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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

#851

Post by jseban »

i_haz_rabies wrote: post #817
jseban wrote: post #806

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The push for working from home is just two other things that have become taboo to debate and is manifesting through the work from home "movement", which is the loss of private offices, and the debate about reducing hours of work. And if people are allowed to work from home, they have an alternative that fills the loss of the private office, and they can also take upon themselves to shorten their working hours to some…

There are other factors (why waste fuel/accident risk on commutes, easier to cook healthy lunches, et cetera), but those are the biggest ones for sure. It would be nice if we could have the hours debate out loud and for real.

Yeah I hope this debate is started soon. I think if a company offered 6 hour working days and private offices, it would be a whole different story.

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

#852

Post by [deleted] »

radlad wrote: post #842
_jal wrote: post #831

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For those of us who have to commute, it's not exactly the norm to be saving money while commuting This is true. I choose to live within walking distance of my office, and it has vastly improved my life - prior to this job, I commuted 2.5 hours a day, and that was awful. These choices of course have complex tradeoffs, but you don't have to commute, it is a choice.

Are you not paying more to live near the office?

[deleted]

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

#853

Post by TeMPOraL »

ls15 wrote: post #662
technotony wrote: post #658

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends where you live and if you have to heat or cool your house to work from home. Homes are much more inefficient to moderate temperature than offices. That may or may not offset the benefit from commuting, and even less so if done on public transport with lower emissions.

That only applies if the home is empty when people are at the office. If my family stays at home while I commute, then there are emissions from commuting, heating the home and heating the office.

Not even then - nobody likes to return to a very cold home after a day at the office. It'll take advances in insulation to become much more widespread before a meaningful amount of people starts shutting off heating when away. That means first tearing down and rebuilding a lot of buildings, because you can't just bolt this kind of insulation tech onto an old construction.

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

#854

Post by doomslice »

P_I_Staker wrote: post #833
ferdowsi wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since starting to work remote I've discovered the power of shutting down the work laptop (not sleeping) at a set time and not looking back. No Slack or work email on the phone. When I look back on hallway conversations, I can't think of many that really mattered. Actual important decisions are typically not made by IC engineers. Relevant conversations are usually inside team structures and not spontaneous.

> Since starting to work remote I've discovered the power of shutting down the work laptop (not sleeping) at a set time and not looking back. No Slack or work email on the phone. What!?!? I don't necessarily agree with OP, but this is the exact opposite of my experience (mostly observing others). One of the main downsides of WFH is the "always on" nature of it. I usually left my laptop at work, and ignored my phone b…

The parent you responded to is suggesting that hard-shutdowns at a certain time are a way to help prevent that. Shut it down at a set time and don't turn it back on until later.

You won't be as tempted to just pop in for a few minutes of work here or there to respond to some chats or emails.

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

#855

Post by ck425 »

calvinmorrison wrote: post #321
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:…

I spend 150$+ per month on AC and heat because of the pandemic. I spent ~30$ in gas a month commuting. I could even walk if my bike didn't work. Personally I like the free AC. Once you optimize your job to be close to your home, many of the benefits of wfh disappear.

I have a similar situation with heating. Two months of sub zero C this winter didn't help either.

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

#856

Post by mywittyname »

dahfizz wrote: post #763
TeMPOraL wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm really getting my hackles up with corporations making end users responsible for things like plastic, industrial farming and co2 emissions. Me too, but GP has an argument along these lines here. Commute is a big, and often deciding factor, in private car ownership. Get rid of it, and most drivers will lose the major reason for owning a car. Expand the delivery systems for day-to-day stuff like groceries, and ano…

> Get rid of it, and most drivers will lose the major reason for owning a car. I think this is backwards. We saw during the pandemic a mass exodus from cities. Once people could work from home, they decided they didn't want to live in a city anymore. Once you remove the burden of commuting, suburban / rural life becomes _even more_ attractive, increasing the need for cars.

I downsized to one car during the pandemic. The only reason I had two cars was because we were a family of commuters. Now that no one in the house is commuting, there's little point to owning and maintaining multiple cars.

And the one car I do have could potentially last me the rest of my life because I've gone from commuting 12k miles per year (time 2), down to around 3000.

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

#857

Post by pnt12 »

aerosmile wrote: post #332

It's very unfortunate that the WFH experiment didn't turn out to be a 100% winner. We had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do all office work from home for the rest of our lives, and it certainly feels like that most companies didn't love it. There are obviously some exceptions, but what matters is what 90% of them will do - and right now it looks like that they will be asking for on-site presence somewhere in the…

In many cases, this is a power imbalance - the one paying you your salary makes the choices, so your choice is accept or leave.

Most people will accept it, so it's no problem to let a few rebellious apples out. But in software engineering, where there's a ton of job opportunities, the imbalance is smaller - many people can choose to leave and go work somewhere else. A company can't survive if all its employees leave, so they must make room for negotiations.

Therefore I expect that some WFH opportunities will stay - some companies will be happy to poach talented leavers.

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

#858

Post by InvaderFizz »

faeyanpiraat wrote: post #581
InvaderFizz wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if you are like many people, and ended up working more hours during the pandemic, [1] then that erases some/all of the gains of not commuting. Wow. I cut my hours down substantially due to WFH. Pre-COVID I was doing 70+ hrs per week due to commuting into the area during the week and having nothing to do. Now I put in maybe 40hrs per week, broken up into 1hr chunks here and there and I'm not spending over $1500/…

Are you working less because you save commute time, and work more efficiently at your home workstation? Or are you just clocking in less, also producing less?

Oh, my overall productivity is down quite a bit due to family distractions.

Once the new house is built, my office will probably be in a separate guest house.

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

#859

Post by jclardy »

jseban wrote: post #803
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…

Yeah and also to mention the elephant in the room: people work much more when they are stuck in a room with others, and have eyes on them. And they work way less if they are at home and nobody is watching. This is just the truth, regardless of how little it applies to myself, of course! I'm also annoyed by the amount of housework/cooking/preparation/cleaning I have to do when I'm at home all day, when half of that ha…

But you are basing this on your personal experience. I work remote out of state from my company (and did so pre-pandemic.) I would often travel and stay at the office for decent periods of time. During those periods way less work was accomplished for me, because I was socializing more with co-workers, took more snack/water breaks, spent more time at lunch. While WFH I will still go out to local coffee shops to work out of if I am lacking focus for the day.

Some people actually do work better in a distraction free environment, but it seems you don't believe that. I should mention, my company has an open-office floorplan, so the amount of daily interruptions was quite incredible...

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

#860

Post by k-mcgrady »

nojito wrote: post #777
k-mcgrady wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, however I think any data gathered during the pandemic is not too useful. WFH is very abnormal currently for most. My current WFH productivity is certainly lower than when I WFH pre-pandemic. If I was making decisions about the future of a company I would allow totally flexibility for at least 6 months post-pandemic so I could gather more accurate data. Trying to make people decide what they want (remote/…

It's not pandemic data. It's strictly post surge data. All employees were WFH starting March 2020 and we assumed hybrid status for most departments starting in Jan

Interesting. Given it was just a couple of months was there any element of getting adjusted to the new arrangements/developing better remote processes that could have contributed?
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