Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple • Hacker News Board

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#51

Post by ALittleLight » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:12 AM UTC

"she had left Apple after spending several years fighting a decision to reassign her to a role that she said had involved more work for less pay. She said Apple had begun trying to reassign her after she complained that the company’s work on the minerals was not, in some cases, leading to meaningful change in some war-torn countries"

I'm impressed that Apple let her spend "several years" fighting a reassignment. I'm also not very sympathetic to this person though. I've quit a job because I got reorg'd into more work for less pay. It sucks, but I don't think it means my employer is problematic or bad or whatever. The role I had was no longer needed and I didn't like the new position I landed in, so I left. That sounds similar to what happened to this person.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#52

Post by google234123 » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:14 AM UTC

s5300 wrote: post #43

throwawaylinux wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One must keep in mind that the United States is and near or more always has been a welfare state. If one must keep that in mind, may one ask what definition of "welfare state" has applied to the USA since its founding?

Religious groups typically look after their own. Take care of the poor, needy, and disabled. For quite a long time, most US states were essentially religious areas/boundaries, which is why much of New England is seen as quite puritanical to this day. Go read about the history of Mormons and Utah. The reason the surrounding borders are so weird is because the U.S. gov essentially tried to thwart a larger land grab by…

You've definitely not convinced me that the US was founded as a welfare state.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#53

Post by exBarrelSpoiler » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:15 AM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #41

exBarrelSpoiler wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prior to Slack, constant complaining would happen at the Caffè Macs, after hours, in the halls, between people in the same or adjacent teams. Now teams are less siloed.

Is that an Apple-specific Covid response? Teams have been more, not less, siloed at the job I've had since Covid started. People bold enough to complain in big mega-channels hasn't happened (similar to how few people would complain in all hands the same way they'd complain at lunch).

Prior to Slack, intra-company communications at Apple have been historically limited. Just being able to ping anyone at an instant is a cultural sea change.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#54

Post by majormajor » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

exBarrelSpoiler wrote: post #53

majormajor wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that an Apple-specific Covid response? Teams have been more, not less, siloed at the job I've had since Covid started. People bold enough to complain in big mega-channels hasn't happened (similar to how few people would complain in all hands the same way they'd complain at lunch).

Prior to Slack, intra-company communications at Apple have been historically limited. Just being able to ping anyone at an instant is a cultural sea change.

Oh, did Apple not have any global IM at all before Covid?

This is startling to me. I haven't had a job without Slack or an essentially-equivalent predecessor (Hipchat) in over eight years.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#55

Post by wolverine876 » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:19 AM UTC

vimy wrote: post #5

If I was Tim Cook I would immediately shutdown slack and mandate everyone go back to using email. It’s always a tiny minority of activists organizing on slack who are causing a lot of the unrest in tech companies.

> It's always a tiny minority of activists organizing on slack who are causing a lot of the unrest in tech companies.

This is a common talking point to marginalize political activity in any situation: 'It's just a tiny minority agitating', etc. In every situation, a tiny minority appeals to the majority and sometimes it convinces them. (If a majority of Americans ever protested something, that would be over 160 million people in the streets. Just think of the logistics of food, water, and waste ... cellular data bandwidth ... Twitter, Facebook and Instagram load ...)

That's how change happens; we try to persuade each other. People who are more involved, motivated, skilled, available, etc. do more of the work. If there was an environmental problem in SF Bay, the people who have the knowledge and expertise about the issue, and the communication skills, would inform and try to persuade everyone else. I'm not going to investigate it myself.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#56

Post by biglost » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:21 AM UTC

It’s not the same, but majes me remember a question: im really ugly and with an ugly body by magazine standards. If i want to model, but they dont hire me because im not tall enough or good looking, is it discrimination?

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#57

Post by dogman144 » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:28 AM UTC

fragmede wrote: post #30

vimy wrote: post #5

If I was Tim Cook I would immediately shutdown slack and mandate everyone go back to using email. It’s always a tiny minority of activists organizing on slack who are causing a lot of the unrest in tech companies.

An unofficial, definitely don't tell management slack would have 1000s of users before the email prohibiting it managed to finish sending to all employees. Draconian policies seem viable and like they'd work, but they require a certain amount of compliance to be effective.

These shadow IT attempts surface all the time through a vaguely competent SecOps’ team daily work, especially insider threat. Gets bragged about or picked up via MDM or DNS queries. So ya in this case the rule comes with easy enforcement.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#58

Post by elefanten » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:35 AM UTC

NYT on a big tech company, in 2021, is not a trustworthy source. Deserves healthy skepticism and extra scrutiny.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#59

Post by imgabe » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:38 AM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #46

imgabe wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve also been a customer at establishments with deaf employees and none of them ever had a sign language interpreter. Providing an iPad to type messages on is a reasonable accommodation. Customers who don’t like it can work with another employee or go elsewhere. But hiring a second entire employee who basically shadows you and does your job for you seems like a bit much.

> Providing an iPad to type messages on is a reasonable accommodation Doesn't that make communication slower? When I want to buy something, I certainly don't want to start chatting on a tablet to get my point across. It seems like a poor choice of position for that employee.

We don’t always get what we want when we go out into the public and deal with other people.

Sometimes I want to zip in and out of the grocery store but there’s an old lady in front of me who wants to argue about an expired coupon and it takes longer than I’d like. Such is life.

Re: Tim Cook Faces Surprising Employee Unrest at Apple

#60

Post by lostinquebec » Sat, Sep 18, 2021, 3:38 AM UTC

vimy wrote: post #5

If I was Tim Cook I would immediately shutdown slack and mandate everyone go back to using email. It’s always a tiny minority of activists organizing on slack who are causing a lot of the unrest in tech companies.

That's the right direction, but the wrong policy. Basecamp's "no talking politics on work channels" is more likely to be effective, in part because spending work hours on other things - e.g. a political non-company slack - then becomes an issue of wasting time.