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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

#231

Post by samhwr »

bengale wrote: post #166
Waterluvian wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty sure it is logged. Perhaps someone can confirm but can a sufficiently privileged user (not a Slack employee) read contents of private channels? DMs?

Yes, for the upgraded plans you can export data from all private channels and direct messages. It also doesn't notify users when this happens. You can't watch the chats in real time or anything. People should assume communication on company services are all logged.

Not only logged, but potentially subpoenable in lawsuits. Any reasonably large company usually ends up with the occasional lawsuit from some mentally ill querulant who feels wronged for whatever reason, and in one of those cases, at a past employer, we ended up blowing off steam by joking about the letters from their ‘lawyer’ (i.e. almost certainly themselves). We were fed up after having to gather vast amounts of data, which they demanded just to make things difficult for us.

And then, as I should have foreseen, they demanded all communications within the company relating to their lawsuit. I’m not a lawyer, but, for whatever reason, our lawyers considered it to be within their rights; I’m sure it wouldn’t have applied to privileged legal discussions, but we were just code monkeys so I suppose our chat logs were fair game. I’m never doing that again. I don’t think their lawsuit went anywhere, but it was mortifying all the same, especially considering our brand was quite a friendly and liberal one.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#232

Post by samhwr »

kf6nux wrote: post #201
fortran77 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim Cook reaps what he sows. He started all this when he fired Antonio García Martínez in response to an employee petition. (Hint to Tim Cook: You should have fired each and every one of the employees who signed that petition.) He made the wrong, worst people at the company feel "empowered" and now there's no stopping them.

For those who don't remember, this fired leader wrote "Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self- regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box…

Yeah, the complaining about this is ludicrous. It feels like there are increasingly two camps, one of which believes anyone fired for social justice reasons is being wronged due to some kind of cancel culture, and the other of which believes that the former never happens in any case.

The reality is some people are rightly fired, others wrongly. In this case, that person was rightly fired. Writing such inflammatory bollocks would have got you fired 10 or 20 years ago too. They burned bridges with most of the people they would be expected to work with, so it’s absurd to demand that they be protected from the consequences of their actions. This goes well beyond being fired for claiming that, say, racism against white people is possible.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#233

Post by Qub3d »

vlovich123 wrote: post #216
Socketier wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, it's similar to the media frenzy around the woman who got seriously burned by Mcdonalds coffee and sued them. The reaction was mostly incredulity and mocking her, but the reality was that the coffee was exceptionally hot for decontamination convenience (a corporate money saving measure) and the cup was insulated such that the average person wouldn't ever expect it to be so dangerous. Best to withold judgment…

I thought it was made so they could offer “unlimited” coffee but making it so hot increased the drinking time so customers were far away before finishing?

In the trial, McDonald's claimed that they served the coffee at that temperature because commuters would buy the coffee, drive to their destination, and then drink it, so the coffee was served in a manner to make sure it wouldn't be cold by then.

However, it came to light that their internal research found most people drink the coffee while driving. The primary reason has been speculated but of course never officially acknowledged as what you suggest.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#234

Post by zepto »

licebmi__at__ wrote: post #178
S_A_P wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this is someone who is either looking for an angle to litigate with a rich company or has completely unrealistic expectations or both? I feel like if you had a real conversation with this person and got to the root of how they feel they would know their ask is unreasonable. I’m sure they may also feel like they have been dealt a bad hand and want to find a way to be compensated. While this route may make a few law…

Or maybe there could be more nuance to the case. What of he was hired for a different role and then suddenly he had to attend customers? What if the manager just didn’t like him and set him up for failure? Why would we put the wrong in him if the company hired him on the first place?

Without that nuance, the story makes no sense. We shouldn’t be blaming either the employee or Apple. The problem here is with the New York Times publishing this obviously bad reporting.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#235

Post by FooBarBizBazz »

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…

The article https://sfbayview.com/2021/03/i-thought-i-was-dying-my-apart...> you posted is quite interesting, actually.

I started skeptical, but by the end tended to believe Ashley Gjovik. So I don't know about Cher, and maybe Ashley kind-of got radicalized by her experience, but she does have a lot of evidence about the apartment issue.

Really worth reading. Lots of research. Data. Environmental impact reports. Kickbacks from developers to the city (https://blogs.mercurynews.com/internal-affairs/2014/05/19/sa...>). All kinds of stuff. It's like The Wire.

It makes me look at urban redevelopment differently.

Also makes me think differently about "community investment" and such. How much of this is just bribes and protection money?

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#236

Post by ytdytvhxgydvhh »

cmsj wrote: post #230
ytdytvhxgydvhh wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It's interesting that the take there is "don't hire people who will expose your corporate shortcomings" instead of "fix your corporate shortcomings".

Not a very idealistic stance sure, but a pragmatic one. I think lots of people who run businesses know that their business isn’t perfect. But at the end of the day the company sells things and employs people. An idealistic activist attracting negative attention, making it harder for the company to sell things and employ people — well, that’s bad business.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#237

Post by nfw2 »

Bud wrote: post #92
reustle wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* Pebble: Shipped January 2013 * Android Wear OS: Released June 2014 * Pebble Time (color): February 24, 2015 * Apple Watch 1: April 24, 2015 I wouldn't say they "invented" the category.

That's because you can't assess how much better an Apple Watch is than any of those defunct joke-competitors. Others can, though, like those who actually buy smartwatches.

Wear OS is not defunct. If Wear OS is not in the category the Apple Watch is leading, what is?

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#238

Post by samhwr »

luffapi wrote: post #226
samhwr wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s a harder question than either side is willing to accept. You have someone who isn’t of much use as an employee, but by no fault of their own. It’s a horrible situation for them to be in, and it’s one we have to think about as a society, but it’s unclear why Apple specifically is obliged to provide them welfare at its own expense.

It’s not a hard question at all. Apple has the money to easily accommodate all of their workers. It would even be a PR win. Tim Cook and the other execs are just anti-labor to their core and (don’t realize?) how clear their actions are being read by future potential employees.

I’m not sure why having the money is relevant. Plenty of companies, people, and governments ‘have the money’. The question is why it is specifically Apple who are obliged to provide welfare for this person at their own expense.

I have huge sympathy for human beings who are unable to work, and a humane society should provide for them, but I don’t see why it falls to Apple. This kind of populism (“person X or company Y should be arbitrarily forced to pay for thing Z, ultra vires, because they can”) feels like a lazy way to avoid solving a deeper societal problem which goes well beyond this one person.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#239

Post by junon »

leesalminen wrote: post #199
junon wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh. Idk. I know sign language, I've worked with a lot of deaf people throughout my life, and have quite a few deaf friends. I also worked a few years as a "sales associate" (retail guy) at RadioShack. I don't think these two mix well in practice. People are moody, in a rush, and don't generally have accessibility or the needs of others in mind when going to a store. Trying to communicate when you're also trying to co…

There’s a blind retail employee at my local Apple Store. He’s been there for years. I knew that it’d end up taking a few extra minutes to buy whatever when working with him, but it never pissed me off. I appreciated how hard he tried and admired the fact that he’d even be willing to work in a loud, crowded Apple store. Plus, he had a really sweet dog with him who was very friendly. Maybe it would be harder with a dea…

I think it would. Blind people can still communicate freely - there's no inherent barrier there.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#240

Post by luffapi »

samhwr wrote: post #238
luffapi wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not a hard question at all. Apple has the money to easily accommodate all of their workers. It would even be a PR win. Tim Cook and the other execs are just anti-labor to their core and (don’t realize?) how clear their actions are being read by future potential employees.

I’m not sure why having the money is relevant. Plenty of companies, people, and governments ‘have the money’. The question is why it is specifically Apple who are obliged to provide welfare for this person at their own expense. I have huge sympathy for human beings who are unable to work, and a humane society should provide for them, but I don’t see why it falls to Apple. This kind of populism (“person X or company Y…

> I’m not sure why having the money is relevant. Plenty of companies, people, and governments ‘have the money’.

And they are beholden to the public that allows them to keep that money. The government should absolutely be doing more to help disadvantaged people (and everyone else). That doesn’t make Apple a good place to work. They already have exploited child labor to build their fortunes. Apple is rotten to the core and this is just another example.

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