become a drone from home or queen from home if you don't want to be a work from home
Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
371–380 of 632 posts
Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
#372I've always heard that Apple culture is secretive to the point where multiple people working on the same product can be talking about the same thing without realizing it (since each team has different codenames for the same product).
is this true?
Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
#373Can 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…
I'm a remote work advocate. > Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions? Of course it's not an exact equivalent, but it doesn't need to be. Anecdotally speaking, the number of whiteboard meetings I had that I wanted to have were about 1 per year. Remote workers use tools like Notion, Miro, Jetbrains Code With me which have many/more of th…
The value for being in the office for me was in the spontaneous connections with folks that weren't in my immediate work unit. Those connections have lead to every job I have had. The best kinds of jobs are the ones that come to you and you don't have to interview for; and you just aren't going to get anywhere near the numbers of those opportunities without "pressing the flesh".
If that's not a concern for you then have at it. But if you are at the start or mid way through your career, are motivated and still hungry for advancement I'd be VERY careful of spending too much time full time remote.
Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Absolutely true. Employees do not trust management for good reasons, because they have experience with management not being open and honest with them (speaking generally here, of course there are exceptions). Management's goals are often counter to those of the employees. Whereas workers want good pay, flexibility, work/life balance, and so on.…
> Management's goals are often counter to those of the employees. Whereas workers want good pay, flexibility, work/life balance, and so on. Management wants control, pay people less, have them work more, and so on. Many managers pretend they care about what the workers want, only to force on to them what they want. People pick up on that bait and switch after a few times. Again, speaking generally here, this isn't un…
>The question is: What kind of company is Apple?
>I honestly have no idea. But to assume, universally, that all companies will renege on their hybrid work commitments is much too cynical for me.
It is the kind of company that colludes with other employers to illegally gain advantage when negotiating with employees about pay and quality of life at work.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-s...
If you want to believe people at Apple have changed, go for it. But in my opinion, it always behooves sellers of labor that buyers of labor are always playing an adversarial game. And vice versa of course.
Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
#375These WFH stories seem to preferentially solicit comments from WFH employees who enjoy the flexibility to comment on HN during the workday.
I would wager Apple employees, or in-office employees in general, tend not comment on threads like these in fear of publicly disagreeing with company leadership. So maybe there is some selection bias at play.
Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
#376Apple is in a very tough spot. A $5bn headquarters sits relatively vacant with decreasing likelihood that there will be a return on investment. They ironically dug themselves into a hole by preaching how it would revolutionize the workplace while most feel this way about WFH. The paradigm shift seems obvious, especially when you account for the unrelenting rise in commercial real estate prices since Covid.
Perhaps Apple cannot acknowledge the foot in their mouth because it would contribute to a systemic collapse of the commercial real estate market... crazy times.
Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
#377> It will make Apple younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied, in short They are free to leave and enrich other companies.
the same can be said for people living in States or cities where they don't agree with the current administration's policies.
should the response always be to leave? what about fighting to try to make the place you are currently in better?
Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
#378Any actual metrics on employee productivity with the full remote, full office, or hybrid model? No wonder our labor productivity has been stagnate over the last decade.
Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
#379Can 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…
Whiteboards can be replaced by digital tools, but as far as I know, companies do not invest to remote work tools enough currently.
There are great tools, which should be available for every worker in home, but that does not happen for some reason?
Re: Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
#380I 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 chan…
Yes, it was an issue before COVID, but people who are disabled, or people who have processing differences that make dealing with the distractions of an open plan office extremely difficult (that's the "neuro-normative" part), or people who have to juggle children and a job, or people who can't afford to live close enough to have a short commute, had it much better when working from home and naturally don't want to gi…
Thanks, that clarifies things a bit. And I can understand not wanting to give up an improvement over pre-COVID times-- I agree it shouldn't be necessary. I guess I was just confused that they seem to be implying that a partial return to in-person would make things worse than pre-covid.