawaymanbot »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #68
nostromo wrote: post #16

More people are dying with Covid now than were dying most of the previous two years, minus 4 peaks of various waves. I'm happy we're returning to normalcy, but it just makes me wonder "why now?" It's like the government and big business just decided overnight to declare "mission accomplished" when nothing substantial has changed. Last summer, for example, could have been the reopening, and we'd have better data and "…

Politics plain and simple. COVID protocols are very unpopular at this point and not every effective. Florida and Texas are having big inflows, california and New York huge outflows. Whatever your viewpoint this is the fact politicians see. And yes taxes and cost of living are a huge driving force not only COVID, but as long as remote work goes on people will keep moving to low cost of living and low tax states.

No post body was provided.

Re: Tim Cook tells employees the return to offices will begin on April 11th

#210

Post by angryasian »

heyitsanewacco wrote: post #192
angryasian wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested in how you accomplish this. Everything has to be scheduled in a meeting these days, and meeting burn out over zoom is real. Where as in the office it was just walking around and seeing someone in an elevator, the hall, "hey lets catch up" or "you have a minute" or "lets get lunch" these types of interactions just don't happen anymore

I go to meetings for a living. Its been a huge productivity boost to not have to walk 15 minutes across campus to meet my clients. Plus I never have to worry about not having a projector. Although you're right, I did go back to the office the other day and spent a good hour talking to a co-worker about their Caribbean vacation. I hadn't had one of those in years. Not sure how that boosted innovation and productivity…

>Not sure how that boosted innovation and productivity tho.

I think positive interactions with co workers is a productivity boost, it makes you not hate work so much.

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