Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter(engadget.com)
engadget.com
Apple employees criticize work-from-home policy in open letter
https://www.engadget.com/apple-criticized-by-employees-over-working-from-home-policy-in-open-letter-123027735.html
630 comments
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 to lose ~30% of our staff.
But for the suspicious, it appears to be impossible to convince them otherwise, and even the slightest hint of asking people to come to the office even just one day a month elicits exactly this kind of response.
And the funny thing is, I absolutely understand the suspicion! It's just that, as a person in a leadership position, it makes me want to tear my hair out because I can shout from the rooftops that, no, we're never going to mandate a full return to office, but some folks will simply never believe it.
Hence why I admire what Apple has done, here. They laid out their policy, they've demonstrated their commitment to that policy, and now they're letting the staff make their decision about how they want to react to that policy. Whether you agree with the policy or not, that's far better than ambiguity or constant flip-flopping.
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 to lose ~30% of our staff.
But for the suspicious, it appears to be impossible to convince them otherwise, and even the slightest hint of asking people to come to the office even just one day a month elicits exactly this kind of response.
And the funny thing is, I absolutely understand the suspicion! It's just that, as a person in a leadership position, it makes me want to tear my hair out because I can shout from the rooftops that, no, we're never going to mandate a full return to office, but some folks will simply never believe it.
Hence why I admire what Apple has done, here. They laid out their policy, they've demonstrated their commitment to that policy, and now they're letting the staff make their decision about how they want to react to that policy. Whether you agree with the policy or not, that's far better than ambiguity or constant flip-flopping.
> It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions.
Absolutely true. Employees do not trust management for good reasons, because they have experience with management not being open and honest with them (speaking generally here, of course there are exceptions).
Management's goals are often counter to those of the employees. Whereas workers want good pay, flexibility, work/life balance, and so on. Management wants control, pay people less, have them work more, and so on. Many managers pretend they care about what the workers want, only to force on to them what they want. People pick up on that bait and switch after a few times. Again, speaking generally here, this isn't universal, but it is common.
Absolutely true. Employees do not trust management for good reasons, because they have experience with management not being open and honest with them (speaking generally here, of course there are exceptions).
Management's goals are often counter to those of the employees. Whereas workers want good pay, flexibility, work/life balance, and so on. Management wants control, pay people less, have them work more, and so on. Many managers pretend they care about what the workers want, only to force on to them what they want. People pick up on that bait and switch after a few times. Again, speaking generally here, this isn't universal, but it is common.
> Management's goals are often counter to those of the employees. Whereas workers want good pay, flexibility, work/life balance, and so on. Management wants control, pay people less, have them work more, and so on. Many managers pretend they care about what the workers want, only to force on to them what they want. People pick up on that bait and switch after a few times. Again, speaking generally here, this isn't universal, but it is common.
Yes, there are companies that behave this way. And there are many companies that don't. As you say, it's not universal.
The question is: What kind of company is Apple?
I honestly have no idea. But to assume, universally, that all companies will renege on their hybrid work commitments is much too cynical for me.
Yes, there are companies that behave this way. And there are many companies that don't. As you say, it's not universal.
The question is: What kind of company is Apple?
I honestly have no idea. But to assume, universally, that all companies will renege on their hybrid work commitments is much too cynical for me.
>The question is: What kind of company is Apple?
>I honestly have no idea. But to assume, universally, that all companies will renege on their hybrid work commitments is much too cynical for me.
It is the kind of company that colludes with other employers to illegally gain advantage when negotiating with employees about pay and quality of life at work.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-s...
If you want to believe people at Apple have changed, go for it. But in my opinion, it always behooves sellers of labor that buyers of labor are always playing an adversarial game. And vice versa of course.
>I honestly have no idea. But to assume, universally, that all companies will renege on their hybrid work commitments is much too cynical for me.
It is the kind of company that colludes with other employers to illegally gain advantage when negotiating with employees about pay and quality of life at work.
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-requires-s...
If you want to believe people at Apple have changed, go for it. But in my opinion, it always behooves sellers of labor that buyers of labor are always playing an adversarial game. And vice versa of course.
You have to assume this type of bait and switch when companies like Apple, Microsoft and Google have spent so much money on their flagship campuses, that will have to be torn down and rebuilt as they were custom designed by architects in neomodernist styles as proxy corporate peens =/
> Yes, there are companies that behave this way. And there are many companies that don't.
Can you name some companies that don’t? Very few companies with more than a few employees are more concerned about the bottom line of their employees than the corporation. This is by design due to management training in business schools, motivation by managers to control and yield power over others to signal their prowess, and basic greed by business stakeholders to maximize their returns to name just a few reasons.
Can you name some companies that don’t? Very few companies with more than a few employees are more concerned about the bottom line of their employees than the corporation. This is by design due to management training in business schools, motivation by managers to control and yield power over others to signal their prowess, and basic greed by business stakeholders to maximize their returns to name just a few reasons.
Spoken like someone that's never been a manager.
Except that I have. I've been on both sides of this issue and stand by these comments.
What they are describing is literally the objective objectives of a company's management. It's not some fluffy 'cultural values' thing that changes based on what the company's philosophy is. I've held exec positions at startups and ... well, I don't need to have held those positions to tell you this. (These authority contests are so frustratingly silly. We're not 5 year olds.)
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> It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions.
Usually the result of past "Say one thing, do another" sort of experiences. Once bitten, twice shy, and all that.
In the past decade or so, for instance, a lot of the rush to "open office" (which is Hell on Earth for the sort of deep work a lot of tech types are typically paid to do) has been surrounded with all sorts of talk about the benefits of people and ideas colliding and such... mostly coming from people who have an office with a door that closes.
There's a place and time for those ideas, and it's the various "watercooler" places a typical office has - break room, lounge area, etc. "I am not working on something, let's BS on some ideas!" But there's a time and place for "not having random conversations," and it would be where people try to get work done. It's exceedingly hard to focus on deep work when there are lots of conversations around, and having gone from one extreme to another (open office with probably 100 people in line of sight to my own dedicated shed office), even if you know how bad it is, you don't realize how bad it really is. I listen to a lot less music now, and a lot of what I listen to is quieter and instrumental. In the open office plan, I'd acquired an appreciation for some pretty aggressive metal - because it was better than random conversations. And if I'm in the middle of something, I don't get constantly jacked out of the groove by other people being bored or hungry or such. There are many days out in my shed when I couldn't tell you what time it is without explicitly looking, and on more than one occasion it's been my wife pinging me, "Hey, you coming up to the house for dinner?" I'd been buried in something technical for the last few hours and had no idea it was dinnertime.
But despite all this, a lot of tech companies still try to spin "butts in tiny seats with people all around them" as somehow better.
Anyway, if nobody believes what management is saying, there's probably a very good reason for it.
Usually the result of past "Say one thing, do another" sort of experiences. Once bitten, twice shy, and all that.
In the past decade or so, for instance, a lot of the rush to "open office" (which is Hell on Earth for the sort of deep work a lot of tech types are typically paid to do) has been surrounded with all sorts of talk about the benefits of people and ideas colliding and such... mostly coming from people who have an office with a door that closes.
There's a place and time for those ideas, and it's the various "watercooler" places a typical office has - break room, lounge area, etc. "I am not working on something, let's BS on some ideas!" But there's a time and place for "not having random conversations," and it would be where people try to get work done. It's exceedingly hard to focus on deep work when there are lots of conversations around, and having gone from one extreme to another (open office with probably 100 people in line of sight to my own dedicated shed office), even if you know how bad it is, you don't realize how bad it really is. I listen to a lot less music now, and a lot of what I listen to is quieter and instrumental. In the open office plan, I'd acquired an appreciation for some pretty aggressive metal - because it was better than random conversations. And if I'm in the middle of something, I don't get constantly jacked out of the groove by other people being bored or hungry or such. There are many days out in my shed when I couldn't tell you what time it is without explicitly looking, and on more than one occasion it's been my wife pinging me, "Hey, you coming up to the house for dinner?" I'd been buried in something technical for the last few hours and had no idea it was dinnertime.
But despite all this, a lot of tech companies still try to spin "butts in tiny seats with people all around them" as somehow better.
Anyway, if nobody believes what management is saying, there's probably a very good reason for it.
If you want people to 100% believe it, add it to the employment contracts, with significant payments if the company reneges. However I think you will find that the executives won't go for it.
Yep. Money where your mouth is. Corporate management has a history of only responding to direct incentives, so if they want me to believe anything they say, then they have to give themselves a direct incentive to follow through with it.
> 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 to lose ~30% of our staff.
Then it sounds like they probably do want to a full return to in-office work, but don't think they can get away with it. If the argument from your leadership doesn't begin with "according to these very clear numbers, our profitability as a business has suffered due to remote work," then it's reasonable to consider what the real reason might be: Wanting to exert control, or the sunk cost fallacy of leasing commercial real estate, or a justification for managers to have someone to manage. Who knows? These things are often not well explained. But anything except an existential business risk is a bad reason as far as I am concerned, when the "resources" so clearly want it to go otherwise.
Then it sounds like they probably do want to a full return to in-office work, but don't think they can get away with it. If the argument from your leadership doesn't begin with "according to these very clear numbers, our profitability as a business has suffered due to remote work," then it's reasonable to consider what the real reason might be: Wanting to exert control, or the sunk cost fallacy of leasing commercial real estate, or a justification for managers to have someone to manage. Who knows? These things are often not well explained. But anything except an existential business risk is a bad reason as far as I am concerned, when the "resources" so clearly want it to go otherwise.
> "according to these very clear numbers, our profitability as a business has suffered due to remote work"
Seems like this has absolutely been the case. FAANG and the like aren't gonna to willingly lose 10-20% of their staff unless in office work was more productive. The business will make their decisions based on what will make them the most money at the end of the day. They aren't politicians seeking power, just profit. If remote is more profitable, we will see remote companies dominate the scene in the next few years, but as of now, all management has to go off of is reports showing productivity went down during WFH.
Seems like this has absolutely been the case. FAANG and the like aren't gonna to willingly lose 10-20% of their staff unless in office work was more productive. The business will make their decisions based on what will make them the most money at the end of the day. They aren't politicians seeking power, just profit. If remote is more profitable, we will see remote companies dominate the scene in the next few years, but as of now, all management has to go off of is reports showing productivity went down during WFH.
At my last employer, there was a very clear 10% jump in productivity when we went home, and we were still ordered back. There were tax implications to having an office unoccupied that played into that, but I'd bet the bigger reason was that a lot of managers had nothing to justify their salary by while the introverts they used to manage got along better than before.
Profitable for the company != profitable for a given manager.
Profitable for the company != profitable for a given manager.
> Then it sounds like they probably do want to a full return to in-office work, but don't think they can get away with it.
I said "not the least of which because". I didn't say that was the only reason.
This is precisely the kind of cynical reading-between-the-lines that I'm talking about.
I said "not the least of which because". I didn't say that was the only reason.
This is precisely the kind of cynical reading-between-the-lines that I'm talking about.
If you are experiencing cynical reading between the lines from your reports, you might want to ask yourself why. Why don't they trust you? Or maybe they think you're sincere but they don't trust senior management? I suspect that they have good reason for that, and you might take a closer look as to why.
You're not telling me anything I haven't already thought about. Remember, this thread started with me saying:
> At my workplace they keep nodding at "hybrid" without any specifics and the resulting fear due to uncertainty is far worse than a clear policy that some (many) people might not like...
The issue in my org is that, starting from the executive level down, everyone is saying "we are not forcing people back to the office", but no official policy has been written and published that lays that down in writing.
Then mouzogu came along implying that, even with a written policy, they still wouldn't believe it, thus the tangent about being frustrated.
But in my own org, today, absolutely staff have good reason to feel uncertain, if only because fear is filling the communication vacuum.
As for karaterobot's comment, they extrapolated a brief remark into a conspiracy theory. Rest assured, when communicating with my staff, there's a lot more nuance that's being conveyed.
> At my workplace they keep nodding at "hybrid" without any specifics and the resulting fear due to uncertainty is far worse than a clear policy that some (many) people might not like...
The issue in my org is that, starting from the executive level down, everyone is saying "we are not forcing people back to the office", but no official policy has been written and published that lays that down in writing.
Then mouzogu came along implying that, even with a written policy, they still wouldn't believe it, thus the tangent about being frustrated.
But in my own org, today, absolutely staff have good reason to feel uncertain, if only because fear is filling the communication vacuum.
As for karaterobot's comment, they extrapolated a brief remark into a conspiracy theory. Rest assured, when communicating with my staff, there's a lot more nuance that's being conveyed.
> I didn't say that was the only reason.
But, it was the only reason you gave.
But, it was the only reason you gave.
From the HN guidelines:
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
I wasn't attempting to give you a complete and thorough explanation of our work-from-home policy or the reasoning behind it, but rather just one (very important) factor that's part of the overall calculus. I believe that was clear from the context.
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
I wasn't attempting to give you a complete and thorough explanation of our work-from-home policy or the reasoning behind it, but rather just one (very important) factor that's part of the overall calculus. I believe that was clear from the context.
Meh, engineers tend to be pretty intelligent. If they are being cynical about management then it’s probably founded.
If we're stereotyping, I think you're overestimating human rationality and the power of emotional thinking, which is also a pretty common trait among engineers.
I’m not stereotyping though; I said if engineers are cynical their is probably a reason. I didn’t say all engineers are cynical or all mangers give them a reason to be.
It sounds like you have a disconnect with your ICs if you don’t understand why they don’t trust you.
It sounds like you have a disconnect with your ICs if you don’t understand why they don’t trust you.
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When the recession hits, yanking hybrid away and demanding full time is an easy way to both A) easily cut staff that cant show up to the office easily (so preselected layoffs) and B) have massive leverage to force the issue sense they cant just go quit to make 20k more now in response
That was the IBM and GE playbook, right?
I used to work with them a lot in a past role, and the remote guys seemed to get disappeared much more quickly than the folks who had a home base.
When your boss is in Brazil or whatever and gets a savings target, he sorts a spreadsheet by salary and utilization and poof!
I used to work with them a lot in a past role, and the remote guys seemed to get disappeared much more quickly than the folks who had a home base.
When your boss is in Brazil or whatever and gets a savings target, he sorts a spreadsheet by salary and utilization and poof!
Yea came here to say the same thing -- you can just imagine the executive level conversations.. "the company is really struggling, and here are these bozo's sitting at home enjoying their life while I am stressed out in this board room... we need to be all rowing the boat in the same direction, and the only way I can see us doing that is by seeing everybody else stressed out along with me at the office..." so yea.. unless the management is also work from home, you can pretty much guess that a recession will cause a whole bunch of "well, when we said work from home forever, we meant like, ya know while the company was running fine.."
> never
Leadership changes. People change their minds. Something can absolutely be a genuine intent today but that could change in a few years.
Leadership changes. People change their minds. Something can absolutely be a genuine intent today but that could change in a few years.
First, if Apple declared, right now, that full remote was an option, what you say is still true. i.e., in two years, management could decide to take away that benefit.
So I don't see how that kind of reasoning is useful when making an employment decision today. Getting up in arms about a purported future two years from now is just not rational, and is ultimately a byproduct of fear.
More broadly, this has always been true. Employers have always been in an position where they could change the terms of employment, and employees have always been in the position of being able to make a choice as to whether they would be willing to accept those changes. The WFH situation isn't special in that regard.
Second, this could go either way. Future leadership could equally decide Apple will go full remote. But the assumption is always that future change will take away the benefit rather than expanding it. That the slippery slope will always be to the worker's detriment. That's just another form of management distrust.
Edit: And oddly, given the current demand for positions in technology companies, that distrust is especially unfounded. Employees have never been more empowered. The sheer demand for labour means that any company instituting a policy that's broadly unpopular will lose staff. Absent a profound change in the labour market, in that context it would be insane for Apple to communicate a hybrid work policy, now, only to renege on it.
So I don't see how that kind of reasoning is useful when making an employment decision today. Getting up in arms about a purported future two years from now is just not rational, and is ultimately a byproduct of fear.
More broadly, this has always been true. Employers have always been in an position where they could change the terms of employment, and employees have always been in the position of being able to make a choice as to whether they would be willing to accept those changes. The WFH situation isn't special in that regard.
Second, this could go either way. Future leadership could equally decide Apple will go full remote. But the assumption is always that future change will take away the benefit rather than expanding it. That the slippery slope will always be to the worker's detriment. That's just another form of management distrust.
Edit: And oddly, given the current demand for positions in technology companies, that distrust is especially unfounded. Employees have never been more empowered. The sheer demand for labour means that any company instituting a policy that's broadly unpopular will lose staff. Absent a profound change in the labour market, in that context it would be insane for Apple to communicate a hybrid work policy, now, only to renege on it.
> "The sheer demand for labour means that any company instituting a policy that's broadly unpopular will lose staff."
If that were true, we'd all have private offices, or at least the option, instead of open plan office space.
If that were true, we'd all have private offices, or at least the option, instead of open plan office space.
I don't really disagree with any of that although I do think some policies are stickier than others. It's probably easier to adjust the terms of hybrid work than it is to tell remote workers who can't commute to an office that they have to move if they want to stay with the company.
But, yes, in general I wouldn't make decisions based on what could happen in 2-3 years unless I really saw the writing on the wall and wanted to proactively spare myself the pain.
But, yes, in general I wouldn't make decisions based on what could happen in 2-3 years unless I really saw the writing on the wall and wanted to proactively spare myself the pain.
>But the assumption is always that future change will take away the benefit rather than expanding it. That the slippery slope will always be to the worker's detriment.
This seems like a reasonable assumption unless the labor seller is in very high demand relative to supply.
This seems like a reasonable assumption unless the labor seller is in very high demand relative to supply.
> This seems like a reasonable assumption unless the labor seller is in very high demand relative to supply.
Which is precisely the situation we're in right now.
Which is precisely the situation we're in right now.
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I would say that it's not just a lack of trust in your specific organization's management intentions. It's also related to how much we've all seen management throughout the Western world react with horror to the idea that the people they're supposed to be telling what to do might not be physically within their view for weeks or months at a time...or ever!
There's unquestionably a very strong strain of "management" in our culture that consists almost solely of a) distrusting the employees, b) therefore trying to physically monitor them at all times, and c) justifying their own existence by calling for many hours of (in-person) meetings every week. Personally, the institution I work for has claimed—in defiance of all logic and obvious reality—that certain jobs here can only be done in the office, all the time, and thus anyone in these jobs (which is basically everything below Director-level) seeking to work remote even part of the time will be denied.
Your company many not even have any of these people. I don't know. But so many of us have heard the stories from so many others who do have management like this that we would be stupid not to be wary of any manager—on up to the C-suite/owner/board—who seems unenthusiastic about remote work.
There's unquestionably a very strong strain of "management" in our culture that consists almost solely of a) distrusting the employees, b) therefore trying to physically monitor them at all times, and c) justifying their own existence by calling for many hours of (in-person) meetings every week. Personally, the institution I work for has claimed—in defiance of all logic and obvious reality—that certain jobs here can only be done in the office, all the time, and thus anyone in these jobs (which is basically everything below Director-level) seeking to work remote even part of the time will be denied.
Your company many not even have any of these people. I don't know. But so many of us have heard the stories from so many others who do have management like this that we would be stupid not to be wary of any manager—on up to the C-suite/owner/board—who seems unenthusiastic about remote work.
>This is pure supposition based on no evidence.
Unfortunately for your argument, their policy speaks to their attitude, which is "fuck what you think". Anyone with a basic understanding of human power dynamics correctly interprets this policy as "in a year all you peasants will be back with your arses in your seats where we can see you". The statement is the evidence.
>But for the suspicious, it appears to be impossible to convince them otherwise, and even the slightest hint of asking people to come to the office even just one day a month elicits exactly this kind of response.
The fact that you have a problem with this proves our point. You are not approaching this from the perspective of "how can I empower my team to do their best work and make us all a ton of money". Your frustration is "I know better and these idiots won't do what they are told".
And the fact that you claim to be unable to understand these basic ideas means that either (a) you do understand and are lying or (b) are incompetent, and in either case, your team has come to the correct conclusion.
I look forward to hiring a ton of Apple devs while also being disappointed that macOS will continue to get worse.
Unfortunately for your argument, their policy speaks to their attitude, which is "fuck what you think". Anyone with a basic understanding of human power dynamics correctly interprets this policy as "in a year all you peasants will be back with your arses in your seats where we can see you". The statement is the evidence.
>But for the suspicious, it appears to be impossible to convince them otherwise, and even the slightest hint of asking people to come to the office even just one day a month elicits exactly this kind of response.
The fact that you have a problem with this proves our point. You are not approaching this from the perspective of "how can I empower my team to do their best work and make us all a ton of money". Your frustration is "I know better and these idiots won't do what they are told".
And the fact that you claim to be unable to understand these basic ideas means that either (a) you do understand and are lying or (b) are incompetent, and in either case, your team has come to the correct conclusion.
I look forward to hiring a ton of Apple devs while also being disappointed that macOS will continue to get worse.
> This is pure supposition based on no evidence. It's entirely a byproduct of a lack of trust in management intentions.
What do you think the lack of trust comes from? We have a large body of evidence that management does things in exactly this way. You can argue that this evidence isn't germane, but you can't argue that it doesn't exist.
What do you think the lack of trust comes from? We have a large body of evidence that management does things in exactly this way. You can argue that this evidence isn't germane, but you can't argue that it doesn't exist.
I wish I knew!
The technology industry in general is one with some of the most empowered workers in the economy. The incredible imbalance in labour supply-and-demand means that salaries and benefits are sky high, work conditions tend to be quite favourable, and employees have a ton of options in selecting employers that have positive work environments.
And yet there are some who seem to think that tech workers are continuously under attack from heartless corporations looking to maximize profits at all costs, even at the expense of workers.
Absolutely, if you're working in, I dunno, service or manufacturing industries where labour supply is high and anti-union efforts have resulted in a rollback of labour rights, there is every reason to be concerned.
But in tech? I genuinely have no idea where this perception comes from or how it can be justified given the current structure of the labour market.
The technology industry in general is one with some of the most empowered workers in the economy. The incredible imbalance in labour supply-and-demand means that salaries and benefits are sky high, work conditions tend to be quite favourable, and employees have a ton of options in selecting employers that have positive work environments.
And yet there are some who seem to think that tech workers are continuously under attack from heartless corporations looking to maximize profits at all costs, even at the expense of workers.
Absolutely, if you're working in, I dunno, service or manufacturing industries where labour supply is high and anti-union efforts have resulted in a rollback of labour rights, there is every reason to be concerned.
But in tech? I genuinely have no idea where this perception comes from or how it can be justified given the current structure of the labour market.
If the main reason tech workers have good working conditions is an under-supply of talent, that suggests that management is fundamentally not trustable. If that is the case, then when things go the other way we can expect to not have good working conditions.
I've found things made more sense once I realized that the political structure of modern corporations is essentially a kingdom. I think the cynicism of management comes from a combination of factors. First is that the individual contributors have no political voice, so decisions are made for them and they just have to live with the results. Second is that without the individual contributors there is no product, so the ICs fulfill management's goals, but nobody (on a structural level; individual managers may vary) is even asking the ICs what they want. Third, management routinely makes decisions that make the ICs life less pleasant [1], and frequently the ICs know of / are using / know they have the capability to build a system that they want. Fourth, management naturally attracts the people who want power; leaders enable those under them, but rulers tell their underlings what to do. Between the nature of the job and the failings of people, management tends to attract rulers, not leaders. Fifth, tech people tend be individualistic / mavericks, and those kind of people dislike being ruled, especially when the rules are lousy.
This could probably be summarized as ICs want autonomy, mastery, and competency (see Dan Pink). Many tech people got into tech on their own, so have a high sense of autonomy; the corporate structure tends to squelch autonomy. To make it worse, management does not appear to value the ICs, even though the king wouldn't eat if the farmers didn't farm. But ICs have no power within the system, so the best they can do is go quit.
Cynicism is the refuge of the powerless.
[1] The most egregious example I've seen was one very large company had needed a QA system. The IT department liked a particular software package, and apparently nobody else liked it. Probably because it was completely unfit for bug tracking. So, naturally, the company got the package IT wanted. Using it was completely miserable.
I've found things made more sense once I realized that the political structure of modern corporations is essentially a kingdom. I think the cynicism of management comes from a combination of factors. First is that the individual contributors have no political voice, so decisions are made for them and they just have to live with the results. Second is that without the individual contributors there is no product, so the ICs fulfill management's goals, but nobody (on a structural level; individual managers may vary) is even asking the ICs what they want. Third, management routinely makes decisions that make the ICs life less pleasant [1], and frequently the ICs know of / are using / know they have the capability to build a system that they want. Fourth, management naturally attracts the people who want power; leaders enable those under them, but rulers tell their underlings what to do. Between the nature of the job and the failings of people, management tends to attract rulers, not leaders. Fifth, tech people tend be individualistic / mavericks, and those kind of people dislike being ruled, especially when the rules are lousy.
This could probably be summarized as ICs want autonomy, mastery, and competency (see Dan Pink). Many tech people got into tech on their own, so have a high sense of autonomy; the corporate structure tends to squelch autonomy. To make it worse, management does not appear to value the ICs, even though the king wouldn't eat if the farmers didn't farm. But ICs have no power within the system, so the best they can do is go quit.
Cynicism is the refuge of the powerless.
[1] The most egregious example I've seen was one very large company had needed a QA system. The IT department liked a particular software package, and apparently nobody else liked it. Probably because it was completely unfit for bug tracking. So, naturally, the company got the package IT wanted. Using it was completely miserable.
It’s because we know exactly how precarious the situation is. If the demand for labor dropped significantly, do you think companies would maintain the status quo working conditions? Or would we see many more instances of worker exploitation?
> It’s because we know exactly how precarious the situation is.
The labour market for tech has been on fire for nearly 20 years now. There was barely a blip during the 2008 crash that evaporated huge chunks of the economy. During COVID demand for labour went up despite massive disruptions in the economy. I swear I've been reading articles about labour supply shortages in tech for as long as I've been in the industry.
I honestly have no idea where this fear comes from.
Please, I'm very curious to know: in what way is the situation for engineering labour "precarious"?
The labour market for tech has been on fire for nearly 20 years now. There was barely a blip during the 2008 crash that evaporated huge chunks of the economy. During COVID demand for labour went up despite massive disruptions in the economy. I swear I've been reading articles about labour supply shortages in tech for as long as I've been in the industry.
I honestly have no idea where this fear comes from.
Please, I'm very curious to know: in what way is the situation for engineering labour "precarious"?
It's not clear how high the barrier to entry to software is; if the barrier is low, we can expect wages to drop, long-term. People are (reportedly) getting six figure jobs from a six week bootcamp, which could be troubling to people getting paid only somewhat higher for 20 years of experience. And since remote work is clearly here to stay, why would companies hire for US salaries when they could hire somewhere else in the world for less?
There's also concern about whether the stack I have experience with will be around in five years (particularly bad in the Web arena), concern about will I be able to get a job after I'm forty, concern about will I be able to get a job if I have to whiteboard leetcode exercises, etc.
Plus, if you have a mortgage in a high cost of living area (likely if you are in tech) with a family of four, say, your burn rate is pretty high, which is fear-inducing. How long can you afford to pay a $1 million mortgage with no job? Even if you think you will probably be okay, there is a non-negligible (with unknown probability) that you might not find a job and, say, lose your house. There is a potentially huge tail-risk in switch jobs. So even if the market is good in general, there is a risk that if it is not good for you there might be a disaster. On top of this, you read about plenty of layoffs when the economy turns poor, so you know the company is not likely to care about your personal situation. Whether or not the situation is actually precarious, the risk makes you feel like it is.
(In my case, freelancing has been helpful for the fears, because you look for work so much more frequently, and your perspective on your work options, and even what you are selling changes.)
There's also concern about whether the stack I have experience with will be around in five years (particularly bad in the Web arena), concern about will I be able to get a job after I'm forty, concern about will I be able to get a job if I have to whiteboard leetcode exercises, etc.
Plus, if you have a mortgage in a high cost of living area (likely if you are in tech) with a family of four, say, your burn rate is pretty high, which is fear-inducing. How long can you afford to pay a $1 million mortgage with no job? Even if you think you will probably be okay, there is a non-negligible (with unknown probability) that you might not find a job and, say, lose your house. There is a potentially huge tail-risk in switch jobs. So even if the market is good in general, there is a risk that if it is not good for you there might be a disaster. On top of this, you read about plenty of layoffs when the economy turns poor, so you know the company is not likely to care about your personal situation. Whether or not the situation is actually precarious, the risk makes you feel like it is.
(In my case, freelancing has been helpful for the fears, because you look for work so much more frequently, and your perspective on your work options, and even what you are selling changes.)
> even the slightest hint of asking people to come to the office even just one day a month elicits exactly this kind of response
Which in turn makes the executive team suspicious which makes them hint at even just one day a month which makes people suspicious which ...
I dont have any solutions - but I agree with you.
> They laid out their policy, they've demonstrated their commitment to that policy
That is all you can do while hoping that both sides (and yes in this case there are good people and bad people on both sides) chill the fuck out.
Which in turn makes the executive team suspicious which makes them hint at even just one day a month which makes people suspicious which ...
I dont have any solutions - but I agree with you.
> They laid out their policy, they've demonstrated their commitment to that policy
That is all you can do while hoping that both sides (and yes in this case there are good people and bad people on both sides) chill the fuck out.
Flexible working means giving people an option, and when it is mandatory a justification.
Flexibility is not forcing people to come some arbitrary number of days because reasons.
Flexibility is not forcing people to come some arbitrary number of days because reasons.
I mean it seems all the reasons are laid out in your response.
Just reordering them:
> I can shout from the rooftops that, no, we're never going to mandate a full return to office
> the executive team has been ambiguous
> it appears to be impossible to convince them otherwise
You can claim all you want but if the CEO and all the chief officers are not the one making it all clear and not just taking about it at a standup but in black and white on paper. Then it means nothing and what you claim means nothing too to your employees. Like someone said next step after that is to put it in the contract.
Also it’s up to you and the other managers and officers, and not the people bellow you, to create a trusting environment and trust with your team. It’s frustrating you to hear comments like that but it should be instead a red flag for you about the health of your team. Because it’s even more stressful and frustrating to be in the very seat of an employee where there is no trust at their work and the leaders are vague about critical part of their work life and don’t care and (not pointing finger at you but just saying) are just frustrated when they voice their concerns instead of listening and acting as leaders.
Just reordering them:
> I can shout from the rooftops that, no, we're never going to mandate a full return to office
> the executive team has been ambiguous
> it appears to be impossible to convince them otherwise
You can claim all you want but if the CEO and all the chief officers are not the one making it all clear and not just taking about it at a standup but in black and white on paper. Then it means nothing and what you claim means nothing too to your employees. Like someone said next step after that is to put it in the contract.
Also it’s up to you and the other managers and officers, and not the people bellow you, to create a trusting environment and trust with your team. It’s frustrating you to hear comments like that but it should be instead a red flag for you about the health of your team. Because it’s even more stressful and frustrating to be in the very seat of an employee where there is no trust at their work and the leaders are vague about critical part of their work life and don’t care and (not pointing finger at you but just saying) are just frustrated when they voice their concerns instead of listening and acting as leaders.
Its the kind of thing that needs to be codified in the handbook and come from the top. I know middle managers that make these kind of decisions right now at their companies and feel the same way, but the calculus that gets missed is that until its codified in the manual, the HR processes, and is said from the executive c-suite level, it will always appear suspicious, because the course would be easy to reverse on everyone if we take it as a pinkie promise or handshake agreement.
Same reason I don't like "well let teams decide". It doesn't force the business processes to update themselves to the divergent realities, it pushes all of the burden onto teams and individuals instead, which is not good in aggregate for these sorts of things.
Same reason I don't like "well let teams decide". It doesn't force the business processes to update themselves to the divergent realities, it pushes all of the burden onto teams and individuals instead, which is not good in aggregate for these sorts of things.
You could pre-commit to it. For example, you could sign a contract that if the company mandates a full return to work in the next 10 years, they will also increase everyone's base salary by 50%. That would be prohibitively expensive, so the company will never do it.
I totally agree with you. If the manager can't grant such a thing then he has no power over it, the employees have no reason to trust the upper hierarchy either, even if they trust their direct manager.
> we're never going to mandate a full return to office, but some folks will simply never believe it.
Unless you are in the c-suite and are also the board, you can't make those promises. Your job is to say these things and gain employee trust, only to have a different set of orders come from on high.
Unless you are in the c-suite and are also the board, you can't make those promises. Your job is to say these things and gain employee trust, only to have a different set of orders come from on high.
In which case I quit along with the rest of my staff and find another job.
If my management expects me to renege on a commitment that they've told me I can make, then I can't trust management any more than my staff can, and I will no longer be willing to work for that company.
Honestly, it's like folks around here don't grok that a) employees are actually empowered, and b) management knows that.
If my management expects me to renege on a commitment that they've told me I can make, then I can't trust management any more than my staff can, and I will no longer be willing to work for that company.
Honestly, it's like folks around here don't grok that a) employees are actually empowered, and b) management knows that.
I hear this from line managers at every company I have worked for, at FAANGs and non-FAANGs. It is romantically naive. Unless you are working for a small tight knit org run by leader with solid moral character, management will always renege.
Fool me 7 times ...
Fool me 7 times ...
> it makes me want to tear my hair out because I can shout from the rooftops that, no, we're never going to mandate a full return to office, but some folks will simply never believe it.
Six months from now you get a new CEO and they want asses in seats immediately. What do you say then?
Six months from now you get a new CEO and they want asses in seats immediately. What do you say then?
How much less are you believed about remote work than other situations where the recipient of the news has to trust you, and whose quality of life will suffer if you’re wrong or dishonest?
Without transparency and some level of clarity, you cannot expect trust from others and the cynics will remain cynical.
[deleted]
And if hybrid is not mandatory you can expect to be making Cincinnati salaries in few years.
Nobody is going to pay Bay Area salaries so you can live in the woods of Idaho or whatever.
Nobody is going to pay Bay Area salaries so you can live in the woods of Idaho or whatever.
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, showing you how much it sucks to go to the office. All it really feels like is punishment forcing you to be under some managers thumb.
> 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.
I'm all for remote work but calling it "time theft" feels a bit weird.
You knew these things were a requirement when you signed your contract, right? If you didn't want these things then why didn't you either made a point of them in contract negotiations or simply went to a company that allowed remote work from the start?
I'm all for remote work but calling it "time theft" feels a bit weird.
You knew these things were a requirement when you signed your contract, right? If you didn't want these things then why didn't you either made a point of them in contract negotiations or simply went to a company that allowed remote work from the start?
It's a deliberate turn of the typical management canard that workers constantly commit "time theft" by not being on-task for the entirety of an eight-hour day.
Coming over from Paris where I took a bus to work for 30-40 minutes on some days, I thought it would be more of the same, but a bit longer. Turns out that both highways through silicon valley are bumpier in places than Paris cobblestone, and that if you combine the variance in bus times, the walk from my place to bus stop, and the walk from bus stop to the office, it doubled my overall commute time. I didn't know how tired I would be at the end of each day when I signed the contract, was incredibly happy with the end of the commute when the pandemic started, and am glad to be back in Europe now.
It’s time theft if you put in 40 hours of work a week while at home but then you’re told to do 8 hours a week of commuting and by the way you still have to do 40 hours of work.
I think “time theft” sums it up nicely. You had something and then it was taken away.
It feels just as weird as calling things daylight robbery, i.e. not at all.
> You knew these things were a requirement when you signed your contract, right
This is not entirely fair. Pre-pandemic, remote work was much more difficult to find.
This is not entirely fair. Pre-pandemic, remote work was much more difficult to find.
True, but in this example, the pandemic provided an effective increase in pay to the employee while catering less for the needs of the employer. From an employer's perspective, the fair thing would be to either have the employee end their temporary privileges when the pandemic is over (i.e. return to the office), or "meet in the middle" and propose a salary cut to the employee.
I'm not saying this is how employers should react, but I found the arguments presented here just really one-sided and wanted to show where such a line of arguments lead.
I think reality is a bit more complex; the employer can turn this into an upside as well by saving expenses for office space, and possibly benefitting from the increased productivity of people who are more productive at home. And I think it's reasonable that employees ask their employers to look into these upsides.
I'm not saying this is how employers should react, but I found the arguments presented here just really one-sided and wanted to show where such a line of arguments lead.
I think reality is a bit more complex; the employer can turn this into an upside as well by saving expenses for office space, and possibly benefitting from the increased productivity of people who are more productive at home. And I think it's reasonable that employees ask their employers to look into these upsides.
Not impossible, so pre-pandemic it was too hard to prevent the egregious time theft you complain about?
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.
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.
If only employers provided a space dedicated to working?
Correct, they can and should provide funds so that employees can rent out coworking spaces that are located near where they live, as opposed to commuting far to the physical office.
I like this idea. If I already have a home office, so I get paid this extra fund too? Or does my coworker only get it because he doesn’t have a home office?
Maybe everyone gets paid it because teams might want to use the WeWork for local in-person collaboration rather than meeting at HQ, if it's logistically easier. Some team members might have home offices but others do not.
They _do_ provide funds for this. Whether or not you use those funds to pay for a coworking space is your choice.
I'll just throw out there when I started developing all I had was one crappy laptop and headphones and the way I ended up working was by going to the Starbucks down the street getting a hot chocolate and a scone and going to town for hours at a time. Of course that wouldn't work as well for meetings but it was simpler times back then.
Although now I've got an idea to make coffee shops produce more revenue I'm realizing if the CEO of Starbucks is reading this give me a call.
Although now I've got an idea to make coffee shops produce more revenue I'm realizing if the CEO of Starbucks is reading this give me a call.
Various coffee shops gain some extra revenue by selling wifi keys separately from the coffee
[deleted]
I realize this won't fly with many companies, but at a previous role I treated commute time (~1.5 hours/day) as work time. Not 8.5 hours work with commute on top of that.
Theft? Lol. Never get tired of hearing people making multiple 6 figures complain about their horrible life
We're all workers, and we should be supporting one another. Everyone has different concerns, but if you have a boss you have more in common with others who have bosses.
Worker solidarity raises us all up. Support workers in improving their workplaces rather than blowing them off for making slightly more.
Worker solidarity raises us all up. Support workers in improving their workplaces rather than blowing them off for making slightly more.
Blindly offering solidarity with absurd claims makes everyone involved look petulant. Be careful who you cast your lot with.
Better to say, "I don't fully understand your concerns, but I support you" than be a crab in a bucket pulling all the other crabs down.
Someday you'll have concerns about your job and you'll wish tech workers stood by you on the picket lines.
I don't pretend to understand all the grievances of nurses, concrete pourers, or railyard workers, but when they say "this is a problem for us" I'm there in support.
Someday you'll have concerns about your job and you'll wish tech workers stood by you on the picket lines.
I don't pretend to understand all the grievances of nurses, concrete pourers, or railyard workers, but when they say "this is a problem for us" I'm there in support.
This may be true, but should we all strive to appear rational at all times? Maybe the most rational thing is for workers to always stick together.
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.
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.
I don't make 6 figures lol. If I made 6 figures I'd pay someone to drive my ass to work and back.
It’s just a fact: Anyone who has an easier life than my own is petty, and anyone that has it harder should be grateful that their life isn’t worse!
(Sarcasm)
(Sarcasm)
People want to have their cake and eat it too. Silicon Valley companies pay very well because cost of living is very high in the area and they _need_ to pay well to attract talent in that area. If remote work becomes the norm, pay will start to even out across the country. If you live in a place that didn't pay well before, you'll be better off, but if you live in a high cost of work area, you'll probably be worse off. It's just an inevitable truth of how the market functions.... maybe your company says they'll keep salaries the same no matter where you work, but let's see how that plays out in ten years from now.
To that end, 2 days a week in office seems like a great compromise. Personally, I wouldn't want a long commute to work, so I'd pay a lot to be near my office if I'm going in 5 days a week, but for 2 days a week, I'd have much less problem with say a 1 to 1.5 hour-each-way commute, which drastically opens up options for where I can live. And by requiring people to live in the area, these companies will still need to pay competitive salaries for that area, so this seems like a pretty good compromise.
To that end, 2 days a week in office seems like a great compromise. Personally, I wouldn't want a long commute to work, so I'd pay a lot to be near my office if I'm going in 5 days a week, but for 2 days a week, I'd have much less problem with say a 1 to 1.5 hour-each-way commute, which drastically opens up options for where I can live. And by requiring people to live in the area, these companies will still need to pay competitive salaries for that area, so this seems like a pretty good compromise.
Silicon Valley companies pay very well because _other_ Silicon Valley companies pay very well. Fast food companies don't pay anywhere near as well even though the cost of living is the same for those employees.
The demand for good engineers far outstrips the supply, so companies are forced to compete with each other, which is why you get lots of other perks other than salary (free gym, free lunch, free dry cleaning, etc). Any big tech co that decide to pay the same regardless of location will have a huge advantage recruiting and maintaining remote employees. If a remote employee's only option is to jump to another FAANG company for a 15% salary decrease, what motivation will there be to leave?
The demand for good engineers far outstrips the supply, so companies are forced to compete with each other, which is why you get lots of other perks other than salary (free gym, free lunch, free dry cleaning, etc). Any big tech co that decide to pay the same regardless of location will have a huge advantage recruiting and maintaining remote employees. If a remote employee's only option is to jump to another FAANG company for a 15% salary decrease, what motivation will there be to leave?
They pay well because demand for engineers is high. Cost of living is high because engineers have bought all the stock in the area.
You've got the order backwards.
You've got the order backwards.
If they find that it's hard to attract talent, they'll also pay well for remote. But if they don't, angrily worded letters are not going to be the thing that makes the difference. People are going to have to start voting with their feet before Apple will see the supposed error of their compensation formula.
Many companies are. Traditional, old school companies like Google and Apple are slow to move here, but many tech companies are moving to a "we pay you your value, not your cost of living".
I've only seen one (Airbnb) but perhaps there are others I've missed. I don't think we will be able to know how it is going to play out for a couple of years. They may validly intend to do what they say today, but market forces may ultimately force them to change their approach. I'm happy to wait and see personally.
Hasn't Gitlab successfully been a remote-first company for years before the pandemic?
https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/resource...
There's no forward or backward. It's a feedback loop.
Its a cycle. It’s undeniable that Bay Area salaries are higher than elsewhere. They pay what they need to pay to get good engineers _in that location_. I’d venture to guess that Apple employees in other countries (or even other parts of the US) make less.
"They pay well because demand for engineers is high"
Do they pay their teams in Canada, India, China, etc. as much as SV? No.
Do they pay their teams in Canada, India, China, etc. as much as SV? No.
Lower barriers to communication and the building of shared conceptual models of the domain will make a team much more effective.
An engineering team in the same timezone whose members have a similar general context for how they approach work will be able to do all of that more easily.
In my mind, that explains much of the difference.
Of course, there are fully-remote teams and companies that work hard to overcome some of those obstacles, but it seems to be non-trivial to do so successfully.
An engineering team in the same timezone whose members have a similar general context for how they approach work will be able to do all of that more easily.
In my mind, that explains much of the difference.
Of course, there are fully-remote teams and companies that work hard to overcome some of those obstacles, but it seems to be non-trivial to do so successfully.
They are already starting adjust salaries for cost of living in the zip codes where remote workers live. They still pay more because the field is competitive, but companies (including Facebook and Google) aren’t paying Palo Alto salaries to remote workers in low cost of living areas.
You are completely missing out on the market impact of large corporate (Blackrock) and overseas investors.
>Silicon Valley companies pay very well because cost of living is very high in the area
Isnt this backwards? Isnt the cost of living high because the companies pay so much?
Isnt this backwards? Isnt the cost of living high because the companies pay so much?
vmception(1)
I should preface my comment by saying that I generally agree that full WFH is a very reasonable request, but I can only partly follow their reasoning on the diversity factor:
>"... will change the makeup of our workforce [to] younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would change the workforce from what it already is unless it became more diverse during COVID as a result of flexible WFH options.
I also understand their justification for how these might limit candidates except "whiter" and "neuro-normative", which their letter didn't seem to provide direct reasoning for. I suppose "whiter" might be the result of drawing more from the local population, but again they seem to be arguing that a policy that's still more flexible than pre-COVID will make things worse, which I don't follow.
>*"requiring everyone to relocate to the office their team
Again this shouldn't make things any worse than pre-COVID. Given that full WFH was stated as temporary then no one should need to relocate to accommodate a partial in-person requirement. Not unless they unwisely moved away during the lockdown despite things being temporary or are new hires who also failed to take the temporary status into account.
To reiterate, I'm very sympathetic to their overall complaint, but it appears that they might be doing their case a disservice by implying that this will make some things worse than they already are or were before.
>"... will change the makeup of our workforce [to] younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would change the workforce from what it already is unless it became more diverse during COVID as a result of flexible WFH options.
I also understand their justification for how these might limit candidates except "whiter" and "neuro-normative", which their letter didn't seem to provide direct reasoning for. I suppose "whiter" might be the result of drawing more from the local population, but again they seem to be arguing that a policy that's still more flexible than pre-COVID will make things worse, which I don't follow.
>*"requiring everyone to relocate to the office their team
Again this shouldn't make things any worse than pre-COVID. Given that full WFH was stated as temporary then no one should need to relocate to accommodate a partial in-person requirement. Not unless they unwisely moved away during the lockdown despite things being temporary or are new hires who also failed to take the temporary status into account.
To reiterate, I'm very sympathetic to their overall complaint, but it appears that they might be doing their case a disservice by implying that this will make some things worse than they already are or were before.
Yes, it was an issue before COVID, but people who are disabled, or people who have processing differences that make dealing with the distractions of an open plan office extremely difficult (that's the "neuro-normative" part), or people who have to juggle children and a job, or people who can't afford to live close enough to have a short commute, had it much better when working from home and naturally don't want to give that up.
And for some people it's the other way around. I have a colleague who has two young children and a small apartment, and it was very tough for him when work from home and school from home was mandatory.
And for some people it's the other way around. I have a colleague who has two young children and a small apartment, and it was very tough for him when work from home and school from home was mandatory.
Thanks, that clarifies things a bit. And I can understand not wanting to give up an improvement over pre-COVID times-- I agree it shouldn't be necessary. I guess I was just confused that they seem to be implying that a partial return to in-person would make things worse than pre-covid.
> Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would change the workforce from what it already is unless it became more diverse during COVID as a result of flexible WFH options.
> I also understand their justification for how these might limit candidates except "whiter" and "neuro-normative", which their letter didn't seem to provide direct reasoning for. I suppose "whiter" might be the result of drawing more from the local population, but again they seem to be arguing that a policy that's still more flexible than pre-COVID will make things worse, which I don't follow.
I suspect race, gender, and height biases are a big deal and substantially mitigated by various kinds of remote work, but I don't have much more to add about these things.
About "neuro-normative," I have ADHD. Open plan offices, while they are a blight upon the productivity of every worker, are substantially worse for me than for other people. Apple literally prevents teams from communicating with other teams. The combination of open plan offices, secrecy, and demands to come to the office and listen to salespeople on calls all day but not discuss your work with more than a few other people is truly mind-blowing.
> I also understand their justification for how these might limit candidates except "whiter" and "neuro-normative", which their letter didn't seem to provide direct reasoning for. I suppose "whiter" might be the result of drawing more from the local population, but again they seem to be arguing that a policy that's still more flexible than pre-COVID will make things worse, which I don't follow.
I suspect race, gender, and height biases are a big deal and substantially mitigated by various kinds of remote work, but I don't have much more to add about these things.
About "neuro-normative," I have ADHD. Open plan offices, while they are a blight upon the productivity of every worker, are substantially worse for me than for other people. Apple literally prevents teams from communicating with other teams. The combination of open plan offices, secrecy, and demands to come to the office and listen to salespeople on calls all day but not discuss your work with more than a few other people is truly mind-blowing.
> >"... will change the makeup of our workforce [to] younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
> Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would change the workforce from what it already is…
Don’t disagree with you, but I interpreted their point of comparison to be what would be if there were more WFH flexibility, rather than what is/was.
I am also sympathetic to that line of thinking because while I support diversity efforts, it strikes me that they are often framed around how to make more individuals who are underrepresented in an industry join a company (where they will be still be underrepresented) by relocating to a new community (where they will also be underrepresented), while losing the support of their previously local friends & family. Large companies that care about diversity could instead focus more on opening offices in diverse parts of the country in order create more attractive jobs within those communities, rather than simply bemoaning the challenge of getting underrepresented people to uproot their lives for them. Hopefully increased WFH opportunities will help address this issue.
> Was this an issue before COVID? I can see how this policy might help shape the workforce, but not how it would change the workforce from what it already is…
Don’t disagree with you, but I interpreted their point of comparison to be what would be if there were more WFH flexibility, rather than what is/was.
I am also sympathetic to that line of thinking because while I support diversity efforts, it strikes me that they are often framed around how to make more individuals who are underrepresented in an industry join a company (where they will be still be underrepresented) by relocating to a new community (where they will also be underrepresented), while losing the support of their previously local friends & family. Large companies that care about diversity could instead focus more on opening offices in diverse parts of the country in order create more attractive jobs within those communities, rather than simply bemoaning the challenge of getting underrepresented people to uproot their lives for them. Hopefully increased WFH opportunities will help address this issue.
Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions? There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues? There is no value in body-language when communicating? I'm all for fully WFH policies, but I think it's a bit naive or dishonest to say that it's exactly the same work experience. I've been working remote for over a decade and will never work from an office again, but there are some things you just cannot replicate online or with video calls.
Before my time, the company did some kind of retreat of 2 days, with sleeping in,for all 40 of the IT staff. The idea was to get them to know each other,as they where dispatched to 20+ divisions and only spoke by phone. There was no work to be done there, no cringy corporate stuff, just a mountain of food and drinks. It must have been expensive.
We're now 20 years later, and they're still referring to it. But when any noninvited ask anything, they all get very very very vague. Whatever happened on the retreat, stays on the retreat. Don't get me wrong, I don't think anything illegal or untoward happened.
It worked. They became a tight social network. Ask anyone anything, and the right person and info magically appears. Even 20 years later, in a very political corporation, the trust built that weekend still persists.
We're now 20 years later, and they're still referring to it. But when any noninvited ask anything, they all get very very very vague. Whatever happened on the retreat, stays on the retreat. Don't get me wrong, I don't think anything illegal or untoward happened.
It worked. They became a tight social network. Ask anyone anything, and the right person and info magically appears. Even 20 years later, in a very political corporation, the trust built that weekend still persists.
> a very political corporation
Not saying the retreat was a wholesale bad idea, but it sounds to me like part of the reason it's political could be because there's an in-group and out-group derived from the retreat.
Not saying the retreat was a wholesale bad idea, but it sounds to me like part of the reason it's political could be because there's an in-group and out-group derived from the retreat.
Can't add much detail her, except this group of 50 people is tiny compared to the whole IT team, and political was a problem long before the retreat.
I'm a remote work advocate.
> Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions?
Of course it's not an exact equivalent, but it doesn't need to be. Anecdotally speaking, the number of whiteboard meetings I had that I wanted to have were about 1 per year. Remote workers use tools like Notion, Miro, Jetbrains Code With me which have many/more of the advantages of a whiteboard.
> There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues?
This one is company specific, but I don't need to be in the office to go to lunch with my colleagues. In my last office job, I had lunch with 2-3 colleagues maybe twice a week. In my current all remote job, I meet my colleagues once every other week for lunch, and I _still_ meet my previous job colleagues for lunch once a week or so.
> There is no value in body-language when communicating?
Honestly in a business setting with "trusted" coworkers, less so. I tend to take what my colleagues say at face value. With remote work, webcams do a reasonable job of picking up the "I'mn really uncomfortable with something you've just said" and "holy crap they've hit it out of the park". Again, in previous office job, a non-trivial amount of communication _in_ meetings happened in private slack groups that were messaging during the meeting - that still happens today. The big advantage now is that people who would have been steamrolled in meetings have a chance to get their thoughts heard, as most remote teams tend to practice async communciation practices (which are not required but are often combined with remote work)
> Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions?
Of course it's not an exact equivalent, but it doesn't need to be. Anecdotally speaking, the number of whiteboard meetings I had that I wanted to have were about 1 per year. Remote workers use tools like Notion, Miro, Jetbrains Code With me which have many/more of the advantages of a whiteboard.
> There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues?
This one is company specific, but I don't need to be in the office to go to lunch with my colleagues. In my last office job, I had lunch with 2-3 colleagues maybe twice a week. In my current all remote job, I meet my colleagues once every other week for lunch, and I _still_ meet my previous job colleagues for lunch once a week or so.
> There is no value in body-language when communicating?
Honestly in a business setting with "trusted" coworkers, less so. I tend to take what my colleagues say at face value. With remote work, webcams do a reasonable job of picking up the "I'mn really uncomfortable with something you've just said" and "holy crap they've hit it out of the park". Again, in previous office job, a non-trivial amount of communication _in_ meetings happened in private slack groups that were messaging during the meeting - that still happens today. The big advantage now is that people who would have been steamrolled in meetings have a chance to get their thoughts heard, as most remote teams tend to practice async communciation practices (which are not required but are often combined with remote work)
> Honestly in a business setting with "trusted" coworkers, less so. I tend to take what my colleagues say at face value.
That's... not all that body language conveys?
Body language helps with basic things like "Oh, Amy is trying to break in and is struggling to make her point", or "Hmm, Doug looks like he's concerned about something, I should ask him his opinion".
Digital A/V communication tools also bring with them a whole host of other sources of friction, including poor audio and video, latency issues, and so forth. They are, at best a weak by tolerable substitute for face-to-face conversations, and quite frankly, IMO anyone who tries to suggest otherwise is not being honest.
You might feel that the tradeoffs are justifiable, but let's not pretend there aren't tradeoffs.
> The big advantage now is that people who would have been steamrolled in meetings have a chance to get their thoughts heard
And conversely, people who type slower or struggle with written communication for various reasons, are significantly disadvantaged.
And that's ignoring the fact that written communication lacks critical nuance (which ends up being poorly filled in with things like emojis) that can lead to confusion and misunderstandings.
That's... not all that body language conveys?
Body language helps with basic things like "Oh, Amy is trying to break in and is struggling to make her point", or "Hmm, Doug looks like he's concerned about something, I should ask him his opinion".
Digital A/V communication tools also bring with them a whole host of other sources of friction, including poor audio and video, latency issues, and so forth. They are, at best a weak by tolerable substitute for face-to-face conversations, and quite frankly, IMO anyone who tries to suggest otherwise is not being honest.
You might feel that the tradeoffs are justifiable, but let's not pretend there aren't tradeoffs.
> The big advantage now is that people who would have been steamrolled in meetings have a chance to get their thoughts heard
And conversely, people who type slower or struggle with written communication for various reasons, are significantly disadvantaged.
And that's ignoring the fact that written communication lacks critical nuance (which ends up being poorly filled in with things like emojis) that can lead to confusion and misunderstandings.
> You might feel that the tradeoffs are justifiable, but let's not pretend there aren't tradeoffs.
I dont know where you got the idea that I'm pretending there's not trade offs, that's exactly my point.
> Digital A/V communication tools also bring with them a whole host of other sources of friction, including poor audio and video, latency issues, and so forth.
And those still existed in the office. if I had a nickel for every time someone senior dialled into a call from their car with a kid in the back of it,I could buy a latte. Meanwhile, zoom and meet both have tools to help alleviate those concerns (raising hands, and queues of such).
> They are, at best a weak by tolerable substitute for face-to-face conversations, and quite frankly, IMO anyone who tries to suggest otherwise is not being honest.
Again, it's tradeoffs. The tradeoffs are appropriate for work conversations, but maybe not for having a deep relationship question with my partner.
> And conversely, people who type slower or struggle with written communication for various reasons, are significantly disadvantaged.
I mean, yes? Written communication is pretty much a hard requirement for most office jobs, and anyone who struggles with it will struggle with email and mant other forms of communication.
> written communication lacks critical nuance
Hard disagree here. Good written communication skills can be as nuanced as verbal communication. Besides, nuance is by definition ambiguity. Communicating in a workplace by refusing to say things is a crutch, and is a recipe for disaster.
I dont know where you got the idea that I'm pretending there's not trade offs, that's exactly my point.
> Digital A/V communication tools also bring with them a whole host of other sources of friction, including poor audio and video, latency issues, and so forth.
And those still existed in the office. if I had a nickel for every time someone senior dialled into a call from their car with a kid in the back of it,I could buy a latte. Meanwhile, zoom and meet both have tools to help alleviate those concerns (raising hands, and queues of such).
> They are, at best a weak by tolerable substitute for face-to-face conversations, and quite frankly, IMO anyone who tries to suggest otherwise is not being honest.
Again, it's tradeoffs. The tradeoffs are appropriate for work conversations, but maybe not for having a deep relationship question with my partner.
> And conversely, people who type slower or struggle with written communication for various reasons, are significantly disadvantaged.
I mean, yes? Written communication is pretty much a hard requirement for most office jobs, and anyone who struggles with it will struggle with email and mant other forms of communication.
> written communication lacks critical nuance
Hard disagree here. Good written communication skills can be as nuanced as verbal communication. Besides, nuance is by definition ambiguity. Communicating in a workplace by refusing to say things is a crutch, and is a recipe for disaster.
> Body language helps with basic things like "Oh, Amy is trying to break in and is struggling to make her point", or "Hmm, Doug looks like he's concerned about something, I should ask him his opinion".
I'm autistic. My body language conveys things that are interpreted incorrectly by nearly everyone, particularly in management. This leads to me having to explain repeatedly that no, that's not what I'm experiencing at all, please stop.
When people don't get those cues from me, they understand me better, not worse.
I'm autistic. My body language conveys things that are interpreted incorrectly by nearly everyone, particularly in management. This leads to me having to explain repeatedly that no, that's not what I'm experiencing at all, please stop.
When people don't get those cues from me, they understand me better, not worse.
To make it more general, non-autistic people also sometimes have trouble with body language. The non-controversial point is most humans fall somewhere on the spectrum where they're able to read others' body language - with a minority being outliers.
I think this varies significantly from person to person. I learned social skills the hard way and pay very close attention to facial expressions and tone of voice. Both of those carry across clearly for me... if the video is good. This does not degrade gracefully over poor internet connections.
But I find the real loss is hallway conversations and seeing the body language of the people I'm are not talking to.
Going fully-remote requires deliberate changes to the company culture to make implicit things like meeting in the hallway happen remotely. This is not easy and requires more upkeep by everyone than just showing up at the office.
But I find the real loss is hallway conversations and seeing the body language of the people I'm are not talking to.
Going fully-remote requires deliberate changes to the company culture to make implicit things like meeting in the hallway happen remotely. This is not easy and requires more upkeep by everyone than just showing up at the office.
It sounds like your meetings need more structure.
The value for being in the office for me was in the spontaneous connections with folks that weren't in my immediate work unit. Those connections have lead to every job I have had. The best kinds of jobs are the ones that come to you and you don't have to interview for; and you just aren't going to get anywhere near the numbers of those opportunities without "pressing the flesh".
If that's not a concern for you then have at it. But if you are at the start or mid way through your career, are motivated and still hungry for advancement I'd be VERY careful of spending too much time full time remote.
If that's not a concern for you then have at it. But if you are at the start or mid way through your career, are motivated and still hungry for advancement I'd be VERY careful of spending too much time full time remote.
I understand, but I must say that it doesn't sound very efficient to be working in an office for 8 hours every day in order to have useful spontaneous connections every once in a while. Meetups and other events also provide such interactions without having to be there all the time while coding, writing, etc.
Yeah the discussion is so dishonest on both ends at this point. The complaint that returning to the office will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce is maybe the most absurd attempt yet to destroy RTO plans.
At the end of the day employers want to see what their employees are doing and employees want to avoid insane commutes / high COL rents / not feel like they are being spied on all the time, in part cause they maybe do 4 hours of work a day anyway. That's what's driving this. The rest is noise.
At the end of the day employers want to see what their employees are doing and employees want to avoid insane commutes / high COL rents / not feel like they are being spied on all the time, in part cause they maybe do 4 hours of work a day anyway. That's what's driving this. The rest is noise.
>At the end of the day employers want to see what their employees are doing and employees want to avoid insane commutes / high COL rents / not feel like they are being spied on all the time, in part cause they maybe do 4 hours of work a day anyway. That's what's driving this. The rest is noise.
This is probably the most honest take I've read. Also, it's been proven WFH on a grand scale is effective over the past 2 years, so many arguments against the efficacy of WFH crumbled over Covid. Bottom line is employers who don't want to allow WFH will have a smaller and more expensive pool than they are accustomed to. There are enough WFH opportunities that going to the office is no longer a given. The current debate is employees who want to WFH that are currently employed by companies who don't want employees to WFH. It will iron itself out in a year or two one way or the other.
FWIW, I've gone to the office 100% of the time maybe 1/2 of my 20+ year career, mostly early on. I've managed to negotiate work from home days, both in the 90s, 00s, and 10s. I WFH full time today. I meet the guys for lunch every week. It's nice and it gets me out of the house. We're a small team though.
This is probably the most honest take I've read. Also, it's been proven WFH on a grand scale is effective over the past 2 years, so many arguments against the efficacy of WFH crumbled over Covid. Bottom line is employers who don't want to allow WFH will have a smaller and more expensive pool than they are accustomed to. There are enough WFH opportunities that going to the office is no longer a given. The current debate is employees who want to WFH that are currently employed by companies who don't want employees to WFH. It will iron itself out in a year or two one way or the other.
FWIW, I've gone to the office 100% of the time maybe 1/2 of my 20+ year career, mostly early on. I've managed to negotiate work from home days, both in the 90s, 00s, and 10s. I WFH full time today. I meet the guys for lunch every week. It's nice and it gets me out of the house. We're a small team though.
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> The complaint that returning to the office will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce is maybe the most absurd attempt yet to destroy RTO plans.
It isn't. If you are disabled, black, female, or older, an open-plan office is not a comfortable place. It's a halfway house for frat boys, but people for whom being unfairly evaluated and unjustly terminated is the kind of thing that happens at least once in a career do not, in general, do well in it.
It isn't. If you are disabled, black, female, or older, an open-plan office is not a comfortable place. It's a halfway house for frat boys, but people for whom being unfairly evaluated and unjustly terminated is the kind of thing that happens at least once in a career do not, in general, do well in it.
Your comment is ridiculous. I'm an able-bodied white male but I'm also not neuro-normative, nor do I enjoy open office plans. What people do like open office plans? Hasn't this issue been settled yet?
Open office is cheaper than cubicles and allows more employees in one space. That's why it caught on with decision makers.
Some people like it because they thrive on attention and being disruptive, and open offices are optimized for that behavior.
Some people like it because they thrive on attention and being disruptive, and open offices are optimized for that behavior.
> allows more employees in one space
and that's perhaps only technically true... as soon as you start adding quiet spaces, collaboration spaces, conference rooms, etc. necessary for open office layouts to actually work, the plain 3-4 person office plans (which nobody had for years, i was lucky to have them replaced with open office only during the pandemic) are just plain more efficient. open offices, to the surprise of no one actually working in them, force people to the worst of both worlds: have to commute to work to IM with colleagues anyway to not disrupt the whole office. it's madness.
and that's perhaps only technically true... as soon as you start adding quiet spaces, collaboration spaces, conference rooms, etc. necessary for open office layouts to actually work, the plain 3-4 person office plans (which nobody had for years, i was lucky to have them replaced with open office only during the pandemic) are just plain more efficient. open offices, to the surprise of no one actually working in them, force people to the worst of both worlds: have to commute to work to IM with colleagues anyway to not disrupt the whole office. it's madness.
I think it's worth noting that those things are adaptations that occurred after open concept took over. It's sort of a situation where the industry went a direction and never thought to reconsider, backpedal, and take another path entirely. Instead, we kept modifying our response to our poor decision to try and improve it.
But in the era of WFH the cubicles and private offices make even less sense: if I spend most of my day isolated in a cubicle, then why can't I spend that time in my office at home?
But in the era of WFH the cubicles and private offices make even less sense: if I spend most of my day isolated in a cubicle, then why can't I spend that time in my office at home?
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Then you're included as disabled. You have a neurological makeup that increases the difficulty of securing and succeeding in employment. You have almost certaimly been given fewer opportunities than you would if you were neurotypical and good at politics.
Private-sector politicians and frat boys love open-plan offices; most of us are neutral at best, and with age most people come to loathe them.
Private-sector politicians and frat boys love open-plan offices; most of us are neutral at best, and with age most people come to loathe them.
> Private-sector politicians and frat boys love open-plan offices
Not sure what a "Private-sector politician" is, nor what your intense hatred of open-plan offices has to do with collocated workplaces in general, but I can assure you that the reasons people split across the remote vs. office spectrum is far more diverse than your generic bucketing of "white male jerks == office love; everyone else hates them".
It's kind of ironic that someone has such polarized, uncompromising views on the topic, supported by the reasoning that "they don't reflect and support a diverse and non-binary workforce"
Not sure what a "Private-sector politician" is, nor what your intense hatred of open-plan offices has to do with collocated workplaces in general, but I can assure you that the reasons people split across the remote vs. office spectrum is far more diverse than your generic bucketing of "white male jerks == office love; everyone else hates them".
It's kind of ironic that someone has such polarized, uncompromising views on the topic, supported by the reasoning that "they don't reflect and support a diverse and non-binary workforce"
I think private sector politician is intended to mean someone working for a private company but who embodies the worst of politicians: big on personal visibility, short on doing the work.
I'm white, male, straight, neurotypical -- and I vastly prefer remote work and do not plan to go back into the office. So, how does that fit into your narrative?
There are plenty of more substantive reasons to not want to go back beyond "it's not fair".
There are plenty of more substantive reasons to not want to go back beyond "it's not fair".
Surely they're better for disabled people because there are fewer doors to deal with?
And why on earth would open plan be specifically bad for black, female or older people? Do you think open plan offices are all like The Wolf of Wall Street?
And why on earth would open plan be specifically bad for black, female or older people? Do you think open plan offices are all like The Wolf of Wall Street?
I think if commuting time was fully paid work hours, then companies would quickly agree that minor optimizations like this aren't worth it.
If you think active, in-person collaboration is a "minor optimization" than it doesn't feel like you're starting from a neutral, open position on this issue.
It seems like someone could start at a neutral, open position and reasonably arrive at that conclusion. Some users commented upthread that IRL whiteboarding is good but infrequent. This matches my experience. I think real productive IRL knowledge transfer or collaboration has been a once-a-month thing for most of my career, and the downsides of doing it in some sort of virtual environment seem smaller than the downsides of spending 1-2 hours per day for everyone.
As an aside, I sort of wonder why the best WoW guilds are fully remote, if in-person collaboration is such an advantage. I spent some time as an IC in one of the best guilds in the world, and being remote didn't seem like such a big deal. Later I spent some time in a leadership position in a much less serious guild (basically as bad as a guild could be and still clear the hardest content in the game) and if you told me I could have everyone in my team spend many hours per week in cars so that we could all hang out together in real life or spend that time learning about how the best players of their classes deal with upcoming encounters, it seems like it would be an easy choice. One might reasonably respond "Well, software is not like world of warcraft! Software is a lot more collaborative!" but in general the level of planning and ad-hoc coordination that goes into boss kills is unrivaled in software outside of companies like Pivotal Labs that spend an entire day on planning each week, communicate liberally throughout the day, and don't seem to end up with substantially more output than other companies as a result. I sort of wonder if this attitude is a cultural accident where much of the discipline of software engineering is made up of people who think that it's bad for people to take time to develop deep expertise in a subject area or people who have allocated so many people to a project that there isn't enough independent-ish work to go around.
As an aside, I sort of wonder why the best WoW guilds are fully remote, if in-person collaboration is such an advantage. I spent some time as an IC in one of the best guilds in the world, and being remote didn't seem like such a big deal. Later I spent some time in a leadership position in a much less serious guild (basically as bad as a guild could be and still clear the hardest content in the game) and if you told me I could have everyone in my team spend many hours per week in cars so that we could all hang out together in real life or spend that time learning about how the best players of their classes deal with upcoming encounters, it seems like it would be an easy choice. One might reasonably respond "Well, software is not like world of warcraft! Software is a lot more collaborative!" but in general the level of planning and ad-hoc coordination that goes into boss kills is unrivaled in software outside of companies like Pivotal Labs that spend an entire day on planning each week, communicate liberally throughout the day, and don't seem to end up with substantially more output than other companies as a result. I sort of wonder if this attitude is a cultural accident where much of the discipline of software engineering is made up of people who think that it's bad for people to take time to develop deep expertise in a subject area or people who have allocated so many people to a project that there isn't enough independent-ish work to go around.
As usual, it depends. Imagine a team that sat in one room, communication was terrible. People never had time for questions. Queue the pandemic and everyone working from home and suddenly communication improves tremendously, people who you'd have to pester endlessly for a review or ask about some code they wrote suddenly answer the same day. Your team lead is not on the phone in the room where you're trying to work.
> I think if commuting time was fully paid work hours, then companies would quickly agree that minor optimizations like this aren't worth it.
I would argue that you have priced in your commute to your market value when you take a job that requires you to commute, especially since knowledge workers tend to be salary, not hourly.
I would argue that you have priced in your commute to your market value when you take a job that requires you to commute, especially since knowledge workers tend to be salary, not hourly.
Well then you could consider remote jobs to be worth £2k+ more salary, net.
You are vastly underestimating the value of 3h (Bay Area average) of out of each week if one commutes 5 days a week. 3h*50wk = 150h - assuming $100 (lowball) bill rate that's $15k. A more median bill rate would likely be about $250 meaning it's probably worth $50k.
> Well then you could consider remote jobs to be worth £2k+ more salary, net.
I consider them to be worth a lot more than that!
I consider them to be worth a lot more than that!
Maybe you mean monthly?
Commuting time may not be officially factored into working hours but companies already pay for it in domains like tech where they must compete against each other for employees.
Given the number of companies that offer fully remote or hybrid work, a comparable company that wants their employees in the office five days a week has to provide higher compensation and/or lower standards to meet their staffing needs.
The important question for companies is not whether they want to be in-person/hybrid/remote in abstract, the question is how much they're willing to pay.
Given the number of companies that offer fully remote or hybrid work, a comparable company that wants their employees in the office five days a week has to provide higher compensation and/or lower standards to meet their staffing needs.
The important question for companies is not whether they want to be in-person/hybrid/remote in abstract, the question is how much they're willing to pay.
> Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions?
Of course not. They're an ersatz replacement for the in-person thing. They do the job about 90% as well. Is that a problem? In the corporate world, most things are ersatz, if you're not an executive. Mediocre supplies, mediocre management, mediocre training, mediocre pay... why should we force people to shlep just to pretend their jobs aren't mediocre? A standard-issue corporate job can be done from anywhere.
> There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues?
Again, of course not; but if a company is going to expect or require people to do it, it should foot the bill for the inconveniences caused.
Of course not. They're an ersatz replacement for the in-person thing. They do the job about 90% as well. Is that a problem? In the corporate world, most things are ersatz, if you're not an executive. Mediocre supplies, mediocre management, mediocre training, mediocre pay... why should we force people to shlep just to pretend their jobs aren't mediocre? A standard-issue corporate job can be done from anywhere.
> There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues?
Again, of course not; but if a company is going to expect or require people to do it, it should foot the bill for the inconveniences caused.
> Again, of course not; but if a company is going to expect or require people to do it, it should foot the bill for the inconveniences caused.
Sorry if I wasn't clear - these lunches have nothing to do with work. I eat lunch sometimes, my colleagues eat lunch sometimes. Sometimes we go out to eat together and socialize. Work doesn't enter into the equation. We lose that benefit when going fully remote.
There is value to me in having lunch with my current colleagues. I also get value out of having lunch with my ex-colleagues who are now just my friends in the same city. We still have lunches together. I am thankful that I used to work in the same city as my colleagues so that this is still possible!
Sorry if I wasn't clear - these lunches have nothing to do with work. I eat lunch sometimes, my colleagues eat lunch sometimes. Sometimes we go out to eat together and socialize. Work doesn't enter into the equation. We lose that benefit when going fully remote.
There is value to me in having lunch with my current colleagues. I also get value out of having lunch with my ex-colleagues who are now just my friends in the same city. We still have lunches together. I am thankful that I used to work in the same city as my colleagues so that this is still possible!
My friends are not my coworkers and my coworkers are not my friends, nor do very many of my coworkers become my friends. It's a job, not a lifestyle. I'll do team and business lunches and hang outs, and they can be fun, but they are nothing but a distraction from what I'm trying to do.
My manager worked entirely remote for our company since it's inception, literally in a separate time zone. I never met him, I don't even know what his face looks like. I still had better interaction, cooperation, and discussion with him than most of my other coworkers, excepting only someone who was already my friend before this job. When we wanted to discuss something, we brought it up in our teams chat, and they could go one for significant time or topics, sharing opinions, plans, work related thoughts and designs, and often personal improvement things including programming ethics and work adjacent learning presentations.
Don't force me to comply to your interaction style just because you don't understand mine.
My manager worked entirely remote for our company since it's inception, literally in a separate time zone. I never met him, I don't even know what his face looks like. I still had better interaction, cooperation, and discussion with him than most of my other coworkers, excepting only someone who was already my friend before this job. When we wanted to discuss something, we brought it up in our teams chat, and they could go one for significant time or topics, sharing opinions, plans, work related thoughts and designs, and often personal improvement things including programming ethics and work adjacent learning presentations.
Don't force me to comply to your interaction style just because you don't understand mine.
What a hostile reply to someone who merely stated to be thankful to work in the same city as their colleagues. If anything to me it feels like you are normalizing your personal experience and implicitly trying to force others to comply to your interaction style.
I'm glad I'm not having to work in an office with this person! ;)
Unapologetically, yes, and I'd take it a step further. Often the online version is more fun and more interactive than a bunch of people uncomfortably thrust into the same room. There are things people suddenly become comfortable saying and doing that they wouldn't normally say or do in person. If you've grown up with gamer friends you know exactly what I'm talking about -- seeing someone's silly avatar light up when they talk versus being in the room with them is sometimes just more fun and more open and more preferable. It gives them the ability to express themselves exactly how they want to express themselves, not limited by their appearance which they only have so much control over. I talked with my nephew about this, since I noticed he and his friends never really have sleepovers and such like our generation did, and he cited this very reason. His friends are just more fun to be around in a Discord call than in person. Furthermore, he is able to socialize a LOT more than my peers were able to at that age--they'll do 4-5 hour discord calls every night.
For very extroverted people, the in-person experience might be superior, but I'd be willing to bet they just haven't put effort into connecting in online spaces. Until you've spent thousands of hours doing so, it's hard to knock it legitimately. On the flip side I've seen introverts really open up in these online scenarios in ways they never normally would, and I'm not about to design my entire life around something my team doesn't even want.
For very extroverted people, the in-person experience might be superior, but I'd be willing to bet they just haven't put effort into connecting in online spaces. Until you've spent thousands of hours doing so, it's hard to knock it legitimately. On the flip side I've seen introverts really open up in these online scenarios in ways they never normally would, and I'm not about to design my entire life around something my team doesn't even want.
> I talked with my nephew about this, since I noticed he and his friends never really have sleepovers and such like our generation did, and he cited this very reason. His friends are more fun to be around in a Discord call than in person.
To each their own, I suppose, but I find this unhealthy. I would encourage my child to be interactive in person, not to hide behind the computer. I say this as a WFH IT employee who games - the desire to be away from people in person, the desire not to interact with others, the disdain for in-person contact, are all symptoms of a problem in my view.
I don't mean it to say I think less of people who are like this, or that they are worthy of derision. I simply think it is bad for the individual and the community.
To each their own, I suppose, but I find this unhealthy. I would encourage my child to be interactive in person, not to hide behind the computer. I say this as a WFH IT employee who games - the desire to be away from people in person, the desire not to interact with others, the disdain for in-person contact, are all symptoms of a problem in my view.
I don't mean it to say I think less of people who are like this, or that they are worthy of derision. I simply think it is bad for the individual and the community.
One of the things that's different about modern videogames is that it's better to be at home with your own Xbox or PlayStation or PC if you want to play with your friends.
We have 4 Wii controllers because when the kids were younger they could play with friends and the games didn't take a lot of explaining.
Going further back, you needed an opponent, probably because the systems were doing all they could to keep track of the action and couldn't generate an opponent, too.
A couple of times my son has had a friend bring an Xbox and monitor over to play in the same room at the same time. Given that most Xbox's are connected to big (and fragile) TVs, a "LAN party" would be quite a feat.
We have 4 Wii controllers because when the kids were younger they could play with friends and the games didn't take a lot of explaining.
Going further back, you needed an opponent, probably because the systems were doing all they could to keep track of the action and couldn't generate an opponent, too.
A couple of times my son has had a friend bring an Xbox and monitor over to play in the same room at the same time. Given that most Xbox's are connected to big (and fragile) TVs, a "LAN party" would be quite a feat.
on one hand, i think the death of couch coop & splitscreen has had a deeply underappreciated impact on how kids choose to recreate & interact, otoh i remember all the elbows thrown over screen cheating or the crummy madcatz controller and can't help but think that kids today are probably having a far more harmonious bonding experience.
I remember a distinct evening where I got in trouble because I was at a friend's place and playing Super Mario Kart on the SNES for too long instead of coming home. Had we had an opportunity to play online it wouldn't have been a problem.
I don't really know, I am old enough to have experienced this, and LAN parties in the late 90s were indeed fun, but they took a lot of planning, expenses, and parents driving you there. I've been online since I was 15 and when we finally didn't have to pay by the minute everything was a lot better. No more coordinating for a full weekend, etc. That said, I have zero negative memories of splitscreen, except that the person who owned the game/console was always a lot better due to more practice...
I don't really know, I am old enough to have experienced this, and LAN parties in the late 90s were indeed fun, but they took a lot of planning, expenses, and parents driving you there. I've been online since I was 15 and when we finally didn't have to pay by the minute everything was a lot better. No more coordinating for a full weekend, etc. That said, I have zero negative memories of splitscreen, except that the person who owned the game/console was always a lot better due to more practice...
That said, I would say my nephew is significantly more social than most people in my generation were, because he is able to get in 5 hour calls with his friends every night, whereas that might happen only once every few weeks in my case, at best. He's learning and socializing way more than even my most social peers were able to growing up.
But that’s unfortunately a rather useless form of socialization, as most of his life interactions will be face to face. Job, romantic life, etc.
My experience has taught me this is just untrue. My various jobs have been 100% remote for the last 6 years, so being comfortable with video and voice calls is essential to that.
Going back to when I was a high schooler, I was closeted and in boarding school, which admittedly had a significant built-in social life (that was of little interest to me), but I was also able to have a long distance close friendship for years thanks to Google Talk. I dare say some of my most important and formative social moments in my high school years were over Google Talk with my small group of friends. Sure we had antics in the dorm at my boarding school etc., but these were minor and fleeting interactions versus the deep and meaningful relationships I had over Google Talk, and anyone I actually cared about at boarding school also interacted with me that way, a good bit.
Going back to when I was a high schooler, I was closeted and in boarding school, which admittedly had a significant built-in social life (that was of little interest to me), but I was also able to have a long distance close friendship for years thanks to Google Talk. I dare say some of my most important and formative social moments in my high school years were over Google Talk with my small group of friends. Sure we had antics in the dorm at my boarding school etc., but these were minor and fleeting interactions versus the deep and meaningful relationships I had over Google Talk, and anyone I actually cared about at boarding school also interacted with me that way, a good bit.
there's nothing wrong with online from my perspective, but there is when it's the only form of interaction. If you only spend time online with your close peer group you're never exposed to content far outside of the norm, and you don't get a diversity of communication mediums. You are literally handicapping your ability to communicate.
Coddling social anxiety is not a good argument for WFH. There's a difference between introversion (needing time away from people to recharge) and social anxiety (not speaking up or interacting differently in person vs online). Unless you're banking on some cyberpunk future where people only ever interact online, social anxiety is a maladaptive disorder to be confronted, not a personality quirk.
And FYI there are plenty of extroverted engineers. Some of us actually enjoy team sports as well as technical problems.
And FYI there are plenty of extroverted engineers. Some of us actually enjoy team sports as well as technical problems.
You could flip the script right back at the people afraid of interacting with people online.
> Unless you're banking on some cyberpunk future where people only ever interact online
...you're in one!
...you're in one!
Yeah... or at least the beginning of one. Let's face it: we're all heading towards neon Japan.
"Coddling?"
Social anxiety is a genuine mental illness, and a protected disability. This kind of arrogant, ableist crap is exactly why we need to destroy the cultural norm that everybody being in the office all the time is the only way to do work.
Social anxiety is a genuine mental illness, and a protected disability. This kind of arrogant, ableist crap is exactly why we need to destroy the cultural norm that everybody being in the office all the time is the only way to do work.
It sounds like you use "protected" here with the intention of forming part of an argument -- presumably that social anxiety should be protected? Isn't that circular?
I'm using "protected" in the sense that it is a genuine disability, recognized by modern medicine and law, and as such anyone who suffers from it is entitled to the full protection of the ADA in the US.
It also means that anyone disparaging it like that in the workplace is guilty of discrimination against a disabled person, just as if they had called someone with an amputated leg a "worthless cripple", or mocked a hearing-impaired person for not being able to hear them when they whisper in a meeting.
It also means that anyone disparaging it like that in the workplace is guilty of discrimination against a disabled person, just as if they had called someone with an amputated leg a "worthless cripple", or mocked a hearing-impaired person for not being able to hear them when they whisper in a meeting.
In the United States, 'protected" in this context means 'legally protected', in this case by the ADA. Employers are required to give reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities.
Social anxiety is as much of a mental illness as the fear leaving a bad impression on a date, fear of spiders or fear of doing poorly at an interview and enjoys the same kinds of legal protections. Which is none.
...You do know that social anxiety disorder is a genuine and recognized mental illness, right?
Or are you just one of those people who thinks that all mental illness is just a lack of sufficient gumption?
Or are you just one of those people who thinks that all mental illness is just a lack of sufficient gumption?
I'm inclined to ask what your qualifications for such an opinion are.
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This is me. I find it much easier to converse online. I also am content staying in my house for years on end (as COVID has shown) and getting my social interaction from text on a computer screen.
The internet has been my main source of social contact since I was 12 (at which point I just stopped going outside and spent all my time building websites), so I guess I've adapted to this way of living.
The internet has been my main source of social contact since I was 12 (at which point I just stopped going outside and spent all my time building websites), so I guess I've adapted to this way of living.
> so I guess I've adapted to this way of living.
Humans are almost infinitely adaptable, but if the vast majority of the world doesn't adopt a lifestyle similar to yours I fear you're really going to miss out a big part of what "living" includes. One large component: diversity, both in content and medium.
There's also the real and serious worry about "not going outside". this is terrible for your health and also has a huge corelation with poor diet and lack of exercise. You're so much more than your eyes, hands and brain.
Humans are almost infinitely adaptable, but if the vast majority of the world doesn't adopt a lifestyle similar to yours I fear you're really going to miss out a big part of what "living" includes. One large component: diversity, both in content and medium.
There's also the real and serious worry about "not going outside". this is terrible for your health and also has a huge corelation with poor diet and lack of exercise. You're so much more than your eyes, hands and brain.
I mean, I was being a little hyperbolic when I said I stopped going outside completely. I actually still played sports throughout High School, but just felt that the majority of my social interaction was through the computer.
During COVID is the first time I really stopped seeing other people (other than my wife and kids) and I actually enjoyed it. I have my own yard and house, so I do go outside on the occasion still, and make sure to get the mail each day. Some days I sit on my porch in the morning, if it feels nice. I do body weight exercises and yoga and I am having a full gym built in my basement.
That said, I still don't see many other people and I don't feel like my social needs are lacking.
I enjoy my life, it is good.
During COVID is the first time I really stopped seeing other people (other than my wife and kids) and I actually enjoyed it. I have my own yard and house, so I do go outside on the occasion still, and make sure to get the mail each day. Some days I sit on my porch in the morning, if it feels nice. I do body weight exercises and yoga and I am having a full gym built in my basement.
That said, I still don't see many other people and I don't feel like my social needs are lacking.
I enjoy my life, it is good.
Conversely, If the vast majority of people keep commuting and building skyscrapers just to present some charts and graphs to each other in person because grandpa CEO doesn't know how to use Zoom and HR wants to monitor you at all times, we're going to be wiped out by climate change anyway, so pick your poison I suppose. I, for one, choose survival.
Have you ever done a white boarding session where more than one person was writing on the board at a time?
The online whiteboard works great when one person is adding to it and it's easier to read (you don't have to deal with people's terrible handwriting) and you can save it.
In most cases I've found that only one person is usually writing on the whiteboard, everyone else is just pointing at it and making suggestions. So the one person with an iPad that is sharing it's screen is usually more than sufficient for online white boarding.
The rest of it you're right, seeing body language is helpful, getting a chance to hang out socially is helpful. But not helpful enough to outweigh working from home given that I already have a social circle.
If work were my social circle, like it was when I was younger, it would be a whole different story.
The online whiteboard works great when one person is adding to it and it's easier to read (you don't have to deal with people's terrible handwriting) and you can save it.
In most cases I've found that only one person is usually writing on the whiteboard, everyone else is just pointing at it and making suggestions. So the one person with an iPad that is sharing it's screen is usually more than sufficient for online white boarding.
The rest of it you're right, seeing body language is helpful, getting a chance to hang out socially is helpful. But not helpful enough to outweigh working from home given that I already have a social circle.
If work were my social circle, like it was when I was younger, it would be a whole different story.
> Have you ever done a white boarding session where more than one person was writing on the board at a time?
Very often back when I worked in an office.
> The online whiteboard works great when one person is adding to it and it's easier to read (you don't have to deal with people's terrible handwriting) and you can save it.
We took pictures of our whiteboards when we needed to save state, it worked great!
> In most cases I've found that only one person is usually writing on the whiteboard, everyone else is just pointing at it and making suggestions. So the one person with an iPad that is sharing it's screen is usually more than sufficient for online white boarding.
I'm glad you are able to make it work for you!
> But not helpful enough to outweigh working from home
I'm with you on this! I'll never go back to an office full time.
Very often back when I worked in an office.
> The online whiteboard works great when one person is adding to it and it's easier to read (you don't have to deal with people's terrible handwriting) and you can save it.
We took pictures of our whiteboards when we needed to save state, it worked great!
> In most cases I've found that only one person is usually writing on the whiteboard, everyone else is just pointing at it and making suggestions. So the one person with an iPad that is sharing it's screen is usually more than sufficient for online white boarding.
I'm glad you are able to make it work for you!
> But not helpful enough to outweigh working from home
I'm with you on this! I'll never go back to an office full time.
Insisting on a new solution being "exactly the same" to adopt it pretty much ensures you will never leave the status quo.
All changes in complex systems have tradeoffs. In-person whiteboard sessions can be exhilarating. They also tend to produce imprecise (or no) artifacts that rely heavily on the context of the meeting for interpretation.
I noticed that when our team went remote during COVID and ideation was done by async contributions to design docs, the completeness and reliability of our designs went way up. But again, it's never all positive. If there was a design that was underspecified or not fully understood by the team member leading it, the siloing could lead to analysis paralysis.
All changes in complex systems have tradeoffs. In-person whiteboard sessions can be exhilarating. They also tend to produce imprecise (or no) artifacts that rely heavily on the context of the meeting for interpretation.
I noticed that when our team went remote during COVID and ideation was done by async contributions to design docs, the completeness and reliability of our designs went way up. But again, it's never all positive. If there was a design that was underspecified or not fully understood by the team member leading it, the siloing could lead to analysis paralysis.
> Insisting on a new solution being "exactly the same" to adopt it pretty much ensures you will never leave the status quo.
I'm not sure where you got that I said that, if you read what I wrote you'll see that I've been fully remote for over a decade. I don't in any way insist that fully remote work needs to be exactly the same as in-office work.
I'm not sure where you got that I said that, if you read what I wrote you'll see that I've been fully remote for over a decade. I don't in any way insist that fully remote work needs to be exactly the same as in-office work.
Sorry if I misinferred. It seemed implied in the first and forth sentence of your comment.
I think that a lot of those things can be replaced with new techniques as time goes on. Just because this is how we did things yesterday doesn't mean there aren't better ways to do this it just requires some thinking and investment, IMO.
The tooling that has been developed during the pandemic has taken this space forward by leaps and bounds and I expect this to continue.
Instead of focusing on the how, I would focus on the outcomes you are looking for and lets investigate paths forward for those outcomes.
My two cents: There is still body language over video calls, Miro and other whiteboarding solutions work pretty well, not every day needs intense whiteboarding sessions so have onsites when those are required, and good riddance to the lunches with colleagues. If we wanna have lunch let's get on a call and/or have some one-on-one time setup instead of thinking that lunch is somehow a team building exercise.
Not to mention the IMMENSE benefits you get from remote work. Having those tradeoffs and changing the way we work: I am all in.
The tooling that has been developed during the pandemic has taken this space forward by leaps and bounds and I expect this to continue.
Instead of focusing on the how, I would focus on the outcomes you are looking for and lets investigate paths forward for those outcomes.
My two cents: There is still body language over video calls, Miro and other whiteboarding solutions work pretty well, not every day needs intense whiteboarding sessions so have onsites when those are required, and good riddance to the lunches with colleagues. If we wanna have lunch let's get on a call and/or have some one-on-one time setup instead of thinking that lunch is somehow a team building exercise.
Not to mention the IMMENSE benefits you get from remote work. Having those tradeoffs and changing the way we work: I am all in.
> I think that a lot of those things can be replaced with new techniques as time goes on. Just because this is how we did things yesterday doesn't mean there aren't better ways to do this ...
This is a totally fair point, but multi-cursor online whiteboards are not the same as standing in front of a whiteboard and brainstorming with a colleague. "Zoom happy hour" or whatever cannot replace spontaneous lunches, after-work drinks, pre-work coffees, etc.
> ... it just requires some thinking and investment, IMO.
I agree and understand, but let's not pretend we're not asking everyone to essentially "beta test" WFH and endure the friction of finding these new techniques. There are tradeoffs here and it's not a seamless transition. Remote work is a skill that needs honing, whereas office work is 'the standard'.
> Not to mention the IMMENSE benefits you get from remote work. Having those tradeoffs and changing the way we work: I am all in.
Working remotely has immense benefits, I agree. I agree so whole-heartedly that I will never work in an office again. That being said, despite all its benefits, there are tradeoffs that don't have equivalents in the WFH world. Anyone that dismisses working from an office entirely is either ignorant or being dishonest, in my opinion.
This is a totally fair point, but multi-cursor online whiteboards are not the same as standing in front of a whiteboard and brainstorming with a colleague. "Zoom happy hour" or whatever cannot replace spontaneous lunches, after-work drinks, pre-work coffees, etc.
> ... it just requires some thinking and investment, IMO.
I agree and understand, but let's not pretend we're not asking everyone to essentially "beta test" WFH and endure the friction of finding these new techniques. There are tradeoffs here and it's not a seamless transition. Remote work is a skill that needs honing, whereas office work is 'the standard'.
> Not to mention the IMMENSE benefits you get from remote work. Having those tradeoffs and changing the way we work: I am all in.
Working remotely has immense benefits, I agree. I agree so whole-heartedly that I will never work in an office again. That being said, despite all its benefits, there are tradeoffs that don't have equivalents in the WFH world. Anyone that dismisses working from an office entirely is either ignorant or being dishonest, in my opinion.
> "Zoom happy hour" or whatever cannot replace spontaneous lunches, after-work drinks, pre-work coffees, etc.
You keep listing the benefits as if they are problems.
You keep listing the benefits as if they are problems.
I don't think I understand your comment here - zoom happy hours are not a benefit to me, the other things that they try to replace have more benefit to me.
I can't reply to the reply because of comment depth but not being obligated or dragged to work after work hours, when you are not paid to work, to still continue to work, is a benefit to ones work life balance.
After work drinks and pre-work drinks are just your work getting to consume more of your life than it pays you to do so, whether hourly work time not counted or salaried hours getting diluted.
After work drinks and pre-work drinks are just your work getting to consume more of your life than it pays you to do so, whether hourly work time not counted or salaried hours getting diluted.
> After work drinks and pre-work drinks are just your work getting to consume more of your life than it pays you to do so, whether hourly work time not counted or salaried hours getting diluted.
I think we're misunderstanding something here. These benefits have nothing to do about progressing the work's agenda. It's about connecting with my colleagues in a way outside of work. Socializing, increasing our networks and bonding. Sometimes work conversations happen, because it's something we have in common, but I'm certainly not 'working' at these outings.
I think we're misunderstanding something here. These benefits have nothing to do about progressing the work's agenda. It's about connecting with my colleagues in a way outside of work. Socializing, increasing our networks and bonding. Sometimes work conversations happen, because it's something we have in common, but I'm certainly not 'working' at these outings.
> Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions?
No. Online whiteboards have benefits that in-person whiteboard sessions do not, obviously.
> There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues?
No, obviously there is value in having lunches together with your colleagues, just as there are downsides.
> There is no value in body language when communicating?
There is value in body language, just as there is probably more value in well-written communication.
> I think it's a bit naive or dishonest to say that it's exactly the same work experience
Many people who oppose returning to the office would agree with you. It's a much-improved work experience.
> but there are some things you just cannot replicate online or with video calls.
Exactly, and I agree with you. It is much safer.
A predominantly WFH experience is, in pretty much all your examples, a better experience than working every day from the office. Suggesting it's merely as good as working form the office does it a great disservice.
No. Online whiteboards have benefits that in-person whiteboard sessions do not, obviously.
> There is no value in having lunches together with your colleagues?
No, obviously there is value in having lunches together with your colleagues, just as there are downsides.
> There is no value in body language when communicating?
There is value in body language, just as there is probably more value in well-written communication.
> I think it's a bit naive or dishonest to say that it's exactly the same work experience
Many people who oppose returning to the office would agree with you. It's a much-improved work experience.
> but there are some things you just cannot replicate online or with video calls.
Exactly, and I agree with you. It is much safer.
A predominantly WFH experience is, in pretty much all your examples, a better experience than working every day from the office. Suggesting it's merely as good as working form the office does it a great disservice.
> No. Online whiteboards have benefits that in-person whiteboard sessions do not, obviously.
Is it obvious though? They're garbage for most of the teams I've worked with. They're tolerable to the rest.
> No, obviously there is value in having lunches together with your colleagues, just as there are downsides.
Ok, but I'm asserting some valuable things being lost by going fully remote only, it doesn't do either side of the argument any good to be so ambiguous and non-committal to a point.
> There is value in body language, just as there is probably more value in well-written communication.
Fair point! I don't know that I have ever, anywhere, read any informal text or technical document that could communicate the nuances of body language effectively and entirely though. I'm jealous that you work with such perfect communicators!
> Many people who oppose returning to the office would agree with you. It's a much-improved work experience.
I totally agree, it is much improved, even if we lost a lot of valuable things in the transition.
> A predominantly WFH experience is, in pretty much all your examples, a better experience than working every day from the office. Suggesting it's merely as good as working form the office does it a great disservice.
I did not do any such thing. I'm saying fully remote work is great, but we're losing a lot, so let's not pretend that we aren't. There are facets to in-person work that are completely lost and not translatable to fully remote work.
Is it obvious though? They're garbage for most of the teams I've worked with. They're tolerable to the rest.
> No, obviously there is value in having lunches together with your colleagues, just as there are downsides.
Ok, but I'm asserting some valuable things being lost by going fully remote only, it doesn't do either side of the argument any good to be so ambiguous and non-committal to a point.
> There is value in body language, just as there is probably more value in well-written communication.
Fair point! I don't know that I have ever, anywhere, read any informal text or technical document that could communicate the nuances of body language effectively and entirely though. I'm jealous that you work with such perfect communicators!
> Many people who oppose returning to the office would agree with you. It's a much-improved work experience.
I totally agree, it is much improved, even if we lost a lot of valuable things in the transition.
> A predominantly WFH experience is, in pretty much all your examples, a better experience than working every day from the office. Suggesting it's merely as good as working form the office does it a great disservice.
I did not do any such thing. I'm saying fully remote work is great, but we're losing a lot, so let's not pretend that we aren't. There are facets to in-person work that are completely lost and not translatable to fully remote work.
> Fair point! I don't know that I have ever, anywhere, read any informal text or technical document that could communicate the nuances of body language effectively and entirely though
If you aren't neurotypical, then read ribbonfarm. Conflict, double meanings, soft and hard power, etc. will be hard to understand without it. Most body language isn't that serious, but conflict is normal and you'll have a much easier time understanding why someone else starts conflict with you. It's long; first two parts are probably enough but it is generally fairly compelling.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
If you aren't neurotypical, then read ribbonfarm. Conflict, double meanings, soft and hard power, etc. will be hard to understand without it. Most body language isn't that serious, but conflict is normal and you'll have a much easier time understanding why someone else starts conflict with you. It's long; first two parts are probably enough but it is generally fairly compelling.
https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
> whiteboards
Digital whiteboards are trivial to share, recover, modify and maintain. They're light-years beyond the limited physical variety. My team leans heavily on Miro, for instance.
> Lunch
Lunch time is a break. Not everyone wants to spend their break with their coworkers; but even for those that do, nothing is preventing you from having a conference call or video call over lunch.
> Body language
Not everyone understands or can engage in body language. Many people find it ancient inducing that their appearance and movements are under constant judgement. WFH is equalizing for them.
Digital whiteboards are trivial to share, recover, modify and maintain. They're light-years beyond the limited physical variety. My team leans heavily on Miro, for instance.
> Lunch
Lunch time is a break. Not everyone wants to spend their break with their coworkers; but even for those that do, nothing is preventing you from having a conference call or video call over lunch.
> Body language
Not everyone understands or can engage in body language. Many people find it ancient inducing that their appearance and movements are under constant judgement. WFH is equalizing for them.
> Digital whiteboards are trivial to share, recover, modify and maintain. They're light-years beyond the limited physical variety. My team land heavily on Miro, for instance.
I use Mira too, it's great! But it's not the same as brainstorming on a whiteboard with your colleagues in the same room.
> Lunch time is a break. Not everyone wants to spend their break with their coworkers; but even for those that do, nothing is preventing you from having a conference call or video call over lunch.
That's cool and I fully support your desire to do whatever you want on your break. For a lot of my breaks when I worked in the office I ended up sharing them with colleagues and made several (hopefully) life-long friends out of the habit!
> Not everyone understands or can engage in body language. Many people find it ancient inducing that their appearance and movements are under constant judgement. WFH is equalizing for them.
I understand! However I can understand body language and I find a lot of value in it. It's easier to empathize and relate to my colleagues when I can understand them better through body language when we're talking about life. If we worked in the same office you'd be free to have lunch (or whatever you want to do while I go have lunch) by yourself without judgement from me!
I use Mira too, it's great! But it's not the same as brainstorming on a whiteboard with your colleagues in the same room.
> Lunch time is a break. Not everyone wants to spend their break with their coworkers; but even for those that do, nothing is preventing you from having a conference call or video call over lunch.
That's cool and I fully support your desire to do whatever you want on your break. For a lot of my breaks when I worked in the office I ended up sharing them with colleagues and made several (hopefully) life-long friends out of the habit!
> Not everyone understands or can engage in body language. Many people find it ancient inducing that their appearance and movements are under constant judgement. WFH is equalizing for them.
I understand! However I can understand body language and I find a lot of value in it. It's easier to empathize and relate to my colleagues when I can understand them better through body language when we're talking about life. If we worked in the same office you'd be free to have lunch (or whatever you want to do while I go have lunch) by yourself without judgement from me!
> But it's not the same as brainstorming on a whiteboard with your colleagues in the same room.
It's better! We pair it with a slack call and collaboratively edit it.
> For a lot of my breaks when I worked in the office I ended up sharing them with colleagues and made several (hopefully) life-long friends out of the habit!
And that's an outcome that happens with WFH, too. You don't need to go to lunch together to make friends.
> It's easier to empathize and relate to my colleagues when I can understand them better through body language when we're talking about life.
That's good for you; but again, WFH doesn't prohibit you from seeing people. If you need body language then have a video call.
It's better! We pair it with a slack call and collaboratively edit it.
> For a lot of my breaks when I worked in the office I ended up sharing them with colleagues and made several (hopefully) life-long friends out of the habit!
And that's an outcome that happens with WFH, too. You don't need to go to lunch together to make friends.
> It's easier to empathize and relate to my colleagues when I can understand them better through body language when we're talking about life.
That's good for you; but again, WFH doesn't prohibit you from seeing people. If you need body language then have a video call.
>Not everyone understands or can engage in body language.
Well you sure as hell aren't going to get better at it by throwing up your hands and declaring it just isn't for you. I'm naturally introverted, but when I say that to co-workers they don't believe it - because over the years I have learned to adapt. I'm very extroverted at work - because it's necessary. Yup, I pay a price - it's exhausting and I need time to recharge. But the benefits of adapting to normal work environments instead of demanding the world adapt to me are immeasurable.
There are tons of things I can do now that I couldn't do before. Many of them are unpleasant. But they are necessary and without many of them I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today. Good luck with waiting for the world to adapt to you. Let's get back together in 30 years and see how that attitude works for you. I'm sure the universe will have been incredibly unfair to you :p
This whole victim = anything hard/I just don't want to do is getting old. And it devalues people with legitimate issues.
Well you sure as hell aren't going to get better at it by throwing up your hands and declaring it just isn't for you. I'm naturally introverted, but when I say that to co-workers they don't believe it - because over the years I have learned to adapt. I'm very extroverted at work - because it's necessary. Yup, I pay a price - it's exhausting and I need time to recharge. But the benefits of adapting to normal work environments instead of demanding the world adapt to me are immeasurable.
There are tons of things I can do now that I couldn't do before. Many of them are unpleasant. But they are necessary and without many of them I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today. Good luck with waiting for the world to adapt to you. Let's get back together in 30 years and see how that attitude works for you. I'm sure the universe will have been incredibly unfair to you :p
This whole victim = anything hard/I just don't want to do is getting old. And it devalues people with legitimate issues.
I agree. I wrote a rant and deleted it, because I don't want to post inflammatory content here.
But I'll say that I had social anxiety, and that sometimes it can be overcome (certainly not always). But it will never be overcome without stress, often painful stress; and the cruel harsh world is actually a very good training ground to force you to improve. I'm glad my shortcomings weren't coddled; I'm glad they were viewed as something I'd have to either fix or cope with.
There are degrees of anxiety and other mental/emotional problems. Many are not going to be fixed, some require medication, some are just too severe. But it's a gradient, and some can get better with exposure, and removing that exposure can be detrimental (even though that exposure is unpleasant).
But I'll say that I had social anxiety, and that sometimes it can be overcome (certainly not always). But it will never be overcome without stress, often painful stress; and the cruel harsh world is actually a very good training ground to force you to improve. I'm glad my shortcomings weren't coddled; I'm glad they were viewed as something I'd have to either fix or cope with.
There are degrees of anxiety and other mental/emotional problems. Many are not going to be fixed, some require medication, some are just too severe. But it's a gradient, and some can get better with exposure, and removing that exposure can be detrimental (even though that exposure is unpleasant).
... How are those who are physically incapable of engaging in normal body language, due to any number of permanent physical conditions, going to simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps and do it? They're not.
This isn't the point the OP was trying to make and you know that. Lesson one: don't assume the worst about people and don't make hyperbolic arguments in order to be "right". You might have more in-person success that way.
The point they were making was ignoring one of the groups of people that I mentioned, because in order to make their point they _had_ to ignore that class of individual.
> > I'm naturally introverted, but when I say that to co-workers they don't believe it - because over the years I have learned to adapt.
> > There are tons of things I can do now that I couldn't do before. Many of them are unpleasant. But they are necessary and without many of them I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today. Good luck with waiting for the world to adapt to you.
Some people _simply cannot adapt_. It is not a possibility.
> > I'm naturally introverted, but when I say that to co-workers they don't believe it - because over the years I have learned to adapt.
> > There are tons of things I can do now that I couldn't do before. Many of them are unpleasant. But they are necessary and without many of them I wouldn't be anywhere near where I am today. Good luck with waiting for the world to adapt to you.
Some people _simply cannot adapt_. It is not a possibility.
You can. All the answers are in your childhood, but you may discover things that you won't be able to forget
... No. Many people suffer from partial or full paralysis of facial muscles, neurological conditions that limit expression, and numerous other conditions that will forever and permanently limit their ability to engage in expressive body language.
but these are very rare things. The person you originally responded to did not mean anything against anyone who has these things. I've met many people in my life that were convinced they were unable to do things that they were quite capable of. Stephen Hawking was still quite expressive despite his limitations, although they did come later in life
They ignored that class of individual in their response; individuals who exist and who I've personally worked with and do continue to work with.
> Stephen Hawking was still quite expressive despite his limitations, although they did come later in life
He's a fantastic example of why you don't need to rely on body language to communicate emotion and feeling.
> Stephen Hawking was still quite expressive despite his limitations, although they did come later in life
He's a fantastic example of why you don't need to rely on body language to communicate emotion and feeling.
Sure, but have to understand that a limitation of language is that it doesn't convey perfect information. When someone says "anyone can do it", they mean that most people with full-blown "stuck in the house for years" social anxiety, can actually do it, and they meant nothing negative against those who are truly physically disabled. People summarize their thoughts when they speak and try to convey a picture that most people can understand; they are not trying to hurt anyone
When someone says "anyone can do it" I understand that to mean what they said, which is that they believe anyone can do it.
"Why haven't you just tried not being autistic?"
> Not everyone understands or can engage in body language. Many people find it ancient inducing that their appearance and movements are under constant judgement. WFH is equalizing for them.
I find that people actually give away more with their body language over whatever conferencing software you may use. When you have all the portraits up on your screen, the little micro things are much easier to spot. I hope I didn't give you even more anxiety! We are just trying to see how people feel in order to manage the situation :)
I find that people actually give away more with their body language over whatever conferencing software you may use. When you have all the portraits up on your screen, the little micro things are much easier to spot. I hope I didn't give you even more anxiety! We are just trying to see how people feel in order to manage the situation :)
I use a virtual avatar, so that doesn't bother me at all.
One of my coworkers is a slug with a nice hat; another is an alien.
One of my coworkers is a slug with a nice hat; another is an alien.
I think the problem is more that even people who are not artistically inclined can manage to draw a diagram of a few servers and connections. Despite having tried it for 20 years everything I draw with a mouse looks like something done by a 3y old with crayons.
So no, without a tablet to draw on I find online whiteboards 100% useless so far.
So no, without a tablet to draw on I find online whiteboards 100% useless so far.
This is a rift between digital only natives and digital hybrids. The hybrids know the tradeoffs of both. Digital only don't have the lived experience to know what they're missing.
I think for completeness, you should have three categories, and include the offline-onlys. They, similarly, don't understand all that they're missing.
(Btw, this took me on a tangent trying to figure out the proper way to pluralize 'only'.)
(Btw, this took me on a tangent trying to figure out the proper way to pluralize 'only'.)
I hadn't thought of this distinction before; thank you for enunciating this point!
can anyone honestly say trying to code in a open office is equivalent to being able to actually focus and write code without distraction in your own office?
There's tradeoffs to everything, the market is going to decide whether remote work is viable or not. Maybe the Apple tier companies can force office work, but startups that are remote are going to be able to snag some great talent who refuse to waste hours of their lives commuting
in my experience the people pushing for return to office are 95% managers who are feeling exposed that they don't really do much and potentially aren't needed. Also people who relied on office politics to survive rather than actually being good at their job
There's tradeoffs to everything, the market is going to decide whether remote work is viable or not. Maybe the Apple tier companies can force office work, but startups that are remote are going to be able to snag some great talent who refuse to waste hours of their lives commuting
in my experience the people pushing for return to office are 95% managers who are feeling exposed that they don't really do much and potentially aren't needed. Also people who relied on office politics to survive rather than actually being good at their job
Your lunch break should be a break, not time you're forced to spend with your colleagues.
I agree! You're welcome to do whatever you want. But I am a friendly person and find it easy to make friends with my co-workers and we don't even talk about 'work' most of the time. I still have lunches with my colleagues from years ago that live in the same city, even though we don't work together.
Not every perk is about oppressing your freedom or exploiting your time and labor.
Not every perk is about oppressing your freedom or exploiting your time and labor.
For me the main problem is that going out for lunch in person with coworkers (even ones from other departments I've never met) is completely fine and I like to do that (when I was in the office I did that 3-4 days per week) but when I am having lunch at home I don't like it at all. I can't put my finger on it but it always feels like useless smalltalk and not making any connection where in person that works quite well. And I'm neither pro-office or anti-WFH or even someone who doesn't make friends online... but going out for lunch or a beer or just an afternoon coffee break is something that I can't reproduce via video/audio.
You're still welcome to ping people on Slack during lunch and see how they like that. More often than not though, I think you'll find that they're going to respond to you once they're back on the clock. It's fine if you're a friendly person, but I think you underestimate how much social pressure is involved in talking to people during their lunch break. The only reason I really engage in conversation while eating lunch is because the alternative of "I'd rather just enjoy my food and save the work talk for work time" is a faux pas.
I'm pretty pro wfh, but for a lot of people (myself included), the value of a slack conversation is less than a in-person conversation, so as a recipient I'm less likely to make time for it. That doesn't reflect on the worth I put on the person, but rather the type of communication.
I fully agree, though this is highly team-specific. I've been on teams where I'm delighted to socialize with my coworkers for an hour most days, but I've also been on teams where I desperately needed 'me' time.
Most people are not forced to have lunch with their colleagues, a lot of people enjoy doing so however.
I always went out by myself when I wanted to eat alone, or sat at my desk with headphones in watching Youtube and eating.
You can communicate with people to help them understand you'd like your break to be a solitary one.
I always went out by myself when I wanted to eat alone, or sat at my desk with headphones in watching Youtube and eating.
You can communicate with people to help them understand you'd like your break to be a solitary one.
Yes, however, even if you're not talking shop, you might build relationships at lunch time that pay off later.
We're a social species. Building relationships is something we do. Is it work? Yes. But it's also something we need to do.
We're a social species. Building relationships is something we do. Is it work? Yes. But it's also something we need to do.
I think in-office culture does work better in a lot of ways, but we as a society spent a century building and optimizing that. We've only been WingFH for a couple years, and it seems (to me) blazingly obvious that it won't take long to adapt to and improve the tools and culture of it to the point that the benefits outweigh what we've lost.
Apple choosing the office over WFH in 2022 feels a lot like the US choosing coal over solar in the early 2000s - a manifestation of the sunk cost fallacy that will look short-sighted embarrassingly soon.
Apple choosing the office over WFH in 2022 feels a lot like the US choosing coal over solar in the early 2000s - a manifestation of the sunk cost fallacy that will look short-sighted embarrassingly soon.
Some of us have been teleworking/WFH to varying degrees for decades now. There are pro's and con's, but it's not all a bed of roses. The earlier on in your career - unless you don't care about advancing from where you are today - the more you should probably balance or lean more towards in office engagement. You simply aren't going to make the same impression on people virtually as you will in person. You're fighting millions of years of evolution/how our brains are wired. You can lie to yourself and tell you it doesn't really matter - and I can tell you from personal experience it's BS. In person interactions have far more impact and staying power - period. I've seen it happen and am convinced I have gotten jobs over others because of it.
If that's not important to you - like you are towards the end of your career and pretty much happy with where you are - then that's a trade off that might not have as big an impact. But it IS a trade off and people need to be honest about it and stop hiding behind ridiculous gobbledygook like the crap that was at the start of that employee letter.
If that's not important to you - like you are towards the end of your career and pretty much happy with where you are - then that's a trade off that might not have as big an impact. But it IS a trade off and people need to be honest about it and stop hiding behind ridiculous gobbledygook like the crap that was at the start of that employee letter.
> Can anyone honestly and sincerely tell me that online whiteboards are exactly equivalent to in-person whiteboard sessions?
I've worked in software for > 20 years. I've been a tech lead of a few projects that shipped and YOU likely use in your daily everyday life. Outside of interviews, i've had to use a real-life whiteboard ... twice ...
I've worked in software for > 20 years. I've been a tech lead of a few projects that shipped and YOU likely use in your daily everyday life. Outside of interviews, i've had to use a real-life whiteboard ... twice ...
> I've worked in software for > 20 years. I've been a tech lead of a few projects that shipped and YOU likely use in your daily everyday life. Outside of interviews, i've had to use a real-life whiteboard ... twice ...
That's neat! I hope you don't think your anecdotal evidence discredits my own anecdotal evidence about how useful they are. People use different tools and I'm guessing you're not intending to say folks that have been productively using whiteboards for decades are somehow wrong.
That's neat! I hope you don't think your anecdotal evidence discredits my own anecdotal evidence about how useful they are. People use different tools and I'm guessing you're not intending to say folks that have been productively using whiteboards for decades are somehow wrong.
Working remotely is better than all of those things, iff you commit to doing things correctly and writing things down.
Doing things correctly would help if you were in the office too, but you can paper over the inefficiencies of doing things incorrectly by wasting more time on the backchannel communication face-to-face.
Doing things correctly would help if you were in the office too, but you can paper over the inefficiencies of doing things incorrectly by wasting more time on the backchannel communication face-to-face.
This sounds a bit like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
Having lunch with colleagues has nothing to do with 'backchannel communication'. Sometimes it's nice to hear about where we like to go camping, or what cities are nice to visit in their home countries, or ... nothing to do with work or shipping products.
No matter how 'correctly' you think you're doing things, you still haven't convinced me after over a decade of shipping products that online whiteboards are useful, or refuted any of my other points.
Having lunch with colleagues has nothing to do with 'backchannel communication'. Sometimes it's nice to hear about where we like to go camping, or what cities are nice to visit in their home countries, or ... nothing to do with work or shipping products.
No matter how 'correctly' you think you're doing things, you still haven't convinced me after over a decade of shipping products that online whiteboards are useful, or refuted any of my other points.
Nothing in all the years I worked offline in offices convinced me that whiteboards were particularly useful.
At least we eventually had high-resolution cameras in our smartphones so we could photograph them when people insisted on doing planning on whiteboards - more than once I've seen software architects lose days of work because the janitors were overzealous with their dusting.
At least we eventually had high-resolution cameras in our smartphones so we could photograph them when people insisted on doing planning on whiteboards - more than once I've seen software architects lose days of work because the janitors were overzealous with their dusting.
> Nothing in all the years I worked offline in offices convinced me that whiteboards were particularly useful.
Wow! That's pretty extraodinary to me. I wonder how we use them differently?
Wow! That's pretty extraodinary to me. I wonder how we use them differently?
Companies being paranoid about "losing control of employees" seems overblown. People (at these tech cos anyway) (on average) are very responsible as individuals and motivated to work and grow their careers.
It not obvious what carrot or stick motivates people to deliver. But there has to be a way to achieve what the team|org|company wants even with remote workers. As a company - clearly specify and quantify goals, regularly share metrics of progress, provide better tools for working and focus on the long-term.
It not obvious what carrot or stick motivates people to deliver. But there has to be a way to achieve what the team|org|company wants even with remote workers. As a company - clearly specify and quantify goals, regularly share metrics of progress, provide better tools for working and focus on the long-term.
Depends on who you are. I cannot really process non-explicit communication all that well nor do I like to whiteboard without access to research, so I prefer a playing field where everything is explicit/where I am researching as we work.
In person I am socially clueless and add next to nothing to the whiteboard.
In person I am socially clueless and add next to nothing to the whiteboard.
I hear you and see you. Fully remote sounds like a boon to you!
Not that I think this is a solution for everyone but my personal experience is VR can provide many of these things. It's surprising how much body language comes across just from seeing head tracking in a shared environment and facial expressions are likely shipping this year.
Also, unlike Meet/Zoom, in VR you share everyone's screens at the same time (show a virtual monitor/laptop for each persion, have multiple shared whiteboards, have different people virtually standing in front of different whiteboards, etc....
Also, unlike Meet/Zoom, in VR you share everyone's screens at the same time (show a virtual monitor/laptop for each persion, have multiple shared whiteboards, have different people virtually standing in front of different whiteboards, etc....
Is anyone trying to argue it is "exactly the same experience"? Most of the arguments I have heard in favor of remote work is that it is superior experience, on the whole.
> it's a bit naive or dishonest to say that it's exactly the same work experience
No one even made that claim. From the open letter:
> We definitely see the benefits of in-person collaboration; the kind of creative process that high bandwidth communication of being in the same room, not limited by technology, enables. But for many of us, this is not something we need every week, often not even every month, definitely not every day.
No one even made that claim. From the open letter:
> We definitely see the benefits of in-person collaboration; the kind of creative process that high bandwidth communication of being in the same room, not limited by technology, enables. But for many of us, this is not something we need every week, often not even every month, definitely not every day.
There is value in working in-office… just not enough for me to give up remote work.
I, personally, get just as much work done working from home. While I do miss the social aspect of the office, it’s just not worth giving up the hours of commute time or dealing with a lot of the in-person bs that work entails.
I realize this is a very privileged position but I’ll keep doing it as long as it’s an option.
I, personally, get just as much work done working from home. While I do miss the social aspect of the office, it’s just not worth giving up the hours of commute time or dealing with a lot of the in-person bs that work entails.
I realize this is a very privileged position but I’ll keep doing it as long as it’s an option.
Whiteboards can be replaced by digital tools, but as far as I know, companies do not invest to remote work tools enough currently.
There are great tools, which should be available for every worker in home, but that does not happen for some reason?
There are great tools, which should be available for every worker in home, but that does not happen for some reason?
I don't think anyone is claiming that it's "exactly the same;" I think many people are claiming it's better after considering pros and cons.
"There is no value in body-language when communicating?"
Not for me, no. I'm neurodiverse, and that shit is just lost on me.
You might as well complain that you are missing out on being able to tell racist jokes with your same-race buddies, because you're missing out on the benefits of social bonding.
Sure. single-cis-straight-white-neurotypical-abletypical-male can be super optimized, or the equivalent in what ever is the dominant race (looking at salarymen in Japan).
Feel free to continue to argue that position.
Not for me, no. I'm neurodiverse, and that shit is just lost on me.
You might as well complain that you are missing out on being able to tell racist jokes with your same-race buddies, because you're missing out on the benefits of social bonding.
Sure. single-cis-straight-white-neurotypical-abletypical-male can be super optimized, or the equivalent in what ever is the dominant race (looking at salarymen in Japan).
Feel free to continue to argue that position.
> Not for me, no. I'm neurodiverse, and that shit is just lost on me.
I hear you and understand. Lots of people are neuro-normative though, and that stuff is valuable. Let's not assert that remote-only is the Best® though, because for a lot of folks, there is a loss of fidelity in communication going fully remote only.
> You might as well complain that you are missing out on being able to tell racist jokes with your same-race buddies, because you're missing out on the benefits of social bonding.
Believe it or not, some people bond over things they have in common that don't have anything to do with racism. You probably have some prejudices or biases leaking through your comment that you might want to explore privately.
> Sure. single-cis-straight-white-male can be super optimized, or the equivalent in what ever is the dominant race (looking at salarymen in Japan).
When I go to lunch and talk to my colleague about her favorite places to snorkel, my sexuality, gender, relationship status or race never come up in the conversation. Have you tried having conversations with folks without making it about you?
I hear you and understand. Lots of people are neuro-normative though, and that stuff is valuable. Let's not assert that remote-only is the Best® though, because for a lot of folks, there is a loss of fidelity in communication going fully remote only.
> You might as well complain that you are missing out on being able to tell racist jokes with your same-race buddies, because you're missing out on the benefits of social bonding.
Believe it or not, some people bond over things they have in common that don't have anything to do with racism. You probably have some prejudices or biases leaking through your comment that you might want to explore privately.
> Sure. single-cis-straight-white-male can be super optimized, or the equivalent in what ever is the dominant race (looking at salarymen in Japan).
When I go to lunch and talk to my colleague about her favorite places to snorkel, my sexuality, gender, relationship status or race never come up in the conversation. Have you tried having conversations with folks without making it about you?
>When I go to lunch and talk to my colleague about her favorite places to snorkel
Yet you take it for granted that she will go to lunch with you, and that she will engage in neurotypical "pleasantries". I'll bet that anyone who doesn't want to go to lunch with you, you will take this as a negative at review time. "They just aren't trustworthy" or "He isn't a team player", despite them being the highest performing person on the team.
>Have you tried having conversations with folks without making it about you?
I very rarely make it about me, because my goals are to solve interesting problems that make money by benefitting our customers. In this conversation, the problem is "how to maximize productivity at Apple given a diverse workforce". You are the one that wants to make it "about someone". You are providing an excellent example of neurotypical privilege.
Yet you take it for granted that she will go to lunch with you, and that she will engage in neurotypical "pleasantries". I'll bet that anyone who doesn't want to go to lunch with you, you will take this as a negative at review time. "They just aren't trustworthy" or "He isn't a team player", despite them being the highest performing person on the team.
>Have you tried having conversations with folks without making it about you?
I very rarely make it about me, because my goals are to solve interesting problems that make money by benefitting our customers. In this conversation, the problem is "how to maximize productivity at Apple given a diverse workforce". You are the one that wants to make it "about someone". You are providing an excellent example of neurotypical privilege.
> Yet you take it for granted that she will go to lunch with you, and that she will engage in neurotypical "pleasantries".
I suppose I do! I'm not coercing anyone to go to lunch with me, so I'm not really sure what your point is here.
> I'll bet that anyone who doesn't want to go to lunch with you, you will take this as a negative at review time. "They just aren't trustworthy" or "He isn't a team player", despite them being the highest performing person on the team.
Not at all. I'm a results-driven professional and to suggest otherwise is offensive, to be honest.
> I very rarely make it about me, because my goals are to solve interesting problems that make money by benefitting our customers. In this conversation, the problem is "how to maximize productivity at Apple given a diverse workforce". You are the one that wants to make it "about someone". You are providing an excellent example of neurotypical privilege.
I'm talking about: socializing with my colleagues is one of the many benefits that is lost when we transition to full remote only work. The disabilities, preferences, or whatever other flavor-of-the-moment persecutions you care about is irrelevant to me. I'm going to invite people I enjoy spending time with to lunch and I don't consider the persons gender, sexuality, mental health, or whatever else you are talking about when I invite them to spend their lunch with me. I expect them to be honest and come under their own free will. I can't control anything beyond that.
If you want to spend your lunch with me, great! Let's go chat and learn about each other. If for some reason you find this offensive, or privileged, then I think we would not enjoy lunch together and that's good to learn, too! I wouldn't want to invite you to lunch the next time.
Good luck out there.
I suppose I do! I'm not coercing anyone to go to lunch with me, so I'm not really sure what your point is here.
> I'll bet that anyone who doesn't want to go to lunch with you, you will take this as a negative at review time. "They just aren't trustworthy" or "He isn't a team player", despite them being the highest performing person on the team.
Not at all. I'm a results-driven professional and to suggest otherwise is offensive, to be honest.
> I very rarely make it about me, because my goals are to solve interesting problems that make money by benefitting our customers. In this conversation, the problem is "how to maximize productivity at Apple given a diverse workforce". You are the one that wants to make it "about someone". You are providing an excellent example of neurotypical privilege.
I'm talking about: socializing with my colleagues is one of the many benefits that is lost when we transition to full remote only work. The disabilities, preferences, or whatever other flavor-of-the-moment persecutions you care about is irrelevant to me. I'm going to invite people I enjoy spending time with to lunch and I don't consider the persons gender, sexuality, mental health, or whatever else you are talking about when I invite them to spend their lunch with me. I expect them to be honest and come under their own free will. I can't control anything beyond that.
If you want to spend your lunch with me, great! Let's go chat and learn about each other. If for some reason you find this offensive, or privileged, then I think we would not enjoy lunch together and that's good to learn, too! I wouldn't want to invite you to lunch the next time.
Good luck out there.
>I'm not coercing anyone to go to lunch with me, so I'm not really sure what your point is here.
If you are in a position to influence a promotion, then an invitation to lunch is not simply an invitation to lunch. I would hope that you would be involved, either as a peer or a manager, since you come across generally as pro diversity.
The thing is, #neurodiverse message boards are full of posts like "My manager has asked me to go to lunch and I am terrified. What do I do?" Their fear is that if they don't go, they will be dismissed as not a team player, but if they do go, they may exhibit behaviors that uneducated NTs find disturbing. Many neurodiverse will just mask up and push through it, and many of us are effective at that. The right thing, of course, is to communicate (I wrote "have a conversation" and deleted it, because Autism) but many NDs don't have access to such support systems to even get the advice. If they are on a #nd channel, then we can help them.
So I'd ask you to consider that, unless you have absolutely no power in your organization, then yes, asking someone to lunch is a non-neutral decision ("coercion" is too strong a word) for an ND person that carries risks and stress.
I'm not asking you to stop having lunch with people. I'm asking you to consider ways to interact with ND people and to get familiar with the challenges ND people face.
If you are in a position to influence a promotion, then an invitation to lunch is not simply an invitation to lunch. I would hope that you would be involved, either as a peer or a manager, since you come across generally as pro diversity.
The thing is, #neurodiverse message boards are full of posts like "My manager has asked me to go to lunch and I am terrified. What do I do?" Their fear is that if they don't go, they will be dismissed as not a team player, but if they do go, they may exhibit behaviors that uneducated NTs find disturbing. Many neurodiverse will just mask up and push through it, and many of us are effective at that. The right thing, of course, is to communicate (I wrote "have a conversation" and deleted it, because Autism) but many NDs don't have access to such support systems to even get the advice. If they are on a #nd channel, then we can help them.
So I'd ask you to consider that, unless you have absolutely no power in your organization, then yes, asking someone to lunch is a non-neutral decision ("coercion" is too strong a word) for an ND person that carries risks and stress.
I'm not asking you to stop having lunch with people. I'm asking you to consider ways to interact with ND people and to get familiar with the challenges ND people face.
> You might as well complain that you are missing out on being able to tell racist jokes with your same-race buddies,
I sympathize with your point, but object strongly to this analogy on the grounds that being racist is a choice, while benefiting from body language is not a choice. It's also very offensive, but that is a secondary issue.
I sympathize with your point, but object strongly to this analogy on the grounds that being racist is a choice, while benefiting from body language is not a choice. It's also very offensive, but that is a secondary issue.
However, expecting (and demanding) that the other person can interpret your body language is also a choice.
Consider you are the only person in the room who can't speak French. Everyone else can speak French and your native language. Would it be appropriate for them to drop into French whenever you ask a question, talk about it, and then answer in your language? No. Not only would you feel excluded, but you'd also be missing out in vital information required to do your job.
This isn't up for debate. You can argue that installing a wheelchair ramp or not is a choice. Fortunately it is the law. Likewise, accommodating neurodiverse people is the law, at least in the USA and Europe.
If you take the position that "I am neurotypical and it is not my choice, so it is reasonable to expect everyone else to be able to interpret my body language", then in any company in the USA with 15 or more people, your statement would be actionable under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Consider you are the only person in the room who can't speak French. Everyone else can speak French and your native language. Would it be appropriate for them to drop into French whenever you ask a question, talk about it, and then answer in your language? No. Not only would you feel excluded, but you'd also be missing out in vital information required to do your job.
This isn't up for debate. You can argue that installing a wheelchair ramp or not is a choice. Fortunately it is the law. Likewise, accommodating neurodiverse people is the law, at least in the USA and Europe.
If you take the position that "I am neurotypical and it is not my choice, so it is reasonable to expect everyone else to be able to interpret my body language", then in any company in the USA with 15 or more people, your statement would be actionable under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
>However, expecting (and demanding) that the other person can interpret your body language is also a choice.
It's not a choice, it's respecting millions of years of social evolution. You are arguing that the way peoples brains are wired should be ignored to accommodate *you*. Good luck with that.
Also not sure where body language rates up there like someone with an actual physical disability or people just being assholes (your language example). Good luck filing some sort of complaint about being "forced" to interpret body language.
This feels a whole hell of a lot like "this is hard and I don't want to learn how to do it so I'll make up some syndrom to excuse it". Bah.
It's not a choice, it's respecting millions of years of social evolution. You are arguing that the way peoples brains are wired should be ignored to accommodate *you*. Good luck with that.
Also not sure where body language rates up there like someone with an actual physical disability or people just being assholes (your language example). Good luck filing some sort of complaint about being "forced" to interpret body language.
This feels a whole hell of a lot like "this is hard and I don't want to learn how to do it so I'll make up some syndrom to excuse it". Bah.
> This feels a whole hell of a lot like "this is hard and I don't want to learn how to do it so I'll make up some syndrom to excuse it". Bah.
I don't think that's a charitable interpretation and is uncalled for.
I don't think that's a charitable interpretation and is uncalled for.
It's despicable that you equate "neuro-normative" with "racist".
An important point that’s missed is that working in an office is dramatically worse now than it was when I started my career in the late 90’s.
I had my own office as intern. When I needed focus time (which is a lot of time as a developer), I could close a door.
Especially with Apple’s open-concept HQ, the delta between WFH and office is larger than it has to be.
The market is speaking. Apple pays well below the rest of FAANG already. Because of their policy, they can only recruit from a narrow, already highly-paid pool of developers. I know an Apple manager that is leaving partly because he can’t recruit anyone to come work for him.
I had my own office as intern. When I needed focus time (which is a lot of time as a developer), I could close a door.
Especially with Apple’s open-concept HQ, the delta between WFH and office is larger than it has to be.
The market is speaking. Apple pays well below the rest of FAANG already. Because of their policy, they can only recruit from a narrow, already highly-paid pool of developers. I know an Apple manager that is leaving partly because he can’t recruit anyone to come work for him.
> An important point that’s missed is that working in an office is dramatically worse now than it was when I started my career in the late 90’s.
Yeah. I think this is significantly being understated.
There is a VAST difference between "in person" meaning "You have your own office" and "in person" meaning "Open office plan with no dividers at all".
For the first, I wouldn't have much of an issue coming in. For the second, I'd probably take up pitchforks to avoid it.
Yeah. I think this is significantly being understated.
There is a VAST difference between "in person" meaning "You have your own office" and "in person" meaning "Open office plan with no dividers at all".
For the first, I wouldn't have much of an issue coming in. For the second, I'd probably take up pitchforks to avoid it.
At Sun everyone had an office, either shared with at most two other people, or private. It was great.
It was not totally missed. The fact that it's so much harder to work in open office than home was in the letter, but sure it should have expanded on it being different from 20 years earlier.
As a Cupertino resident, I'm pretty upset with their WFH policy. At the very least they should have let small teams choose their in office days.
Now I need to keep track of which days of the week they have to be in the office, because traffic in Cupertino will be 2x-3x worse on the days they are in the office.
Their choice of forcing everyone back on the same day is not only bad for their workers, but it's bad for all of their neighbors and the planet.
Now I need to keep track of which days of the week they have to be in the office, because traffic in Cupertino will be 2x-3x worse on the days they are in the office.
Their choice of forcing everyone back on the same day is not only bad for their workers, but it's bad for all of their neighbors and the planet.
This work from office thing is really killing travel times in the Bay Area. 237/880 is almost back to pre-pandemic levels, the HOV lanes are making the problems worse.
Seattle area has the same issue. My job encouraged return to office end of March (and I suspect other employers in the area had similar timelines) and traffic has been steadily getting worse ever since.
BART and bike worked great for me today! Plenty of time to read and relax, no bullshit with other drivers cutting you off.
I'm willing to accept that most of that traffic is people who can't work from home.
That being said, I really do miss the traffic from those first few weeks of the pandemic, when I could get from Cupertino to the airport in 12 minutes at 6pm (a drive that now takes about 25 minutes, and pre-pandemic took 45+).
That being said, I really do miss the traffic from those first few weeks of the pandemic, when I could get from Cupertino to the airport in 12 minutes at 6pm (a drive that now takes about 25 minutes, and pre-pandemic took 45+).
Explain how the HOV lanes are making it worse?
I can't comment on the recent issues, but it's always been a peeve of mine that the express lanes operate even when it's not in the main commute direction at the time.
For example, the 680 lanes operate M-F, 5am-8pm. But northbound traffic in the morning isn't that bad, nor is southbound traffic in the evening. Almost no one would pay to use the express lane at these times, so you wind up with a lane that's almost completely empty and makes traffic denser in the other lanes.
For example, the 680 lanes operate M-F, 5am-8pm. But northbound traffic in the morning isn't that bad, nor is southbound traffic in the evening. Almost no one would pay to use the express lane at these times, so you wind up with a lane that's almost completely empty and makes traffic denser in the other lanes.
They converted regular lanes to HOV/express, but not enough people are carpooling.
I don't they did. The Express lanes are either converted from existing HOV lanes (which means they are now open to more, not fewer people) or they were added (680 corridor). Unless you are talking about converted in the far far past from SOV to HOV.
Examples: 880 south between Hegenberger and San Leandro was 4 lanes, widened to 5 lanes in 2015 with the addition of an HOV lane, which was then converted to an Express lane. 880 interchange with 237 used to have the left hand flyover HOV only, which was converted to Express, so now everyone can use it.
Examples: 880 south between Hegenberger and San Leandro was 4 lanes, widened to 5 lanes in 2015 with the addition of an HOV lane, which was then converted to an Express lane. 880 interchange with 237 used to have the left hand flyover HOV only, which was converted to Express, so now everyone can use it.
Yeah you may be right about adding the lane, but the bigger issue is that the converted HOV to express, which means that cars with two people still have to pay and cars with one person can now pay and slow down the carpool. So now fewer people can use the carpool while at the same time others can slow down the carpool.
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Even more frustrating: You can't just pick the campus you want to work from. When I worked at Apple most teams were distributed by seat availability not co-location, so you could be on the same campus or set of buildings but all work in different parts of the offices / campus so all meetings with exception of critical ones were held in a remote fashion in conference rooms anyway. So it wouldn't have mattered if I worked in Santa Clara, Apple Park, Infinite Loop, or Sacramento (yes, they have a campus there), or working from home, 80% of the time. They even had a shuttle that went from Sacramento to campuses every single day. It was so odd to me even to this day.
This was a common source of frustration for employees because they couldn't just work at the office closest to them or work from home. Very few people I knew there worked directly along side their team while I was there. I'm sure this wasn't true for everyone though, however I think it was at least at the time, the majority.
This was a common source of frustration for employees because they couldn't just work at the office closest to them or work from home. Very few people I knew there worked directly along side their team while I was there. I'm sure this wasn't true for everyone though, however I think it was at least at the time, the majority.
This makes their policy even more baffling. You're basically getting the worst of both worlds, you still have the commute and all the BS around working in person, yet once you get there it's essentially remote work.
At Google people routinely have VC meetings between adjacent buildings.
> 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 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.”
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.”
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. I left my last company because my org had a time preference for their offices in Hyderabad, which isn't bad but they kept forcing mandatory meetings at 7 or 8 am. All the US workers hated it. The idea of core hours didn't exists, you basically had to adapt to Hyderabad time or you suffered.
I have no issue with remote teams or in-person teams, but having both in the same team is the worse.
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. I left my last company because my org had a time preference for their offices in Hyderabad, which isn't bad but they kept forcing mandatory meetings at 7 or 8 am. All the US workers hated it. The idea of core hours didn't exists, you basically had to adapt to Hyderabad time or you suffered.
I have no issue with remote teams or in-person teams, but having both in the same team is the worse.
The Apple policy under discussion is a top-down edict from the executives that no future remote roles are allowed, period. This is more draconian than the pre-pandemic “exceptions allowed with VP approval” policy. Your experience isn’t germane to this situation.
> Your experience isn’t germane to this situation.
I've been seeing more and more of this rude dismissal of other comments. They're discussing the general topic at hand by offering their experience. Your snarky reply degrades the conversation significantly more than them broadening the conversation.
Less of this, please.
I've been seeing more and more of this rude dismissal of other comments. They're discussing the general topic at hand by offering their experience. Your snarky reply degrades the conversation significantly more than them broadening the conversation.
Less of this, please.
My team is 1/2 in person and 1/2 remote and it works fine. We don't have the "way way more visibility" problem. I think this is at least partly because my director is remote, and at least one link in the chain of VPs above him is remote as well.
> Having a team that's half remote/half in-person is worse of both worlds
I'm not so sure that's a blanket statement. If teams are properly managed it works out.
I'm not so sure that's a blanket statement. If teams are properly managed it works out.
Have you worked in this environment? I have and I agree with the previous comment. You get the low friction interaction of being there in person but then all the people who aren't there get left out. Or you have to do everything on video anyway so there's no point in some people being in person. My bet is in person companies win in the end.
Even if it's true that in-person developers are more productive, you also have to account for the preference of developers. If developers prefer to work remotely, then the average in-person developer is probably likely to be worse than the average remote developer (since skilled developers will have an easier time to find the more attractive remote positions).
And as we all know, the difference between a skilled developer and a bad one is quite massive.
And as we all know, the difference between a skilled developer and a bad one is quite massive.
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"in-person half typically gets way way way more visibility than those working remote."
That's a management problem, not a policy problem. Sorry.
That's a management problem, not a policy problem. Sorry.
You're not really offering a solution though. Management might agree with you and solve the problem by just forcing everyone to RTO.
It's the reality of humans being social creatures.
Yes, and the management solution is to blame the people being managed for not liking it
I don't think they're trying to forcd those people who work better in an office to work from home, are they?
Finance here: "big, unbroken chunks of silence & concentration to do great work. " sounds like an absolute dream ...
I'm with the engineer on this.
I'm with the engineer on this.
So then why does this policy apply to engineers as well?
And those people are already in the office and were in the office during the height of Covid.
I think engineers tend to under-estimate how much of their work is communicating with other engineers.
Yes, you need that focus time. But running into someone on another team can be very valuable - you might learn that they're solving the same problem, you might learn that they're consuming the same API you're trying to figure out, you might learn that they're planning on working with your team in a few weeks, etc.
Yes, you need that focus time. But running into someone on another team can be very valuable - you might learn that they're solving the same problem, you might learn that they're consuming the same API you're trying to figure out, you might learn that they're planning on working with your team in a few weeks, etc.
Sure, but if your company’s productivity depends on these accidental interactions, you’re in serious trouble if you’re as large as Apple is. Apple Park is so large you can roam the halls all day and not run into the people you’re working with on other teams. Many of the teams will be on other campuses anyway.
I would argue the benefits of having more of your state in Slack more than make up for “surprise productive watercooler meeting” thing that managers are so hot on. I think I’ve had that interaction maybe twice in 25+ years, and one of those times was just pointless gossip in the end.
I would argue the benefits of having more of your state in Slack more than make up for “surprise productive watercooler meeting” thing that managers are so hot on. I think I’ve had that interaction maybe twice in 25+ years, and one of those times was just pointless gossip in the end.
The watercooler comment resonates: i keep hearing it as justification to be back in-person and even in cases where i feel i've ha da productive watercooler conversation, it has very rarely resulted in anything crucial or important emerge from it.
Businesses have problems that need solving (using technology): it is unlikely that the problem is identified at a watercooler (or other metaphorical equivalents) or the solution is identified in a one hour in-person meeting. One might 'feel' that the outcome from the quickly made decision in the 1-hr meeting was useful, but thats questionable too.
> I think engineers tend to under-estimate how much of their work is communicating with other engineers.
That's a good point. I would go so far as to say that the majority of what engineers do is communicate with their future selves and other engineers, in that writing software is to use a communication medium. What code you write today will need to be read and understood later. What the code does on the computer is only a part of software.
That's a good point. I would go so far as to say that the majority of what engineers do is communicate with their future selves and other engineers, in that writing software is to use a communication medium. What code you write today will need to be read and understood later. What the code does on the computer is only a part of software.
> Yes, you need that focus time. But running into someone on another team can be very valuable - you might learn that they're solving the same problem, you might learn that they're consuming the same API you're trying to figure out, you might learn that they're planning on working with your team in a few weeks, etc.
Out of all the companies out there, I'd imagine Apple benefits from this the least. With all the badge-locked doors, literal curtains hiding projects from one another, and internal NDAs preventing one engineer from even disclosing what they are working on with another engineer, cross-pollination of ideas is going to be almost impossible. "Serendipitous conversations" is not something that comes to mind when one thinks about Apple's internal engineering culture.
Out of all the companies out there, I'd imagine Apple benefits from this the least. With all the badge-locked doors, literal curtains hiding projects from one another, and internal NDAs preventing one engineer from even disclosing what they are working on with another engineer, cross-pollination of ideas is going to be almost impossible. "Serendipitous conversations" is not something that comes to mind when one thinks about Apple's internal engineering culture.
I shouldn't need to run into another engineer to find out how the fuck to call their API successfully and what I can expect in return.
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.
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.
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.
Apple software engineers who work with prototypes did this for two whole product development cycles. Access to prototypes _can_ still be managed remotely, it turns out.
It's possible to do (I'm doing it), but it's definitely more complicated than in-person, especially when operating across a team.
From a hardware engineering perspective, access to equipment is also important; I have a decent lab setup at home, but I've still needed to go into the office regularly to access some testing tools.
From a hardware engineering perspective, access to equipment is also important; I have a decent lab setup at home, but I've still needed to go into the office regularly to access some testing tools.
> which are much more difficult to work on remotely,
<Looks at his desk in his home office. It's full of prototype boards he's doing software for.>
Difficult?
> especially in a company that prioritizes secrecy as much as Apple does.
But that's Apple's problem, not the employees' problem.
<Looks at his desk in his home office. It's full of prototype boards he's doing software for.>
Difficult?
> especially in a company that prioritizes secrecy as much as Apple does.
But that's Apple's problem, not the employees' problem.
It is my understanding that the team behind the hardware and chip developments refused to work at Apple Park and demanded that a more suitable work area was built for them.
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/08/09/apple-park-employees-op...
I think even office areas are not equatable and greatly depends on the team.
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/08/09/apple-park-employees-op...
I think even office areas are not equatable and greatly depends on the team.
Doubly so because "accidental" product launches because two engineers bumped heads in the cafeteria and came up with an idea is not how things work at Apple. That's Google culture.
At Apple employees in a hallway will not be allowed to talk about each other's projects at all. All the product directives are strictly top down. As an individual engineer you have zero say in the product and very little in broader engineering decisions.
At Apple employees in a hallway will not be allowed to talk about each other's projects at all. All the product directives are strictly top down. As an individual engineer you have zero say in the product and very little in broader engineering decisions.
I'm more on the introversion end of the spectrum, and as someone who's been both an engineer and a manager I'm a big believer in big unbroken chunks of silence and concentration for focused engineering ("makers vs managers schedule", etc).
And... I would say a majority of the major project setbacks / failures I've seen over my career have not been due to engineering failures, but have been due to either:
1) Misalignment or lack of agility about priorities / goals and inter-team dependencies. Situations where people and teams put their heads down and do a lot of engineering... that ends up not being the right engineering.
2) Interpersonal conflicts that simmer, escalate, and aren't defused early enough and harm collaboration.
In theory, both of these could be addressed well in fully remote environments, with careful product, product, and people management.
In practice, I have personally seen it be much easier to head these problems off in environments where people are having regular informal face-to-face and non-transactional interactions. The lunch / coffee break / hallway-chat-after-the-meeting sort of discussions. Even being in separate buildings across a large tech campus has been a barrier to this.
Again, I would be personally happy to WFH, but I do feel I've multiple times seen significant project and company-level benefits from shared workspace interaction, so there are tradeoffs.
And... I would say a majority of the major project setbacks / failures I've seen over my career have not been due to engineering failures, but have been due to either:
1) Misalignment or lack of agility about priorities / goals and inter-team dependencies. Situations where people and teams put their heads down and do a lot of engineering... that ends up not being the right engineering.
2) Interpersonal conflicts that simmer, escalate, and aren't defused early enough and harm collaboration.
In theory, both of these could be addressed well in fully remote environments, with careful product, product, and people management.
In practice, I have personally seen it be much easier to head these problems off in environments where people are having regular informal face-to-face and non-transactional interactions. The lunch / coffee break / hallway-chat-after-the-meeting sort of discussions. Even being in separate buildings across a large tech campus has been a barrier to this.
Again, I would be personally happy to WFH, but I do feel I've multiple times seen significant project and company-level benefits from shared workspace interaction, so there are tradeoffs.
Tim Cook received a degree in industrial engineering before getting an MBA.
Not sure I would call him an extrovert either.
Not sure I would call him an extrovert either.
Lots of companies' executive officers are relaying identical messages, even down to the same choice of words. "Serendipity." "Collaboration." "Magical hallway conversations." I've never seen all of Corporate America, including fierce competitors, so closely aligned on a very particular narrative, as I've seen them aligned on returning to physical offices. It's as if they all received the exact same memo with the same talking points and are all desperately following it. Never seen anything like it before.
This isn't some artificial set of talking points, it's what business leaders genuinely believe and have believed for decades. (This isn't the first time that remote work has become a big public debate, although it was called "teleworking" last time.) That doesn't prove they're right, but it's not some kind of astroturfed conspiracy.
> It's as if they all received the exact same memo with the same talking points and are all desperately following it.
But enough about the Wall Street Journal
But enough about the Wall Street Journal
So, I get that. However, that doesn't make those engineers better at communicating, being communicated to, or understanding where they work. They're at risk for being underrepresented due to the siloed and likely insular nature of their work.
Most of my success has been because I'd spoken, independently and unofficially, to people in unrelated divisions who hadn't met who _really needed to talk_. I don't expect others to take this on because they're almost definitely busier than me. And I don't necessarily like taking to people, but I'm really good at this one stupidly simple thing, and I'd rather be the one getting dragged into the meetings instead of everyone else so they can focus.
It's why corporate org charts are so bullshit to me; the real work happens when people can form their best structures, which typically takes knowing who you're working with or being known by someone who can protect that for you. For some, that's churning out work while being with their families way the fuck away from everyone else. For others, it's being wherever they can get some perspective and inspiration digging in and deciding something about the trajectory of the org they're at, usually involving people. If it works, it's valid.
Most of my success has been because I'd spoken, independently and unofficially, to people in unrelated divisions who hadn't met who _really needed to talk_. I don't expect others to take this on because they're almost definitely busier than me. And I don't necessarily like taking to people, but I'm really good at this one stupidly simple thing, and I'd rather be the one getting dragged into the meetings instead of everyone else so they can focus.
It's why corporate org charts are so bullshit to me; the real work happens when people can form their best structures, which typically takes knowing who you're working with or being known by someone who can protect that for you. For some, that's churning out work while being with their families way the fuck away from everyone else. For others, it's being wherever they can get some perspective and inspiration digging in and deciding something about the trajectory of the org they're at, usually involving people. If it works, it's valid.
As a software engineer I find I'm much more productive in the office. Probably because a lot of my work does involve talking to other people (other engineers, PMs etc) and really understanding what the problem space is. Sure I need focus time too, but I can get that in the office too.
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Hi senior engineer here, I enjoy being with my co-workers and you can definitely make people understand you need your time in an office setting. This sounds like a communication issue that a lot of devs have but that's squarely our failing not other people in our orgs.
And outside of those chunks you bump into colleagues after meetings, on the way to the bathroom, in the cafe, etc.
Of all the arguments against RTO the ones the signatories chose were racism, agism and sexism. Because everything, absolutely everything one does not like must somehow be linked back to white maleness. God, this stuff parodies itself.
If you had a heart condition and you went to a doctor with chest pain, it'd be a pretty reasonable guess that the underlying cause was the heart condition.
Neuro normative? Good grief. They don't want to work in the office - no need to gobbledygook it up in some bizarre appeal to authority.
I can say as someone who now works full time remote while also geographically isolated, it's not all a bed of roses. I do miss the serendipitous hallway conversations - some of the best directions in my career came from those spontaneous and unplanned in person interactions. I'm toward the end of my career so I now have enough contacts and informal interactions with folks where I can still force those kinds of engagements; if I need to. 10 years ago? No way would I be happy working remotely full time. You just can't get the connections and synergies unless you are in close proximity to other folks; especially those outside of your immediate work unit but still relevant to your work.
A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate - and won't until it's too late. In a way I'm glad telework didn't become more accepted until later in my career - I absolutely wouldn't be where I am today if I had been full time remote - I wouldn't have had near the opportunities to connect and be noticed.
I can say as someone who now works full time remote while also geographically isolated, it's not all a bed of roses. I do miss the serendipitous hallway conversations - some of the best directions in my career came from those spontaneous and unplanned in person interactions. I'm toward the end of my career so I now have enough contacts and informal interactions with folks where I can still force those kinds of engagements; if I need to. 10 years ago? No way would I be happy working remotely full time. You just can't get the connections and synergies unless you are in close proximity to other folks; especially those outside of your immediate work unit but still relevant to your work.
A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate - and won't until it's too late. In a way I'm glad telework didn't become more accepted until later in my career - I absolutely wouldn't be where I am today if I had been full time remote - I wouldn't have had near the opportunities to connect and be noticed.
I honestly don't understand some of the ideas people have about remote work. Remote work may be great, but there will be challenges associated.
For example, so many people are going about saying that they should be paid the same whether they work in SF or Topeka. And the assumption is that means people in Topeka will be paid SF salaries. And that may be true for a few years while we are still inside an extremely tight labor market. However, once there is the slightest bit of slack, it's far more likely that employees in SF will be paid Topeka salaries.
A few years further it's even more likely that people in Topeka and SF will be paid Bangalore or Rio or Mexico City salaries.
If there's no benefit from being geographically co-located, then the market should drive everyone to locate themselves in the cheapest geographies possible.
Now, this may not actually be true, even in a looser labor market, and there may be other reasons that would lead to salaries across Topeka and SF remaining at SF levels, but a clear eyed discussion would start from the earlier assumption, that salaries would drop, and then justify why that wouldn't happen.
What I'm seeing instead is that everyone is assuming that salaries will rise, and then operating based entirely on that assumption, without any discussion about why this may or may not be true.
For example, so many people are going about saying that they should be paid the same whether they work in SF or Topeka. And the assumption is that means people in Topeka will be paid SF salaries. And that may be true for a few years while we are still inside an extremely tight labor market. However, once there is the slightest bit of slack, it's far more likely that employees in SF will be paid Topeka salaries.
A few years further it's even more likely that people in Topeka and SF will be paid Bangalore or Rio or Mexico City salaries.
If there's no benefit from being geographically co-located, then the market should drive everyone to locate themselves in the cheapest geographies possible.
Now, this may not actually be true, even in a looser labor market, and there may be other reasons that would lead to salaries across Topeka and SF remaining at SF levels, but a clear eyed discussion would start from the earlier assumption, that salaries would drop, and then justify why that wouldn't happen.
What I'm seeing instead is that everyone is assuming that salaries will rise, and then operating based entirely on that assumption, without any discussion about why this may or may not be true.
Pay rising seems to be because of a labor shortage and if SF base pay is top of market in the US/world then other areas will incrementally move higher to attract/retain talent.
It seems like the software developer market has much more hiring activity than pre-pandemic so I don't think equalizing to the cheapest geography/salary for remote is going to happen. It appears the trend upwards with a labor shortage is more the case that "A rising tide lifts all boats" type of thing where other markets are also trending upwards.
What would be more interesting about remote work is a discussion about the labor shortage. Is it because more people are leaving for more pay and causing a ripple effect in the place they left (like a game of musical chairs)? Are there a lot more VC, therefore startups and just more open positions?
It seems like the software developer market has much more hiring activity than pre-pandemic so I don't think equalizing to the cheapest geography/salary for remote is going to happen. It appears the trend upwards with a labor shortage is more the case that "A rising tide lifts all boats" type of thing where other markets are also trending upwards.
What would be more interesting about remote work is a discussion about the labor shortage. Is it because more people are leaving for more pay and causing a ripple effect in the place they left (like a game of musical chairs)? Are there a lot more VC, therefore startups and just more open positions?
I don't think this take will age well. By all public accounts there's something like a 15%-20% engineering talent shortage in tech. That means pay will go up regardless if Topeka or SF until the current generation of engineers catch up and become hire-able.
For venture capital backed tech companies at least, isn't one of the largest expenses salaries? Doesn't it almost benefit companies to have more employees at a higher salary expense to bolster huge valuations?
We’ve reached peak bubble - “A company is worth more that spends more, not based on profit.”
I think what you are missing is cheaper places don't offer the same quality and standard of living.
Although this may force people to skip the overrated bubbles.
Although this may force people to skip the overrated bubbles.
Certainly the Bay Area and quite a few other places on the West Coast (depending on your tolerance for clouds) are, to my taste, pretty attractive places beyond job prospects in certain industries. But NYC, Boston, Austin--add your other fairly popular cities in the US, much less Toronto in Canada--and cold/snowy winters or hot/humid summers haven't led to especially cheap housing.
Agreed-- as someone who is also later-career and personally enjoys WFH, I realize in retrospect that I learned a lot (both technically and in terms of how to be productive in a larger team environment) from less-structured in-person collaboration with more senior peers and mentors. And I feel that really set me up for growth and future success / leadership.
Some of that is possible remotely, but I don't think it would have been the same as there was a lot of on and off collaboration and chatting over the course of a month sitting side by side. Especially with someone senior who worked on a parallel team where we might not have talked as much if we'd only been meeting through meetings.
And as someone who's managed teams during the pandemic, I'll say that I saw WFH be especially challenging for some earlier-career folks and new hires, who I've seen trying to learn everything "on their own" and feeling a bit adrift. I went out of my way to have more 1:1 check-ins with them, set them up with other senior peers for regular video "coffee chats" and mentorship opportunities, and so on. But it was challenging.
I've also seen Slack be a powerful force for new or junior people asking questions about how to use a tool or the history of some decision (once we built a culture of "it's fine to just ask questions to this channel, no question is dumb"), especially across teams or offices, so async digital collaboration is powerful as well, of course.
Some of that is possible remotely, but I don't think it would have been the same as there was a lot of on and off collaboration and chatting over the course of a month sitting side by side. Especially with someone senior who worked on a parallel team where we might not have talked as much if we'd only been meeting through meetings.
And as someone who's managed teams during the pandemic, I'll say that I saw WFH be especially challenging for some earlier-career folks and new hires, who I've seen trying to learn everything "on their own" and feeling a bit adrift. I went out of my way to have more 1:1 check-ins with them, set them up with other senior peers for regular video "coffee chats" and mentorship opportunities, and so on. But it was challenging.
I've also seen Slack be a powerful force for new or junior people asking questions about how to use a tool or the history of some decision (once we built a culture of "it's fine to just ask questions to this channel, no question is dumb"), especially across teams or offices, so async digital collaboration is powerful as well, of course.
It's hard for me to imagine my first job in tech as a PM being remote. Modest apartment, not knowing people in the area, and general lack of spontaneous contact. OK, the communication tools were much more limiting and the social/cultural norms were different too. (Actually had email but way too many sales reps and SEs liked to call anyway to ask some question that could (sometimes) be resolved in a one minute email.)
So maybe it would be just different. But hard for me to wrap my head around.
So maybe it would be just different. But hard for me to wrap my head around.
> Neuro normative? Good grief. They don't want to work in the office - no need to gobbledygook it up in some bizarre appeal to authority.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Do you not think neuro-normativity is a real thing? Or do you think that neuro-divergent people will be worse off with a truly flexible work-from-home policy?
I don't think they are requesting that the office cease to exist. It sounds like they want a hybrid approach that has no required office time.
> A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate
This is condescending. It assumes that people who want full-time remote are not aware of the trade offs. I try to think better of people when they make an effort at self-determination. They know their lives better than I do, I imagine.
I'm not sure what you're saying here. Do you not think neuro-normativity is a real thing? Or do you think that neuro-divergent people will be worse off with a truly flexible work-from-home policy?
I don't think they are requesting that the office cease to exist. It sounds like they want a hybrid approach that has no required office time.
> A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate
This is condescending. It assumes that people who want full-time remote are not aware of the trade offs. I try to think better of people when they make an effort at self-determination. They know their lives better than I do, I imagine.
There is no possible way for someone just out of college to actually understand the tradeoffs. Young people have little to no experience with building a career or what it entails.
Frankly neither do most old people- the number of older folks who still think you can show up to a business with a resume and get a job at the start of your career are out of their mind.
I've been working in this industry for 17 years now, and only five of that was in an office. I make an obscene amount of money, so it's not like this has harmed me. The idea that the kids need to suffer through an office so they know what it'll do to their career is about as out of date as the resume advice above.
I've been working in this industry for 17 years now, and only five of that was in an office. I make an obscene amount of money, so it's not like this has harmed me. The idea that the kids need to suffer through an office so they know what it'll do to their career is about as out of date as the resume advice above.
Working remotely is career limiting. Period. I’m saying that as a remote worker. I would not recommend that you get into full time remote work until you’ve decided you are OK with no significant career advancement.
Trying to force my neuro-divergent brain to work in an office setting where I'm surrounded by noisy people (any people, really), lights that may flicker, and temperatures I can't control is going to limit my career a lot more than failing to have serendipitous conversations in a hallway.
What works for you may not be what works for everybody, and that's the point.
It could be that remote work would have limited your career advancement.
For me, it's the only reason I can have a career at all.
What works for you may not be what works for everybody, and that's the point.
It could be that remote work would have limited your career advancement.
For me, it's the only reason I can have a career at all.
>What works for you may not be what works for everybody, and that's the point.
Instead of making it personal, lets make it general. According to you how many people have a problem working in the office for the reasons you listed?
Instead of making it personal, lets make it general. According to you how many people have a problem working in the office for the reasons you listed?
What difference does it make whether their reasons are the same as mine or different from them?
You're right it wouldn't matter. I think I had a brain fart here. What I wanted to say was the thing with 'everybody has a point of view' is that not all points of view are equally represented in the population. I'm not going to dismiss the viewpoint of the people who do like coming in to work, if one person hates it. It would be nice to accommodate everyone's individual preferences in every situation, but realistically you can't make everyone happy if they're outside of whatever standard deviation a workplace can manage.
I would not recommend that you get into full time remote work until you’ve decided you are OK with no significant career advancement.
I think I'd agree with you unless something crazy happened, like a global pandemic that completely shifted the way companies think and made them massively more likely to recruit remote workers.
If that happened then you'd have to be daft to think it wouldn't change anything.
I think I'd agree with you unless something crazy happened, like a global pandemic that completely shifted the way companies think and made them massively more likely to recruit remote workers.
If that happened then you'd have to be daft to think it wouldn't change anything.
I have significantly advanced my career working remote full time. You sound like you personally have been unable to advance your career and instead of being introspective about it are blaming it on remote work as a concept. Period.
You are the exception that proves the rule.
I got promoted twice in 6 months having never been to the office. 100% fully remote. Without distraction of meeting everyone around the office I spent more time on results and selective 1:1 zoom calls.
This is just wrong- it is completely and utterly wrong. "No significant career advancement" yet my career has progressed pretty damn well, as have my colleagues.
There is no possible way for you—or any of us, at this present moment—to know just how those tradeoffs and the shape of work will be changed over the next few decades by this pandemic, its aftershocks, and the new understanding we have all gained of just what is really possible with remote work.
The idea that because you've been working for a decade or two and know how things were before the pandemic, these poor, dumb college kids should just listen to you and let you tell them that everything has always been this way and always will be this way just doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny.
The idea that because you've been working for a decade or two and know how things were before the pandemic, these poor, dumb college kids should just listen to you and let you tell them that everything has always been this way and always will be this way just doesn't hold up to basic scrutiny.
They should just accept that they voluntarily joined a company that has always been very skewed towards in office work.
lol - the pandemic isn't permanent. It was a great force to help force normalization of remote work at organizations that otherwise would have never embraced it - but thinking that all companies are going to suddenly change their corporate culture because of a couple year event is laughable.
Maybe Apple will loose enough talent over time to where their corp culture will have to adapt. I doubt it. Wouldn't mind if I'm wrong (I think at least having the option for at least some remote work is overall very healthy overall), but I'm not holding my breath.
Maybe Apple will loose enough talent over time to where their corp culture will have to adapt. I doubt it. Wouldn't mind if I'm wrong (I think at least having the option for at least some remote work is overall very healthy overall), but I'm not holding my breath.
We can just generalize this to "you don't know what you don't know". It's not like HN has any shortage of late career professionals peddling asinine takes on things they just don't have the subject matter experience in or have out of date info.
The eye rolling part is trying to tie a preference for working from home into the broader civil rights movements. You aren't just making people come into the office, you are systemically oppressing this list of marginalized people groups!
From the OC:
"They said that Apple's reasons for implementing the policy don't stand up, and that the policy is wasteful, inflexible and will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce."
I, for one, have no idea what neuro-normative means.
Anywho, u/EricE isn't agreeing or disagreeing. They're just advising that people can just state their preference plainly, no tortured nonsensical rationalizations necessary.
"If you're explaining, you're losing." -- Lee Atwater
Labor now has greater power. Wield it. Those who would take away your power don't bother to explain themselves. Why should Labor?
Unless, of course, you'd rather be right, over actually winning.
"They said that Apple's reasons for implementing the policy don't stand up, and that the policy is wasteful, inflexible and will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce."
I, for one, have no idea what neuro-normative means.
Anywho, u/EricE isn't agreeing or disagreeing. They're just advising that people can just state their preference plainly, no tortured nonsensical rationalizations necessary.
"If you're explaining, you're losing." -- Lee Atwater
Labor now has greater power. Wield it. Those who would take away your power don't bother to explain themselves. Why should Labor?
Unless, of course, you'd rather be right, over actually winning.
> I, for one, have no idea what neuro-normative means.
So do you plan to learn what it means, or do you believe that language should remain exactly as it was at some arbitrary point in the past?
So do you plan to learn what it means, or do you believe that language should remain exactly as it was at some arbitrary point in the past?
I hadn't. But it's a fair ask.
Sadly, this group of authors didn't know the meaning either. Typical.
As a rule, I avoid using terms I can't define. If you know any of the authors, please pass that tip along. Thanks.
> ...or do you believe that language should remain exactly...
Wut?
Sadly, this group of authors didn't know the meaning either. Typical.
As a rule, I avoid using terms I can't define. If you know any of the authors, please pass that tip along. Thanks.
> ...or do you believe that language should remain exactly...
Wut?
>Unless, of course, you'd rather be right, over actually winning.
And thus the majority of friction in todays discourse.
Something I still fall prey to more than I like and try to stay vigilant of so thanks for pointing it out!
And thus the majority of friction in todays discourse.
Something I still fall prey to more than I like and try to stay vigilant of so thanks for pointing it out!
>I, for one, have no idea what neuro-normative means.
Having no psychological/developmental conditionals recognized by the DSM
Having no psychological/developmental conditionals recognized by the DSM
Thats quite a privileged statement. Psychology applies cultural and personal norms to fit people into little boxes.
Yup. There's a term for that: neuro-normative.
More seriously...
I'm totally on board with navel gazing. But I don't see how (mis)using such terms helps this letter's authors make the case for having the individual choice to work remotely.
So performative.
More seriously...
I'm totally on board with navel gazing. But I don't see how (mis)using such terms helps this letter's authors make the case for having the individual choice to work remotely.
So performative.
EricE(5)
A lot of tech savvy younger folks are perfectly capable of making relationships entirely online. I'm not even young, and I've done it myself. 25 years ago, I made several friends on Yahoo Chat! who I have never seen in real life but speak with regularly. Many more over the years via builtin boards. These days discord exists and it's a primary social source for a number of kids.
These kids could enter a fully WFH workforce without blinking an eye and continue to develop life long relationships with their new colleagues if they desired. I've done both. But to be honest, the only friends I've maintained from previous in person jobs are the ones who I also connected with via a chat program.
These kids could enter a fully WFH workforce without blinking an eye and continue to develop life long relationships with their new colleagues if they desired. I've done both. But to be honest, the only friends I've maintained from previous in person jobs are the ones who I also connected with via a chat program.
It's not just about making friends. It's about serendipity.
It's about spontaneous and unplanned interactions that provide new paths for you. Yes, you can still have those remotely - but they are no where nearly as frequent, nor anywhere near as impactful. They simply can't be - your fighting millions of years of social evolution if you think otherwise. Heck I doubt most of us remember a fraction of spontaneous in person interactions with others in our day to day life - but let me tell you there are a handful in my past that made all the difference in where I am today. None would have happened if I had been working remotely.
Not one of them.
You simply can't quantize the value of those interactions and I fear for those who are seemingly so willing to casually tossing those away. Yes, commuting sucks. Yes, committing to a schedule sucks. Yes, listening to the same story from Bob for the millionth time while you are trying to focus on something else sucks. But there are other benefits that are irreplaceable too.
Probably the best illustration I can think of in pop culture is the Star Trek:TNG episode where Picard's artificial heart dies and he has that whole near death experience with Q. It's a great analogy for this whole discussion. I'm too am glad I had the bloody nose early on and the much more interesting life overall.
It's about spontaneous and unplanned interactions that provide new paths for you. Yes, you can still have those remotely - but they are no where nearly as frequent, nor anywhere near as impactful. They simply can't be - your fighting millions of years of social evolution if you think otherwise. Heck I doubt most of us remember a fraction of spontaneous in person interactions with others in our day to day life - but let me tell you there are a handful in my past that made all the difference in where I am today. None would have happened if I had been working remotely.
Not one of them.
You simply can't quantize the value of those interactions and I fear for those who are seemingly so willing to casually tossing those away. Yes, commuting sucks. Yes, committing to a schedule sucks. Yes, listening to the same story from Bob for the millionth time while you are trying to focus on something else sucks. But there are other benefits that are irreplaceable too.
Probably the best illustration I can think of in pop culture is the Star Trek:TNG episode where Picard's artificial heart dies and he has that whole near death experience with Q. It's a great analogy for this whole discussion. I'm too am glad I had the bloody nose early on and the much more interesting life overall.
Your life anecdotes are nice, but they are not a universal experience, and certainly don't apply to everyone (especially, if what I've seen is true, the younger generations). I'm middle aged now, but the most serendipitous things that have happened to me have been online. For example, my first roommate and then life long friend came to me via an online builtin board related to a project I created. My first job came to me through a reference from someone I knew on IRC. Heck, I met my wife through online dating!
It's just different now. After covid, even more so.
It's just different now. After covid, even more so.
This is spot-on.
Nearly all of our younger hires have their social networks _entirely online_, and most of our older employees are in a similar situation albeit with a few token IRL friends.
That said, I work in game development and I suspect that causes some selection bias.
Nearly all of our younger hires have their social networks _entirely online_, and most of our older employees are in a similar situation albeit with a few token IRL friends.
That said, I work in game development and I suspect that causes some selection bias.
Could be. I know a lot of the older people in my not-game-development field won't join work functions organized in online chats. You have to call them, or send them an email.
Out of curiosity, I hear a lot of negative things about working in game development. How do you like it?
Out of curiosity, I hear a lot of negative things about working in game development. How do you like it?
Game development is full of exploitative companies looking to squeeze whatever effort they can from passionate young people. When you're young and inexperienced it's best to avoid those companies as best you can; the experience you'll gain will be less desirable than at a company that treats you well and presents you with opportunities for long term growth.
That said, as an older programmer I would not expect to ever earn anywhere near your earning potential for the skills you'll gain, if you were to work outside of gaming. It doesn't matter that you might single-handedly build the infrastructure to host millions in MAU on a shoestring budget; the profit margins are razor thin, if there's any profit at all, and the wages reflect that.
Your customers don't want to pay you, investors don't want to buy in, the media dislikes you by default, and your industry is saturated with competition.
All that said, I have worked outside of gaming and still keep coming back to it. I've taken substantial pay cuts, leaving good jobs of my own volition, to return on several occasions. I do it because I've never experienced so much _freedom_ as I do as a game developer. If there's something I want to try, build or learn then I generally start on that _immediately_. Nowhere else have I felt so able to express myself and better myself.
* Addendum: YMMV. I've worked mostly in small studios, on Indie titles and subcontracting on AAA titles. I imagine things are different at very large studios.
That said, as an older programmer I would not expect to ever earn anywhere near your earning potential for the skills you'll gain, if you were to work outside of gaming. It doesn't matter that you might single-handedly build the infrastructure to host millions in MAU on a shoestring budget; the profit margins are razor thin, if there's any profit at all, and the wages reflect that.
Your customers don't want to pay you, investors don't want to buy in, the media dislikes you by default, and your industry is saturated with competition.
All that said, I have worked outside of gaming and still keep coming back to it. I've taken substantial pay cuts, leaving good jobs of my own volition, to return on several occasions. I do it because I've never experienced so much _freedom_ as I do as a game developer. If there's something I want to try, build or learn then I generally start on that _immediately_. Nowhere else have I felt so able to express myself and better myself.
* Addendum: YMMV. I've worked mostly in small studios, on Indie titles and subcontracting on AAA titles. I imagine things are different at very large studios.
Sounds great to me, honestly. Strong pitch.
My story is the same as yours, but I don't think online communications (especially "structured", formal, work ones, like a daily standup over Zoom) capture everything that spontaneous "hallway" conversations do, including with people not on even on your team who you'd never talk to otherwise.
I wish it were same, but, even as someone who grew up with more online relationships than meatspace ones, I'd be lying if I said it is. Maybe VR in some 15-minutes-after-tomorrow future can bridge the gap.
I experienced how "not the same" it is with in-person and then remote interactions with other young people in college classes and then with older people in work, and, in both cases, I felt things were lost once we went remote.
I wish it were same, but, even as someone who grew up with more online relationships than meatspace ones, I'd be lying if I said it is. Maybe VR in some 15-minutes-after-tomorrow future can bridge the gap.
I experienced how "not the same" it is with in-person and then remote interactions with other young people in college classes and then with older people in work, and, in both cases, I felt things were lost once we went remote.
The hallway conversation thing befuddles me. Have you ever opened a chat window with someone at work to speak to them on the side? That's a hallway conversation. You can tell them any secret you want there. Have you ever seen two people interact in a group chat and learn something you didn't know before? That's the same as overhearing a hallway conversation. Grabbed a few friends in a group chat to chat about the weekend? Water cooler.
The only difference is no one is going to tell you to be quiet and get back to work. No one is going to send an email about how there are too many people wasting time around the water cooler!
I just don't see the advantage.
The only difference is no one is going to tell you to be quiet and get back to work. No one is going to send an email about how there are too many people wasting time around the water cooler!
I just don't see the advantage.
> You can tell them any secret you want there.
Well, secret in the sense of fully accessible to everyone in management at your company.
Well, secret in the sense of fully accessible to everyone in management at your company.
Can't argue with that! Used to just be nosy people, backstabbers and snitches in the office. Now Microsoft will do all that for free through Windows/Teams.
Any advice for how to do this? E.g. do people join Discords that they're interested in and then start chatting (Where do they even find them?)?
I'm in my 30s now, and much of this is unfamiliar to me, but I'm interested in learning more about it. My social network has definitely shrunk significantly these past two years.
I'm in my 30s now, and much of this is unfamiliar to me, but I'm interested in learning more about it. My social network has definitely shrunk significantly these past two years.
Yes! Just make a discord username, and you can 'explore' for communities. Find one you like - for example, Big Hat Logan, there are quite large communities for Dark Souls and Elden Ring respectively. Then just start dropping hot takes! It's just like this place! I'm kidding. You should probably lurk for a while until you understand the community vibe.
That's going to be a lively place though. You might wanna try searching for smaller communities for more niche things.
That's for discord, anyways. My wife uses Facebook for her things (much to my chagrin).
That's going to be a lively place though. You might wanna try searching for smaller communities for more niche things.
That's for discord, anyways. My wife uses Facebook for her things (much to my chagrin).
Thanks for the response! Haha, love that you got the naming reference.
That sounds good. I do have a Discord, but I've only ever used it to make voice calls with a friend of mine...but I think I'll definitely check out these public servers. I know my old university has some too but they don't show up on Discord search, so I'm guessing they're private.
Thanks again--appreciate the response. Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur by how out-of-the-loop I am: Telegram, Discord, etc.
That sounds good. I do have a Discord, but I've only ever used it to make voice calls with a friend of mine...but I think I'll definitely check out these public servers. I know my old university has some too but they don't show up on Discord search, so I'm guessing they're private.
Thanks again--appreciate the response. Sometimes I feel like a dinosaur by how out-of-the-loop I am: Telegram, Discord, etc.
> A lot of these younger folks pushing for full time remote at the start of their career are putting themselves into a box I don't think they fully appreciate
This 100%—I worked remotely for my first 5 years after graduating college, and I thought it was great until I went into a real office and found out what I was missing. I vowed to never work a remote job again (of course, the pandemic forced a quick end to that vow, hah.)
This 100%—I worked remotely for my first 5 years after graduating college, and I thought it was great until I went into a real office and found out what I was missing. I vowed to never work a remote job again (of course, the pandemic forced a quick end to that vow, hah.)
And you still have that choice both under the model that the workers here are suggesting and in the greater economy.
Problem is, when you give workers a choice to come into the office, it becomes a game theory problem that ultimately results in no one coming in.
"Why come to the office if none of my team members are there?"
"Why come to the office if none of my team members are there?"
If you strongly believe the office is valuable, surly there are others who agree with you. Those people will be there. Everyone else can work from home.
Game theory shows that systems involving multiple people making decisions without coordination can very easily settle into subptimal equilibriums.
And that's almost certainly gonna be the case here.
And that's almost certainly gonna be the case here.
What about time spent commuting?
You seem to be interpreting a lot of your personal experience as solid fact. It's fine that the way your career happened to shake out worked out for you but that doesn't mean it's the only way to work, and it certainly doesn't mean it's the best way for everybody to work.
People work differently, commuting is a nightmare and gets worse every year, if you want to be in an office I don't think you'll have trouble finding a job to accommodate. A few years before the pandemic I swore I'd never commute again and I intend to live out the rest of my career that way. You will never catch me commuting every day.
People work differently, commuting is a nightmare and gets worse every year, if you want to be in an office I don't think you'll have trouble finding a job to accommodate. A few years before the pandemic I swore I'd never commute again and I intend to live out the rest of my career that way. You will never catch me commuting every day.
It seems like there are ways to solve the commuting problem, by moving closer to work for example, in much the same way as you say others should find a job to satisfy their in-person work requirements. But opinions aside, what is true is that remote work is not common in the vast majority of workplaces around the world - and isn't a viable option for a number of of jobs. Saying "People work differently" doesn't change that reality.
>I swore I'd never commute again and I intend to live out the rest of my career that way
s/commute/go to the grocery store ;)
s/commute/go to the grocery store ;)
If you’re appealing to corporate authority, at-will employment means that being irritating to management can get you fired or perhaps blacklisted.
Barring a union contract, seeking shelter via anti-discrimination laws is the best aircover. So you shift from complaining about work conditions to complaining about conditions that do not reasonably accommodate a protected condition.
Being not “neuro-normative” is a great one to use as it feeds into tech stereotypes and is really difficult to disprove.
Barring a union contract, seeking shelter via anti-discrimination laws is the best aircover. So you shift from complaining about work conditions to complaining about conditions that do not reasonably accommodate a protected condition.
Being not “neuro-normative” is a great one to use as it feeds into tech stereotypes and is really difficult to disprove.
i can only speak for myself, but work from home has genuinely been life changing as an autistic person.
i also think you are right that choosing to work remotely comes at the risk of limiting opportunities, but the difference in quality of life is significant enough that i am willing to take that risk [it's not like those of us with terrible interpersonal skills were going to be making many life-changing connections irl anyway]
That is awesome! Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having the choice. What I think is crazy is people want to act like there aren't trade off's. You clearly are aware of them and for you they still overwhelmingly work in your favor - that's win-win.
If there is one positive thing from the pandemic, it did force companies that would have never entertained remote work to at least do it - and many will probably keep at least some remote work as part of their employment package. However I don't see it staying at, of all companies, Apple. Their corporate culture, desire for information control/secrecy - at this point if you are an employee of Apple and surprised they want everyone back in the office - well, that's more your problem than theirs.
If there is one positive thing from the pandemic, it did force companies that would have never entertained remote work to at least do it - and many will probably keep at least some remote work as part of their employment package. However I don't see it staying at, of all companies, Apple. Their corporate culture, desire for information control/secrecy - at this point if you are an employee of Apple and surprised they want everyone back in the office - well, that's more your problem than theirs.
There is more in life than just career, I'd say based on site where we are most of our careers are largely meaningless if one steps back enough.
But trying to explain this to folks who consider their office careers as pinnacle of their lives with some numbers on account to back this up are relatively high is often futile. Something about strong resistance to admitting mistakes done / direction taken in life that can't be undone.
I don't get why things need to be strictly this or that. Some way in between is almost always best. My needs may be very different from next guy's needs, but as long as we deliver what is expected who cares about the details.
Or to summarize this for those in back seats - WFH gains are not in added work productivity for most (some achieve that, mainly due to crappy offices) but what we gained for our personal lives while still able to perform enough. Its not even only about commuting, for me its 20 mins each way, but overall amount of freedom I gained is massive. Life is damn too short. Don't do decisions that you will almost guaranteed regret later. Chasing career is frequently quoted as #1 regret by dying folks.
But trying to explain this to folks who consider their office careers as pinnacle of their lives with some numbers on account to back this up are relatively high is often futile. Something about strong resistance to admitting mistakes done / direction taken in life that can't be undone.
I don't get why things need to be strictly this or that. Some way in between is almost always best. My needs may be very different from next guy's needs, but as long as we deliver what is expected who cares about the details.
Or to summarize this for those in back seats - WFH gains are not in added work productivity for most (some achieve that, mainly due to crappy offices) but what we gained for our personal lives while still able to perform enough. Its not even only about commuting, for me its 20 mins each way, but overall amount of freedom I gained is massive. Life is damn too short. Don't do decisions that you will almost guaranteed regret later. Chasing career is frequently quoted as #1 regret by dying folks.
But without going into a parallel universe where you always worked remote in a fully remote team you can't actually say for sure, you are just guessing with a giant and obvious bias. On top of that what worked for you might not work for other people in other life situation and other geographic locations.
Oh I 100% know - there are a handful of spontaneous hallway conversations that started as idle chit chat and veered off in unanticipated directions that altered my career path. I can see them clearly since they were literally life changing.
None of them - not one - would have happened virtually. There would never had been a reason for me to interact with those people other than I just happened to be in the same physical time/space as them and happened to stop and chat.
It's rather silly when you try to think about it rationally - that so much should ride on random chance; but it's also life. There's millions of years of social evolution favoring in person contact and to pretend otherwise is just silly.
None of them - not one - would have happened virtually. There would never had been a reason for me to interact with those people other than I just happened to be in the same physical time/space as them and happened to stop and chat.
It's rather silly when you try to think about it rationally - that so much should ride on random chance; but it's also life. There's millions of years of social evolution favoring in person contact and to pretend otherwise is just silly.
>None of them - not one - would have happened virtually.
And is it possible that this is not a universal thing? Maybe some people can solve problems or have ideas in a different way? Or maybe in the parallel universe you might have maybe less financial/career success but something even better (less stress more happiness) anyway I can tell you that as a developer you can solve problems, you can help the team from remote too. I have almost 20 years of coding experience only on remote but won't bet that 100% an office job would have been better or worse, we never know.
And is it possible that this is not a universal thing? Maybe some people can solve problems or have ideas in a different way? Or maybe in the parallel universe you might have maybe less financial/career success but something even better (less stress more happiness) anyway I can tell you that as a developer you can solve problems, you can help the team from remote too. I have almost 20 years of coding experience only on remote but won't bet that 100% an office job would have been better or worse, we never know.
The opposite also exists, plenty of anecdotes where individuals felt isolated at work and/or after they quit their job, losing any connection they had. The workplace isn't the magical cure-all to a society where people are increasingly busier and more focused on themselves and the online world.
Agree completely. There is a general malaise. It is going to create huge imbalances for people that want to work in office and together. Companies that are built from in-person collaboration will see different levels of productivity and innovation.
I say let the experiment run. It will soon become apparent.
I say let the experiment run. It will soon become apparent.
There are tradeoffs in both directions. Your point about spontaneous interactions is a good one, but consider the other tradeoffs at play:
- open layout offices are awful places to work where many people struggle to focus at all, to the point where their work is negatively impacted
- separating home location from work location opens up opportunities to work places certain people would never have considered before, unless they wanted to leave their friends/family/social groups/etc. behind
- cutting out a commute every day saves folks time, money, stress, and likely cuts down on a lot of wasteful greenhouse gas emissions
I'm relatively early in my career, but I also love WFH compared to in-office work. Why? I hated the commute, I don't like socializing with my coworkers outside of actual work, and I struggle to focus with folks on calls around me and without decent thermostat control. I acknowledge that some people can deal with all of those things, still be productive, and reap the benefits of in-person work. But there are also those of us whose careers have skyrocketed in the past couple of years specifically because we have a working arrangement that works better for us now.
It's hard to say how much this will impact my career trajectory in the long term. But I'm also more concerned about my private social life and hobbies than I am about my career, and remote work works far better for that, too.
TL;DR: Different strokes for different folks. Young people are not doomed by remote work.
- open layout offices are awful places to work where many people struggle to focus at all, to the point where their work is negatively impacted
- separating home location from work location opens up opportunities to work places certain people would never have considered before, unless they wanted to leave their friends/family/social groups/etc. behind
- cutting out a commute every day saves folks time, money, stress, and likely cuts down on a lot of wasteful greenhouse gas emissions
I'm relatively early in my career, but I also love WFH compared to in-office work. Why? I hated the commute, I don't like socializing with my coworkers outside of actual work, and I struggle to focus with folks on calls around me and without decent thermostat control. I acknowledge that some people can deal with all of those things, still be productive, and reap the benefits of in-person work. But there are also those of us whose careers have skyrocketed in the past couple of years specifically because we have a working arrangement that works better for us now.
It's hard to say how much this will impact my career trajectory in the long term. But I'm also more concerned about my private social life and hobbies than I am about my career, and remote work works far better for that, too.
TL;DR: Different strokes for different folks. Young people are not doomed by remote work.
I'm not saying anyone is doomed - you are just going to have dramatically fewer opportunities for serendipitous interactions; that's just a plain fact any way you slice it. And maybe for your career path that isn't important - but for most people it's far more important than they likely realize. Your reputation is the greatest asset you have - it always saddens me at how carelessly many people today treat theirs. Social media doesn't help here either; heck it's a constant struggle for me too.
I also don't think it has to be 100% either way. The most productive time in my career was when I split time in the office and at home. Office time was for meetings, collaboration, strategizing with others, networking, pushing the corporate bureaucracy along, etc. At home time was focus time to actually get shit done.
It worked amazingly well and I consider myself fortunate to work for several organizations that did allow and respect at least some remote work.
Like most things in life, extremes in any direction are rarely healthy, especially over time.
What I think is most dangerous about moves like this is by pushing so hard to one extreme they risk convincing a company like Apple that the whole concept is more trouble than it's worth. I dunno, maybe there is enough of a labor shortage of smart people where Apple will really shoot themselves in the foot if they maintain a hard line - but I doubt it. We rarely are as essential to the organization as we like to think we are :)
It will be interesting to see how it plays out but I think there are better ways of making your case than resorting to race bating and victimhood right out the gate.
I also don't think it has to be 100% either way. The most productive time in my career was when I split time in the office and at home. Office time was for meetings, collaboration, strategizing with others, networking, pushing the corporate bureaucracy along, etc. At home time was focus time to actually get shit done.
It worked amazingly well and I consider myself fortunate to work for several organizations that did allow and respect at least some remote work.
Like most things in life, extremes in any direction are rarely healthy, especially over time.
What I think is most dangerous about moves like this is by pushing so hard to one extreme they risk convincing a company like Apple that the whole concept is more trouble than it's worth. I dunno, maybe there is enough of a labor shortage of smart people where Apple will really shoot themselves in the foot if they maintain a hard line - but I doubt it. We rarely are as essential to the organization as we like to think we are :)
It will be interesting to see how it plays out but I think there are better ways of making your case than resorting to race bating and victimhood right out the gate.
many (most?) neuro-atypical people absolutely have a much better experience wfh rather than in person and policies that force back to office ignore their needs.
your understanding of personal, spontanoeus, life-changing moments are viewed through a context specific lens: your behaviors, routines, and lifestyles which at the time created a specific interaction. and you seem to be recalling it with rose-colored glasses.
because then suddenly you draw a conclusion that all personal spontaneity which has life-changing implications must happen in person (and that only these kinds of interactions can be serendipitous) and must happen according to <whatever arbitrary rules you think governs (your personal, remember) interactions>.
however your lens fails to resolve the context for what it is: a set of circumstances around how you personally lived (and worked).
Nothing more, nothing less.
many moons ago i happened to accidentally click on a game server for a game i play which has quite a niche, but super competitive online gaming community (fps). i quickly found myself in a server where there were a handful of people spectating a couple of people playing. all very casually. sometimes taking turns.
i then discovered each person in the server was a professional player, who previously and currently for the time competed for money, and were to varying degrees successful. i spent the remainder of my night unexpectedly well, not playing, and just watching. hanging. getting pointers.
ultimately it led to me making some cool friends, but specifically finding a mentor -- one of them took me under their wing and taught me how to really play the game. that interaction alone pushed me to not only stick with the game and to become a better player -- which under this person's guidance was crazy because of the knowledge they possessed -- but it also left me with a life-long friend.
this friendship is one i very much so value, and it was formed totally accidentally, unexpectedly, serendipitously, and completely 100% virtual -- i have yet to meet this person, or any of the others (they are foreign) in person to this day.
that is one of many personal experiences i have had on the internet.
i have absolutely no idea how people arrive at a general conclusion that `office == only_vector_for_serendipity` other than this line of thinking being a direct consequence of drinking Steve Jobs'/Apple kool-aid (ie: designing bathroom layouts to favor random interactions), while also conflating personal experience with universal truth-ness.
that does not mean in-person interactions, random or otherwise, serve no purpose (ever work with someone who has valuable input but often self-censors? body language is hard to hide). i am just baffled as to how one can make such a sweeping statement about a thing being absolutely necessary.
because then suddenly you draw a conclusion that all personal spontaneity which has life-changing implications must happen in person (and that only these kinds of interactions can be serendipitous) and must happen according to <whatever arbitrary rules you think governs (your personal, remember) interactions>.
however your lens fails to resolve the context for what it is: a set of circumstances around how you personally lived (and worked).
Nothing more, nothing less.
many moons ago i happened to accidentally click on a game server for a game i play which has quite a niche, but super competitive online gaming community (fps). i quickly found myself in a server where there were a handful of people spectating a couple of people playing. all very casually. sometimes taking turns.
i then discovered each person in the server was a professional player, who previously and currently for the time competed for money, and were to varying degrees successful. i spent the remainder of my night unexpectedly well, not playing, and just watching. hanging. getting pointers.
ultimately it led to me making some cool friends, but specifically finding a mentor -- one of them took me under their wing and taught me how to really play the game. that interaction alone pushed me to not only stick with the game and to become a better player -- which under this person's guidance was crazy because of the knowledge they possessed -- but it also left me with a life-long friend.
this friendship is one i very much so value, and it was formed totally accidentally, unexpectedly, serendipitously, and completely 100% virtual -- i have yet to meet this person, or any of the others (they are foreign) in person to this day.
that is one of many personal experiences i have had on the internet.
i have absolutely no idea how people arrive at a general conclusion that `office == only_vector_for_serendipity` other than this line of thinking being a direct consequence of drinking Steve Jobs'/Apple kool-aid (ie: designing bathroom layouts to favor random interactions), while also conflating personal experience with universal truth-ness.
that does not mean in-person interactions, random or otherwise, serve no purpose (ever work with someone who has valuable input but often self-censors? body language is hard to hide). i am just baffled as to how one can make such a sweeping statement about a thing being absolutely necessary.
Perhaps the most compelling argument was that Apple was being hypocritical in the way it markets its own products. "We tell all of our customers how great our products are for remote work, yet, we ourselves, cannot use them to work remotely?" the letter states.
What products do they market for remote work? The Apple Studio Display that has an integrated camera with the quality of a late 2000s flip phone?
They have created a series of epic comedy-advertisements for their productivity suite:
https://youtu.be/GC5Gmkn92Bg
https://youtu.be/GC5Gmkn92Bg
i don't see how thats hypocritical though.
The full quote:
> We tell all of our customers how great our products are for remote work, yet, we ourselves, cannot use them to work remotely? How can we expect our customers to take that seriously? How can we understand what problems of remote work need solving in our products if we don't live it?
I'd have to agree. If you're building products and market them for "remote working", then you better have figured out remote working yourself in your own environment, otherwise I won't trust that you've actually gotten it right.
Of course, there is also a difference between different job functions. If you're in the hardware team, I can see how it's hard to actually collaborate remotely on a bunch of stuff. But for the pencil pushers in corporate? Definitely should have figured out how to make that work.
> We tell all of our customers how great our products are for remote work, yet, we ourselves, cannot use them to work remotely? How can we expect our customers to take that seriously? How can we understand what problems of remote work need solving in our products if we don't live it?
I'd have to agree. If you're building products and market them for "remote working", then you better have figured out remote working yourself in your own environment, otherwise I won't trust that you've actually gotten it right.
Of course, there is also a difference between different job functions. If you're in the hardware team, I can see how it's hard to actually collaborate remotely on a bunch of stuff. But for the pencil pushers in corporate? Definitely should have figured out how to make that work.
Tools can be ideal without the situation they call for being ideal. Apple isn't pushing for remote work, it just has a good solve for it. Its not hypocritical at all.
Just because a tool is great for working remotely does not mean remote working is good.
Turkey marketing its drones as great for war does not mean Turkey is being hypocritical for saying that war isn’t good.
Turkey marketing its drones as great for war does not mean Turkey is being hypocritical for saying that war isn’t good.
> Just because a tool is great for working remotely does not mean remote working is good.
So lets say Apple doesn't believe "remote working" is good in general. Why would they be building tools for something they don't think is good?
So lets say Apple doesn't believe "remote working" is good in general. Why would they be building tools for something they don't think is good?
I don’t see Apple claiming remote working is not good in general. They just don’t believe remote working is good for them.
And again, Turkey creating great drones does not require them to believe war is good.
This is a pretty straightforward logical fallacy.
And again, Turkey creating great drones does not require them to believe war is good.
This is a pretty straightforward logical fallacy.
> Turkey creating great drones does not require them to believe war is good.
I don’t think that’s the correct analogy. It’s more like Turkey creating great drones while also believing that drones are not an effective way to wage war.
I don’t think that’s the correct analogy. It’s more like Turkey creating great drones while also believing that drones are not an effective way to wage war.
Isn't it $entity creates $tool. $tool is used by people for $scenario. $entity doesn't like $scenario.
Apple nowhere said their products aren't good for remote work...?
Apple nowhere said their products aren't good for remote work...?
> Why would they be building tools for something they don't think is good?
other than profits for shareholders?
other than profits for shareholders?
money?
Your Turkey allegory isn't fitting due to "si vis pacem para bellum". Turkey can say war isn't good, and one of the best ways to dissuade potential enemies is by being good at war. Nothing similar is at play with Apple.
There’s a big difference between what’s needed to design and build something and what’s needed to use something. I hope Tim Cook fires all these whiners.
They aren’t being fired for having different opinions.
They are being fired for (a) essentially explicitly stating they are not gonna do a good job working in the way the company thinks its employees should be working (b) trying to get the company to change through “open letters” through the press.
Both (a) and (b) are reasons for firing on their own. It has nothing to do with differing opinions.
It’s like me telling my team that since the Product Owner did not prioritize the feature I think is critical for us to work on first, I will not really do a good job with working on the features the PO did prioritize.
The company would be foolish to fire me because I said our PO sucks and makes terrible decisions. The company would not be foolish to fire me because I said that because I disagree with the PO I’m gonna do a half hearted job. Especially if the way I communicated this to the company is through a half page advert in the NYTimes.
They are being fired for (a) essentially explicitly stating they are not gonna do a good job working in the way the company thinks its employees should be working (b) trying to get the company to change through “open letters” through the press.
Both (a) and (b) are reasons for firing on their own. It has nothing to do with differing opinions.
It’s like me telling my team that since the Product Owner did not prioritize the feature I think is critical for us to work on first, I will not really do a good job with working on the features the PO did prioritize.
The company would be foolish to fire me because I said our PO sucks and makes terrible decisions. The company would not be foolish to fire me because I said that because I disagree with the PO I’m gonna do a half hearted job. Especially if the way I communicated this to the company is through a half page advert in the NYTimes.
>>They aren’t being fired for having different opinions.<<
Just to be clear, no one mentioned anything about anyone being fired in the article that I could see. There is a return to the office mandate for two days a week, so I guess if you just don't show up for work two days a week, yeah, you'll be fired but that's a different thing.
In an anonymous poll given (article linked below) there were quite a few employees who stated they were going to look for remote jobs and quit.
https://fortune.com/2022/05/02/apple-workers-unhappy-return-...
Just to be clear, no one mentioned anything about anyone being fired in the article that I could see. There is a return to the office mandate for two days a week, so I guess if you just don't show up for work two days a week, yeah, you'll be fired but that's a different thing.
In an anonymous poll given (article linked below) there were quite a few employees who stated they were going to look for remote jobs and quit.
https://fortune.com/2022/05/02/apple-workers-unhappy-return-...
Why? What harm is it to you?
capableweb(2)
Apple is in a very tough spot. A $5bn headquarters sits relatively vacant with decreasing likelihood that there will be a return on investment. They ironically dug themselves into a hole by preaching how it would revolutionize the workplace while most feel this way about WFH. The paradigm shift seems obvious, especially when you account for the unrelenting rise in commercial real estate prices since Covid.
Perhaps Apple cannot acknowledge the foot in their mouth because it would contribute to a systemic collapse of the commercial real estate market... crazy times.
Perhaps Apple cannot acknowledge the foot in their mouth because it would contribute to a systemic collapse of the commercial real estate market... crazy times.
Apple fucked themselves by embracing the status quo of silicon valley commuter car culture.
It's hard not to notice that so many of the complaints around return to work from SV area posters centre around commuting woes.
If SV cities were compact, walkable places where people could easily walk, bike and take transit to work returning to work wouldn't cause so much grief.
People are upset at the notion of a return to an hours long commute on the highway. If their commute was a 15 minute bike ride there'd be less opposition.
Apple built the wrong thing in the wrong place, and never became politically involved in trying to make life better for their employees.
It's hard not to notice that so many of the complaints around return to work from SV area posters centre around commuting woes.
If SV cities were compact, walkable places where people could easily walk, bike and take transit to work returning to work wouldn't cause so much grief.
People are upset at the notion of a return to an hours long commute on the highway. If their commute was a 15 minute bike ride there'd be less opposition.
Apple built the wrong thing in the wrong place, and never became politically involved in trying to make life better for their employees.
While I don't think you are completely wrong, as a New Yorker I have to say that you'll find the same conversation going on here, except about the subway.
Commuting just sucks in general.
Commuting just sucks in general.
I've worked remote on and off for 6 years. The first two years was pure bliss. I slowly started to realize that having no hobbies, partner, etc was not good for my mental health. It took about 6 months to fix that. That has been (in my experience) the only thing that would excite me enough to go into the office.
I walked to work in Los Angeles (can you believe it?) for 2 years in-between and it was great - i loved that job. It still didn't hold a candle to WFH for me. I think many have realized this same thing in recent years: it becomes very hard to want to go back for a multitude of reasons.
I walked to work in Los Angeles (can you believe it?) for 2 years in-between and it was great - i loved that job. It still didn't hold a candle to WFH for me. I think many have realized this same thing in recent years: it becomes very hard to want to go back for a multitude of reasons.
Read somewhere that their famous 5Bn headquarters is also fully open plan office, as opposed to their previous buildings.
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.
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.
It's so interesting to me that we still struggle to get out of the 'hours worked' mindset when considering how valuable someone is to a company. I would argue it's completely irrelevant if someone is gaming, even if it's almost all their time. The question to answer is, what value are they actually bringing to the organization? Would you rather have someone that's useless but working hard 10 hours a day over someone who's brilliant but only works 2 hours a day? I certainly wouldn't.
I think competent organizations will actually do the counter and embrace trusting their employees. IME, it is basically already impossible not to -- there's just way too much work and complexity for someone to accurately know exactly what all of their reports are doing.
I think competent organizations will actually do the counter and embrace trusting their employees. IME, it is basically already impossible not to -- there's just way too much work and complexity for someone to accurately know exactly what all of their reports are doing.
I worked for a small company in 2020 that wanted to get people back in the office by June of that year to “foster better communication” while Covid was still going strong.
That next week, a recruiter from BigTech sent me a message about applying for a software engineering position. I asked them would it be permanently remote. They said “no”. I was about to end the conversation. But then we kept talking and they suggested I talk to another department that was always designed to be remote. I got a job there.
There are way too many opportunities for software engineers to be begging a company to WFH.
That next week, a recruiter from BigTech sent me a message about applying for a software engineering position. I asked them would it be permanently remote. They said “no”. I was about to end the conversation. But then we kept talking and they suggested I talk to another department that was always designed to be remote. I got a job there.
There are way too many opportunities for software engineers to be begging a company to WFH.
I don't see how there can be any debate around WFH. The S&P 500 had record profitability during this completely unplanned WFH experience.
If WFH was so terrible for business there should be ample proof, but so far it has only be shown to be a success.
If WFH was so terrible for business there should be ample proof, but so far it has only be shown to be a success.
"The S&P 500 had record profitability during this completely unplanned WFH experience."
Correlation != Causation
Correlation != Causation
True, but if a company wants to restrict something and cites productivity as the reason, I would hope they could provide concrete evidence. Most of the publicly stated reasons against remote work/WFH seem to be qualitative and only reflect the values of executives.
Because it is about status and control. They want to see all the busy-bee activity in their expensive buildings. Workers have been asking for WFH for years, the pandemic proved it could work even for the sudden and untrained.
Find a new place to work. Support companies that trust and value their employees.
I personally don't plan to commute to an open office just to use software tools designed for remote work at a desk there instead of my more comfortable, quieter one at home. If I had a private office at work then maybe I'd reconsider.
I personally don't plan to commute to an open office just to use software tools designed for remote work at a desk there instead of my more comfortable, quieter one at home. If I had a private office at work then maybe I'd reconsider.
I think a big missing dimension of the return to office campaigns of large companies is the other pressures these organizations are facing. The pressure to return to the office is not coming from management; it's coming from investors who own a bunch of commercial real estate and local political machines.
There is certainly some desire for controlling the workers. But for the most part this is about access to the cash flow commuting workers generate.
The Mayor of New York for instance has made many public declarations about everyone needing to get back to the office, but this is just one public example. Any city has these same pressures, they're simply more acute in NY. Unless you go back to the office you won't spend a ton of money you wouldn't need to otherwise. This is the crux of it.
There is certainly some desire for controlling the workers. But for the most part this is about access to the cash flow commuting workers generate.
The Mayor of New York for instance has made many public declarations about everyone needing to get back to the office, but this is just one public example. Any city has these same pressures, they're simply more acute in NY. Unless you go back to the office you won't spend a ton of money you wouldn't need to otherwise. This is the crux of it.
Stop whining and vote with your feet. If you're talented enough to work for Apple, there are plenty of other wonderful companies out there that will happily let you work remotely.
Not every company needs to have the exact same policies on everything.
Not every company needs to have the exact same policies on everything.
“The first time you have an argument with your spouse, you should get a divorce”
Is what you’re saying here.
They’re trying to make company changes to improve their relationship with someone they like to work for, without using the nuclear option.
Is what you’re saying here.
They’re trying to make company changes to improve their relationship with someone they like to work for, without using the nuclear option.
I go to work because I like exchanging labor for money. The marriage analogy is kind of crazy.
I’ve had eight jobs in my 25 years as an adult. It never took me more than two months to find a job I was happy with. It took me 15 years and one failed marriage to find a a spouse I was happy with.
When I have a disagreement with my wife, we compromise as equal partners. I’m not in any way an equal partner to the CEO of a 2 trillion+ dollar company.
Leaving my marriage necessitated lawyers, going to court, and giving up half of everything we accumulated together. Leaving a job required a form resignation letter with meaningless platitudes and a two week notice.
I’ve had eight jobs in my 25 years as an adult. It never took me more than two months to find a job I was happy with. It took me 15 years and one failed marriage to find a a spouse I was happy with.
When I have a disagreement with my wife, we compromise as equal partners. I’m not in any way an equal partner to the CEO of a 2 trillion+ dollar company.
Leaving my marriage necessitated lawyers, going to court, and giving up half of everything we accumulated together. Leaving a job required a form resignation letter with meaningless platitudes and a two week notice.
I wonder how many marriages have been saved by an open letter.
The GP's metaphor of a marriage is not applicable in this case, since a marriage is a friendship/partnership, and the corporate structure is essentially a kingdom. Options are limited if the king and his advisors aren't listening, or they listened and rejected the approach for whatever their reasons are. An open letter to the king probably won't change anything, but worth a try before emigrating.
We swap jobs all the time and there is no expectation of permanence; not a very good analogy.
Some people like their jobs and their coworkers and aren’t especially interested in changing companies.
Sometimes leadership wants to do the right thing, but they can’t hear the workers through the managers
Sometimes leadership wants to do the right thing, but they can’t hear the workers through the managers
So you really think the CEO of Apple didn’t know that people would prefer to work from home and have the option to work from some place that cost less?
>"Stop whining and vote with your feet."
If this is a deal breaker, yes. But this kind of approach is a last resort. Why shouldn't someone try to influence company policy before taking such a drastic step?
If this is a deal breaker, yes. But this kind of approach is a last resort. Why shouldn't someone try to influence company policy before taking such a drastic step?
Because if the CEO of a trillion dollar company wants people in the office, it's very likely that you will convince them otherwise. Tim Cook has tremendous influence over his company, these employees do not. Maybe if they had a union there would be some bargaining power but as it stands they can't do anything outside of leaving.
Happy to be proven wrong here, but labor doesn't have much power in the US; especially when it's labor against a trillion dollar company.
Happy to be proven wrong here, but labor doesn't have much power in the US; especially when it's labor against a trillion dollar company.
>Happy to be proven wrong here, but labor doesn't have much power in the US
I hope you're proven wrong too. I like to think this pandemic has accelerated progress on the worker's rights front. I want to believe workers as a collective have realized they're bigger than the companies they work for. This fight against Apple should be really interesting either way.
I hope you're proven wrong too. I like to think this pandemic has accelerated progress on the worker's rights front. I want to believe workers as a collective have realized they're bigger than the companies they work for. This fight against Apple should be really interesting either way.
I can guarantee you that “Nothing can ever be better, so why try?” will definitely not work to change policies. But it would make one a stereotypical Democratic senator.
...
Voting with your feet is trying. Also keep your snarky (and highly boring) political stance to Reddit, whenever possible (always).
Voting with your feet is trying. Also keep your snarky (and highly boring) political stance to Reddit, whenever possible (always).
But is writing a (somewhat pathetic) open letter really trying? Perhaps organizing a strike would convey more meaning, although I don't see that happening at all.
Yes, trying means finding another job,
What’s drastic about leaving a job? The average tenure of a software engineer at any major tech company is 3 years. I never thought it was a “drastic” step to change jobs when one wasn’t what I like - 8 jobs and counting including six since 2008.
How drastic it is depends on the personality and living arrangements of the people involved. I know it's a common stereotype that developers hop jobs frequently, but there are also plenty of developers who do not. I know many such people at my current employer. I happen to be very content working there despite knowing I could make more if I went somewhere else and then jumped ship again and again.
It’s not a stereotype. It’s statistics.
https://developerpitstop.com/how-long-do-software-engineers-...
The people who want to work from home and are being forced to work in the office, by definition aren’t “content”.
As far as the living arrangements, if the impetus for you leaving is to find remote work, how will changing to another job change your living situation?
https://developerpitstop.com/how-long-do-software-engineers-...
The people who want to work from home and are being forced to work in the office, by definition aren’t “content”.
As far as the living arrangements, if the impetus for you leaving is to find remote work, how will changing to another job change your living situation?
>"The people who want to work from home and are being forced to work in the office, by definition aren’t “content”."
I feel like being "content" involves a lot of other factors and trying to determine if someone is content means looking at other aspects of the job holistically. I've always detested yearly evaluations and the 'song and dance' one must do to write "corpo-speak" about their achievements and goals. Yet, that consistent displeasure has never outweighed the work life balance I've enjoyed so far. My concern is that in your framework I would be considered by definition, not content.
>"if the impetus for you leaving is to find remote work, how will changing to another job change your living situation?"
I don't see jobs as fungible. While you might be able to WFH the new company will have different benefits such as potentially worse health insurance, compensation that isn't as good, or fewer paid days off. You might end up working remotely for a company in another timezone and that might mean you cannot drop your child off at school anymore. That kind of thing.
I feel like being "content" involves a lot of other factors and trying to determine if someone is content means looking at other aspects of the job holistically. I've always detested yearly evaluations and the 'song and dance' one must do to write "corpo-speak" about their achievements and goals. Yet, that consistent displeasure has never outweighed the work life balance I've enjoyed so far. My concern is that in your framework I would be considered by definition, not content.
>"if the impetus for you leaving is to find remote work, how will changing to another job change your living situation?"
I don't see jobs as fungible. While you might be able to WFH the new company will have different benefits such as potentially worse health insurance, compensation that isn't as good, or fewer paid days off. You might end up working remotely for a company in another timezone and that might mean you cannot drop your child off at school anymore. That kind of thing.
If you work for any company that offers health insurance, there is a pretty high bar set by the ACA for employers that make the difference in health insurance benefits different at most a few thousand dollars. You can usually negotiate the difference by asking for more money.
Even if that’s not the case, being able to work remotely means you can choose to work in a lower cost of living area - ie basically any place away from Apple’s headquarters will be cheaper.
It would also be a very regressive company - one that I have never worked at in 25 years - that would frown on you saying “I’m not available during $x hours when I need to drop my kid off to school. That’s the benefit of working remotely. You have a meeting at 9:00 and can’t get home in time? Pull out your cellular equipped tablet and join the meeting
I once left home at 9:00 AM during a workday to see my parents 4 hours away. But it took a whole day after stopping along the way to attend meetings from my cellular iPad.
I logged in when I got to my parents and finished my workday.
I have meetings scheduled with someone on the opposite coast at 7:00 ET? I log out at 5, walk to the next room to my home gym, exercise and log back in at 7 to have the meeting.
We are very much a calendar culture in my org.
Even if that’s not the case, being able to work remotely means you can choose to work in a lower cost of living area - ie basically any place away from Apple’s headquarters will be cheaper.
It would also be a very regressive company - one that I have never worked at in 25 years - that would frown on you saying “I’m not available during $x hours when I need to drop my kid off to school. That’s the benefit of working remotely. You have a meeting at 9:00 and can’t get home in time? Pull out your cellular equipped tablet and join the meeting
I once left home at 9:00 AM during a workday to see my parents 4 hours away. But it took a whole day after stopping along the way to attend meetings from my cellular iPad.
I logged in when I got to my parents and finished my workday.
I have meetings scheduled with someone on the opposite coast at 7:00 ET? I log out at 5, walk to the next room to my home gym, exercise and log back in at 7 to have the meeting.
We are very much a calendar culture in my org.
> I don't see jobs as fungible.
Very odd, seeing how you literally posted very fungibale things right after that. You know that you can just negotiate those things and only jump ship once you've found something that satisfies you.
If you wanted to make your point, you should've talked about actual barely-fungible things when switching jobs, i.e. if you're going to do the work you've been promised, your managers and company culture, etc etc etc
Very odd, seeing how you literally posted very fungibale things right after that. You know that you can just negotiate those things and only jump ship once you've found something that satisfies you.
If you wanted to make your point, you should've talked about actual barely-fungible things when switching jobs, i.e. if you're going to do the work you've been promised, your managers and company culture, etc etc etc
If enough people will vote with their feet, Apple will be a full remote company by the end of the year :D
I usually think along your lines, and recently I read an article that made me think different https://the.ink/p/as-goes-amazon-so-goes-the-nation?s=r - not always different, and I don't know when to apply one thinking or the other yet. But I see its value.
Some companies Apple poached engineers from now have fully remote working arrangements and are hiring. Just saying.
[deleted]
Also, you know Apple's stance. If they even respond to the open letter, expect that they'll want you back in a year or two, anyway.
You are right, I will apply to Apple, because I don't like working from home.
I just got an offer from Apple in a mixed HW/SW role (a role that I am allowed to perform remotely at my current company). They are offering me more money than my current employer, but their remote work policy is awful and their general benefits are meh (not many days off) so I am declining the offer. I know Apple would be amazing to work for especially for the team I interview for, but they are shooting themselves in the foot with these policies.
Some people like work from home, some like being in the office.
Why force either?
But I understand it's far easier for companies to pick one and apply (especially Apple and other large companies who have invested heavily in expensive real estate that would otherwise sit empty).
Why force either?
But I understand it's far easier for companies to pick one and apply (especially Apple and other large companies who have invested heavily in expensive real estate that would otherwise sit empty).
These WFH stories seem to preferentially solicit comments from WFH employees who enjoy the flexibility to comment on HN during the workday.
do you think that people in an office _don't_ slack off and browse HN/reddit/whatever?
At least at home I don't need to feel like there's someone standing over my shoulder.
At least at home I don't need to feel like there's someone standing over my shoulder.
I would wager Apple employees, or in-office employees in general, tend not comment on threads like these in fear of publicly disagreeing with company leadership. So maybe there is some selection bias at play.
LOL, I feel attacked...
When people keep calling literally everything racist it begins to drown out true instances of racism.
In general, glad to see people advocating for what they see as the most effective environment in which to work. Some of these points are a bit strained, though, especially the "serendipity" [1] point which they choose to lead with - one could just as easily argue that being siloed with a smaller group of people working on similar problems is good for serendipity - that's certainly the way that universities, labs, startups, etc. seem to work well.
[1]: https://appletogether.org/hotnews/thoughts-on-office-bound-w...
[1]: https://appletogether.org/hotnews/thoughts-on-office-bound-w...
Most of those complaining joined Apple when it was fully on-site, and very remote hostile. Even those that joined during the closure were aware of the company's stance on remote work, so what they are asking for is a favour.
Personally I just want companies to settle on their policies so I can prioritize finding in person work. Everyone can have their opinions and now the chips need to settle so we can pick the places that are best for us.
It's going to be fascinating to watch this play out over the next few years. Google will have 3.1 million sqft of space in Manhattan when it's done building out its most recent acquisition [0].
This may be an opportunity for companies who need technical teams, but aren't able to compensate at FAANG levels, to compete.
[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/nyregion/google-buys-buil...
This may be an opportunity for companies who need technical teams, but aren't able to compensate at FAANG levels, to compete.
[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/nyregion/google-buys-buil...
I have to think real estate investments, employment laws, and other factors beyond what company leadership states openly must be involved. The employee objections here are written out clearly, but the policies from big companies that require more than 50% of time in the office seem like such a tragic compromise that I can't believe they've been fully explained.
The longer companies waffle on these policies the more likely it is they will hamper recruitment and face attrition to companies with more consistent policies.
In-office is much less effective when your team is distributed across multiple sites/time zones anyway which seems to be the new normal.
The longer companies waffle on these policies the more likely it is they will hamper recruitment and face attrition to companies with more consistent policies.
In-office is much less effective when your team is distributed across multiple sites/time zones anyway which seems to be the new normal.
I work for a university and they are hellbent on bringing us back to office full time. Currently we work in office 2 days a week.
My office is in a cubical, ina concrete room with no windows.
Meanwhile complaining about how much space is needed and how there is no parking but wont adjust policies to let us work from home, for those who can.
Makes no sense.
I am a web developer / analyst and have no contact with anyone outside of my developoment team.
Get this, our meetings are on zoom in the office anyways. lol
Get this, our meetings are on zoom in the office anyways. lol
Remote work is an existential threat to large knowledge-work-based corporations or at least to their management hierarchies. Having spent $$ on fancy buildings that are now empty is just one aspect of this. Problem for them is: the genie is out of the bottle now. We've spent 2y proving that things are humming along just fine without everyone on a campus, commuting for 2h every day.
> It will make Apple younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied, in short
They are free to leave and enrich other companies.
They are free to leave and enrich other companies.
the same can be said for people living in States or cities where they don't agree with the current administration's policies.
should the response always be to leave? what about fighting to try to make the place you are currently in better?
should the response always be to leave? what about fighting to try to make the place you are currently in better?
> what about fighting to try to make the place you are currently in better?
Define "better"
Define "better"
In March 2020 I hated WFH, the lack of interacting with people drove me up the wall.
Two years later, I onboarded many people on my team, figured out productive ways to collaborate remotely and developed very much real friendships with people I have never been in the same room with.
It takes effort to ensure people have a forum to ask questions, mentor people or just hang out online. But it's not impossible.
Two years later, I onboarded many people on my team, figured out productive ways to collaborate remotely and developed very much real friendships with people I have never been in the same room with.
It takes effort to ensure people have a forum to ask questions, mentor people or just hang out online. But it's not impossible.
> "In short, it will lead to privileges deciding who can work for Apple, not who’d be the best fit."
Doesn't forcing people to work with home lead to this more? Not everyone has an available, suitable work space at home, and those who don't or who have noisy families etc (generally less white, male, etc etc) are likely to miss opportunities they could have taken in an office.
Making this a social justice issue is a weird, speculative way to deal with this. Why bring gender and race into it, why not just argue the merits (which do seem to be in favour of remote work). Seems a silly letter to me.
Doesn't forcing people to work with home lead to this more? Not everyone has an available, suitable work space at home, and those who don't or who have noisy families etc (generally less white, male, etc etc) are likely to miss opportunities they could have taken in an office.
Making this a social justice issue is a weird, speculative way to deal with this. Why bring gender and race into it, why not just argue the merits (which do seem to be in favour of remote work). Seems a silly letter to me.
It's particularly silly when you consider the number of offices and timezones.
Not only is a large amount of interaction via video call, when on site there'll be a shortage of rooms and the sound quality is usually pretty dire.
Apple knows what form of work is best for Apple. If it turns out they are wrong, they'll eventually suffer in the market as the result of making the wrong choice.
That said, being remote or hybrid first seems like it would be a huge competitive advantage for a least some teams in Apple...like the Facetime team.
I tried using their "new" like zoom Facetime meeting with a URL feature for a work-related meeting. The lack of basic functionality like a text chat to share links and other notes in shows that Apple either doesn't actually use Facetime for their own remote meetings or they have no idea how most people use these types of tools to collaborate.
That said, being remote or hybrid first seems like it would be a huge competitive advantage for a least some teams in Apple...like the Facetime team.
I tried using their "new" like zoom Facetime meeting with a URL feature for a work-related meeting. The lack of basic functionality like a text chat to share links and other notes in shows that Apple either doesn't actually use Facetime for their own remote meetings or they have no idea how most people use these types of tools to collaborate.
This is an anti-worker move.
If Apple suffers in the market as a result, their executives will be gently kicked out with substantial severance packages, and workers will be laid off en masse. That's an anti-worker result.
Win-win for executives, lose-lose for workers.
If Apple suffers in the market as a result, their executives will be gently kicked out with substantial severance packages, and workers will be laid off en masse. That's an anti-worker result.
Win-win for executives, lose-lose for workers.
I feel like this is true for many apple tools with robust competition. Apple’s offering always only seems to scratch the surface of what’s necessary to be competitive, plus their unique apple-y take. Which, tbf, I often find refreshing, if only it had all the other features I need too.
Instead I’m often felt feeling like someone at apple said “we can do this better” but gets distracted shortly after deploying the MVP.
Instead I’m often felt feeling like someone at apple said “we can do this better” but gets distracted shortly after deploying the MVP.
For what it's worth, I fully support the letter. It's well written and really sums up what many modern workers want.
We've reached a technological tipping point when it comes to flexibility. Either embrace it or die.
I've had my head in my hands watching one of our departments efforts trying to hire staff (who are forcing in-office presence), they cannot find the employees and are now offering other benefits to compensate. No dice. Not their fault, it's being forced by directors. From afar, I'm watching the slow death of the company as existing talent withiers and isn't replaced.
Embrace it or die.
We've reached a technological tipping point when it comes to flexibility. Either embrace it or die.
I've had my head in my hands watching one of our departments efforts trying to hire staff (who are forcing in-office presence), they cannot find the employees and are now offering other benefits to compensate. No dice. Not their fault, it's being forced by directors. From afar, I'm watching the slow death of the company as existing talent withiers and isn't replaced.
Embrace it or die.
All these arguments against work-from-office/hybrid, not that I disagree with, but hasn't that been the case since forever, pre-Covid? I mean, how did working people live last time? How about people whose job can't be done WFH, like a surgeon or postman?
I'm almost 40, and most of my work life has been at the office (like most people who have experienced work pre-Covid). I also spent ~5 years WFH when running my small startup, although now I'm back in the corporate. In my opinion, and from asking around, what many people want is "choice". Hybrid seems to be that.
I'm almost 40, and most of my work life has been at the office (like most people who have experienced work pre-Covid). I also spent ~5 years WFH when running my small startup, although now I'm back in the corporate. In my opinion, and from asking around, what many people want is "choice". Hybrid seems to be that.
Ignorant European here, I fail to see any connections..
> They said that Apple's reasons for implementing the policy don't stand up, and that the policy is wasteful, inflexible and will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce
How does this even work?
> They said that Apple's reasons for implementing the policy don't stand up, and that the policy is wasteful, inflexible and will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce
How does this even work?
The logic behind this is that work from home allowed greater participation from not-these groups. Folks whose physical or mental health was improved in a work from home environment (I know someone with chronic migraines, for whom the typical 'Glass and steel open office' workspace is basically hell on a random draw of days).
Work from home also allowed for more schedule flexibility - it's hard to run an errand, pick the kids up from school, etc. when that's a 15 minute trip, rather than having to commute back home. This burden often falls disproportionately on women, and workers with families (who are likely slightly older than those who don't).
Removing the constraint of "You have to have the capital to move to SV to work here" allows hiring from a broader and more diverse pool of groups with less generational wealth, which means likely a more diverse body of job candidates.
Whether you agree with this or not, there is a logic behind it. Heck, I think they actually missed a couple axes of workers Apple is going to miss out on.
Work from home also allowed for more schedule flexibility - it's hard to run an errand, pick the kids up from school, etc. when that's a 15 minute trip, rather than having to commute back home. This burden often falls disproportionately on women, and workers with families (who are likely slightly older than those who don't).
Removing the constraint of "You have to have the capital to move to SV to work here" allows hiring from a broader and more diverse pool of groups with less generational wealth, which means likely a more diverse body of job candidates.
Whether you agree with this or not, there is a logic behind it. Heck, I think they actually missed a couple axes of workers Apple is going to miss out on.
How it makes for more white employees I fail to comprehend. Even if there was reason, remote work only hides the problem but does not solve it.
You could argue letting people work from home creates only more separation of cultures.. If you want bigger cultural diversity just treat everyone equally?
You could argue letting people work from home creates only more separation of cultures.. If you want bigger cultural diversity just treat everyone equally?
`If you want bigger cultural diversity just treat everyone equally?`
As a brief thought experiment for you:
- You have one pool of workers who work well in an environment with ambient noise and distractions
- You have a second pool of workers who need quiet spaces to concentrate
You treat them all equally by placing them in an open plan office with an excellent office-wide Spotify playlist.
Do you think you'll end up with both pools being proportionally represented?
As a brief thought experiment for you:
- You have one pool of workers who work well in an environment with ambient noise and distractions
- You have a second pool of workers who need quiet spaces to concentrate
You treat them all equally by placing them in an open plan office with an excellent office-wide Spotify playlist.
Do you think you'll end up with both pools being proportionally represented?
Except, you have a third pool who is afraid of being oppressed from fellow workers, so you allow them to stay at home. Which is not smart.
The only way to get Apple to change is to have mass resignations of software developers across the company.
Best solution is to insist on a salary sufficient to purchase a home in the Bay Area while spending no more than 33% of your income on housing. If they want to pay that much, maybe that's not a bad deal. Otherwise it's a bad deal.
I've always heard that Apple culture is secretive to the point where multiple people working on the same product can be talking about the same thing without realizing it (since each team has different codenames for the same product).
is this true?
is this true?
Think with Air BnB's recent promotion of work from anywhere the big tech firms are going to have to follow or lose employees.
Majority of ppl do not want to work in an office after working from anywhere past two years. We want our freedom as all have shown to do our jobs successfully remotely no need to go back to an office ever!
Work life is forever changed.
Cities whose economies are hurting and will continue to hurt I say need to turn that commercial real estate into remote worker fully furnished and temporary apartments. Place for remote workers who can...city hop every 3 to 6 to 9 month to 12 months. I'd enjoy city hop remote working as nothing really is tying me down .. those Im dating and or in a relationship can join me or visit me and I can experience living in different cities like Chicago, Honolulu, Seattle, Miami, Austin, etc
Majority of ppl do not want to work in an office after working from anywhere past two years. We want our freedom as all have shown to do our jobs successfully remotely no need to go back to an office ever!
Work life is forever changed.
Cities whose economies are hurting and will continue to hurt I say need to turn that commercial real estate into remote worker fully furnished and temporary apartments. Place for remote workers who can...city hop every 3 to 6 to 9 month to 12 months. I'd enjoy city hop remote working as nothing really is tying me down .. those Im dating and or in a relationship can join me or visit me and I can experience living in different cities like Chicago, Honolulu, Seattle, Miami, Austin, etc
Hopefully they're putting effort into unionizing behind the scenes, because otherwise there's 0 chance Apple is going to say "sure everyone can choose to not show up to our brand new $5bn HQ"
Of all the places, I actually wouldn’t mind going into Apple’s (relatively) new HQ…if I lived within 30 minutes. Otherwise, it’s a complete waste of my personal time sitting in traffic and waste of gas.
Leaving job is so easy when you are WFH. You can just grind leetcode instead of commuting. I think thats why companies are worried. Employees can easily jump companies when WFH.
Any actual metrics on employee productivity with the full remote, full office, or hybrid model? No wonder our labor productivity has been stagnate over the last decade.
and will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
I mean, they're just asking you to come to the building 3 days a week.
I mean, they're just asking you to come to the building 3 days a week.
It seems like every complaint or request is being rewritten to appear based in social justice.
I feel confident we'll begin to see HOAs justifying their grass-length rules because "longer lawns disproportionately affect historically oppressed, disabled, and neurodivergent persons"
This is not a great trend, if you care about equality in society, because shit is getting so watered down it's about meaningless.
I feel confident we'll begin to see HOAs justifying their grass-length rules because "longer lawns disproportionately affect historically oppressed, disabled, and neurodivergent persons"
This is not a great trend, if you care about equality in society, because shit is getting so watered down it's about meaningless.
Please think for a second about how a WFH policy might impact some groups more than others.
Could you, please, give your point of view on it? This is something I never thought about.
The logic behind this is that work from home allowed greater participation from not-these groups. Folks whose physical or mental health was improved in a work from home environment (I know someone with chronic migraines, for whom the typical 'Glass and steel open office' workspace is basically hell on a random draw of days). Additionally, for those whose health conditions are such that COVID-19 is still a concern in the "Manage Your Own Risk"-era, losing work from home means losing one of the major ways to manage that risk.
Work from home also allowed for more schedule flexibility - it's hard to run an errand, pick the kids up from school, etc. when that's a 15 minute trip, rather than having to commute back home. This burden often falls disproportionately on women, and workers with families (who are likely slightly older than those who don't).
Removing the constraint of "You have to have the capital to move to SV to work here" allows hiring from a broader and more diverse pool of groups with less generational wealth, which means likely a more diverse body of job candidates.
Whether you agree with this or not, there is a logic behind it. Heck, I think they actually missed a couple axes of workers Apple is going to miss out on.
Work from home also allowed for more schedule flexibility - it's hard to run an errand, pick the kids up from school, etc. when that's a 15 minute trip, rather than having to commute back home. This burden often falls disproportionately on women, and workers with families (who are likely slightly older than those who don't).
Removing the constraint of "You have to have the capital to move to SV to work here" allows hiring from a broader and more diverse pool of groups with less generational wealth, which means likely a more diverse body of job candidates.
Whether you agree with this or not, there is a logic behind it. Heck, I think they actually missed a couple axes of workers Apple is going to miss out on.
https://hbr.org/2020/06/working-from-home-while-black
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/10/health/remote-work-disabiliti...
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/10/health/remote-work-disabiliti...
Thank you for the references, this is a very interesting perspective that I personally never considered before.
But still, I wondering if this should mean that WFH needs to be enforced at any company. Not every company can implement full WFH without disrupting operations, especially when working with hardware or when needing concurrent comunication between co-workers.
The article about black workers, mentions discrimination based (mainly) on their appareance. Sure this cannot happen if they work behind a screen. But the same would happen if we all were blind? Shall we wear opaque glasses to end discrimination based on racial features too?
We can also flip the argument. I see this as telling black people (or other groups), stay at home, and in this people will not discriminate you. Is this really what we want? We should make the world better by improving it, not downgrading it.
But still, I wondering if this should mean that WFH needs to be enforced at any company. Not every company can implement full WFH without disrupting operations, especially when working with hardware or when needing concurrent comunication between co-workers.
The article about black workers, mentions discrimination based (mainly) on their appareance. Sure this cannot happen if they work behind a screen. But the same would happen if we all were blind? Shall we wear opaque glasses to end discrimination based on racial features too?
We can also flip the argument. I see this as telling black people (or other groups), stay at home, and in this people will not discriminate you. Is this really what we want? We should make the world better by improving it, not downgrading it.
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?
No, but any physically impaired person will have a disadvantage in any physical environment. You cannot always lower the baseline to allow all persons to do the same in the same conditions.
By this reasoning, we should also close all physical stores, since wheelchair users have more difficulties to buy bread in person. If for the majority it is easier to go in person to buy bread, I think a better compromise is to adapt the shop to as many people as possible, while accepting that access will be still more difficult for some.
By this reasoning, we should also close all physical stores, since wheelchair users have more difficulties to buy bread in person. If for the majority it is easier to go in person to buy bread, I think a better compromise is to adapt the shop to as many people as possible, while accepting that access will be still more difficult for some.
You understand the ADA exists and does almost exactly what you are implying right? Public places are forced to comply with ADA regulations
Is it really hard to imagine that it’s easier to afford a comfortable vehicle to commute in, not to mention housing with a shorter commute, as a 45 year old senior manager than as a 22 year old just starting out with significant college debt?
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.
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?
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.
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.
Works both ways.
>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.
Presumably we are talking about Engineers at Apple so low pay doesn't seem relevant?
Presumably we are talking about Engineers at Apple so low pay doesn't seem relevant?
> Please think for a second about how a WFH policy might impact some groups more than others.
I'm curious why you think anyone needs to "think" about this. Some of us are perfectly happy with WFH and don't feel guilty for it, and there's really nothing to contemplate further and no moral crisis to spark.
I'm curious why you think anyone needs to "think" about this. Some of us are perfectly happy with WFH and don't feel guilty for it, and there's really nothing to contemplate further and no moral crisis to spark.
Weren’t a lot of these people already working from the office before COVID? Do you know if Apple’s workforce change significantly in composition to include more of the grouops you refer to during the WFH period?
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Have these numbers improved significantly since covid? Have we seen increased diversity that this would roll back?
Yet they fail to explain why that's a "bad" thing.
> I mean, they're just asking you to come to the building 3 days a week.
Which is only possible for people who live in the same hemisphere as the building and have citizenship or visa.
Remote work is international work.
Which is only possible for people who live in the same hemisphere as the building and have citizenship or visa.
Remote work is international work.
> Remote work is international work.
Not at most companies; the legal implications of working from other countries mean that, unless you want to misrepresent yourself and create a fake "home" address, digital nomad lifestyles are explicitly forbidden.
Not at most companies; the legal implications of working from other countries mean that, unless you want to misrepresent yourself and create a fake "home" address, digital nomad lifestyles are explicitly forbidden.
That's why i'm incorporated and no one needs to care about labor laws to pay me.
If the company wants me as an employee because they can impose tougher restrictions on me that way, sorry, it's a seller's market for developers.
If the company wants me as an employee because they can impose tougher restrictions on me that way, sorry, it's a seller's market for developers.
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I don't think you can "remotely" work for Apple without a work visa. If your paycheck comes from Apple US, and you don't have the right to work in America, that's a pretty clear violation of immigration law.
What are you talking about? Is Apple asking people to go into offices in countries where they aren't employed..?
Apple is not employing people from other countries that the office in the first place.
So what's your point?
My point is about how not being remote, quote,
> will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
because it's not about coming to office 3 days a week, it's about not hiring international remote workers in the first place.
> will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
because it's not about coming to office 3 days a week, it's about not hiring international remote workers in the first place.
Tons of remote companies are US only, or even "one timezone in the US" only. Apple going remote doesn't mean the existing teams US teams would become international.
Adding Apple to the list of companies I'd never work for. White men are just supposed to shut up and take the increasingly open discrimination? This isn't equality. And it won't actually lead to equity either, but we all will end up with less if this continues - except for the more equal animals among us.
Edit: just imagine if the text said "younger, blacker, more female-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
Or "younger, more Jewish, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
Edit: just imagine if the text said "younger, blacker, more female-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
Or "younger, more Jewish, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied"
I think a bit differently - there are choices. If you don't like apple or it's policies - vote with your head - pick another employer.
I would have run back to the office if only I was given a quiet room in there of my own, and not a public room full of distractions.
In other words:
We blew five billion dollars on Apple Park. its a monument and a testament to the ineffable power and glory of our babel made manifest. You will attend this church of man in blessed reverence or you will find the cold streets at your feet.
We blew five billion dollars on Apple Park. its a monument and a testament to the ineffable power and glory of our babel made manifest. You will attend this church of man in blessed reverence or you will find the cold streets at your feet.
Are people who are convinced by this logic aware that the vast majority of Apple employees don’t work in Apple Park and instead in extremely unremarkable office buildings throughout suburban Bay Area?
If you accept that there is some marginal benefit in getting employees together physically, (and as someone with a remote position, I certainly do) then I think the logic of "we already spent the money, get in here" has a degree of truth to it.
I think if you frame that as an roi, the marginal benefit as a worker would really have to outweigh the cost. If I was being scouted by a company, which I'm not, the offer would have to be extremely compelling, because it's just not in me to commute and be on time for shit.
And do they ignore the fact that many of apple’s most important employees work in physically secured labs where physical device access is a major part of their job?
Like sure GitHub can be remote top to bottom, but an insane amount of Apples workflow is prototype driven and those prototypes cannot physically leave their secure facilities. Hard to argue (from a retention standpoint) that those people need to come in full time but the Apple Music people can do whatever they want.
Like sure GitHub can be remote top to bottom, but an insane amount of Apples workflow is prototype driven and those prototypes cannot physically leave their secure facilities. Hard to argue (from a retention standpoint) that those people need to come in full time but the Apple Music people can do whatever they want.
I'm sure at a certain stage it is prototype, in secured buildings. But I have a friend who works at Apple full time remote (for a dozen years now) who routinely gets unreleased hardware at home to work on the software changes for. They is very intentional about only revealing stuff after it is public, which I think is still technically a breach of his NDA (revealing that they'd been working on it).
You mean easy to argue? The lab workers would get no remote days per week due to their jobs. The workers who can be fully remote are being forced back.
> many of apple’s most important employees
What do you mean here, by "many", exactly? Kind of odd to argue that everyone should go to the physical office because "many" must, when, let's be honest, "many" here is probably less than 1%.
What do you mean here, by "many", exactly? Kind of odd to argue that everyone should go to the physical office because "many" must, when, let's be honest, "many" here is probably less than 1%.
What are the percentages? Apple built Apple Park to not house the majority of employees?
> Still, Apple will continue to be based in Silicon Valley, where it has about 25,000 employees, including 12,000 employees in its loop-shaped headquarters.
[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/apple-will-sp...
[1]: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/apple-will-sp...
Would it surprise you to hear that, despite taking the mantle as the new HQ (because it’s the most impressive building) it’s just an incremental office build and people still work at one infinite loop?
Even more than that. Most of the Silicon Valley employees of Apple do not work in either the Spaceship or any of the Infinite Loop locations. There are dozens of buildings around Cupertino and Sunnyvale (many quite large) that house Apple employees. If you just drive down Deanza Blvd you will see Apple sign after Apple sign pointing out those builds (and that is just one street).
Yes, it does actually surprise me that a company would spend $5 billion for and tout the design as the second coming of office Jesus as an "incremental office build".
I indeed did not realize that Apple Park wasn't the primary office building in that area, especially because of some of the articles that came out at the time. It's why I asked the honest question I did.
I indeed did not realize that Apple Park wasn't the primary office building in that area, especially because of some of the articles that came out at the time. It's why I asked the honest question I did.
I'm fully remote and love it, but let's not pretend that Apple engineers are at risk of homelessness if they decide they don't want to work at apple anymore
Actually, I'd caution you there. There's roughly 25k Apple employees in the Bay area and Apple is a top payer in terms of salary. I've been shopping for homes in the Bay since I arrived and South Bay is easily 1M+ for a very tiny home. Oakland is about 600k+ and usually both markets require cash on top to get a home. That puts average mortgages (and rent) in the 3-5k range. If the average salary is limited by the number of companies that can pay more than 3-5k per paycheck (you want rent or mortgage to be 1/3 of your paycheck for risk purposes) then yes, Apple employees, depending on when they get their place to live, could already be over leveraged and at risk.
> Apple is a top payer in terms of salary
Is it though? Citation needed.
Is it though? Citation needed.
Beside the point, if they're not it makes matters worse. Last I checked though, Apple is a top payer - just not the top payer.
Exactly. Some companies will be fully remote and some won’t. It’s easy to switch tech jobs in the Bay Area and you can pick one that suits you. Apple was always in person.
We could make a little joke about Foxconn always being an option, but the joke punchline is sold separately...
And remember Apple offices are on top of toxic waste dumps / superfund sites!
[1] https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2021/12/apple-poisoned-me-...
[2] https://disasterarea.home.blog/2019/07/12/apple-headquarters...
[1] https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2021/12/apple-poisoned-me-...
[2] https://disasterarea.home.blog/2019/07/12/apple-headquarters...
This is exactly the case. Its been my observation that companies with substantial (owned) brick and mortar facilities tend to be the ones promoting return to work programs now. Apple definitely falls into this group, perhaps more than any other company.
https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/google-investments-office...
"Google will spend $9.5 billion on offices and data centers this year"
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9764995/Facebook-de... "In addition to the housing and retail spaces, Facebook also plans to have 1.25 million square feet of new office, meeting and conference room space for the social media company."
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/29/this-is-the-first-look-at-... "Nvidia is preparing a new, massive building in Santa Clara, CA and this is it. Called Voyager, it will be larger than the building Nvidia just finished constructing by 250,000 square feet."
I could go on...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9764995/Facebook-de... "In addition to the housing and retail spaces, Facebook also plans to have 1.25 million square feet of new office, meeting and conference room space for the social media company."
https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/29/this-is-the-first-look-at-... "Nvidia is preparing a new, massive building in Santa Clara, CA and this is it. Called Voyager, it will be larger than the building Nvidia just finished constructing by 250,000 square feet."
I could go on...
Keep in mind Apple just returned 27 billion to shareholders [1] because presumably there was no better use for it. I doubt the cost of a 5 billion office park is causing them to loose sleep.
[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apple-reports-second-...
[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/04/apple-reports-second-...
I thought building Apple Park was just to keep Ives around a few more years.
Happily, the streets are quite hot right now.
So? It's somebody's decision to make and making bad decisions isn't a crime. It's not even clear it's a bad decision for Apple.
Our great computers fill the hallowed halls.
It’s doubtful that a company as well-run as Apple falls for the sunk cost fallacy at this scale.
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> and that the policy is wasteful, inflexible and will lead to a "younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied" workforce.
Does anyone take tossing around words like this seriously anymore?
I am pro working remotely, but this is just ridiculous.
Does anyone take tossing around words like this seriously anymore?
I am pro working remotely, but this is just ridiculous.
Why is it ridiculous? It seems very, very obvious to me.
Younger = less likely to have a family so commutes are not as big of an issue + the many responsibilities of having a kid that are easier to manage wfh
Whiter = this is the one that I have the least contextual evidence for off the top of my head, but feel safe assuming it's at least partially true given the other factors
Male-Dominated = the kid issues raised above certainly affect women more than men
Neuro-normative = designing your own wfh space + not requiring travel to an office seems pretty clearly better for neuro-divergent people, especially when the office still exists for those that need to utilize it
Able-bodied = much easier to wfh when you're in a wheelchair, don't have to commute with eyesight impairments, etc
Younger = less likely to have a family so commutes are not as big of an issue + the many responsibilities of having a kid that are easier to manage wfh
Whiter = this is the one that I have the least contextual evidence for off the top of my head, but feel safe assuming it's at least partially true given the other factors
Male-Dominated = the kid issues raised above certainly affect women more than men
Neuro-normative = designing your own wfh space + not requiring travel to an office seems pretty clearly better for neuro-divergent people, especially when the office still exists for those that need to utilize it
Able-bodied = much easier to wfh when you're in a wheelchair, don't have to commute with eyesight impairments, etc
Citations requested.
For what? That younger people are more likely to not have kids than people further in their career? That women’s careers tend to be affected more by having kids than men? This are “the sky is blue” type facts. They don’t really need citation.
Yes. I don't see how at a minimum "more able-bodied" should be controversial. Someone who requires a wheelchair has a much easier experience when WFH. "Younger" is a likely extension of that given how age affects mobility.
People in wheelchairs leave their homes all the time. Apple has buses and offices that I'm sure are wheelchair accessible. Apple probably offers pretty good insurance to get a motorized wheelchair if needed. If someone really can't make it to the office physically, I'm sure the policies are somewhat more nuanced.
I understand it may be more difficult for certain people, but I guess to me it's a non sequitur. Doing different things is varying levels of difficult for different people. Is the conclusion that nobody should ask you to do anything inconvenient?
I understand it may be more difficult for certain people, but I guess to me it's a non sequitur. Doing different things is varying levels of difficult for different people. Is the conclusion that nobody should ask you to do anything inconvenient?
> I understand it may be more difficult for certain people
If you can understand that, then you should understand that certain people will make rational decisions to minimize their difficulty. Remote work positions are more available now, and such people will likely naturally gravitate towards them. Consequently, non-remote positions will be disproportionally more able-bodied, which is exactly the point of the Apple employee statement.
If you can understand that, then you should understand that certain people will make rational decisions to minimize their difficulty. Remote work positions are more available now, and such people will likely naturally gravitate towards them. Consequently, non-remote positions will be disproportionally more able-bodied, which is exactly the point of the Apple employee statement.
Yeah maybe. I'd be curious to know how big of a factor it actually is. Would an extraverted person using a wheelchair prefer to work from home, or go in? I'd be hesitant to assume something like that is necessarily the biggest factor for somebody.
It could certainly trend that way though. I don't see that as super problematic.
It could certainly trend that way though. I don't see that as super problematic.
They have that option. Apple's offices are not going away. The letter specifically mentions that.
Yeah sure. What I'm getting at is that it's not necessarily unjust to ask someone in a wheelchair to go somewhere in person for their job, and I'm not convinced most people in a wheelchair would see it that way.
The conclusion is that we should remove barriers whenever possible. Climbing a mountain is more difficult for people in a wheelchair, but that's just the way it is, we can't make the mountain equally accessible for everyone. Climbing the stairs of a skyscraper is more difficult for people in a wheelchair, but it doesn't have to be that way, we can install an elevator.
Extend that to everything. We shouldn't ask people to do something inconvenient when we could make it convenient.
Extend that to everything. We shouldn't ask people to do something inconvenient when we could make it convenient.
Chewing is so inconvenient. Feeding tubes for everyone!
That’s a joke… we need the flexibility to cater to those who require it. We don’t need to make the baseline match the minimum. I think ADA and other items do well in this regard. So, just let a person WFH if attendance is overly inconvenient. It’s not the standard expectation. If working in the office is a baseline then It doesn’t mean they get to move to another country then claim the commute is now inconvenient. I think this wasn’t really much of an issue before Covid. Why is it now?
That’s a joke… we need the flexibility to cater to those who require it. We don’t need to make the baseline match the minimum. I think ADA and other items do well in this regard. So, just let a person WFH if attendance is overly inconvenient. It’s not the standard expectation. If working in the office is a baseline then It doesn’t mean they get to move to another country then claim the commute is now inconvenient. I think this wasn’t really much of an issue before Covid. Why is it now?
> I think this wasn’t really much of an issue before Covid. Why is it now?
It was. The ADA was the result of an enormous amount of struggle and activism, and that movement continues to the present. Reach out to a local disability rights organization (I guarantee there's one near you) and ask if they had any concerns about office work before Covid. I'd also recommend the documentary Crip Camp if you're not familiar with this part of American history.
Edit: Here's an article from the start of the pandemic with lots of quotes relevant to your question. Sorry for the archive link, the site seems to be down right now.
> Watching these accommodations become available in a wide-spread way so quickly has been really painful. It hurts not only because I could have benefited from accommodations like this throughout my education, but because there are so many others who could have benefited, or were forced to drop out of school, or quit their jobs because their school or employer told them they were impossible to accommodate. These accommodations have always been possible but acknowledging that requires acknowledging the ableism behind their denial.
- https://web.archive.org/web/20200329102738/https://www.teenv...
It's a quick read and it's very good, I recommend reading it. Most of the issues discussed could be most easily addressed by allowing full remote work. Also, many of the people quoted have "invisible disabilities" - you may have coworkers like them without realizing it. This isn't just about ramps and elevators and other common accommodations.
It was. The ADA was the result of an enormous amount of struggle and activism, and that movement continues to the present. Reach out to a local disability rights organization (I guarantee there's one near you) and ask if they had any concerns about office work before Covid. I'd also recommend the documentary Crip Camp if you're not familiar with this part of American history.
Edit: Here's an article from the start of the pandemic with lots of quotes relevant to your question. Sorry for the archive link, the site seems to be down right now.
> Watching these accommodations become available in a wide-spread way so quickly has been really painful. It hurts not only because I could have benefited from accommodations like this throughout my education, but because there are so many others who could have benefited, or were forced to drop out of school, or quit their jobs because their school or employer told them they were impossible to accommodate. These accommodations have always been possible but acknowledging that requires acknowledging the ableism behind their denial.
- https://web.archive.org/web/20200329102738/https://www.teenv...
It's a quick read and it's very good, I recommend reading it. Most of the issues discussed could be most easily addressed by allowing full remote work. Also, many of the people quoted have "invisible disabilities" - you may have coworkers like them without realizing it. This isn't just about ramps and elevators and other common accommodations.
As someone who has needed ADA accommodations for a serious medical condition, they haven't worked for me. I've had upper management/HR lay me off twice even though my manager and manager's manager tried to keep me.
If everyone has more flexibility, I don't need to risk my job asking for reasonable accommodations.
It also helps stomp on stupidity like requiring 14 people in a remote office in the middle of Nowhere, Midwest to wear black tennis shoes. (I own no tennis shoes and can't wear them.) There was literally no reason for it except to have a dress code.
If everyone has more flexibility, I don't need to risk my job asking for reasonable accommodations.
It also helps stomp on stupidity like requiring 14 people in a remote office in the middle of Nowhere, Midwest to wear black tennis shoes. (I own no tennis shoes and can't wear them.) There was literally no reason for it except to have a dress code.
I’ll admit I’m not too familiar and sorry to hear the reality is more grim than I’d hope. My point is more about this WFH and anti RTO stance being a bit like a wrecking ball when a hammer would do. Things like dress codes are exactly the minor policy reforms that could be done before revolting to a fully remote wfh movement. That said, I hope now everyone is now more flexible in general and that translates to people that actually needed it and weren’t getting it (like yourself).
I guess in my mind accessible buildings, accessible transportation to and from work, insurance that makes it easy to get high quality treatment and medical devices are akin to "installing the elevator" in your analogy. Part of the job is getting to the top of the skyscraper and those things make it easier.
> Part of the job is getting to the top of the skyscraper
I guess that's the core disagreement here. The people who wrote this letter do not think getting to the top of the skyscraper is an important part of the job worth sacrificing even a small amount of accessibility, and the executives do.
I guess that's the core disagreement here. The people who wrote this letter do not think getting to the top of the skyscraper is an important part of the job worth sacrificing even a small amount of accessibility, and the executives do.
Why do you draw the line at a mountain? We have the technology for outdoor lifts.
In the end it's a trade off, and while we should have minimum standards of accessibility, after that point its a trade off between productivity, efficiency, and accessibility. If having the entire team in office 2x a week makes the average worker XX% more productive, should we sacrifice that for the one teammate who has a harder time to getting to the office? What about the coworker who choose to live further away? Should my team push meetings around because I am not a morning person? What about the dead worker who can understand coworkers better when in person, should we require everyone to go in every day for them?
In the end it's a trade off, and while we should have minimum standards of accessibility, after that point its a trade off between productivity, efficiency, and accessibility. If having the entire team in office 2x a week makes the average worker XX% more productive, should we sacrifice that for the one teammate who has a harder time to getting to the office? What about the coworker who choose to live further away? Should my team push meetings around because I am not a morning person? What about the dead worker who can understand coworkers better when in person, should we require everyone to go in every day for them?
I think we agree. The cost of installing a lift up a large mountain is incredibly high, and the benefit is relatively low, since the experience will still be so different from hiking up the mountain. I think most people would agree that tradeoff is not worth it.
The people who wrote this letter are arguing that the cost of full remote work is low or even negative, and the benefits are quite high, so the tradeoff is worth it. That's what this discussion is about, how should we balance the tradeoffs.
And yes, I don't know if they were meant to be sarcastic, but all of your questions are worth considering. If you have a deaf coworker that struggles with remote work, you should absolutely consider making changes up to and including in-person work. I can't tell you what tradeoff would be appropriate for your particular team and situation, but of course you should think about it and not just default to the status quo.
I also think many people with disabilities would argue that we as a society have not yet reached "minimum standards of accessibility".
The people who wrote this letter are arguing that the cost of full remote work is low or even negative, and the benefits are quite high, so the tradeoff is worth it. That's what this discussion is about, how should we balance the tradeoffs.
And yes, I don't know if they were meant to be sarcastic, but all of your questions are worth considering. If you have a deaf coworker that struggles with remote work, you should absolutely consider making changes up to and including in-person work. I can't tell you what tradeoff would be appropriate for your particular team and situation, but of course you should think about it and not just default to the status quo.
I also think many people with disabilities would argue that we as a society have not yet reached "minimum standards of accessibility".
It might seem exhausting, or annoying, or overly descriptive... but it is true and I find it hard to dispute.
how exactly does making people come to the office result in a more white workforce?
That one does seem the most questionable. Looking at an ethnicity map of Cupertino, it seems like in-office requirements would favor white and asian employees, as they tend to live closest to the Apple office. The other items in that list seem pretty uncontroversial to me though.
White and Asian bias in tech has almost everything to do with candidate pool - very little to do with bias and preference for in-person work.
People who are willing to work in tech and are in the US are overwhelmingly white and Asian. I mean - 70%+ of my current job is Asian. White is a minority. Black, Hispanic, mixed race, and much else is all less than 10% combined. Mostly due to candidate pool…
People who are willing to work in tech and are in the US are overwhelmingly white and Asian. I mean - 70%+ of my current job is Asian. White is a minority. Black, Hispanic, mixed race, and much else is all less than 10% combined. Mostly due to candidate pool…
"Who is willing to relocate to the bay area or Austin in the first place? Who are the ones getting priced out? Demographics/census, speaking."
I think that is the argument being made.
I think that is the argument being made.
They don’t work in tech though… So, doesn’t really make sense.
People being priced out aren’t working in tech…
People being priced out aren’t working in tech…
Well, off the top of my head, black folks, asians, and latin folks might be more likely to be caretakers and/or further from the office.
That said, if they have Apple salaries, I'm sure they can work it out.
That said (again), they might need to spend more of that Apple salary than their peers to figure it out.
So, it's a bold and unsubstantiated statement, but might have some truth to it. Idk, wish they would cite sources.
That said, if they have Apple salaries, I'm sure they can work it out.
That said (again), they might need to spend more of that Apple salary than their peers to figure it out.
So, it's a bold and unsubstantiated statement, but might have some truth to it. Idk, wish they would cite sources.
Im pretty sure caretakers can;t work from home ....
Also isn't it pretty racist /sexist to suggest that just because your black or a woman, you won't be able to commute?
Also isn't it pretty racist /sexist to suggest that just because your black or a woman, you won't be able to commute?
> pretty sure caretakers [can't] work from home
Why not?
> Also isn't it pretty racist /sexist to suggest that just because [you're] black or a woman, you won't be able to commute?
I don't agree with the framing of this... The question is whether or not WFO would impact these folks more negatively than their peers, not that they wouldn't be able to do it at all.
Why not?
> Also isn't it pretty racist /sexist to suggest that just because [you're] black or a woman, you won't be able to commute?
I don't agree with the framing of this... The question is whether or not WFO would impact these folks more negatively than their peers, not that they wouldn't be able to do it at all.
What source would one cite for this that's not just anecdotes?
I can imagine a study could be done on the effects of WFH/WFO on minorities. That said, I wouldn't discount anecdotes if there were enough of them.
Listing privileges like that is a progressive millennial/zoomer thing that gets people's hackles up, but in its defense:
I'm physically disabled. I use a wheelchair, which makes commuting hard, and a reclining desk which is too big to fit in an open office. I can't type much, so I sometimes rely on dictation and eye tracking. I definitely can't do that in an open office. I have a bunch of doctor's appointments, weekly PT etc. and sometimes I'm too fatigued to work, so I have to crash, so I end up with weird schedules.
despite this, I've invented several critical algorithms for extremely hard problems that helped our company scale, along with singlehandedly writing tons of formally-verified distributed systems infrastructure. I'm valuable enough to keep around despite being damaged goods. hence I have permanent WFH. still miss the office sometimes though.
I'm physically disabled. I use a wheelchair, which makes commuting hard, and a reclining desk which is too big to fit in an open office. I can't type much, so I sometimes rely on dictation and eye tracking. I definitely can't do that in an open office. I have a bunch of doctor's appointments, weekly PT etc. and sometimes I'm too fatigued to work, so I have to crash, so I end up with weird schedules.
despite this, I've invented several critical algorithms for extremely hard problems that helped our company scale, along with singlehandedly writing tons of formally-verified distributed systems infrastructure. I'm valuable enough to keep around despite being damaged goods. hence I have permanent WFH. still miss the office sometimes though.
Not without presenting any facts or sources.
In this case it seems like lazy people throwing everything at the wall, including prejudice, to prevent going to work.
In this case it seems like lazy people throwing everything at the wall, including prejudice, to prevent going to work.
[deleted]
I'm more tired of people who can't see any type of diversity-related language without getting triggered.
[deleted]
This is downright racist.
“It will make Apple younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied”
Love to see the source of data that supports every single one of these issues.
I remember the Google memo from James Demore was backed by sources unlike this letter.
Love to see the source of data that supports every single one of these issues.
I remember the Google memo from James Demore was backed by sources unlike this letter.
You won't see citations for these for the same reason the citations in Demore's memo didn't matter. Facts have no relation to articles of faith.
I would expect more neuro-divergent people to prefer having the option to WFH
Depends on how you define neuro-divergent.
So why do white people love the office but non whited are comfortable only at home?
So why do white people love the office but non whited are comfortable only at home?
I suspect that the metric for more white people working there stems from the demographics of the SF Bay area where Apple is located.
Whether it's correct or not is a separate question.
Whether it's correct or not is a separate question.
Can somebody explain what “neuro-normative” is?
Designed for minds that are not neurodivergent. Basically, a system that directly disadvantages people who are ADHD/autistic.
I always thought it meant like people without Asperger’s or other mental conditions. Which is odd bec many of us are on the spectrum, so who are they saying wouldn’t be hired?
Apple spend a morbillion dollars on their HQ, of course they want to force their staff to be on site. I hope the staff bands together and wins.
become a drone from home or queen from home if you don't want to be a work from home
Spoiled brats.
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carlycue(1)
thefz(1)
At my workplace they keep nodding at "hybrid" without any specifics and the resulting fear due to uncertainty is far worse than a clear policy that some (many) people might not like...