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Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

nytimes.com

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Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#151

Post by yunohn »

Waterluvian wrote: post #94
ALittleLight wrote: post #51

"she had left Apple after spending several years fighting a decision to reassign her to a role that she said had involved more work for less pay. She said Apple had begun trying to reassign her after she complained that the company’s work on the minerals was not, in some cases, leading to meaningful change in some war-torn countries" I'm impressed that Apple let her spend "several years" fighting a reassignment. I'm…

A job is a job. You just quit and find another one if your employer no longer wants you or wants you to do something you don’t care for. Is this attitude possibly because these companies hire based on the entire emotion that you’re special and elite and we’re all going to link arms and save the planet?

“She said Apple had begun trying to reassign her after she complained”

This is called retaliation, and is illegal. It’s not happenstance that she got re-orged after complaining about underlying issues.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#152

Post by Bahamut »

szc wrote: post #112

I think this is a poorly sourced and not a reliably fact checked article. This is at least the 2nd time on HN that a report has suggested Ashley Gjovik was complaining about "toxic chemicals at work". The previous article referred to something published at "The Verge" - "her office is in an Apple building located on a superfund site" https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22666049/apple-fires-senio... > Other published ar…

Cher is a real employee, but anything more I'll leave unsaid out of respect for her privacy. Apple employees can easily look up other employees, and there are easy ways to tell whether someone is an Apple employee should they choose to reveal some of those things.

Also I don't know whether she's remote or onsite, but there are multiple orgs with offices in Seattle - one of my friends just got hired as an engineering manager onsite for Apple in Seattle.

Some of these comments could use some fact checking of their own :) .

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#153

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dls2016 wrote: post #141
Bud wrote: post #65

The leader of this small group of "unrest" folks, Cher Scarlett, apparently got hired in April and has worked for 8 other tech companies, according to this story. Color me unimpressed. She starts agitating after a few months of working entirely from home at a highly-paid gig? Did she even have time to get a clue about whether Apple's doing bad things or not? Or does she just kinda flit around from gig to gig looking…

> I'm guessing less of the former, and more of the latter. Nice guess, but what's the problem with rabble-rousing? People fight actual violent battles with their employers, perhaps not so much in this country anymore. But that doesn't mean all the work to improve labor is finished. Apple and Google were fined for fixing wages only seven years ago (perhaps an eon in SV time, I wouldn't know). I'm sure I could walk int…

> what's the problem with rabble-rousing?

Nothing. Taking a job with the intent to rouse rabbles, on the other hand, is dishonest.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#154

Post by [deleted] »

gkop wrote: post #104
dogman144 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These shadow IT attempts surface all the time through a vaguely competent SecOps’ team daily work, especially insider threat. Gets bragged about or picked up via MDM or DNS queries. So ya in this case the rule comes with easy enforcement.

Your comment raised some questions for me: * Just curious, how do you enforce against, for example, a Facebook group? Would you have to totally block Facebook? * With word of mouth an activist Slack workspace can take off on personal devices over cellular data, if the conditions are right. Is the idea of internal enforcement just to make it less convenient to participate? * Why don’t activists use Blind to organize?…

[deleted]

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#155

Post by ytdytvhxgydvhh »

lukewarm_pocket wrote: post #107
Bud wrote: post #65

The leader of this small group of "unrest" folks, Cher Scarlett, apparently got hired in April and has worked for 8 other tech companies, according to this story. Color me unimpressed. She starts agitating after a few months of working entirely from home at a highly-paid gig? Did she even have time to get a clue about whether Apple's doing bad things or not? Or does she just kinda flit around from gig to gig looking…

Yeah, Cher is an interesting character. Feels like she found a passion in being a corporate activist and it's very interesting to see how her story will play out.

I have a feeling 0 more tech companies will hire her now that a quick Google of her name will attach her to this sort of activism. Even if you agree with some of her points regarding Apple, do you really want her coming into your company and looking for a story to tell?

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#156

Post by geofft »

szc wrote: post #112

I think this is a poorly sourced and not a reliably fact checked article. This is at least the 2nd time on HN that a report has suggested Ashley Gjovik was complaining about "toxic chemicals at work". The previous article referred to something published at "The Verge" - "her office is in an Apple building located on a superfund site" https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/9/22666049/apple-fires-senio... > Other published ar…

> Twitter suggests that "Cher Scarlett" is located in Seattle. (This would make them a remote worker for Apple).

Apple has a large in-person engineering office in Seattle, which is easy to determine from a Google search for 'apple seattle engineering':

https://jobs.apple.com/en-us/search?location=seattle-SEA (scroll down past the retail jobs)

https://www.geekwire.com/2021/signs-point-apple-making-seatt...

https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-announces-new-office-s...

https://goo.gl/maps/qhjMUiC9M3HMGMQs7

I'm not sure I understand the rest of your argument. You think this person a) doesn't exist b) doesn't work for Apple c) does exist and works for Apple remotely, because there is no Seattle office d) works for Apple in the critical path for security reports and bug bounties, and is therefore why Apple is (allegedly) not responding to them because she's spending all her day tweeting e) works for Apple in an unknown capacity, which you cannot figure out f) tweets too much g) doesn't tweet enough about a specific security "mindset," which all people in a security role have?

This "technical analysis" doesn't seem to hold up, and I don't see any particular reason to suspect this person doesn't exist. I suspect the journalist's due diligence was more sound.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#157

Post by iso1210 »

kyleee wrote: post #72
stickfigure wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stop shopping in places where the customer service is slow. Such is life.

Would you ditch Apple if you had a customer service experience with a deaf person and it took 3-5 minutes longer than it would have with a hearing person?

I'm not sure why I would need to talk to a customer service person in real life at apple. If I did (and I don't think I ever had) need to communicate my preference would be via email, or perhaps real time text chat. There's no reason someone who's deaf couldn't be on the end of those.

I did however cancel a £1000 order with currys because they didn't provide anyone to talk to - by phone, email or even text chat (which only worked on some browsers). The only form of communication was 'fill this form in to cancel your order'.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#158

Post by lotsofpulp »

yunohn wrote: post #145
lotsofpulp wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>She said Apple had begun trying to reassign her after she complained that the company’s work on the minerals was not, in some cases, leading to meaningful change in some war-torn countries" What other geopolitical problems does this person think Apple should be tackling other than resolving tribal conflicts in war torn central Africa? The Taliban? Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women? Haiti’s poverty? Ridiculous.

I think you’ve misunderstood. I interpreted her stance as Apple’s efforts not actually making a change, and being more about posturing. This is often the case with corporate green-washing.

One should always assume a company’s efforts are posturing.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#159

Post by reaperducer »

ekianjo wrote: post #46
imgabe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also been a customer at establishments with deaf employees and none of them ever had a sign language interpreter. Providing an iPad to type messages on is a reasonable accommodation. Customers who don’t like it can work with another employee or go elsewhere. But hiring a second entire employee who basically shadows you and does your job for you seems like a bit much.

> Providing an iPad to type messages on is a reasonable accommodation Doesn't that make communication slower? When I want to buy something, I certainly don't want to start chatting on a tablet to get my point across. It seems like a poor choice of position for that employee.

Doesn't that make communication slower? When I want to buy something, I certainly don't want to start chatting on a tablet

Calm down. Breathe. You're buying something at a store, not performing surgery.

Five minutes of your time is not necessarily more important than depriving someone of their livelihood. If you were that important, you'd be driving an ambulance.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#160

Post by ytdytvhxgydvhh »

epistasis wrote: post #3

I expected this to be about CSAM when I opened the link, but I guess it's stuff that has been brewing even longer than that. Dealing with highly paid, and highly desirable employees that can get a job at the drop of a hat, and which have ample savings to let them glide in any case, means that they have a lot of leverage. You need them just as much as they need you. This is why political policy has been to keep away f…

Yep. The increased leverage that low-wage employees had during the pandemic due to enhanced unemployment benefits gave them a taste of this as well. Lots of people being able to say “take this job and shove it” led to very real labor shortages in certain sectors.
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