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…
Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
701–710 of 734 posts
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#702Earlier quoted context omitted.
More chance to chat about random things or casually ask work-related questions. > I've learnt way more reading papers and documentation than being in the same physical space as more senior colleagues. People sometimes bring this point up re: onboarding but I don't quite understand what people learn that they can't do otherwise remotely It is much harder to gain tacit knowledge (The important stuff) when you're remote…
> I've found I generally have to explicitly ask if I want someone to explain what they're doing and why. There is very little 1:1 teaching/mentoring. In an office I think there is more informal mentoring. Asking people questions and engaging in 1-1 conversations is no more difficult over Slack + voice + screen share than in person. In fact it gives you more options for how to conduct the conversation and remember the…
> I constantly observe people excitedly blabbing in person, seemingly reaching all sorts of epiphanies, but at the end of the day, the conversation lacked specificity and no one really learned anything. It's a perfect medium for feeling like you learned something without actually doing so
Generally I would much prefer feeling like I've intuited something rather than coming away with specific knowledge because specific knowledge is usually easy to find elsewhere.
> It's not an inherent thing to the environments, but a choice that particular team made
I believe it is inherent to a remote environment. I also believe it can be overcome, but it's not the path of least resistance.
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#703Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prior to the pandemic, people I worked with in NYC wore their commute times as badges of honor. “You commute 90 minutes each way? That’s nothing. I commute 2 1/4 hours each way” Think of that. Some people were spending 4.5 hours commuting every day. And it was ok with them.
my commute is 15 minutes on a bad day and I really don't miss it. I legitimately, figurativaly and literally, can't comprehend what you're describing.
It is possible they are avoiding something at home so this suits their lifestyles. That would be my guess.
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#704Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Which implies the opposite. You have no way of determining that unless you're in the same environment. For someone who's usually successful socially, it is an utter shame to have to sit through the lunch and be forced to listen to a couple of idiots hopped who can't shut up. Would you want to be in that situation? The other two comments have no bearing whatsoever on your point. The first one describes what it is li…
> [...] based on your comments you show a lack of understanding of what socializing at work feels like for a lot of people. So you agree that socialising at work is more difficult for some people than others... And you agree that it's one of the reasons you work from home... And the part of my premise that you were disagreeing with was that I said some people work from home because they struggle to create relationshi…
That statement paints an incomplete picture of my views. It is the combination of the person and environment. I'm sure there is variance among peoples' inherent ability to socialize at work, but in certain work environments, people who are otherwise good at socializing don't have the desire to socialize or don't find it meaningful.
> And you agree that it's one of the reasons you work from home...
Nope, I have no problem socializing at my current job. Most of my comments are about prior workplaces. I mention them because I can empathize with a lot of people who might be working in such environments. Like I mentioned, I can and do socialize with my current colleagues well remotely, which I consider to be "socializing at work" too.
> And the part of my premise that you were disagreeing with was that I said some people work from home because they struggle to create relationships while at work...
Nope, I never disagreed with that. I disagree with your characterization that that is the reason I work from home.
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#705Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You would think that the people in charge would see that real estate is an unnecessary expense, where applicable. Some real estate is a sunk cost, and the execs doubling down on it. Apple and Google both dropped 2 or 3 billion combined on fancy new offices just before the pandemic. You can’t sell those buildings, their too big, and they’re not subdivided well enough to rent out parts of them, so everyone comes back…
Apple's HQ campus is an interesting one because it's only a small percentage of their employees that actually work there. I imagine if they downsized their silicon valley properties down to infinite loop and the ring building, they'd still be able to easily fill them up with people who like working onsite, conference rooms, meeting spaces, labs, etc. I am not personally aware but I do remember hearing they had office…
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#706Earlier quoted context omitted.
> point to the weekend as a lovely innovation powered by unions. No, this is powered by the law. If it wasn’t the evaporation of unions that we’ve seen over the last 20 years would have taken weekends with them. A thing unions were supportive of in the past is not evidence of the value of unions now. It’s like pointing out the importance of American troops in France because world war 2.
> > point to the weekend as a lovely innovation powered by unions. > No, this is powered by the law. Those laws were a consequence of industrial action by unions. Here's a backgrounder on the progress made by unions in Australia. https://www.australianunions.org.au/about-unions/union-achie... > Every year, Australian employees are entitled to 4 weeks of paid annual leave, two weeks of paid sick leave, 6 months of pai…
You didn’t read my message, because this is what I already said. Unions helped push it into law. The unions are all but dead in the US, but weekends are still here because it is a law. What value do the unions provide now?
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#707Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sure, but the company's interests are almost completely opposed to yours in most ways. You do know that your employment depends on the success of the business, right? The relationship with an employee is no more adversarial than your relationship with the local grocery store when you buy a bag of potatoes.
Yeah, except that switching grocery stores is practically zero cost, so any store that does silly shenanigans gets spanked almost immediately. Also, grocery stores are about a million billion gazillion times more transparent about trading with you relative to trading with other shoppers.
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#708Warning: 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…
Whenever you're forced to do something, yes you will struggle. My colleagues are my colleagues. And if I like someone, I will bond with them and it might become a friendship regardless of whether i see them in person or not.
Still, I'm at work to work, not to make meaningful bonds. Using the word 'meaningful' in a work context makes the word almost lose its meaning and make it seem banal. Meaningful bonds happen by chance, and most people we come across with, we don't make meaningful bonds with anyway. And whether we want it or not, work environment is not the same as hobby or home or relaxation.
I have good friends, who i have meaningful bonds with, and I'm happy with that. At work, i'm getting paid to do a job, not to form meaningful bonds with people. I don't need those, because I have those already.
Maybe you enjoy interactions with colleagues, who don't enjoy interactions with you because they'd rather be home where they don't have to talk with someone they don't have or want a meaningful bond with.
And for the last point of "Sure, it might be technically more productive (...)". Companies try to make us believe it is less productive to WFH all the time. Remove that point, and there's nothing more on the table to want people at the office, than the fact that some need social interaction and to form meaningful bonds at work.
A few days/week of working at the office for people who want meaningful bond making could be arranged, and you all could connect with each other, sing kumbaya together, and make life long friendships then. Just don't force others to do the same.
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#709Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Coworking space, cafe, personal office etc. or you can chose to work for a company whose offices are not two hours away. coworking, cafes, etc are not really suited to actually work, especially of your work requires some kind of concentration or secrecy (an NDA for example) Personal office in house is the worst combination of them all IMO. Not that I do not work from home, I did it for good part of my life, it's ju…
I think the best option is to have possibility to work in any company, and live in any place. You don't want to limit your job opportunities just because they are far away.
Now tell people from Mexico that they can't go to work in US because immigration laws, but Americans can go work there because they just need an internet connection and you can serve them drinks while they sit on the beach.
Any company is 1% thinking, many companies hire only local workers because it's their market.
Take into account timezones and you can't possibly work for Australians or New Zealanders while living in Europe, unless there's an office in Europe that coordinates the efforts with HQ.
I've worked for long time with US based companies from GMT+2 and it's been exhausting at times. Wouldn't do it again if I can avoid it.
Some things look better on the surface than they really are.
Re: Apple's director of machine learning resigns due to return to office work
#710Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.