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Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

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Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#111

Post by nottorp »

warning26 wrote: post #32
golergka wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean, they're just asking you to come to the building 3 days a week. Which is only possible for people who live in the same hemisphere as the building and have citizenship or visa. Remote work is international work.

> Remote work is international work. Not at most companies; the legal implications of working from other countries mean that, unless you want to misrepresent yourself and create a fake "home" address, digital nomad lifestyles are explicitly forbidden.

That's why i'm incorporated and no one needs to care about labor laws to pay me.

If the company wants me as an employee because they can impose tougher restrictions on me that way, sorry, it's a seller's market for developers.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#112

Post by BitwiseFool »

scarface74 wrote: post #75
BitwiseFool wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Stop whining and vote with your feet." If this is a deal breaker, yes. But this kind of approach is a last resort. Why shouldn't someone try to influence company policy before taking such a drastic step?

What’s drastic about leaving a job? The average tenure of a software engineer at any major tech company is 3 years. I never thought it was a “drastic” step to change jobs when one wasn’t what I like - 8 jobs and counting including six since 2008.

How drastic it is depends on the personality and living arrangements of the people involved. I know it's a common stereotype that developers hop jobs frequently, but there are also plenty of developers who do not. I know many such people at my current employer. I happen to be very content working there despite knowing I could make more if I went somewhere else and then jumped ship again and again.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#113

Post by KerrAvon »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #83
daniel-thompson wrote: post #41

> CEO Tim Cook called in-person collaboration benefits "irreplaceable" and in an email, the executive team talked about the importance of "the serendipity that comes from bumping into colleagues" during in-person work. Another extroverted MBA who doesn't understand why many engineers need big, unbroken chunks of silence & concentration to do great work.

I think engineers tend to under-estimate how much of their work is communicating with other engineers. Yes, you need that focus time. But running into someone on another team can be very valuable - you might learn that they're solving the same problem, you might learn that they're consuming the same API you're trying to figure out, you might learn that they're planning on working with your team in a few weeks, etc.

Sure, but if your company’s productivity depends on these accidental interactions, you’re in serious trouble if you’re as large as Apple is. Apple Park is so large you can roam the halls all day and not run into the people you’re working with on other teams. Many of the teams will be on other campuses anyway.

I would argue the benefits of having more of your state in Slack more than make up for “surprise productive watercooler meeting” thing that managers are so hot on. I think I’ve had that interaction maybe twice in 25+ years, and one of those times was just pointless gossip in the end.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#114

Post by BaseballPhysics »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #110
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, if Apple declared, right now, that full remote was an option, what you say is still true . i.e., in two years, management could decide to take away that benefit. So I don't see how that kind of reasoning is useful when making an employment decision today . Getting up in arms about a purported future two years from now is just not rational, and is ultimately a byproduct of fear. More broadly, this has always be…

>But the assumption is always that future change will take away the benefit rather than expanding it. That the slippery slope will always be to the worker's detriment. This seems like a reasonable assumption unless the labor seller is in very high demand relative to supply.

> This seems like a reasonable assumption unless the labor seller is in very high demand relative to supply.

Which is precisely the situation we're in right now.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#115

Post by kcplate »

nimbius wrote: post #50

In other words: We blew five billion dollars on Apple Park. its a monument and a testament to the ineffable power and glory of our babel made manifest. You will attend this church of man in blessed reverence or you will find the cold streets at your feet.

This is exactly the case. Its been my observation that companies with substantial (owned) brick and mortar facilities tend to be the ones promoting return to work programs now. Apple definitely falls into this group, perhaps more than any other company.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#116

Post by ChadNauseam »

nimbius wrote: post #50

In other words: We blew five billion dollars on Apple Park. its a monument and a testament to the ineffable power and glory of our babel made manifest. You will attend this church of man in blessed reverence or you will find the cold streets at your feet.

I'm fully remote and love it, but let's not pretend that Apple engineers are at risk of homelessness if they decide they don't want to work at apple anymore

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#117

Post by KerrAvon »

azemetre wrote: post #72
BitwiseFool wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Stop whining and vote with your feet." If this is a deal breaker, yes. But this kind of approach is a last resort. Why shouldn't someone try to influence company policy before taking such a drastic step?

Because if the CEO of a trillion dollar company wants people in the office, it's very likely that you will convince them otherwise. Tim Cook has tremendous influence over his company, these employees do not. Maybe if they had a union there would be some bargaining power but as it stands they can't do anything outside of leaving. Happy to be proven wrong here, but labor doesn't have much power in the US; especially wh…

I can guarantee you that “Nothing can ever be better, so why try?” will definitely not work to change policies. But it would make one a stereotypical Democratic senator.

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#118

Post by dncornholio »

Ignorant European here, I fail to see any connections..

> They said that Apple's reasons for implementing the policy don't stand up, and that the policy is wasteful, inflexible and will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce

How does this even work?

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#119

Post by scarface74 »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #112
scarface74 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s drastic about leaving a job? The average tenure of a software engineer at any major tech company is 3 years. I never thought it was a “drastic” step to change jobs when one wasn’t what I like - 8 jobs and counting including six since 2008.

How drastic it is depends on the personality and living arrangements of the people involved. I know it's a common stereotype that developers hop jobs frequently, but there are also plenty of developers who do not. I know many such people at my current employer. I happen to be very content working there despite knowing I could make more if I went somewhere else and then jumped ship again and again.

It’s not a stereotype. It’s statistics.

https://developerpitstop.com/how-long-do-software-engineers-...

The people who want to work from home and are being forced to work in the office, by definition aren’t “content”.

As far as the living arrangements, if the impetus for you leaving is to find remote work, how will changing to another job change your living situation?

Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter

#120

Post by KerrAvon »

jsiepkes wrote: post #68
post_break wrote: post #39

The time theft of traffic, costs of fuel and wear and tear on your car, the cost of lunch if you don't pack a lunch. It all adds up when having to go back to the office. I hate that we had to return to the office because it was like getting a big pay cut. Even the 3 day a week thing, it's like what's the point? We can work from home obviously, what more does going in 3 times a week accomplish other than punish you, s…

> The time theft of traffic, costs of fuel and wear and tear on your car, the cost of lunch if you don't pack a lunch. I'm all for remote work but calling it "time theft" feels a bit weird. You knew these things were a requirement when you signed your contract, right? If you didn't want these things then why didn't you either made a point of them in contract negotiations or simply went to a company that allowed remot…

> You knew these things were a requirement when you signed your contract, right

This is not entirely fair. Pre-pandemic, remote work was much more difficult to find.

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