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Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

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Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#561

Post by decodebytes »

Nbox9 wrote: post #51

I work for another company that is going to do a partial return to office. I will be looking at options for companies that offer full in person office (or 90% in person office) after things settle down. I have worked full remote for a total of 5 years of my career, and I believe working in the office is a competitive advantage. * Overhearing hallway conversations (and joining them) helps spawn invocation. * I often d…

I feel directly opposite to this, I am way more productive working from home as a programmer, for this reason alone:

https://heeris.id.au/2013/this-is-why-you-shouldnt-interrupt...

Also I find modern tools easily make up for not being in close proximity.

Best of all as an engineering lead, I am not restricted to hiring in the small pool of engineers who can travel to the physical location of an office. I can hire talent world wide

> I had a stronger work/life separation. I rarely turned on my work laptop at home.

To be fair, that's a matter of personal discipline. There is nothing to stop you closing your laptop at 5pm and leaving it until the next day to open it again.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#562

Post by colinmhayes »

swader999 wrote: post #496
newsclues wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I commuted 1.5 hours each way, bike in summer and public transit in winter both took the same time. I loved biking but public transportation sucks. Why? Rent was triple what I was paying to be close, or double to cut the commute in half. And I had no job security.

Ebike next time. Mod the motor. You can still pedal and sweat if you want.

The exercise is a large part of what is enjoyable about bike commuting.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#563

Post by Closi »

radec wrote: post #461
wikibob wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jesus Christ. I eat well and spend maybe $400 a month on groceries and food. I’ve heard that Google recruiters attempt to con potential employees into some ridiculous assessment of the “free” food as a compensation benefit with numbers like those that you posited above. I can’t imagine valuing daily meals that highly.

I'm glad others are shocked by that $60/day on food. I would say food takes up the largest percentage of my expenses and $60 is easily 5 days worth of food for two.

The $60 is laughably high, but the value of the perk of $400 a month might also be too low considering part of the appeal is presumably that it all gets looked after for you and you don’t have to prep food or even think about your meals (the value of having all your meals cooked for you isn’t the same as the value of the ingredients).

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#564

Post by decodebytes »

rubicon33 wrote: post #251
Nbox9 wrote: post #51

I work for another company that is going to do a partial return to office. I will be looking at options for companies that offer full in person office (or 90% in person office) after things settle down. I have worked full remote for a total of 5 years of my career, and I believe working in the office is a competitive advantage. * Overhearing hallway conversations (and joining them) helps spawn invocation. * I often d…

This is what most of the newcomers to WFH don't understand: There is a big different between WFH for a few months where EVERYONE else is also WFH ... and WFH for YEARS where some, or most, of the others are in office. The latter is years upon years of feeling disconnected, left out, and sidelined. The vast majority of companies even if they allow remote are not remote first. Remote first involves actual structural an…

> Lastly, WFH for years can result in a serious mental health decline. If you think you're doing fine after 1 year, come see me after 5. You'll realize by the end of it just how important water cooler conversation is for your BRAIN. You'll recognize just how bad it can be to see (as a function of your time alive) MOSTLY just your home. It does a number on you.

This is just down to nothing more then poor discipline and lazily wanting an office to fill the gap for you. I have been working from home for 9 years now, 5 days a week. You know how I solve the issue, I go outside. I go and run. I take my dogs out for a walk. I also meet with friends to eat / drink coffee. I look after myself. The time I save commuting means I can do things like cook myself a proper lunch, go and have a nap if I did not sleep great the night before. I have much more freedom to balance my life. I agree though, if I sit at my desk all day inside and then stop work to go and sit on the couch and watch Netflix, sure it's going to be detrimental to my mental health.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#565

Post by gnicholas »

lupire wrote: post #549
gnicholas wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Googlers who literally never buy groceries because they eat all of their big meals at the office, grab a bottled smoothie on their way out the door, and get restaurant food on the weekends. It is cheaper to get groceries than to buy prepared food, but there’s a lot of spoilage that happens when you’re only cooking 2 days/week.

Just because you overeat and overindulge when it's free and shoved in front of you doesn't mean you need, want, or will buy the same food if it's not.

That's true! But I wouldn't equate eating expensive food on-campus as overeating/overindulging. The googler I knew best who did this was vegetarian/vegan and very fit. She had access to lots of high quality food that matched her diet, and part of the reason she was vegetarian/vegan was because google's cafeterias made it easy for her.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#566

Post by jacquesm »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #28

Why? Because of the already sunk cost into office space? Any other reasons? I know I can drive 40 min and stare at the same laptop and email/zoom with the same people. What’s in it for me? All I see is unnecessary agony, and a lot of it. I produce more from home. Why does an employer want me to suffer more, even if it will cost them? What’s in it for them?

In the case of Apple, that sunk cost is rather substantial.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#567

Post by fatbird »

tootie wrote: post #437
Nbox9 wrote: post #51

I work for another company that is going to do a partial return to office. I will be looking at options for companies that offer full in person office (or 90% in person office) after things settle down. I have worked full remote for a total of 5 years of my career, and I believe working in the office is a competitive advantage. * Overhearing hallway conversations (and joining them) helps spawn invocation. * I often d…

I will always prefer WFH for a critically important reason no one else seems willing to mention. I get to use my own bathroom. Sitting in a stall next to someone noisy is my daily hell. The worst is if the seat is still warm. I think may have actually avoided using a public restroom for 15 straight months.

I see you.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#568

Post by midasuni »

deanCommie wrote: post #445
heavyset_go wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I save money by spending less on food, drinks, and electricity. For those of us who have to commute, it's not exactly the norm to be saving money while commuting. Commutes are responsible for a 10% drop in hourly wages[1], and the median commute time results in spending 10 full days commuting a year. The average commuter in one of the largest metro areas in the country will spend over 13 full days commuting a year:…

You don't have to commute. You chose to commute. You maybe did it for a larger house. Or maybe for cheaper rent/mortgage. We're not talking here about folks on minimum wage who can only afford to live 2 hours outside of the city they are working in. The highly paid software engineers on hackernews could absolutely afford to live 5 minutes from the office, 30 minutes from the office, or 2 hours from the office. They c…

You work at offie A, your spouse works at office B. There’s 20 miles between them. How do you avoid the commute?

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#569

Post by pjerem »

mLuby wrote: post #537
pjerem wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my company we are now in some unofficial hybrid approach where everyone works where they want or where they need to. It works really well. There is enough people at the office for it to be a sufficient socializing place, and enough people who WFH to « force » the remote way of work.

That sounds nice. I'm surprised "work where you want" hasn't gotten more press time. Hybrid is so much weirder.

It went naturally, we never were a remote first company before pandemic but working from home for personal reasons never felt like an issue.

Nothing changed officially except that if WFH was socially an exception before, a lot of employees liked it to become their default, others don’t.

So since nobody cares where others works, this new organization came organically.

Our CEO is personally against remote as a standard, but there was never an official communication and since management is decently decentralized and managers just don’t care where you are, they know our job is to be done.

Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September

#570

Post by cco »

bartvk wrote: post #534
randycupertino wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody buys prepared food every day, I know many people who don't cook at all and live solely on prepared food.

Do you see more-than-usual overweight people in this group? (Never cooking is very, very rare here in The Netherlands so I'm curious about any anecdata here).

In my experience it is a horseshoe, people that eat out for every meal tend to be either on the high end of the income spectrum and thin or the very low end and obese.

These are broad strokes, but my experience in rural America and in SF bears this out, rich people eat out very often and tend to be fit and the very poor also eat out more than average but tend to be obese. Everyone else is in the middle.

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