Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by LosWochosWeek » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

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…

It feels just as weird as calling things daylight robbery, i.e. not at all.

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

#192

Post by buscoquadnary » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

randomsearch wrote: post #91

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…

Fair point for some people. Something I don’t see on HN is how the ideal wfh works for people who can’t afford a study. What if you live with your parents and share with a sibling? This might not be the case for established six figure programmers in the states. But there are lots of people with less money who might value having a separate space to work. Might even be the silent majority outside of highly paid develop…

I'll just throw out there when I started developing all I had was one crappy laptop and headphones and the way I ended up working was by going to the Starbucks down the street getting a hot chocolate and a scone and going to town for hours at a time. Of course that wouldn't work as well for meetings but it was simpler times back then.

Although now I've got an idea to make coffee shops produce more revenue I'm realizing if the CEO of Starbucks is reading this give me a call.

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

#193

Post by kirykl » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:07 PM UTC

Find a new place to work. Support companies that trust and value their employees.

I personally don't plan to commute to an open office just to use software tools designed for remote work at a desk there instead of my more comfortable, quieter one at home. If I had a private office at work then maybe I'd reconsider.

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

#194

Post by tofuahdude » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:08 PM UTC

t-writescode wrote: post #24

tharne wrote: post #16

Stop whining and vote with your feet. If you're talented enough to work for Apple, there are plenty of other wonderful companies out there that will happily let you work remotely. Not every company needs to have the exact same policies on everything.

“The first time you have an argument with your spouse, you should get a divorce” Is what you’re saying here. They’re trying to make company changes to improve their relationship with someone they like to work for, without using the nuclear option.

We swap jobs all the time and there is no expectation of permanence; not a very good analogy.

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

#195

Post by Shaanie » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

hallway_monitor wrote: post #164

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having a team that's half remote/half in-person is worse of both worlds I'm not so sure that's a blanket statement. If teams are properly managed it works out.

Have you worked in this environment? I have and I agree with the previous comment. You get the low friction interaction of being there in person but then all the people who aren't there get left out. Or you have to do everything on video anyway so there's no point in some people being in person. My bet is in person companies win in the end.

Even if it's true that in-person developers are more productive, you also have to account for the preference of developers. If developers prefer to work remotely, then the average in-person developer is probably likely to be worse than the average remote developer (since skilled developers will have an easier time to find the more attractive remote positions).

And as we all know, the difference between a skilled developer and a bad one is quite massive.

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

#196

Post by rendall » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:10 PM UTC

RC_ITR wrote: post #173

shuckles wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are people who are convinced by this logic aware that the vast majority of Apple employees don’t work in Apple Park and instead in extremely unremarkable office buildings throughout suburban Bay Area?

And do they ignore the fact that many of apple’s most important employees work in physically secured labs where physical device access is a major part of their job? Like sure GitHub can be remote top to bottom, but an insane amount of Apples workflow is prototype driven and those prototypes cannot physically leave their secure facilities. Hard to argue (from a retention standpoint) that those people need to come in f…

> many of apple’s most important employees

What do you mean here, by "many", exactly? Kind of odd to argue that everyone should go to the physical office because "many" must, when, let's be honest, "many" here is probably less than 1%.

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

#197

Post by paul7986 » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:11 PM UTC

Think with Air BnB's recent promotion of work from anywhere the big tech firms are going to have to follow or lose employees.

Majority of ppl do not want to work in an office after working from anywhere past two years. We want our freedom as all have shown to do our jobs successfully remotely no need to go back to an office ever!

Work life is forever changed.

Cities whose economies are hurting and will continue to hurt I say need to turn that commercial real estate into remote worker fully furnished and temporary apartments. Place for remote workers who can...city hop every 3 to 6 to 9 month to 12 months. I'd enjoy city hop remote working as nothing really is tying me down .. those Im dating and or in a relationship can join me or visit me and I can experience living in different cities like Chicago, Honolulu, Seattle, Miami, Austin, etc

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

#198

Post by curtastic2 » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:12 PM UTC

ChadNauseam wrote: post #116

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

Exactly. Some companies will be fully remote and some won’t. It’s easy to switch tech jobs in the Bay Area and you can pick one that suits you. Apple was always in person.

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

#199

Post by renewiltord » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:13 PM UTC

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.

It’s doubtful that a company as well-run as Apple falls for the sunk cost fallacy at this scale.

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

#200

Post by ineedasername » Tue, May 03, 2022, 4:14 PM UTC

I should preface my comment by saying that I generally agree that full WFH is a very reasonable request, but I can only partly follow their reasoning on the diversity factor:

>"... will change the makeup of our workforce [to] younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"

Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would change the workforce from what it already is unless it became more diverse during COVID as a result of flexible WFH options.

I also understand their justification for how these might limit candidates except "whiter" and "neuro-normative", which their letter didn't seem to provide direct reasoning for. I suppose "whiter" might be the result of drawing more from the local population, but again they seem to be arguing that a policy that's still more flexible than pre-COVID will make things worse, which I don't follow.

>*"requiring everyone to relocate to the office their team

Again this shouldn't make things any worse than pre-COVID. Given that full WFH was stated as temporary then no one should need to relocate to accommodate a partial in-person requirement. Not unless they unwisely moved away during the lockdown despite things being temporary or are new hires who also failed to take the temporary status into account.

To reiterate, I'm very sympathetic to their overall complaint, but it appears that they might be doing their case a disservice by implying that this will make some things worse than they already are or were before.