dysamoria

Uh, developers of “free apps”? Free as in loaded with ads or in-app purchases? Or were they *actually* free?

I do think Apple have changed from one company to another, and not for the better, but this specific argument of monopoly still doesn’t work. There’s something in there that’s anticompetitive practices, but monopoly isn’t really it.

sdw2001 said:

Total political nonsense. Arbitrary and shifting rules, benchmarks and narratives…all to keep the control and panic going.  The pandemic in the US is largely over, Delta variant or no.  But that won’t stop the media from 24/7 panic porn about breakthrough infections and rising cases and mask mandates.  

Why? Why do you believe this makes any sense?

mcdave said:

DAalseth said:

After Covid there's going to be a lot of highly skilled people that realize that they can get as much or more work done from home without a lot of the stress or the hassle. A lot of smart companies are going to realize they can get some really talented people by going along with it, and saving costs by not having to pay for expensive offices. Is Apple one of those smart companies? Time will tell. 

We came out the other side pretty quickly here in NZ but most companies employed a hybrid attendance model. Our lockdown was a lot shorter so behaviours will be different but the takeaways are;

1) Most people miss the office vibe.
2) Whilst WFH can be beneficial for focus on some tasks the lack of incidental interaction stifles innovation.
3) WFH days result in longer work hours & remote working tech basically puts everyone ‘on-call’ without compensation.
4) Excessive WFH has been culturally destructive especially around employee engagement & retention; it takes a relationship to get through challenges & WFH dilutes that relationship. 

These people should be careful what they wish for.

Interesting. These sound like believable claims, but I’d like to see data. Do you have sources to cite on these conclusions?

I would hazard a guess that it very much depends on the work, the individual workers, and their situations. I know gregarious and extroverted people enjoy an office workspace. I know introverts largely despise the same workspaces.

I agree that work-from-home CAN be risky for life/work balance, as one of the closest people in my life works in a non-profit for environmental justice.

Her partner thrives on being busy and constantly doing the work. She does not. Her partner spends way too much time on work and fails at some of the basics of life management (home maintenance & order, relationships, self-care). She spends way too much time avoiding the work because of procrastination and focus issues. I’m amazed they still have their non-profit, but they DO actually get funded and have organized some community wins against corporate polluters. It works, but it’s toxic on a personal level. It’s hard to convince a workaholic that their way is bad when they feel they’re getting things done.

So, yeah, it’s entirely believable that WFH can be disastrous for some people. I just don’t think the lesson to take from it is “WFH is inevitably bad for most people”.

mcdave said:

dysamoria said:

The anti-worker hostility shown here is callous, presumptuous, and generally appalling. None of you have any idea what any of these employees’ lives are like.

The reason Apple wants to force every worker into being on site for a certain percentage of time probably has a lot more to do with making sure their insanely expensive building/campus isn’t sitting empty, because that would be embarrassing for a company that cares a lot about their image.

It’s been noted that people don’t like working there. Open floor plans and glass walls/doors suck for actual humans and productivity. The main building is like the Powermac G4 cube and the trashcan Mac Pro: all form; poorly-considered function.

Then there’s the basic fact that the 40-hour workweek and officespace culture is just plain unhealthy.

Instead of being bitter about what you see as “entitled” employees who should get shit on just the same as you do, maybe think about trying to raise the bar for EVERYONE (which includes yourselves). Stop licking the corporate boot and acting like you’re living vicariously through the boot wearers.

So paragraph 1 accuses other readers of being assumptive. Paragraphs 2,3&4 grace us with your assumptions. Paragraph 5 is your summary & advice based on those assumptions.
You’re a politician aren’t you.

You’re correct that I made assumptions. The appalling callousness towards workers here put me into an emotional knee-jerk mode, of which I’m not proud. I stand by my distaste for the anti-worker sentiment.

mcdave said:

dysamoria said:

fumi said:

Lots of woke Snowflakes at Apple and all these tech companies. They need to see what other people have to endure to make a living.

FFS, stop throwing around the word “woke” when it has absolutely no contextual relevance (or meaning) to the subject matter.

It goes with the territory. ‘Woke’ people live in a bubble of deluded self-entitlement believing they can see beyond their contemporaries whilst actually being obviously manipulated by their desperation for self-determination and their defiance of pre-determination. The wolves control the sheep by tricking them into believing they are the wolves. 

There are none so asleep as those who believe they are ‘Woke’. 

That’s a lot of colorful expression and philosophizing. What does it actually say? Without specifics, all I can get from this is that you’re just as mindlessly taken in by some kind of “wolf” wanting you to see yourself as one of the wolves.

In fact, that could even be projection: people who want to see themselves as part of the power structure tend to help those in power punch downward at those suing for equity.

Just as the people who you’re judging, perhaps you are living in a bubble... what you want to see as your place in society.

Your monolithic characterizations of other people whose existence you do not understand and with whom you cannot empathize... it’s just a form of dehumanizing the enemy; turning opponents or undesirables into an “other”.

Throwing around words like “woke”, “self-entitled”, and “snowflake”... this is usually the language of those trying to justify a culture or systems from which they themselves benefit (or believe they benefit), because of personal self interest and fear of change.