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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

#621

Post by jhenkens »

RC_ITR wrote: post #529
jhenkens wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure at a certain stage it is prototype, in secured buildings. But I have a friend who works at Apple full time remote (for a dozen years now) who routinely gets unreleased hardware at home to work on the software changes for. They is very intentional about only revealing stuff after it is public, which I think is still technically a breach of his NDA (revealing that they'd been working on it).

This is completely off-topic, I'm just curious. Your friend's pronouns are They/his?

Their pronouns are they/their, however it's a long time friend, and a new change to me. I'm trying, but make mistakes.

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

#622

Post by Handytinge »

> "In short, it will lead to privileges deciding who can work for Apple, not who’d be the best fit."

Doesn't forcing people to work with home lead to this more? Not everyone has an available, suitable work space at home, and those who don't or who have noisy families etc (generally less white, male, etc etc) are likely to miss opportunities they could have taken in an office.

Making this a social justice issue is a weird, speculative way to deal with this. Why bring gender and race into it, why not just argue the merits (which do seem to be in favour of remote work). Seems a silly letter to me.

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

#623

Post by skue »

ineedasername wrote: post #200

I should preface my comment by saying that I generally agree that full WFH is a very reasonable request, but I can only partly follow their reasoning on the diversity factor: > "... will change the makeup of our workforce [to] younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would chan…

> >"... will change the makeup of our workforce [to] younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"

> Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would change the workforce from what it already is…

Don’t disagree with you, but I interpreted their point of comparison to be what would be if there were more WFH flexibility, rather than what is/was.

I am also sympathetic to that line of thinking because while I support diversity efforts, it strikes me that they are often framed around how to make more individuals who are underrepresented in an industry join a company (where they will be still be underrepresented) by relocating to a new community (where they will also be underrepresented), while losing the support of their previously local friends & family. Large companies that care about diversity could instead focus more on opening offices in diverse parts of the country in order create more attractive jobs within those communities, rather than simply bemoaning the challenge of getting underrepresented people to uproot their lives for them. Hopefully increased WFH opportunities will help address this issue.

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

#624

Post by NoraCodes »

blub wrote: post #436
danaris wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...You do know that social anxiety disorder is a genuine and recognized mental illness, right? Or are you just one of those people who thinks that all mental illness is just a lack of sufficient gumption?

SAD is not social anxiety, please pay attention to what you’re replying to.

Social anxiety and social anxiety disorder are different like rectangles and squares are different.

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

#625

Post by lowbloodsugar »

lolsal wrote: post #476
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>When I go to lunch and talk to my colleague about her favorite places to snorkel Yet you take it for granted that she will go to lunch with you, and that she will engage in neurotypical "pleasantries". I'll bet that anyone who doesn't want to go to lunch with you, you will take this as a negative at review time. "They just aren't trustworthy" or "He isn't a team player", despite them being the highest performing per…

> Yet you take it for granted that she will go to lunch with you, and that she will engage in neurotypical "pleasantries". I suppose I do! I'm not coercing anyone to go to lunch with me, so I'm not really sure what your point is here. > I'll bet that anyone who doesn't want to go to lunch with you, you will take this as a negative at review time. "They just aren't trustworthy" or "He isn't a team player", despite the…

>I'm not coercing anyone to go to lunch with me, so I'm not really sure what your point is here.

If you are in a position to influence a promotion, then an invitation to lunch is not simply an invitation to lunch. I would hope that you would be involved, either as a peer or a manager, since you come across generally as pro diversity.

The thing is, #neurodiverse message boards are full of posts like "My manager has asked me to go to lunch and I am terrified. What do I do?" Their fear is that if they don't go, they will be dismissed as not a team player, but if they do go, they may exhibit behaviors that uneducated NTs find disturbing. Many neurodiverse will just mask up and push through it, and many of us are effective at that. The right thing, of course, is to communicate (I wrote "have a conversation" and deleted it, because Autism) but many NDs don't have access to such support systems to even get the advice. If they are on a #nd channel, then we can help them.

So I'd ask you to consider that, unless you have absolutely no power in your organization, then yes, asking someone to lunch is a non-neutral decision ("coercion" is too strong a word) for an ND person that carries risks and stress.

I'm not asking you to stop having lunch with people. I'm asking you to consider ways to interact with ND people and to get familiar with the challenges ND people face.

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

#626

Post by nerpderp82 »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #279
nerpderp82 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we're never going to mandate a full return to office, but some folks will simply never believe it. Unless you are in the c-suite and are also the board, you can't make those promises. Your job is to say these things and gain employee trust, only to have a different set of orders come from on high.

In which case I quit along with the rest of my staff and find another job. If my management expects me to renege on a commitment that they've told me I can make , then I can't trust management any more than my staff can, and I will no longer be willing to work for that company. Honestly, it's like folks around here don't grok that a) employees are actually empowered, and b) management knows that .

I hear this from line managers at every company I have worked for, at FAANGs and non-FAANGs. It is romantically naive. Unless you are working for a small tight knit org run by leader with solid moral character, management will always renege.

Fool me 7 times ...

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

#627

Post by cudgy »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #203
Eddy_Viscosity2 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Absolutely true. Employees do not trust management for good reasons, because they have experience with management not being open and honest with them (speaking generally here, of course there are exceptions). Management's goals are often counter to those of the employees. Whereas workers want good pay, flexibility, work/life balance, and so on.…

> Management's goals are often counter to those of the employees. Whereas workers want good pay, flexibility, work/life balance, and so on. Management wants control, pay people less, have them work more, and so on. Many managers pretend they care about what the workers want, only to force on to them what they want. People pick up on that bait and switch after a few times. Again, speaking generally here, this isn't un…

> Yes, there are companies that behave this way. And there are many companies that don't.

Can you name some companies that don’t? Very few companies with more than a few employees are more concerned about the bottom line of their employees than the corporation. This is by design due to management training in business schools, motivation by managers to control and yield power over others to signal their prowess, and basic greed by business stakeholders to maximize their returns to name just a few reasons.

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

#628

Post by stackedinserter »

zht wrote: post #377
stackedinserter wrote: post #361

> It will make Apple younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied, in short They are free to leave and enrich other companies.

the same can be said for people living in States or cities where they don't agree with the current administration's policies. should the response always be to leave? what about fighting to try to make the place you are currently in better?

> what about fighting to try to make the place you are currently in better?

Define "better"

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

#629

Post by 0xjmp »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #429
jakenberg wrote: post #376

Apple is in a very tough spot. A $5bn headquarters sits relatively vacant with decreasing likelihood that there will be a return on investment. They ironically dug themselves into a hole by preaching how it would revolutionize the workplace while most feel this way about WFH. The paradigm shift seems obvious, especially when you account for the unrelenting rise in commercial real estate prices since Covid. Perhaps Ap…

Apple fucked themselves by embracing the status quo of silicon valley commuter car culture. It's hard not to notice that so many of the complaints around return to work from SV area posters centre around commuting woes. If SV cities were compact, walkable places where people could easily walk, bike and take transit to work returning to work wouldn't cause so much grief. People are upset at the notion of a return to a…

I've worked remote on and off for 6 years. The first two years was pure bliss. I slowly started to realize that having no hobbies, partner, etc was not good for my mental health. It took about 6 months to fix that. That has been (in my experience) the only thing that would excite me enough to go into the office.

I walked to work in Los Angeles (can you believe it?) for 2 years in-between and it was great - i loved that job. It still didn't hold a candle to WFH for me. I think many have realized this same thing in recent years: it becomes very hard to want to go back for a multitude of reasons.

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

#630

Post by dncornholio »

Fomite wrote: post #588
dncornholio wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How it makes for more white employees I fail to comprehend. Even if there was reason, remote work only hides the problem but does not solve it. You could argue letting people work from home creates only more separation of cultures.. If you want bigger cultural diversity just treat everyone equally?

`If you want bigger cultural diversity just treat everyone equally?` As a brief thought experiment for you: - You have one pool of workers who work well in an environment with ambient noise and distractions - You have a second pool of workers who need quiet spaces to concentrate You treat them all equally by placing them in an open plan office with an excellent office-wide Spotify playlist. Do you think you'll end up…

Except, you have a third pool who is afraid of being oppressed from fellow workers, so you allow them to stay at home. Which is not smart.
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