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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

#491

Post by EricE »

fartcannon wrote: post #412
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 work…

It's not just about making friends. It's about serendipity.

It's about spontaneous and unplanned interactions that provide new paths for you. Yes, you can still have those remotely - but they are no where nearly as frequent, nor anywhere near as impactful. They simply can't be - your fighting millions of years of social evolution if you think otherwise. Heck I doubt most of us remember a fraction of spontaneous in person interactions with others in our day to day life - but let me tell you there are a handful in my past that made all the difference in where I am today. None would have happened if I had been working remotely.

Not one of them.

You simply can't quantize the value of those interactions and I fear for those who are seemingly so willing to casually tossing those away. Yes, commuting sucks. Yes, committing to a schedule sucks. Yes, listening to the same story from Bob for the millionth time while you are trying to focus on something else sucks. But there are other benefits that are irreplaceable too.

Probably the best illustration I can think of in pop culture is the Star Trek:TNG episode where Picard's artificial heart dies and he has that whole near death experience with Q. It's a great analogy for this whole discussion. I'm too am glad I had the bloody nose early on and the much more interesting life overall.

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

#492

Post by chupkarkhotay »

zarkov99 wrote: post #474

Of all the arguments against RTO the ones the signatories chose were racism, agism and sexism. Because everything, absolutely everything one does not like must somehow be linked back to white maleness. God, this stuff parodies itself.

If you had a heart condition and you went to a doctor with chest pain, it'd be a pretty reasonable guess that the underlying cause was the heart condition.

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

#494

Post by burkaman »

km3r wrote: post #396
burkaman wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why do you draw the line at a mountain? We have the technology for outdoor lifts. In the end it's a trade off, and while we should have minimum standards of accessibility, after that point its a trade off between productivity, efficiency, and accessibility. If having the entire team in office 2x a week makes the average worker XX% more productive, should we sacrifice that for the one teammate who has a harder time to…

I think we agree. The cost of installing a lift up a large mountain is incredibly high, and the benefit is relatively low, since the experience will still be so different from hiking up the mountain. I think most people would agree that tradeoff is not worth it.

The people who wrote this letter are arguing that the cost of full remote work is low or even negative, and the benefits are quite high, so the tradeoff is worth it. That's what this discussion is about, how should we balance the tradeoffs.

And yes, I don't know if they were meant to be sarcastic, but all of your questions are worth considering. If you have a deaf coworker that struggles with remote work, you should absolutely consider making changes up to and including in-person work. I can't tell you what tradeoff would be appropriate for your particular team and situation, but of course you should think about it and not just default to the status quo.

I also think many people with disabilities would argue that we as a society have not yet reached "minimum standards of accessibility".

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

#495

Post by thelittleone »

listless wrote: post #446
tedivm wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly neither do most old people- the number of older folks who still think you can show up to a business with a resume and get a job at the start of your career are out of their mind. I've been working in this industry for 17 years now, and only five of that was in an office. I make an obscene amount of money, so it's not like this has harmed me. The idea that the kids need to suffer through an office so they know…

Working remotely is career limiting. Period. I’m saying that as a remote worker. I would not recommend that you get into full time remote work until you’ve decided you are OK with no significant career advancement.

I got promoted twice in 6 months having never been to the office. 100% fully remote. Without distraction of meeting everyone around the office I spent more time on results and selective 1:1 zoom calls.

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

#496

Post by Spooky23 »

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…

If you’re appealing to corporate authority, at-will employment means that being irritating to management can get you fired or perhaps blacklisted.

Barring a union contract, seeking shelter via anti-discrimination laws is the best aircover. So you shift from complaining about work conditions to complaining about conditions that do not reasonably accommodate a protected condition.

Being not “neuro-normative” is a great one to use as it feeds into tech stereotypes and is really difficult to disprove.

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

#497

Post by banannaise »

EricE wrote: post #391
dleslie wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> whiteboards Digital whiteboards are trivial to share, recover, modify and maintain. They're light-years beyond the limited physical variety. My team leans heavily on Miro, for instance. > Lunch Lunch time is a break. Not everyone wants to spend their break with their coworkers; but even for those that do, nothing is preventing you from having a conference call or video call over lunch. > Body language Not everyone…

>Not everyone understands or can engage in body language. Well you sure as hell aren't going to get better at it by throwing up your hands and declaring it just isn't for you. I'm naturally introverted, but when I say that to co-workers they don't believe it - because over the years I have learned to adapt. I'm very extroverted at work - because it's necessary. Yup, I pay a price - it's exhausting and I need time to…

"Why haven't you just tried not being autistic?"

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

#498

Post by burkaman »

thebean11 wrote: post #388
burkaman wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Part of the job is getting to the top of the skyscraper

I guess that's the core disagreement here. The people who wrote this letter do not think getting to the top of the skyscraper is an important part of the job worth sacrificing even a small amount of accessibility, and the executives do.

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

#499

Post by EricE »

simion314 wrote: post #417
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.

Oh I 100% know - there are a handful of spontaneous hallway conversations that started as idle chit chat and veered off in unanticipated directions that altered my career path. I can see them clearly since they were literally life changing.

None of them - not one - would have happened virtually. There would never had been a reason for me to interact with those people other than I just happened to be in the same physical time/space as them and happened to stop and chat.

It's rather silly when you try to think about it rationally - that so much should ride on random chance; but it's also life. There's millions of years of social evolution favoring in person contact and to pretend otherwise is just silly.

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

#500

Post by dmitrygr »

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…

> Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions?

I've worked in software for > 20 years. I've been a tech lead of a few projects that shipped and YOU likely use in your daily everyday life. Outside of interviews, i've had to use a real-life whiteboard ... twice ...

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