Apple employees disgruntled over return to working in offices

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 70
    Dave CummingsDave Cummings Posts: 43unconfirmed, member
    This is going to sound really odd, because I don't ever want to return to an office, but as a Graphic Designer, I don't really need to be in an office to get work done.  That said, I get the push back about returning back to the office for Apple Employees, BUT, part of me wonders if the little bugs that popped up in the past year, like the Studio Display webcam, if that would have been caught earlier on if they were in office or how much more would we have seen released with people in office there.  I can see software being remotely somewhat,  but the hardware teams and the engineers I don't see working remotely helping them.  I could be totally wrong about it.
    dewmeDAalseth
  • Reply 22 of 70
    9secondkox29secondkox2 Posts: 2,664member
    Just weeding out the lame employees. Layoffs possibly incoming. No shortage of people wanting to work for apple. 
    danox
  • Reply 23 of 70
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,332member
    This is going to sound really odd, because I don't ever want to return to an office, but as a Graphic Designer, I don't really need to be in an office to get work done.  That said, I get the push back about returning back to the office for Apple Employees, BUT, part of me wonders if the little bugs that popped up in the past year, like the Studio Display webcam, if that would have been caught earlier on if they were in office or how much more would we have seen released with people in office there.  I can see software being remotely somewhat,  but the hardware teams and the engineers I don't see working remotely helping them.  I could be totally wrong about it.
    It depends on the nature of the work and how much and the intensity of the collaboration required. I think you're right on the mark as far as pointing out that, in general, some things are more likely to fall through the cracks when everyone is in their own bubble kind of doing their own thing with infrequent sync points. That said, the Studio Display webcam issue is much more likely, or at least smells like, a different class of problem. Dog food.

    The class of problem the webcam bug falls into follows a term I first saw referenced by David Cutler, the operating system wizard that Microsoft brought in from DEC to create Windows NT. He used the term "eating your own dog food" which means forcing the development team to use the system they are developing in a productive capacity (not just testing) while they are still developing the system. If the engineers developing the Studio Display were using working Studio Display prototypes to get real work done as they were still working out the kinks it is more likely they would have encountered the same issues that plagued early adopters of the product. Of course there are some real constraints to applying this approach, like crushing productivity as engineers struggle with bugs, but you can understand how this will provide a lot of incentive to get the product working better more quickly, even if only some of the engineers are eating the dog food.    
    edited May 2022
  • Reply 24 of 70
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,332member
    One "little thing" to think about for all those who are getting a bit too enamored and overly invested with the whole notion of working remotely ... 

    If you are currently performing a job that can actually be done entirely remotely with no need for physical presence it also means that the pool of candidates who can do "your job" can come from anywhere - including lower cost development centers like India, Brazil, Columbia, China, Singapore, Viet Nam, etc., where those qualified to do "your job" are willing to work for far less money and far fewer benefits than what "your job" commands in a high cost area like where you are now living.

    To some degree, by insisting that "your job" has no location or physical presence dependencies you are playing chicken with your employer and daring them to outsource "your job" so it ain't "your job" anymore, but just "a job" being filled by someone far away from you who is not you. That's exactly how a lot of the early adopters of "virtual teams" were created, by recognizing that some members of the team could fully perform their tasks in far away places.

    I spent several years working with engineers on my team who were working halfway around the globe. By having some engineers "working remotely" we were able to hire around 4X more staff than what it would cost in the US and gain access and insights into markets that we were trying to break into. It worked very well, I'd say too well for some, because eventually the entire team was working remotely - in another country.

    Be careful what you ask for. You may win the battle but lose the war.
    edited May 2022 anonconformistmuthuk_vanalingambeowulfschmidtmike1stompypscooter63applguy
  • Reply 25 of 70
    BlizzardBlizzard Posts: 34member
    lkrupp said:
    Survey says over half of Apple’s employees leaving over this? Absolute bullshit. One commenter had only been working there three weeks? Gimme a break. Then comes the money shot. The survey predicted everyone would leave after 4/15 when their stock options vested. Didn’t happen.

    Steve Jobs was famous for saying he only wanted A listers working for him, not B and C listers. Well, these buffoons are definitely not A types are they. The B and C types are a dime a dozen and can easily be replaced. They do the paperwork, data entry, run the copy machines, they do not work with Johny Srouji do they.

    Apple has gotten so big they have been forced to hire entitled millennials who want six figure salaries without producing anything.

    Yet another clickbait survey trying to smear large companies. 
    Imagine simping  for large companies you don't work for.
    elijahgcrowleygodofbiscuitsgrandact73
  • Reply 26 of 70
    JFPottsJFPotts Posts: 11member
    Whiny Babies making three figure salaries complaining about where they have to park their tush during business hours. These people don’t live in the real world.
    AutigerMarkzeus423
  • Reply 27 of 70
    This is going to sound really odd, because I don't ever want to return to an office, but as a Graphic Designer, I don't really need to be in an office to get work done.  That said, I get the push back about returning back to the office for Apple Employees, BUT, part of me wonders if the little bugs that popped up in the past year, like the Studio Display webcam, if that would have been caught earlier on if they were in office or how much more would we have seen released with people in office there.  I can see software being remotely somewhat,  but the hardware teams and the engineers I don't see working remotely helping them.  I could be totally wrong about it.

    You're totally wrong about that.
  • Reply 28 of 70
    Real reason is people do not want to work at Apple Park because people do not have even a semi private office to work in.  Really poor working conditions unless you are in management.
  • Reply 29 of 70
    dewme said:
    One "little thing" to think about for all those who are getting a bit too enamored and overly invested with the whole notion of working remotely ... 

    If you are currently performing a job that can actually be done entirely remotely with no need for physical presence it also means that the pool of candidates who can do "your job" can come from anywhere - including lower cost development centers like India, Brazil, Columbia, China, Singapore, Viet Nam, etc., where those qualified to do "your job" are willing to work for far less money and far fewer benefits than what "your job" commands in a high cost area like where you are now living.

    Oh, I bet there's one little bit of a thing you're missing in your list of ingredients for qualifying for a job.  Take a beat.  Take a breath.  See if you can figure it out.
  • Reply 30 of 70
    Just weeding out the lame employees. Layoffs possibly incoming. No shortage of people wanting to work for apple. 

    What *IS* it about commenters feeling like they have to rush to the defense of the most valuable company that ever was and be stridently anti-worker about it?  There are tech labor shortages everywhere.  Apple hiring is notoriously picky.  Sure, people want to work for Apple. But *qualified* people?  
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 31 of 70
    What would it take to have them fully gruntled?
  • Reply 32 of 70
    jungmarkjungmark Posts: 6,926member
    Bull. Unscientific poll at best. 

    I like this quote: “one employee said they were hesitant to ever enter the office at all, and joked about being able to put able to put Apple on their resume after working for the company for just three weeks”.

    the return didn’t come out of left field. You knew full well going to the office was a strong possibility and you still took the job. 
    zeus423
  • Reply 33 of 70
    hexclockhexclock Posts: 1,243member
    I can’t really fault someone for wanting to move to a more affordable neighborhood or state to take advantage of the remote work opportunity, but what would lead someone to think that such conditions would last forever? The pandemic had to end sometime, after all. 
  • Reply 34 of 70
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member
    All pandemics eventually end, that's for sure.

    Apple can mandate in-office presence. California is an at-will employment state so if employees don't like it, they are free to quit.

    I can understand how some employees have found the work-from-home lifestyle a delight. No slogging through Bay Area freeway rush hour traffic or sitting on a commuter coach (where the company can shamelessly extract another 2-3 hours of productivity per rider every commute day).

    Californians were sartorial slobs before the pandemic and now there's practically no reason to wear anything but athleisure attire. And if you have a drop of soy sauce or Sriracha on your yoga pants, no one will be able to tell on a video call.

    As someone who lives in the SF Bay Area and does not work in the tech industry I would personally love it if local tech employees worked from home. Driving on US-101 a year ago was fabulous: no cars. Of course, there was no place to go since everything was closed but at least there was no traffic.

     :p 
    edited May 2022
  • Reply 35 of 70
    seanjseanj Posts: 318member
    Clearly a lot of people here complaining about these Apple employees don’t work in the technology sector themselves. It’s now standard in technology/design/engineering that you have to offer home working to retain staff and that it is the number one demand of interviewers for new jobs. Given the glut of vacancies without enough people with the skills to fill them, employees can for once call the shots.
    edited May 2022
  • Reply 36 of 70
    chasmchasm Posts: 3,274member
    Where were these people working prior to the pandemic? Was it ... wait for it ... in AN OFFICE????

    How come it was fine then but isn't fine now? The "fear of COVID" is a BS excuse at Apple ... everyone will have to be tested, immunised and boosted to return there, and they know this.

    And for the group that is trying to play the "Steve Jobs would never" card, you would simply have been fired long ago, and are likely to be let go imminently. Apple's return-to-work plan is measured, reasonable, and has a purpose (and a route for justifying not being there if you genuinely don't/can't be there). I'm not sure you'll have much luck anywhere else in the tech industry if your top demand is to never be seen in person by your employers ... AirBnB can't hire all of you! :D

    (that said, I applaud AirBnB for their new plan but again that cannot work for all other companies)

    I get it -- before the pandemic, some Apple employees might have been forced to put too much time in at the office, and they don't want to go back to those days. But nobody's provided any proof that this would happen now. The employees who want to remain at Apple should first give the new scheme a good-faith shot, then quit/retire/organize to pressure management to fix problems if any untenable situations are found. The past is not always a good indicator of the future.
  • Reply 37 of 70
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,804member
    dewme said:
    One "little thing" to think about for all those who are getting a bit too enamored and overly invested with the whole notion of working remotely ... 

    If you are currently performing a job that can actually be done entirely remotely with no need for physical presence it also means that the pool of candidates who can do "your job" can come from anywhere - including lower cost development centers like India, Brazil, Columbia, China, Singapore, Viet Nam, etc., where those qualified to do "your job" are willing to work for far less money and far fewer benefits than what "your job" commands in a high cost area like where you are now living.

    To some degree, by insisting that "your job" has no location or physical presence dependencies you are playing chicken with your employer and daring them to outsource "your job" so it ain't "your job" anymore, but just "a job" being filled by someone far away from you who is not you. That's exactly how a lot of the early adopters of "virtual teams" were created, by recognizing that some members of the team could fully perform their tasks in far away places.

    I spent several years working with engineers on my team who were working halfway around the globe. By having some engineers "working remotely" we were able to hire around 4X more staff than what it would cost in the US and gain access and insights into markets that we were trying to break into. It worked very well, I'd say too well for some, because eventually the entire team was working remotely - in another country.

    Be careful what you ask for. You may win the battle but lose the war.


    Known as terminating one’s self…..
  • Reply 38 of 70
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member
    chasm said:
    Where were these people working prior to the pandemic? Was it ... wait for it ... in AN OFFICE????

    How come it was fine then but isn't fine now? The "fear of COVID" is a BS excuse at Apple ... everyone will have to be tested, immunised and boosted to return there, and they know this.
    And they still have a better chance of dying in a vehicle accident on 101 or 280.

    Don't worry about SARS-CoV-2. Worry about other humans who might hit you with their motor vehicles or shoot you with their firearms.

    But many college educated Silicon Valley residents still have weird conceptions of the pandemic even in May 2022. There are still tons of people walking around OUTDOORS wearing ill-fitting masks when it is well recognized that outdoor transmission of coronavirus is almost unheard of outside.

    Even Bob Wachter, the chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF hasn't worn a mask outside since the earliest days of the pandemic. He is interviewed regularly by SFGate/SF Chronicle on his COVID routine.

    On sunny days I regularly sit out at my complex's swimming pool and there's no one out there. People treat it like it's a breeding ground for the bubonic plague.

    Bat-sh!t crazy.

    ---------------------------------

    Edit: a local arts center has re-mandated masks in large part because many of the students are children. Assuming that infection rates increase I'm guessing that Apple will either abort this in-person event or severely curtain attendance. The next 7-10 days will likely determine the future of this year's in-person WWDC event.

    edited May 2022
  • Reply 39 of 70
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    dewme said:
    One "little thing" to think about for all those who are getting a bit too enamored and overly invested with the whole notion of working remotely ... 

    If you are currently performing a job that can actually be done entirely remotely with no need for physical presence it also means that the pool of candidates who can do "your job" can come from anywhere - including lower cost development centers like India, Brazil, Columbia, China, Singapore, Viet Nam, etc., where those qualified to do "your job" are willing to work for far less money and far fewer benefits than what "your job" commands in a high cost area like where you are now living.

    Oh, I bet there's one little bit of a thing you're missing in your list of ingredients for qualifying for a job.  Take a beat.  Take a breath.  See if you can figure it out.
    If you’ve got something to say then say it.
    muthuk_vanalingambeowulfschmidtpscooter63
  • Reply 40 of 70
    genovellegenovelle Posts: 1,480member
    Poll sample size issues aside, the genie is out of the bottle w.r.t. working remotely there.  Apple has successfully released significant new products, including he whole Apple Silicon lineup, while primarily working from home.  These past couple years have rightfully made a lot of people across all manner of industries realize more can be accomplished alongside the added work-life balance remote work provides.  Gotta work late?  You can still be home for dinner.

    The problem is most of these releases were in the final stages after years of development. The quality of many releases took a huge hit and we have seen several high profile case of trade secrets being stolen by employees with external access. The full remote ain’t happening. 
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