I need to get a new job before all the apple refugees flood the market.
Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
791–800 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
#792Earlier quoted context omitted.
The food/drink part could be the most of it. A Google employee enjoying free food and drink could save $60/day versus buying prepared food ($10 for breakfast, $20 for lunch, and $30 for dinner). If you drink much coffee or other beverages, that could be another $15/day. If you weigh this against spending an extra hour or two commuting, then it looks like a lousy bargain. But if you are like many people, and ended up…
What!? Who spends $60 a DAY on food? I live in Zürich, a very expensive place to eat, and my weekly total food budget for my wife and me is like $170.
If someone eats all their meals out, that's not unreasonable. That's about what I'll spend daily when traveling in cities. Of course, that doesn't describe what I do day-to-day at home at all. I'll occasionally grab a pizza but that's about the only takeout/eat out I routinely do when I'm at home.
Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
#793Earlier 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).
Also depends on the cuisine. Quite a few cuisines take extraordinarily long to cook, and at that point, you're better off just eating out to save time (if you have the money) than deal with those meal-kits that are either not sustainable, or healthy, or often-times, both.
In The Netherlands, the cuisine tends to be really simple, and salad-kits and meal-kits are extremely popular. The fanciest food that people 'cook' is often a soup or pasta, and I'd say it's extremely rare for anyone to make pasta or sauces from scratch.
Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
#794Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there's much bigger impact to be made if they work from the top down Exactly. Germany banning plastic straws while simultaneously funding a new natural gas pipeline feels very much like they just want it to seem like things are improving.
Natural gas is great. It doesn't generate as much pollution as one might think. Other than fully clean energy like hydro and solar, it is one of the best.
it doesn't generate much in terms of particulate emissions (eg it's not dirty like diesel) but it's quite bad in terms of greenhouse effects. the natural gas pipeline network leaks a relatively large amount of the gas that transits it (it's on the order of several percent per year) and because it's such a distributed problem it's not economical for companies to fix it purely on a cost-savings basis. And natural gas (methane) is an extremely potent greenhouse gas - it is #2, behind only carbon dioxide in overall impact on the atmosphere, and something around 100x as potent as CO2 over a 100 year lifespan.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/the-us-natural-gas-industry-...
new studies suggest the leak rate is around 2.3%, which is about twice as high as previously predicted - and at 3% you have offset all the benefits compared to coal generation. Again, obviously that's still better in terms of particulate emissions/acid rain, but you wouldn't be doing any less global warming. So it is still significantly bad in terms of greenhouse effect, not nearly the panacea the fossil-fuel industry would like to present it as.
(and conversely - the fact that it's such a distributed problem makes it difficult/expensive to clean up. you can capture CO2 and particulates from a point source - it's expensive and it sucks but you can do it. But you can't stop 2 million miles of pipes from leaking a little bit at every fitting.)
the only saving grace is that methane does oxidize relatively quickly, on the order of tens of years, whereas CO2 is pretty much there forever. but if we're still pumping out more natural gas into the atmosphere 10 years later, that's not really the fix people think it is. Again, it's 100x more potent over a 100 year lifespan than CO2, the "long term" picture isn't all that rosy either.
Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
#795"Cook wrapped up the memo by saying that he's looking forward to seeing employee faces. "I know I'm not alone in missing the hum of activity, the energy, creativity and collaboration of our in-person meetings and the sense of community we've all built," he wrote." CEO's all spout the same nonsense. The majority of people work because they need to earn money. They're not working to make a new 'family' or change the wo…
There are also plenty of people who like their coworkers and enjoy spending time with them each day. I don't think everybody finds work to be an unfulfilling drain on their leisure time
If you like your coworkers that much you could just talk to them all day like at the office. You can then meet up with them for pints after work too.
Im not 20 any more so the idea of going for pints after work isn't appealing to me anymore.
Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
#796I 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 often do/did paired programming, and over-the-shoulder code reviews. These are easier in person I’m sure I’m not the only person who has the exact opposite experience with this. I can’t think and get mentally blocked when I have someone peering over my shoulder or I’m staring at their screen. I find this kind of collaboration so much easier if I’m in the comfort of my own desktop setup, sharing the screen over Te…
Pair programming is way faster with screen share & multiplr monitors. One of you has the dominant screen with "the task" and you can both discuss it whilst doing indirect things on your own monitors, and throwing them to the share when they are relevant.
Over the shoulder pairing has a lot of "do this", "search that". Shared has a lot more of "can you work out x whilst I check y" and "this is the result of y, I'm interpreting that as z. Should we do a?".
Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
#797Earlier 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:…
> Commutes are responsible for a 10% drop in hourly wages Maybe statistically, OK. But if you have a nice commute it may be likely the best part of your day. I have a mostly flat, 40 min bike ride in the woods every day, and it is my "me time" that I cherish and lets me unwind before and after work. Definitely not "lost time".
I don't think a 40 minute bike ride is the kind of commute we're talking about. Most commuters are not doing so by biking through a nice woodland trail. I would love to ride to work, but it would take over twice as long as your commute in a climate that is inhospitably cold for biking for about 6 months of the year and often rains for the rest.
> it is my "me time" that I cherish
You have kids don't you? That seems to be a consistent feature of people I meet who espouse the virtues of going to work.
Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
#798Earlier 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:…
Whenever the discussion of commuting comes up, the discussion revolves around worst case scenarios. We are software engineers! There is no reason for us to put up with a worst case or even an average case commute. If we want to go into the office, it's easy for us to move house or move job. Its not worth agonizing over a few bucks an hour, especially when going into the office has its own monetary benefits as OP ment…
Live close to work? No! Move further away so you can create more emissions travelling there and have a bigger house to heat/cool. Then complain when politicians don't put your needs over the quality of life of the people who actually live and pay tax on your route. Finally, sleep soundly at night knowing the brake dust you make them breathe comes from a Tesla.
Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
#799Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reading FAANG employees talk about food prices makes me realize the old "It's one banana. What could it cost, $10?" is something that was written based on reality.
At Apple Park lunch at Cafe Macs could easily run $10-15 (without a drink) depending on what station you ordered from. The food there was good but not exactly cheap. The campus was really too big to leave for lunch unless you arrived at some stupid early hour to park underground below your office. It's a 10-15 minute walk to the south parking garage and then at least a 10 minute drive to the closest places to eat and…
But aren't there any lunch trucks, roach coaches, etc around for normal people to get food?
Re: Apple asks staff to return to office 3 days a week starting in early September
#800I 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…
> come see me after 5
hi. Been completely remote for 5+ years. My mental is better than ever.
> You'll realize by the end of it just how important water cooler conversation is for your BRAIN
I would much rather use all the saved time NOT going to an office and instead spend it with people I care about more having more interesting conversations in a more comfortable environment.
> The latter is years upon years of feeling disconnected, left out, and sidelined.
I empathize with some of the isolation that WFH can bring, but I also strongly disagree that it is an inevitability. WFH gives you more freedom with your time and doesn't force you into social interaction by default which, depending on the person, can be a good or a bad thing.
I think it just highlights the importance of CONCIOUSLY choosing our social interactions which might take more effort but I think results in higher satisfaction. You could look at it like junk food vs. nutritious food. One is convenient, leaves you wanting more, and is probably not as healthy if that's all you take in. The other fills you up more, sometimes takes a bit more work, and ends up being more sustainable long term.