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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

#91

Post by ajsnigrutin »

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

This is imho the worst part of WFH. Some people come to work at 6:00 and go home at 14:00, some come at 10:00 and leave at 18:00, and some even later. If you're in an office, the latecomer can just check the early birds office, "oh, you're here, can we ..." / "he's not here anymore, this will wait 'till tomorrow". With WFH it's constant emails and work calls, and for a lot of people it's hard to separate work/home, turn the work phone off (especially in small companies, where before the plague, if someone called you in the afternoon, it usually meant something horrible has happened).

The second thing i'd miss is all the non-work activities that happen at work, from random chatter, to lunch, practical jokes, etc. Also when dealing with clients, the after-meeting-beer usually solved a lot of problems with a lot of one-on-one chats, and informal talks about rwhat the issues are,... this is hard to do on zoom/teams/..., especially if there is a higher-up present, and the engineers are afraid to honestly say what's bothering them during day-to-day work.

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

#92

Post by d3ntb3ev1l »

rawtxapp wrote: post #22
plusCubed wrote: post #16

Interesting, similar to Google[1]... I wonder if 3 days in-person will be the new paradigm for big tech companies. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/6/22422518/google-hybrid-wor...

FWIW, Google afterwards opened up the possibility of full-remote work (saying they expect ~20% of the workforce to do that iirc), but individual PAs will need to come up with actual guidelines which are due in a couple of weeks.

Exactly. Google was similar to apple then walked it back to much more flexible , honesty way more appealing and forward thinking

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

#93

Post by desine »

kelnos wrote: post #72
desine wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me a backwards traditionalist but I prefer to keep social skill development that has worked for millennia.

What we now call "school" has barely existed for centuries, let alone millennia. Pretty sure kids were much better socialized prior to our current state of primary education.

Did kids wear masks while socializing before we invented school?

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

#94

Post by d3ntb3ev1l »

Pet_Ant wrote: post #14
thrower123 wrote: post #4

This might be the worst possible schedule. Mandatory Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays? Terrible. Neither fish nor fowl. Shit, or get off the pot. But deliberately constructing the schedule to make actually getting to work remote impractical is mendacious at best.

The deliberate choice of Thursday over Wednesday is quite a strong indicator that even part-time remote is not an option, so you can't even just commute into the city for work and live a ways away during the rest of the time.

Exactly. Subtle not subtle choosing a days to really make it hard to live anywhere reasonable

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

#95

Post by jayd16 »

coldtea wrote: post #68
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 save money by spending less on food, drinks, and electricity. Compared to commuting (car+gas) and time-to-commute opportunity costs (to use for personal house tasks, side projects, self health)? I seriously doubt it.

I live close enough to bike to work. I'm sure I don't spend a meal's worth of gas but I guess I spend 20 mins a day. Its not that strange at all.

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

#96

Post by themacguffinman »

coldtea wrote: post #68
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 save money by spending less on food, drinks, and electricity. Compared to commuting (car+gas) and time-to-commute opportunity costs (to use for personal house tasks, side projects, self health)? I seriously doubt it.

Not everyone spends a significant amount of time commuting by personal car to the office. I see a lot of angst about hypothetically long 1-2hr commutes when the average commute in major tech cities is ~30 mins, and of course you can always control it by living closer to the office. Sure, not everyone is willing to make sacrifices for commute, which is one reason why it can be a competitive advantage.

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

#97

Post by ajsnigrutin »

pochamago wrote: post #69
k-mcgrady wrote: post #60

"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

Yep, random talks about random stuff, lunch together, practical jokes,...

if you're a person who can make friends easily, even at work, you're missing a lot.

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

#98

Post by actuator »

d3ntb3ev1l wrote: post #84
actuator wrote: post #73

I can see why Apple did this. Based on data from internal surveys I know from big tech companies, there has been a split between three cohorts; remote, some days in office and all days in office. The some/all days cohort in office is the one that is the majority in almost all big tech companies. So, tech companies have to retain their offices. If they are paying for those spaces, do they not allow the employees who w…

What’s odd is the already distributed teams are effectively remote from different regions. So they need to drive into an office so they can jump on zoom?

I think for such teams it doesn't make much sense to force them into office. A new joiner in such a team should be allowed to indicate his preference for remote/office, which should be asked again in a year.

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

#100

Post by AdrianB1 »

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…

It depends on specific situation:

* I spend a lot more on gas than on the electricity delta

* I spend a lot more on food and drinks when I am in the office than at home; in the office I buy, at home is all home cooked. The food at home is also a lot healthier.

* the team I manage is spread in 2 other offices in different countries, nobody is in my country, so going to the office achieves nothing

* the extended team I work in, also spread even more, only one person in the same office as me. We already talk too much, more is not better

* spending 1-3 hours a day commuting (varies a lot if I ride the bike or drive the car, time of day and if it rains) never helped anyone

* I am not distracted by home life, I am too busy for that

* I am one of those very few people things are escalated to when the fan gets bent, so there is no much separation anyway

But I recognize there are some benefits of being in the office, even if overall for me it is not a net positive.

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