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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

#411

Post by dont__panic »

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…

There are tradeoffs in both directions. Your point about spontaneous interactions is a good one, but consider the other tradeoffs at play:

- open layout offices are awful places to work where many people struggle to focus at all, to the point where their work is negatively impacted

- separating home location from work location opens up opportunities to work places certain people would never have considered before, unless they wanted to leave their friends/family/social groups/etc. behind

- cutting out a commute every day saves folks time, money, stress, and likely cuts down on a lot of wasteful greenhouse gas emissions

I'm relatively early in my career, but I also love WFH compared to in-office work. Why? I hated the commute, I don't like socializing with my coworkers outside of actual work, and I struggle to focus with folks on calls around me and without decent thermostat control. I acknowledge that some people can deal with all of those things, still be productive, and reap the benefits of in-person work. But there are also those of us whose careers have skyrocketed in the past couple of years specifically because we have a working arrangement that works better for us now.

It's hard to say how much this will impact my career trajectory in the long term. But I'm also more concerned about my private social life and hobbies than I am about my career, and remote work works far better for that, too.

TL;DR: Different strokes for different folks. Young people are not doomed by remote work.

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

#412

Post by fartcannon »

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 tech savvy younger folks are perfectly capable of making relationships entirely online. I'm not even young, and I've done it myself. 25 years ago, I made several friends on Yahoo Chat! who I have never seen in real life but speak with regularly. Many more over the years via builtin boards. These days discord exists and it's a primary social source for a number of kids.

These kids could enter a fully WFH workforce without blinking an eye and continue to develop life long relationships with their new colleagues if they desired. I've done both. But to be honest, the only friends I've maintained from previous in person jobs are the ones who I also connected with via a chat program.

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

#413

Post by uoaei »

roflchoppa wrote: post #251
jedberg wrote: post #234

As a Cupertino resident, I'm pretty upset with their WFH policy. At the very least they should have let small teams choose their in office days. Now I need to keep track of which days of the week they have to be in the office, because traffic in Cupertino will be 2x-3x worse on the days they are in the office. Their choice of forcing everyone back on the same day is not only bad for their workers, but it's bad for al…

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.

BART and bike worked great for me today! Plenty of time to read and relax, no bullshit with other drivers cutting you off.

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

#414

Post by ryanmcbride »

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…

You seem to be interpreting a lot of your personal experience as solid fact. It's fine that the way your career happened to shake out worked out for you but that doesn't mean it's the only way to work, and it certainly doesn't mean it's the best way for everybody to work.

People work differently, commuting is a nightmare and gets worse every year, if you want to be in an office I don't think you'll have trouble finding a job to accommodate. A few years before the pandemic I swore I'd never commute again and I intend to live out the rest of my career that way. You will never catch me commuting every day.

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

#415

Post by prewett »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #347
jakelazaroff wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

It's not clear how high the barrier to entry to software is; if the barrier is low, we can expect wages to drop, long-term. People are (reportedly) getting six figure jobs from a six week bootcamp, which could be troubling to people getting paid only somewhat higher for 20 years of experience. And since remote work is clearly here to stay, why would companies hire for US salaries when they could hire somewhere else in the world for less?

There's also concern about whether the stack I have experience with will be around in five years (particularly bad in the Web arena), concern about will I be able to get a job after I'm forty, concern about will I be able to get a job if I have to whiteboard leetcode exercises, etc.

Plus, if you have a mortgage in a high cost of living area (likely if you are in tech) with a family of four, say, your burn rate is pretty high, which is fear-inducing. How long can you afford to pay a $1 million mortgage with no job? Even if you think you will probably be okay, there is a non-negligible (with unknown probability) that you might not find a job and, say, lose your house. There is a potentially huge tail-risk in switch jobs. So even if the market is good in general, there is a risk that if it is not good for you there might be a disaster. On top of this, you read about plenty of layoffs when the economy turns poor, so you know the company is not likely to care about your personal situation. Whether or not the situation is actually precarious, the risk makes you feel like it is.

(In my case, freelancing has been helpful for the fears, because you look for work so much more frequently, and your perspective on your work options, and even what you are selling changes.)

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

#416

Post by thebean11 »

lghh wrote: post #409
thebean11 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah maybe. I'd be curious to know how big of a factor it actually is. Would an extraverted person using a wheelchair prefer to work from home, or go in? I'd be hesitant to assume something like that is necessarily the biggest factor for somebody. It could certainly trend that way though. I don't see that as super problematic.

They have that option. Apple's offices are not going away. The letter specifically mentions that.

Yeah sure. What I'm getting at is that it's not necessarily unjust to ask someone in a wheelchair to go somewhere in person for their job, and I'm not convinced most people in a wheelchair would see it that way.

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

#417

Post by simion314 »

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…

But without going into a parallel universe where you always worked remote in a fully remote team you can't actually say for sure, you are just guessing with a giant and obvious bias. On top of that what worked for you might not work for other people in other life situation and other geographic locations.

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

#418

Post by fartcannon »

warning26 wrote: post #400
lghh wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Problem is, when you give workers a choice to come into the office, it becomes a game theory problem that ultimately results in no one coming in. "Why come to the office if none of my team members are there?"

If you strongly believe the office is valuable, surly there are others who agree with you. Those people will be there. Everyone else can work from home.

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

#419

Post by odessacubbage »

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…

i can only speak for myself, but work from home has genuinely been life changing as an autistic person. i also think you are right that choosing to work remotely comes at the risk of limiting opportunities, but the difference in quality of life is significant enough that i am willing to take that risk [it's not like those of us with terrible interpersonal skills were going to be making many life-changing connections irl anyway]

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

#420

Post by danaris »

spullara wrote: post #394
lghh wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

There is no possible way for someone just out of college to actually understand the tradeoffs. Young people have little to no experience with building a career or what it entails.

There is no possible way for you—or any of us, at this present moment—to know just how those tradeoffs and the shape of work will be changed over the next few decades by this pandemic, its aftershocks, and the new understanding we have all gained of just what is really possible with remote work.

The idea that because you've been working for a decade or two and know how things were before the pandemic, these poor, dumb college kids should just listen to you and let you tell them that everything has always been this way and always will be this way just doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny.

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