Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by kayodelycaon » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

conductr wrote: post #392

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…

Chewing is so inconvenient. Feeding tubes for everyone! That’s a joke… we need the flexibility to cater to those who require it. We don’t need to make the baseline match the minimum. I think ADA and other items do well in this regard. So, just let a person WFH if attendance is overly inconvenient. It’s not the standard expectation. If working in the office is a baseline then It doesn’t mean they get to move to anothe…

As someone who has needed ADA accommodations for a serious medical condition, they haven't worked for me. I've had upper management/HR lay me off twice even though my manager and manager's manager tried to keep me.

If everyone has more flexibility, I don't need to risk my job asking for reasonable accommodations.

It also helps stomp on stupidity like requiring 14 people in a remote office in the middle of Nowhere, Midwest to wear black tennis shoes. (I own no tennis shoes and can't wear them.) There was literally no reason for it except to have a dress code.

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

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Post by EricE » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:06 PM UTC

smeej wrote: post #480

EricE wrote: post #450

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> ...never had to do anything hard in their life. What I wouldn't give to see you try just to survive a day with my body and my brain. The base level struggle of someone living in a world designed for people with completely different brains than ours would make whatever trophies you think you earned in actual competitive Little League or whatever look exactly like the worthless little ego strokes you think participat…

Oh please - I'm severely ADD and was before it was even a thing. I still managed to learn to adapt without expecting everyone around me to bend to me.

And I'm not only full time WFH but geographically remote from my office too. Have been for some time. But wouldn't be anywhere near where I am to day had I started out that way.

There is nothing wrong with remote work. What's wrong is pretending there aren't trade off's with remote work. if those trade off's aren't majority negative for you then have at it! But assuming remote work should just be the norm just because it's what an employee wants - that's nuts!

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

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Post by EricE » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

rectang wrote: post #506

EricE wrote: post #482

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>You know the answer to this is "ok boomer" right? Yup, and when they get to my age funnily enough they will be sounding much like me. Much like I sound like my parents despite swearing in my naivety to never be like them :) Youth is indeed wasted on the young :p (it was wasted on me too!)

> Yup, and when they get to my age funnily enough they will be sounding much like me. They won't have all of your biases and hangups, though. They'll be out of touch with succeeding generations, but not for the same reasons.

lol - see you in 20 years my friend :)

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

#514

Post by lvl102 » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:07 PM UTC

Of all the places, I actually wouldn’t mind going into Apple’s (relatively) new HQ…if I lived within 30 minutes. Otherwise, it’s a complete waste of my personal time sitting in traffic and waste of gas.

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

#515

Post by thaway2839 » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:08 PM UTC

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 honestly don't understand some of the ideas people have about remote work. Remote work may be great, but there will be challenges associated.

For example, so many people are going about saying that they should be paid the same whether they work in SF or Topeka. And the assumption is that means people in Topeka will be paid SF salaries. And that may be true for a few years while we are still inside an extremely tight labor market. However, once there is the slightest bit of slack, it's far more likely that employees in SF will be paid Topeka salaries.

A few years further it's even more likely that people in Topeka and SF will be paid Bangalore or Rio or Mexico City salaries.

If there's no benefit from being geographically co-located, then the market should drive everyone to locate themselves in the cheapest geographies possible.

Now, this may not actually be true, even in a looser labor market, and there may be other reasons that would lead to salaries across Topeka and SF remaining at SF levels, but a clear eyed discussion would start from the earlier assumption, that salaries would drop, and then justify why that wouldn't happen.

What I'm seeing instead is that everyone is assuming that salaries will rise, and then operating based entirely on that assumption, without any discussion about why this may or may not be true.

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

#516

Post by passivate » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:08 PM UTC

ryanmcbride wrote: post #414

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 findi…

It seems like there are ways to solve the commuting problem, by moving closer to work for example, in much the same way as you say others should find a job to satisfy their in-person work requirements. But opinions aside, what is true is that remote work is not common in the vast majority of workplaces around the world - and isn't a viable option for a number of of jobs. Saying "People work differently" doesn't change that reality.

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

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Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:08 PM UTC

post_break wrote: post #39

The time theft of traffic, costs of fuel and wear and tear on your car, the cost of lunch if you don't pack a lunch. It all adds up when having to go back to the office. I hate that we had to return to the office because it was like getting a big pay cut. Even the 3 day a week thing, it's like what's the point? We can work from home obviously, what more does going in 3 times a week accomplish other than punish you, s…

[deleted]

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

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Post by passivate » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:12 PM UTC

banannaise wrote: post #489

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #364

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> Honestly in a business setting with "trusted" coworkers, less so. I tend to take what my colleagues say at face value. That's... not all that body language conveys? Body language helps with basic things like "Oh, Amy is trying to break in and is struggling to make her point", or "Hmm, Doug looks like he's concerned about something, I should ask him his opinion". Digital A/V communication tools also bring with them…

> Body language helps with basic things like "Oh, Amy is trying to break in and is struggling to make her point", or "Hmm, Doug looks like he's concerned about something, I should ask him his opinion". I'm autistic. My body language conveys things that are interpreted incorrectly by nearly everyone, particularly in management. This leads to me having to explain repeatedly that no, that's not what I'm experiencing at…

To make it more general, non-autistic people also sometimes have trouble with body language. The non-controversial point is most humans fall somewhere on the spectrum where they're able to read others' body language - with a minority being outliers.

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

#519

Post by maccard » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #364

maccard wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Honestly in a business setting with "trusted" coworkers, less so. I tend to take what my colleagues say at face value. That's... not all that body language conveys? Body language helps with basic things like "Oh, Amy is trying to break in and is struggling to make her point", or "Hmm, Doug looks like he's concerned about something, I should ask him his opinion". Digital A/V communication tools also bring with them…

> You might feel that the tradeoffs are justifiable, but let's not pretend there aren't tradeoffs.

I dont know where you got the idea that I'm pretending there's not trade offs, that's exactly my point.

> Digital A/V communication tools also bring with them a whole host of other sources of friction, including poor audio and video, latency issues, and so forth.

And those still existed in the office. if I had a nickel for every time someone senior dialled into a call from their car with a kid in the back of it,I could buy a latte. Meanwhile, zoom and meet both have tools to help alleviate those concerns (raising hands, and queues of such).

> They are, at best a weak by tolerable substitute for face-to-face conversations, and quite frankly, IMO anyone who tries to suggest otherwise is not being honest.

Again, it's tradeoffs. The tradeoffs are appropriate for work conversations, but maybe not for having a deep relationship question with my partner.

> And conversely, people who type slower or struggle with written communication for various reasons, are significantly disadvantaged.

I mean, yes? Written communication is pretty much a hard requirement for most office jobs, and anyone who struggles with it will struggle with email and mant other forms of communication.

> written communication lacks critical nuance

Hard disagree here. Good written communication skills can be as nuanced as verbal communication. Besides, nuance is by definition ambiguity. Communicating in a workplace by refusing to say things is a crutch, and is a recipe for disaster.

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

#520

Post by thaway2839 » Tue, May 03, 2022, 7:14 PM UTC

fartcannon wrote: post #418

warning26 wrote: post #400

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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.

Game theory shows that systems involving multiple people making decisions without coordination can very easily settle into subptimal equilibriums.

And that's almost certainly gonna be the case here.