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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

#341

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #277
tombert wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID made my situation worse at Apple. I worked in a satellite office (NYC), and while in the office, most folks in California were reluctant to schedule meetings later than ~2pm california time because they didn't want to keep people in the office late. When we went fully remote, suddenly it seems like any compunctions about that vanished; I would have meetings until 9pm 3 nights a week, I guess because the manager…

> When we went fully remote, suddenly it seems like any compunctions about that vanished; I would have meetings until 9pm 3 nights a week This is why there is a decline button next to the accept button. An outage or something disastrous, sure I'll stay online till midnight to help in anyway I can; a regular status update type meeting, no way.

I do freely decline status update meetings at unreasonable hours, and most people reading this are probably in a position where they should too. The problem is with things like design reviews and planning meetings, where declining just means people are going to make decisions without you.

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

#342

Post by maps7 »

Justin_K wrote: post #308
maps7 wrote: post #306

We're all going to back to the office ... just because some rich person said so!

Or.... People are going back to the job locations they were hired for?

The world has changed since then. Nobody was hired to WFH but that is what we all did.

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

#343

Post by teeray »

jordanpg wrote: post #56
8bitben wrote: post #4

Hard to see it going any other way given the massive real estate investments they have made.

I suspect that at the root of all of these companies with massive office investments insisting that everyone gets back to the office as soon as possible is something to do with taxes. Something like deductions that cannot be taken when those facilities are not used or not used enough in the development of income.

More like insurance. An unoccupied large building means much higher premiums.

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

#344

Post by horsawlarway »

KyeRussell wrote: post #330
VBprogrammer wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When we went fully remote, suddenly it seems like any compunctions about that vanished; I would have meetings until 9pm 3 nights a week This is why there is a decline button next to the accept button. An outage or something disastrous, sure I'll stay online till midnight to help in anyway I can; a regular status update type meeting, no way.

This is unhelpful. Nobody gets total control of their time in employment, and some people get a lot less control than others.

Set boundaries.

Decide if someone violating them is worth quitting over. It's a competitive market, and frankly - Many of the FAANG companies are terrible to work for.

No one is saying you have total control of your schedule - but if I'm consistently asked to take a meeting at 9pm my time... I'll have a meeting with my manager, and it will consist of the following: "I will quit if they keep asking me to meet when I'd like to be reading bedtime stories to my kid".

So far - I have not had to quit, and I don't take 9pm meetings. I find your meek & bleak acquiescence unhelpful.

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

#345

Post by tombert »

VBprogrammer wrote: post #277
tombert wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COVID made my situation worse at Apple. I worked in a satellite office (NYC), and while in the office, most folks in California were reluctant to schedule meetings later than ~2pm california time because they didn't want to keep people in the office late. When we went fully remote, suddenly it seems like any compunctions about that vanished; I would have meetings until 9pm 3 nights a week, I guess because the manager…

> When we went fully remote, suddenly it seems like any compunctions about that vanished; I would have meetings until 9pm 3 nights a week This is why there is a decline button next to the accept button. An outage or something disastrous, sure I'll stay online till midnight to help in anyway I can; a regular status update type meeting, no way.

I didn't feel like that was really an option. It became recurring meetings three times a week, and I got the vibe of "if you don't go, it's gonna look bad".

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

#346

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

birdyrooster wrote: post #299
paxys wrote: post #291

I suspect we are going to see some turmoil in the tech hiring space with stock prices taking a beating in recent months. Large companies have gotten away with paying under market price for talent because employees have seen massive gains from stock appreciation over the last decade. If total comp starts going down year over year, suddenly the more traditional, no-frills system at places like Apple, Microsoft and Amaz…

Can confirm, Google was really stingy with their RSUs compared to Apple, but the perks really aren't that good with the exception of the food, which, when speaking to current Googlers, they say the food quality has fallen precipitously. Google at the time I worked there seemed to lean heavily on its reputation to reduce total comp.

At least according to levels.fyi, Google is paying people at equivalent titles quite a bit more than Apple is. For example a senior engineer at Google is listed as having an average total comp of $380k, whereas at Apple it's only $310k.

Now it's entirely possible that there is title inflation at Apple, so that a "senior" engineer at Apple is less senior than a senior engineer at Google. Or perhaps the samples are skewed differently per company. But when I lived in the Valley, the word on the street was that Apple paid less well than Google as a general rule. So the observed data on levels.fyi does match with whatever I heard in real life.

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

#347

Post by coldtea »

Ntrails wrote: post #287
xenadu02 wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair warning: my experience has been very different than yours or tombert's in most respects and some things have changed over time (some OSS contributions are now much easier, a very recent change). It is also the first company I've worked for that backed up appreciation for my efforts with compensation to match, and where my management chain cared about burnout and mental health with actions rather than empty words…

> It is still primarily an on-site company. At some point I would like people to quit vilifying a completely legitimate business setup because it doesn't fit their world view. I want to be in the office, and I prefer it when my coworkers are there too. I respect that not everyone feels the same - but I do think it is up to the employer to decide. So I will be picking companies that suit my preferences.

>but I do think it is up to the employer to decide.

Why? Seriously, many other things aren't, so why should this be? I don't mean WFH should be forced to the employer and to all employees - I mean it should be up to the employee to decide.

The "completely legitimate business setup" is also a huge negative for climate change, car pollution, road congestion, family/personal life time (including time with kids), business and close residential areas rent (since people having to commute try to leave somewhat close and don't have total free choice of where to buy/rent property), and several other things.

Not to mention anachronistic from the same companies that sell "mobility" and "freedom" as achieved with mobile phones and internet services...

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

#348

Post by saila »

angryasian wrote: post #210
heyitsanewacco wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I rarely found those kinds of interactions positive. They were often very one-sided where I felt like a captive audience with no easy out.

I really don't enjoy talking about my personal life, even benign stuff, with 99.99% of coworkers, and I've found that there are plenty of ways to have positive interactions without getting into anything remotely personal.

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

#349

Post by selimthegrim »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #258
dpweb wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are leaving for FL and TX cause taxes you add in the salt deduction change its considerable. Have lived in FL TX and NY. Add in weather and TX and FL are actually nice places to live for the most part.

People are leaving for FL and TX cause taxes you add in the salt deduction change its considerable. Have lived in FL TX and NY. Why hasn't the Biden administration fixed this, by the way? Anyone know? Frankly it's astonishing how few Trump-era policies have been reversed by this administration. When the GOP-dominated Congress acted to remove the SALT deduction, I always assumed it was just a bit of petty electoral re…

Manchin was citing its reversion as a sore spot
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