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Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

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Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#551

Post by peoplefromibiza »

malwarebytess wrote: post #483

Warning: Hot Take. I genuinely believe many people who prefer working in an office versus at home have unfulfilling social lives or bad home lives. The social dynamics, competition, in physical offices fills the void in their lives. Also seems like most of the people clamoring for a return to the office are also climbers & middle managers. For some work a physical presence is required not just preferable, but for mos…

My personal hot take:

I genuinely believe many people who prefer working at home are very young and have not developed social awareness and/or don't feel the need to separate life and work, because their life is their work and vice versa.

Most people that do not want to return to office are still in that phase of their life where they need to rebel to authority to feel alive and will end up being those "middle managers" that they critique today.

Also: WFH as the only possible option is not different from office as the only option.

I don't like going to the office when it rains, but I enjoy going out of my house when the Sun shines or meet my colleagues to have an informal chat on how to progress with some project, it makes everything smoother and a lot of the underground tensions generated by only communicating through video and voice disappear.

The truth is the majority of the workplaces are not "for coders only" and trying to find a balance with other people's needs, for example those people that have to work in presence, it's sign of and good willing and maturity.

You can decide to quit to WFH, IMO that doesn't mean you're standing up for yourself, it only means you're not willing to change your habits.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#552

Post by peoplefromibiza »

askonomm wrote: post #533
justinclift wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, some of us (well, me at least) view "in the office" work as a way to help achieve work/personal-life separation. Saying this after many, many years of remote working, where the boundaries between work and personal life blurred so far they became practically indistinguishable. (yay 24/7 "DevOps" culture :/)

And you can't achieve that with a co-working place? That's what I do. But I get to live in any city or country I want while earning the salary of any city/country I want.

a co-working is simply an office paid by you instead of the one the company paid for you.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#553

Post by dunefox »

smartbit wrote: post #457
ineedasername wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very upfront when I schedule the interview, give them a range when we set the time and if they're still interested we proceed. It's education analytics, so there's a little bit of "doing it for the mission" that gets people who are willing to make a little less because the job really has a very direct impact on students' success and lives. My work reduces student debt and increases success rates and identifies th…

> The work environment is laid back, 40 hour weeks & rarely any expectation of going over that so there can be a very good work/life balance There are quite some countries where Jo Average would see 40h working week as monsterous. Or were 40h workweek might even be outlawed.

Any expectation of going over the paid amount of work time is not laid back.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#554

Post by peoplefromibiza »

jstx1 wrote: post #493
Glavnokoman wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I do not think he's implying it is a bad thing by itself. Instead he explicitly says that those are the people who try to solve their problems at expense of others.

The expense of others is a point that works both ways. You could equally say that someone who insists on being remote because it's better for their family life is preventing/slowing down the return to office, and that's at the expense of people who prefer to be in the office. But I wouldn't put it that way because I don't think it makes for a productive conversation - office or remote, people like what they like and…

disclaimer: I have worked from home most of my life, so I'm not against it, BUT, people like what they like and they have their reasons for it is a very immature thing to say when talking about work: work means taking full responsibility to respect a contract in return of an economic compensation.

If you signed to work in an office and don't like it, resign.

Nobody will cry over it, just know that you signed for something you did not like. Your fault.

Also: people working from remote do that at the expenses of others too. When I am at the office to talk with my colleagues, the one person refusing to come over forces all of us (10 or so) to turn on the video conference in some meeting room, while we could have had the same chat in the garden of the bar down the office.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#555

Post by boo-ga-ga »

peoplefromibiza wrote: post #551
malwarebytess wrote: post #483

Warning: Hot Take. I genuinely believe many people who prefer working in an office versus at home have unfulfilling social lives or bad home lives. The social dynamics, competition, in physical offices fills the void in their lives. Also seems like most of the people clamoring for a return to the office are also climbers & middle managers. For some work a physical presence is required not just preferable, but for mos…

My personal hot take: I genuinely believe many people who prefer working at home are very young and have not developed social awareness and/or don't feel the need to separate life and work, because their life is their work and vice versa. Most people that do not want to return to office are still in that phase of their life where they need to rebel to authority to feel alive and will end up being those "middle manage…

But if you want to separate life from work, you can work in whatever place you'd like. Coworking space, cafe, personal office etc. Then you don't need to live near your company's office, and can choose the best possible place to live and work for you and your family.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#556

Post by peoplefromibiza »

thiht wrote: post #501
jstx1 wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The expense of others is a point that works both ways. You could equally say that someone who insists on being remote because it's better for their family life is preventing/slowing down the return to office, and that's at the expense of people who prefer to be in the office. But I wouldn't put it that way because I don't think it makes for a productive conversation - office or remote, people like what they like and…

It doesn’t really work both ways though. Remote fans don’t force everyone to be remote.

it forces others to "follow their dream" for the sole satisfaction of remote workers.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#557

Post by JimBlackwood »

malwarebytess wrote: post #483

Warning: Hot Take. I genuinely believe many people who prefer working in an office versus at home have unfulfilling social lives or bad home lives. The social dynamics, competition, in physical offices fills the void in their lives. Also seems like most of the people clamoring for a return to the office are also climbers & middle managers. For some work a physical presence is required not just preferable, but for mos…

I never understand this or any hot take related to WFH. Why is it necessary to assume something negative about another person simply because you’re different? It’s nonsense.

It truly doesn’t matter. WFH can be great, working from the office can be great. Find a company where the social and work culture fit with what you prefer.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#558

Post by dunefox »

benrbray wrote: post #476
atty wrote: post #194

I get people who want to work from home. I get people who want to work from the office. I get people who want to do hybrid. The one group of people I don’t get are the ones who suggest people should be forced to work from the office, and not able to decide for themselves. (Obviously it depends on the role - if you’re doing hardware design you need to go in sometimes, of course.) I see some people in the macrumors com…

> The one group of people I don’t get are the ones who suggest people should be forced to work from the office, and not able to decide for themselves. I guess I can give a bit of perspective. I don't think people should be "forced" into 100% office work, but I can say that as a junior engineer, I am wildly more productive when I'm in the office with my co-workers compared to at home alone. I graduated into the pandem…

> I am wildly more productive when I'm in the office with my co-workers compared to at home alone.

I get next to nothing done during a whole day in the office. Over 2 1/2 hours commute a day, and then I have to sit there with (my own) ANC headphones on because people talk all day. Then there's coordinating where and when to go eat which can take up to half an hour. People come around to talk. I'm basically at 10-20% of productivity compared to WFH.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#559

Post by peoplefromibiza »

malwarebytess wrote: post #495
jstx1 wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I genuinely believe many people who prefer working in an office versus at home have unfulfilling social lives or bad home lives. The social dynamics, competition, in physical offices fills the void in their lives. You're implying that this is a bad thing and I don't get why it should be.

I have to agree with you. It's not necessarily a bad thing. Where people get their fulfillment from is their own business, and if their needs are met -- all the better. Everyone deserves contentment and fulfillment. But, don't force me to make my life worse for that reason. You like the office? Go to the office.

I was much better off when I was among a small group of people free to go or not go to the office.

Now that everyone wants to do that, without the knowledge or the experience to do it, but only because they want to work in their pajamas (let's be honest!) I am forced to go through endless meetings where the first half is about "can you hear me?" "can you see me?" "where is X?" "coming, is in another meeting" "OK let's wait another 5 minutes then" and then half of them has an horrible voice quality, worse video, you have to repeat the same things over and over for the benefit of those not listening (let's be honest!) etc etc

it's exhausting and the fact that we aren't physically in the same room make people think two hours meetings are something normal

It's making me frankly think that all of this "freedom to work everywhere" trope has gone too far.

Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work

#560

Post by chrisan »

Closi wrote: post #536
malwarebytess wrote: post #483

Warning: Hot Take. I genuinely believe many people who prefer working in an office versus at home have unfulfilling social lives or bad home lives. The social dynamics, competition, in physical offices fills the void in their lives. Also seems like most of the people clamoring for a return to the office are also climbers & middle managers. For some work a physical presence is required not just preferable, but for mos…

> Warning: Hot Take. I genuinely believe many people who prefer working in an office versus at home have unfulfilling social lives or bad home lives. The social dynamics, competition, in physical offices fills the void in their lives. Warning: Hot Take. I have similar logic, but reach an almost opposite conclusion. I genuinely believe many people who prefer working at home rather than an office have unfulfilling work…

> I genuinely believe many people who prefer working at home rather than an office have unfulfilling work lives and struggle to form meaningful friendships/relationships with colleagues.

Absolutely not true.

I've been WFH since 2008. Many followed overtime and the company went full WFH in 2015 closing our office. We have a video call 3x a week and shoot the shit learn about each others lives just the same before we talk about work. I don't feel any less connected to my coworkers than my physical friends.

I also am part of a telegram group with ~10 old college buddies who live all over the country where we chat everyday and hop on voice to play video games or a monthly poker. This obviously isn't the same since we started out as physical friends and went to chat groups after going out separate ways, but again I haven't lost touch with any of them or felt less connected/meaningful because we are now remote only.

Not only that but with all the various video games we have added random people we connected with to that group, I don't even know what their face looks like but I know just as much about them as my physical friends. They are just part of the daily discussions about sports, politics, movies/tv, whatever.

I think if you are not connecting with someone you maybe aren't trying enough because it is totally possible. What exactly can't you talk about remotely that you can in person? I've yet to find a topic myself

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