Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

engadget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 632 posts

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

#381

Post by km3r »

karaterobot wrote: post #205
BaseballPhysics wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a manager, these types of comments and sentiments are so incredibly frustrating for me. This is pure supposition based on no evidence. It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Taking my company as an example, while the executive team has been ambiguous, I know that a full return to 5 days of asses in seats is not being contemplated at all , not the least of which because we don't want…

> a full return to 5 days of asses in seats is not being contemplated at all, not the least of which because we don't want to lose ~30% of our staff. 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. If the argument from your leadership doesn't begin with "according to these very clear numbers, our profitability as a business has suffered due to r…

> "according to these very clear numbers, our profitability as a business has suffered due to remote work"

Seems like this has absolutely been the case. FAANG and the like aren't gonna to willingly lose 10-20% of their staff unless in office work was more productive. The business will make their decisions based on what will make them the most money at the end of the day. They aren't politicians seeking power, just profit. If remote is more profitable, we will see remote companies dominate the scene in the next few years, but as of now, all management has to go off of is reports showing productivity went down during WFH.

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

#383

Post by warning26 »

EricE wrote: post #359

Neuro normative? Good grief. They don't want to work in the office - no need to gobbledygook it up in some bizarre appeal to authority. I can say as someone who now works full time remote while also geographically isolated, it's not all a bed of roses. I do miss the serendipitous hallway conversations - some of the best directions in my career came from those spontaneous and unplanned in person interactions. I'm towa…

> A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate

This 100%—I worked remotely for my first 5 years after graduating college, and I thought it was great until I went into a real office and found out what I was missing. I vowed to never work a remote job again (of course, the pandemic forced a quick end to that vow, hah.)

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

#384

Post by danaris »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #78
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your hybrid is mandatory then you can expect to be back to full time 5 days in a years time approx.

As a manager, these types of comments and sentiments are so incredibly frustrating for me. This is pure supposition based on no evidence. It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Taking my company as an example, while the executive team has been ambiguous, I know that a full return to 5 days of asses in seats is not being contemplated at all , not the least of which because we don't want…

I would say that it's not just a lack of trust in your specific organization's management intentions. It's also related to how much we've all seen management throughout the Western world react with horror to the idea that the people they're supposed to be telling what to do might not be physically within their view for weeks or months at a time...or ever!

There's unquestionably a very strong strain of "management" in our culture that consists almost solely of a) distrusting the employees, b) therefore trying to physically monitor them at all times, and c) justifying their own existence by calling for many hours of (in-person) meetings every week. Personally, the institution I work for has claimed—in defiance of all logic and obvious reality—that certain jobs here can only be done in the office, all the time, and thus anyone in these jobs (which is basically everything below Director-level) seeking to work remote even part of the time will be denied.

Your company many not even have any of these people. I don't know. But so many of us have heard the stories from so many others who do have management like this that we would be stupid not to be wary of any manager—on up to the C-suite/owner/board—who seems unenthusiastic about remote work.

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

#385

Post by conductr »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #78
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your hybrid is mandatory then you can expect to be back to full time 5 days in a years time approx.

As a manager, these types of comments and sentiments are so incredibly frustrating for me. This is pure supposition based on no evidence. It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Taking my company as an example, while the executive team has been ambiguous, I know that a full return to 5 days of asses in seats is not being contemplated at all , not the least of which because we don't want…

> it makes me want to tear my hair out because I can shout from the rooftops that, no, we're never going to mandate a full return to office, but some folks will simply never believe it.

Six months from now you get a new CEO and they want asses in seats immediately. What do you say then?

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

#386

Post by agentdrtran »

EricE wrote: post #359

Neuro normative? Good grief. They don't want to work in the office - no need to gobbledygook it up in some bizarre appeal to authority. I can say as someone who now works full time remote while also geographically isolated, it's not all a bed of roses. I do miss the serendipitous hallway conversations - some of the best directions in my career came from those spontaneous and unplanned in person interactions. I'm towa…

many (most?) neuro-atypical people absolutely have a much better experience wfh rather than in person and policies that force back to office ignore their needs.

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

#387

Post by lghh »

EricE wrote: post #359

Neuro normative? Good grief. They don't want to work in the office - no need to gobbledygook it up in some bizarre appeal to authority. I can say as someone who now works full time remote while also geographically isolated, it's not all a bed of roses. I do miss the serendipitous hallway conversations - some of the best directions in my career came from those spontaneous and unplanned in person interactions. I'm towa…

> Neuro normative? Good grief. They don't want to work in the office - no need to gobbledygook it up in some bizarre appeal to authority.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Do you not think neuro-normativity is a real thing? Or do you think that neuro-divergent people will be worse off with a truly flexible work-from-home policy?

I don't think they are requesting that the office cease to exist. It sounds like they want a hybrid approach that has no required office time.

> A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate

This is condescending. It assumes that people who want full-time remote are not aware of the trade offs. I try to think better of people when they make an effort at self-determination. They know their lives better than I do, I imagine.

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

#388

Post by thebean11 »

burkaman wrote: post #367
thebean11 wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in wheelchairs leave their homes all the time. Apple has buses and offices that I'm sure are wheelchair accessible. Apple probably offers pretty good insurance to get a motorized wheelchair if needed. If someone really can't make it to the office physically, I'm sure the policies are somewhat more nuanced. I understand it may be more difficult for certain people, but I guess to me it's a non sequitur. Doing di…

The conclusion is that we should remove barriers whenever possible. Climbing a mountain is more difficult for people in a wheelchair, but that's just the way it is, we can't make the mountain equally accessible for everyone. Climbing the stairs of a skyscraper is more difficult for people in a wheelchair, but it doesn't have to be that way, we can install an elevator. Extend that to everything. We shouldn't ask peopl…

I guess in my mind accessible buildings, accessible transportation to and from work, insurance that makes it easy to get high quality treatment and medical devices are akin to "installing the elevator" in your analogy. Part of the job is getting to the top of the skyscraper and those things make it easier.

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

#389

Post by lghh »

warning26 wrote: post #383
EricE wrote: post #359

Neuro normative? Good grief. They don't want to work in the office - no need to gobbledygook it up in some bizarre appeal to authority. I can say as someone who now works full time remote while also geographically isolated, it's not all a bed of roses. I do miss the serendipitous hallway conversations - some of the best directions in my career came from those spontaneous and unplanned in person interactions. I'm towa…

> A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate This 100%—I worked remotely for my first 5 years after graduating college, and I thought it was great until I went into a real office and found out what I was missing. I vowed to never work a remote job again (of course, the pandemic forced a quick end to that…

And you still have that choice both under the model that the workers here are suggesting and in the greater economy.

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

#390

Post by mehphp »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #341
mehphp wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I’m not stereotyping though; I said if engineers are cynical their is probably a reason. I didn’t say all engineers are cynical or all mangers give them a reason to be.

It sounds like you have a disconnect with your ICs if you don’t understand why they don’t trust you.

Post reply on HN