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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

#91

Post by randomsearch »

post_break wrote: post #39

The time theft of traffic, costs of fuel and wear and tear on your car, the cost of lunch if you don't pack a lunch. It all adds up when having to go back to the office. I hate that we had to return to the office because it was like getting a big pay cut. Even the 3 day a week thing, it's like what's the point? We can work from home obviously, what more does going in 3 times a week accomplish other than punish you, s…

Fair point for some people.

Something I don’t see on HN is how the ideal wfh works for people who can’t afford a study. What if you live with your parents and share with a sibling?

This might not be the case for established six figure programmers in the states. But there are lots of people with less money who might value having a separate space to work.

Might even be the silent majority outside of highly paid developers.

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

#92

Post by ghaff »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #78
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your hybrid is mandatory then you can expect to be back to full time 5 days in a years time approx.

As a manager, these types of comments and sentiments are so incredibly frustrating for me. This is pure supposition based on no evidence. It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions. Taking my company as an example, while the executive team has been ambiguous, I know that a full return to 5 days of asses in seats is not being contemplated at all , not the least of which because we don't want…

> never

Leadership changes. People change their minds. Something can absolutely be a genuine intent today but that could change in a few years.

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

#93

Post by PabloRobles »

imgabe wrote: post #76
turtledove wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software engineering salaries start at six figures with signing bonuses in the tens of thousands. 22 years are buying houses and cars when they land at Apple.

And those salaries get lower as they advance in their careers? Or do they go up? If the more senior people get paid even more, how does this contribute to making the workforce skew younger? Have you considered that there are jobs besides software engineering at Apple? And those jobs might also have 22 year olds working at them? Is the entry level marketing assistant getting six figures and stock options too?

Well, senior people earn more and have an easier life. This is not necessarily bad. Young people don't need to have an easy life, just a fair one, with equal opportunities to those ones that came before them and the ones that are among them.

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

#94

Post by randomsearch »

loudthing wrote: post #54

Unfortunately the folks that get to make these decisions are so removed from the reality of their company's every day tasks that all they can think is "if I don't see butts in the seats I bought, then obviously no work is getting done".

The problem is, for many people and jobs that heuristic is accurate. I’ve heard of countless examples of people spending their time gaming at home instead of working.

Humans need extrinsic motivation. Outside of overheated labour markets, this is going to be a real problem. Expect intrusive monitoring to become widespread if wfh persists.

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

#95

Post by randomsearch »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #34
PabloRobles wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you, please, give your point of view on it? This is something I never thought about.

Is it really hard to imagine that it's easier to get to the office as an able bodied 22 year old than as a 45 year old wheelchair user? Or a 31 year old single parent?

Or wfh as a poorer individual with a cramped house shared by multiple occupants, low pay that doesn’t cover the increase in electricity usage etc.

Works both ways.

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

#96

Post by 0daystock »

carlycue wrote: post #81

[flagged]

This sounds a lot like flame-baiting. Are you expecting a constructive dialogue by leading with an accusatory generalization about a wide corpus of political ideology? Or do you wish to engage in a good faith dialogue about what "conservatives" actually want?

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

#97

Post by anon2020dot00 »

Invictus0 wrote: post #43
post_break wrote: post #39

The time theft of traffic, costs of fuel and wear and tear on your car, the cost of lunch if you don't pack a lunch. It all adds up when having to go back to the office. I hate that we had to return to the office because it was like getting a big pay cut. Even the 3 day a week thing, it's like what's the point? We can work from home obviously, what more does going in 3 times a week accomplish other than punish you, s…

Theft? Lol. Never get tired of hearing people making multiple 6 figures complain about their horrible life

WFH is not just an issue for those who are working in Apple. I work in a country where-in the combined commute time going back and forth to the office is 3 to 4 hours a day.

It doesn't make sense to go back to the office for five days a week when we've been working productively during the pandemic already for two years.

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

#98

Post by LightG »

arrakis2021 wrote: post #44
daniel-thompson wrote: post #41

> CEO Tim Cook called in-person collaboration benefits "irreplaceable" and in an email, the executive team talked about the importance of "the serendipity that comes from bumping into colleagues" during in-person work. Another extroverted MBA who doesn't understand why many engineers need big, unbroken chunks of silence & concentration to do great work.

Another engineer that doesn’t understand there are more jobs in a business than engineering. I say this as someone who works from home and is a huge WFH advocate. We need to stop assuming every role in an org revolves around “I stare at my screen for 9 hours do not interrupt me.”

Finance here: "big, unbroken chunks of silence & concentration to do great work. " sounds like an absolute dream ...

I'm with the engineer on this.

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

#99

Post by InitialLastName »

snowwrestler wrote: post #74
daniel-thompson wrote: post #41

> CEO Tim Cook called in-person collaboration benefits "irreplaceable" and in an email, the executive team talked about the importance of "the serendipity that comes from bumping into colleagues" during in-person work. Another extroverted MBA who doesn't understand why many engineers need big, unbroken chunks of silence & concentration to do great work.

Cook has an engineering degree and Apple did some pretty good engineering before COVID including the A series of microprocessors, Air Pods, Apple Watch, and most of the M1 development. I understand that people like work from home, but implying engineering can’t be done in an office building is overselling the issue by quite a bit.

There's a bit of a disconnect here in that many on this forum are software engineers, probably mostly working on systems that need no hands-on interaction (or on apps that can be tested easily locally).

The products you listed are hardware products (with integrated software) which are much more difficult to work on remotely, especially in a company that prioritizes secrecy as much as Apple does.

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

#100

Post by LightG »

azemetre wrote: post #64
enumjorge wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not allow the flexibility to let both types of people do their best work though?

Maybe allow teams, but I don't think allowing individuals to choose isn't good. Having a team that's half remote/half in-person is worse of both worlds. What typically ends up happening IME is that the in-person half typically gets way way way more visibility than those working remote. It's especially worse if the company isn't remote first at all. It's especially terrible if the team is remotely distributed as well.…

"in-person half typically gets way way way more visibility than those working remote."

That's a management problem, not a policy problem. Sorry.

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