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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

#341

Post by BaseballPhysics »

mehphp wrote: post #337
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then it sounds like they probably do want to a full return to in-office work, but don't think they can get away with it. I said " not the least of which because ". I didn't say that was the only reason. This is precisely the kind of cynical reading-between-the-lines that I'm talking about.

Meh, engineers tend to be pretty intelligent. If they are being cynical about management then it’s probably founded.

If we're stereotyping, I think you're overestimating human rationality and the power of emotional thinking, which is also a pretty common trait among engineers.

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

#342

Post by 21723 »

nathanaldensr wrote: post #331
21723 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The complaint that returning to the office will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce is maybe the most absurd attempt yet to destroy RTO plans. It isn't. If you are disabled, black, female, or older, an open-plan office is not a comfortable place. It's a halfway house for frat boys, but people for whom being unfairly evaluated and unjustly terminated is…

Your comment is ridiculous. I'm an able-bodied white male but I'm also not neuro-normative, nor do I enjoy open office plans. What people do like open office plans? Hasn't this issue been settled yet?

Then you're included as disabled. You have a neurological makeup that increases the difficulty of securing and succeeding in employment. You have almost certaimly been given fewer opportunities than you would if you were neurotypical and good at politics.

Private-sector politicians and frat boys love open-plan offices; most of us are neutral at best, and with age most people come to loathe them.

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

#343

Post by thedangler »

I work for a university and they are hellbent on bringing us back to office full time. Currently we work in office 2 days a week. My office is in a cubical, ina concrete room with no windows. Meanwhile complaining about how much space is needed and how there is no parking but wont adjust policies to let us work from home, for those who can. Makes no sense. I am a web developer / analyst and have no contact with anyone outside of my developoment team.

Get this, our meetings are on zoom in the office anyways. lol

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

#344

Post by Multicomp »

jasonlotito wrote: post #272
lolsal wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that a lot of those things can be replaced with new techniques as time goes on. Just because this is how we did things yesterday doesn't mean there aren't better ways to do this ... This is a totally fair point, but multi-cursor online whiteboards are not the same as standing in front of a whiteboard and brainstorming with a colleague. "Zoom happy hour" or whatever cannot replace spontaneous lunches, after-…

> "Zoom happy hour" or whatever cannot replace spontaneous lunches, after-work drinks, pre-work coffees, etc. You keep listing the benefits as if they are problems.

I can't reply to the reply because of comment depth but not being obligated or dragged to work after work hours, when you are not paid to work, to still continue to work, is a benefit to ones work life balance.

After work drinks and pre-work drinks are just your work getting to consume more of your life than it pays you to do so, whether hourly work time not counted or salaried hours getting diluted.

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

#345

Post by jedberg »

jeffbee wrote: post #317
roflchoppa wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This work from office thing is really killing travel times in the Bay Area. 237/880 is almost back to pre-pandemic levels, the HOV lanes are making the problems worse.

Explain how the HOV lanes are making it worse?

They converted regular lanes to HOV/express, but not enough people are carpooling.

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

#346

Post by conjecTech »

lolsal wrote: post #330
conjecTech wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insisting on a new solution being "exactly the same" to adopt it pretty much ensures you will never leave the status quo. All changes in complex systems have tradeoffs. In-person whiteboard sessions can be exhilarating. They also tend to produce imprecise (or no) artifacts that rely heavily on the context of the meeting for interpretation. I noticed that when our team went remote during COVID and ideation was done by…

> Insisting on a new solution being "exactly the same" to adopt it pretty much ensures you will never leave the status quo. I'm not sure where you got that I said that, if you read what I wrote you'll see that I've been fully remote for over a decade. I don't in any way insist that fully remote work needs to be exactly the same as in-office work.

Sorry if I misinferred. It seemed implied in the first and forth sentence of your comment.

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

#347

Post by BaseballPhysics »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #326
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I knew! The technology industry in general is one with some of the most empowered workers in the economy. The incredible imbalance in labour supply-and-demand means that salaries and benefits are sky high, work conditions tend to be quite favourable, and employees have a ton of options in selecting employers that have positive work environments. And yet there are some who seem to think that tech workers are co…

It’s because we know exactly how precarious the situation is. If the demand for labor dropped significantly, do you think companies would maintain the status quo working conditions? Or would we see many more instances of worker exploitation?

> It’s because we know exactly how precarious the situation is.

The labour market for tech has been on fire for nearly 20 years now. There was barely a blip during the 2008 crash that evaporated huge chunks of the economy. During COVID demand for labour went up despite massive disruptions in the economy. I swear I've been reading articles about labour supply shortages in tech for as long as I've been in the industry.

I honestly have no idea where this fear comes from.

Please, I'm very curious to know: in what way is the situation for engineering labour "precarious"?

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

#348

Post by hyperman1 »

lolsal wrote: post #213

Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions? There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues? There is no value in body-language when communicating? I'm all for fully WFH policies, but I think it's a bit naive or dishonest to say that it's exactly the same work experience. I've been working remote for over a decade and wil…

Before my time, the company did some kind of retreat of 2 days, with sleeping in,for all 40 of the IT staff. The idea was to get them to know each other,as they where dispatched to 20+ divisions and only spoke by phone. There was no work to be done there, no cringy corporate stuff, just a mountain of food and drinks. It must have been expensive.

We're now 20 years later, and they're still referring to it. But when any noninvited ask anything, they all get very very very vague. Whatever happened on the retreat, stays on the retreat. Don't get me wrong, I don't think anything illegal or untoward happened.

It worked. They became a tight social network. Ask anyone anything, and the right person and info magically appears. Even 20 years later, in a very political corporation, the trust built that weekend still persists.

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

#349

Post by lowbloodsugar »

bckr wrote: post #308
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There is no value in body-language when communicating?" Not for me, no. I'm neurodiverse, and that shit is just lost on me. You might as well complain that you are missing out on being able to tell racist jokes with your same-race buddies, because you're missing out on the benefits of social bonding. Sure. single-cis-straight-white-neurotypical-abletypical-male can be super optimized, or the equivalent in what ever…

> You might as well complain that you are missing out on being able to tell racist jokes with your same-race buddies, I sympathize with your point, but object strongly to this analogy on the grounds that being racist is a choice, while benefiting from body language is not a choice. It's also very offensive, but that is a secondary issue.

However, expecting (and demanding) that the other person can interpret your body language is also a choice.

Consider you are the only person in the room who can't speak French. Everyone else can speak French and your native language. Would it be appropriate for them to drop into French whenever you ask a question, talk about it, and then answer in your language? No. Not only would you feel excluded, but you'd also be missing out in vital information required to do your job.

This isn't up for debate. You can argue that installing a wheelchair ramp or not is a choice. Fortunately it is the law. Likewise, accommodating neurodiverse people is the law, at least in the USA and Europe.

If you take the position that "I am neurotypical and it is not my choice, so it is reasonable to expect everyone else to be able to interpret my body language", then in any company in the USA with 15 or more people, your statement would be actionable under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

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

#350

Post by sam0x17 »

scottLobster wrote: post #298
sam0x17 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unapologetically, yes, and I'd take it a step further. Often the online version is more fun and more interactive than a bunch of people uncomfortably thrust into the same room. There are things people suddenly become comfortable saying and doing that they wouldn't normally say or do in person. If you've grown up with gamer friends you know exactly what I'm talking about -- seeing someone's silly avatar light up when…

Coddling social anxiety is not a good argument for WFH. There's a difference between introversion (needing time away from people to recharge) and social anxiety (not speaking up or interacting differently in person vs online). Unless you're banking on some cyberpunk future where people only ever interact online, social anxiety is a maladaptive disorder to be confronted, not a personality quirk. And FYI there are plen…

You could flip the script right back at the people afraid of interacting with people online.
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