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Apple still planning return to in-person work despite complaints

99 points by geerlingguy 5y ago

minikites 5y ago
>a group of Apple employees responded to the CEO with a letter of their own, complaining about the change Instead of politely asking though a letter, I think these employees should organize into a labor union with actual bargaining power.
- lucian1900 5y ago
  For sure. Although worth keeping in mind that organising enough to agree on a demand is part of how unions are formed. Also sending a unified demand is part of how unions negotiate.
- Bud 5y ago
  They have plenty of bargaining power, by and large. They're rich, and they have resumes with an Apple job on them. I would never say anything against unionizing, and more power to them if they wish to unionize, but I think they have plenty of power compared to the vast majority of workers.
underseacables 5y ago
This is Apple, anyone who resigns and leaves because they can’t work from home will be rapidly filled by someone who’s always wanted to work at Apple, and will gladly work from home.
- sys_64738 5y ago
  This. People who leave Apple don't work there anymore but will have a tinge or regret. Ex-Apple folk are viewed as a blessing (must be smart) or a drag (overpaid) when reentering the job market.
- gilbetron 5y ago
  "We hire only the best" and "there's plenty of people to replace you" seem at odds.
  - ehutch79 5y ago
    Not really. There are a LOT of talented people out there. New ones being born every day.
brink 5y ago
If the employees don't like it, they're free to take their talent somewhere else.
- xtracto 5y ago
  Yes! exactly. Just quit and go to any of the thousands of companies that are hiring engineers to work full time. I did that, and don't regret it even 1 bit.
- midrus 5y ago
  Exactly. Not sure why people are downvoting you. I think from now on there will be two types of companies: remote and non remote friendly. In the same way there are different kinds of people: those who prefer an office and those who prefer to work from home. That's perfect!! We just need to switch jobs, which isn't a difficult thing for most of us. Everyone can be happy. Personally, I'm not going back to an office for as long as I can get a remote job.
jw1224 5y ago
Daring Fireball's John Gruber had a rather scathing take on this a few weeks ago... https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/06/04/apple-remote-work https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/06/04/apple-remote-wo...
- gear54rus 5y ago
  "Companies arent democracies" but they behave exactly like them in this case. If everyone refused to work from office tomorrow, that tim cook guy would bend in an instant. And they should refuse.
  - whydoineedone 5y ago
    says you; I prefer working in-office, in-person. The energy is 100x better, I can form real relationships with my co-workers instead of online bullshit relationships with zoom and goofy backgrounds. Partially remote teams are the absolute worst. I avoid remote positions like the plague.
  - duxup 5y ago
    "If everyone refused" One of the things about this is that ... I don't trust my fellow employees much more than the CEO to make good choices. The typical firebrand employees I've worked with, I want nothing to do with as far as their overall initiatives go. I might agree with them on one thing but not what to do about it and etc.
  - ggreer 5y ago
    First, not everyone wants to work remotely. Some people live in situations where there are too many distractions or annoyances at home. This is especially true if they have children. Second, For those who want to work remotely, this is a coordination problem. Nobody wants to be the first to give such an ultimatum to their manager, as they'd almost certainly be fired. Even if employees could all coordinate through some back channel, the reward for defecting is quite high. If half of your coworkers quit, you are suddenly a much more valuable member of the team. Anyone who stuck around would receive very high compensation.
geerlingguy 5y ago
Well before the pandemic, I was talking to a recruiter about a position where I feel I would've been perfect, and had a great time doing some very interesting work with a pretty fun team (very distributed). I wouldn't budge on not relocating, and so the idea kind of fizzled out. People with a remote-first mindset were more rare a few years ago. Today, you're going to miss out on a lot of ideal job candidates (and lose good talent) if you can't open up to not forcing employees to congregate around managers in-person all the time.
retskrad 5y ago
I get it, the pandemic changed the game. I would personally not work for a company that doesn't give you the option of WFH but the FAANG companies are in a different ballgame. Millions of people would give their left toe to work at a company like Apple. Me included. Who cares about WFH when you get to live in California and work with some of the brightest minds? Only privileged person wouldn't value that.
- d4mi3n 5y ago
  I get what you're saying, but it's those same bright minds who are concerned about being in an office amid a pandemic. It's a reasonable concern. Everyone has a right to make their own decisions, but calling somebody out as privileged over a legitimate health concern seems counterproductive. What does Apple or some other big company lose from having their employees work from home a bit longer? Productivity. Money. Maybe some projects run long. What does an employee have to lose? Their health. Possibly their life. Even if you're vaccinated, you can be a carrier, you can still catch COVID--you're just not likely to have a bad case of it. That does not mean it is no longer fatal or that you can't have complications from a mild case.
  - borski 5y ago
    I was with you for the first half, but it is not true that there is any reasonable chance of death or significant complications after vaccination. At that point, the risk is no greater than a fire starting in your own home. The rest of what you said, I agree with. The more salient point is people who are immunocompromised and cannot get the vaccine.
    - d4mi3n 5y ago
      After your comment I reviewed some recent research and concluded that you are correct in there mild cases have not been shown to be fatal or otherwise result in serious complications. Thank for the correction! I agree with you on the point of the immunocompromised and that those with weak immune responses are the most at risk. The AARP did a pretty good write up of the efficacy of a couple of COVID vaccines and what efficacy means[1]. They cite a number of studies and conclude that: * Breakthrough cases—infections after vaccination are possible, but rare, with multiple studies citing rate of breakthrough cases at 0.05% in a healthcare setting (high rate of risk/exposure). Small, but not astronomically so if you’re working in an open office or interacting with the general public. * Breakthrough cases typically result in mild symptoms or asymptomatic infections. * A weak immune response can turn you into a carrier even if you have been vaccinated. * New COVID variants may result in a rise in breakthrough cases. 1. https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/coronavirus-after-vaccination.html https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/...
macinjosh 5y ago
It is a tad ironic that Apple recently finished their immaculate, state-of-the-art campus and now everyone would rather just work from home.
- tonywastaken 5y ago
  The new campus only seats a small portion of their Bay Area employees, so a large percentage of the employees are dialing in to meetings anyway.
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    This is what I don't get about the demand for in office. Many of us are already effectively remote anyways for our teams. Most of my team is in a city three hours away. Actually, with the latest departure, all of my team except my manager is in another city. So I will be going into the office to be on Google Meet.
    - treespace88 5y ago
      Glad to hear that situations like my own are not uncommon. Most of the people I work with before Covid I have never met in person.
atty 5y ago
It’s a bad look when a technology company isn’t confident enough in their own technology, tools and processes to allow and encourage their employees to have more flexibility in their lives, and restrict the majority of them to live in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country. Especially for reasons that have very little actual (read: non-anecdotal and scientifically valid) evidence of being an actual benefit. It’s a real shame. I’ve been a big fan of Apple’s products for awhile now. I did my PhD work on a 2014 MacBook Pro, and I switched from Android to iPhone around the same time, and I’ve been very happy with both. That laptop in particular has lasted me longer than any other computer I’ve used. I’d love to apply for a job there, to spend some time seeing how the sausage is made, so to speak. But I have family obligations that make it very hard for me to move. Obviously it’s the executives’ choice, but I definitely feel like they’re really cutting down on their potential candidate pool for very little potential upside. Especially considering they tend to pay less than the other big players.
- MuffinFlavored 5y ago
  > Obviously it’s the executives’ choice In an unbiased fashion, does anybody have any evidence that proves executives are "right" to say being managed in an office is more productive delivery wise than working from home?
  - borski 5y ago
    Anecdotal, but managing through the pandemic has been significantly more challenging than in-office. Granted, we were working through a pandemic, so not really WFH, but it did leave a bad taste in a lot of managers’ mouths because people keep advocating for WFH, without making that distinction. So when a manager hears WFH, and this is that, there’s no way. But distinguishing WFH from “work through pandemic” would likely be a lot more effective.
    - MuffinFlavored 5y ago
      > has been significantly more challenging Can you elaborate? when you say managing, do you mean like... it's harder to get ahold of people to be around to get stuff done?
WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
I can't help but keep thinking remote work will just lead to more wealth inequality. My dumb argument: => Amazon/Apple/Big-Tech petitions a city for a super center for bunch of middle-class (and upper-class) awesome jobs. => Construction, development, small shops, homes, form around the area. => Small economy/city is built. Suddenly fitness trainer "Bob" can sell $100/hr lessons, open a gym, and provide for family on unskilled labor. Etc... => Schools in area get better. Crime goes down. => And so on... If remote becomes a thing and all these "super jobs" can be done from anywhere in the world, I just can't shake a dead-end for booming neighborhoods that aren't gigantic mansions is coming.
- basisword 5y ago
  Surely this reduces inequality? Instead of money congregating in big cities it gets spent all over the country/world. Instead of wealthy people gentrifying certain neighbourhoods as a group and pricing everyone else out, there can be more of a mix of incomes.
  - WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
    That's a really great counter argument. To be honest, I don't really know and am not claiming an exact answer. I imagine it's a little bit of both. When I was a naive kid, I moved to a highly populated city just to find work (no plan in place). I'm saying that same take-a-chance opportunity that I had, may become just that much harder for others now.
    - basisword 5y ago
      I guess it's one of those things that can be argued either way and only time will tell!
  - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
    Maybe at first, but by increasing their supply of potential employees a company could pay lower wages. Which would mean more profits for executives and share holders, and a larger gap.
chadash 5y ago
It seems like there are many engineers who want to work remotely full time going forward. I'm in the opposite boat. If a company doesn't have an office, I don't want to work there. I like having a place to go to that isn't my home. I like meeting and talking to employees in different parts of the business without having to setup zoom calls for that. I enjoy the social and collaborative aspects of in-person work. I do enjoy the ability to work remotely on occasion, but I want to be in the office most of the time. People who don't like remote work are not out there making noise, because we're still living in a world where most jobs at least have the option of in-person work. But there's plenty of us who want to leave home on weekday mornings.
- peytn 5y ago
  Same, and I think this is the majority view. The noise about WFH is a turn-off as well and I’d rather steer clear of those making it—-if it’s that big a deal to you, there’s plenty of remote work out there.
  - KingMachiavelli 5y ago
    The vast, vast majority of jobs are in-office jobs. It's extremely unlikely that supply of WFH jobs exceeds demand considering it only just became a mainstream thing ~18 months ago. Perhaps in certain locations WFH is still the temporary default but in any place with eased/lifted pandemic restrictions the default is returning to in office.
  - coldtea 5y ago
    Yeah, some people just love the micro-managing, busy-work, ass kissing, dragging others into pointless meetings, office politics, shows of autority, water cooler "friends", back-stabbing, etc, and those aren't as easy with WFH.
- borski 5y ago
  Thanks for saying how I feel, though I respect an employee’s ability to choose whether they want remote work or not, and then to make that choice known by advocating for it or leaving for a position that offers it. There will be many more now, and many more will have flexibility. But just as I wouldn’t impose on someone to force them to be in the office, I think some people definitely value the separation.
whoknowswhat11 5y ago
Apple hired and is paying salaries at levels for in person work. Don't like it leave. Or consider doing a trade - reduced salary to be able to live in a low cost of living area and no commute.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Not necessarily. Apple's engineering team was the largest advocate for WFH, and everyone involved in digital manufacture doesn't have to worry about a thing.
- xiphias2 5y ago
  Another option is to petition, which is a form of group negotiation. Apple still has the ability to turn it down.
xwdv 5y ago
This is a great time to poach employees from companies unwilling to provide remote work. So many are paying great salaries for remote workers and treating them as true first class citizens.
themantra514 5y ago
Apple is 100% correct in this decision to ensure their apex tech company status. From personal experience with so called "professionals" at gov level that worked from home, they think it's a vacation not work. No observation of decorum, protocol, or consistency. Your environment orients how you interpret and interact with the tasks at hand. If you have to pick between stirring the sauce before it burns or taking the time to type cohesive notes during a videoconference/call, your sense of urgency will have a bias towards saving the sauce. Because after all, you are home.
- killjoywashere 5y ago
  I deal with about 50:50 government and commercial employees. Big tech, start-ups, GOFOs to junior enlisted. Most government employees are paid significantly less than their commercial counterparts. They're stirring the sauce because they can't afford to have DoorDash deliver Vaso Azzurro to their door. Start-up employees, in my experience, are more like government workers, but they are still living pretty well comparatively, and, in my sample, are significantly less likely to have kids, so the dollars go quite a bit further.
- bitcrusher 5y ago
  This is the most hamfisted nonsense I've read in a while. Just say "I like to micromanage people" and be done with it. The fact that you're worried about what/how other people are using or dealing with their time says way more about you than about working environments. Some people don't do well without working in an office, other people do quite well working outside of a traditional office setting.
- athenot 5y ago
  Counter point from experience working with a large team (~2k ppl) that's distributed and working from home well before the pandemic: decorum, protocol and consistency also exist at home, they just required a different discipline and different skills from managers. If anything, we all noticed that more work gets done at home, and people are more responsive than when office.
- padobson 5y ago
skwirl 5y ago
Kind of a meta comment here, but HN is way more pro-full time remote work than the people I speak to in my day to day life. I'm definitely glad that we'll have increased flexibility in the future with hybrid set-ups, but I am looking forward to getting back in the office. I would not even consider a full time remote position at this point in my life (and I've been seeing more and more recruiters reaching out with these) but I'm glad that there are increased options there for those who want them. If I worked for Apple I'd really feel like I was missing out on one of the big perks of working there if I was fully remote (and I'm not talking about the physical office - I'm talking about being surrounded by world class talent). At the same time I can understand how limiting the insane housing prices are in the area of Apple HQ, but I'd prefer satellite offices to full time remote.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Popegaf 5y ago
If these employees really do think it's a decision between Apple culture and family life, I wonder what decision they will take and if it will have repercussions within Apple. Unhappy Apple employees have the power here to attempt to change the company culture or simply accept what they have been ordered to do. Only time will tell.
- bilbo0s 5y ago
  Problem is there are way too many employees to change culture. It's different when most employees want change, a la Amazon warehouse for instance. It's something else entirely when a minority of employees want a change. (And let's be frank, it's impossible when each of those unhappy employees have literally a 1000 candidates outside Apple's front door clamoring for a chance to take his/her job.) I'd argue that companies like Apple are probably one of the places in the tech industry where the employer really has all the power. I can't really think of any skill that an employee could bring to a place like Apple that would make that person worth a culture change. Maybe some of the guys and gals in design? Probably transcendent design eyes don't come along very often. But even then, I don't know? Probably not.
  - Apocryphon 5y ago
    Perhaps those candidates, once hired, might also have disagreements with management about WFH policy.
  - cudgy 5y ago
    Many of Apple’s employees should be millionares. If millionaires cannot live life the way they want by leaving Apple, what are they working towards? Staying at Apple despite their wishes regarding a highly impactful issue like work/life balance makes them not so bright.
justapassenger 5y ago
How’s that even a news? Company makes a decision that some employees disagree with? And then company proceeds with that decision? Even if companies were democracies, which they aren’t, you don’t need 100% to make a decision for a reason - to be able to make any decisions.
pembrook 5y ago
Not sure why this is news to anyone. Apple just built the most expensive on-site campus in history prior to the pandemic. It's a 40 year old company led by 50+ year old executives who have built their entire social and family lives around their offices. Obviously they're going to force everybody back to the way it was. This means nothing for the big shift to remote however. The economic incentives for both companies and employees are just too strong for it not to happen. It was never going to be led by gray haired execs at legacy companies like Apple. When you're currently the most profitable company in the history of earth, you can ignore otherwise rational incentives. But the key word in that sentence was "currently." Instead of talking about what the winners of the past are doing, we should be thinking about what the winners of the future will do. It's important to remember, no company has stayed at the top of the S&P500 for very long.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  People like to point and laugh because Apple's obligation to shareholders constantly stands in the way of their social messaging. In one hand, they never miss an opportunity to stay current and kowtow to the current trend d'jour, and on the other they make incredibly asinine business decisions that completely undermine their rhetoric.
- 411111111111111 5y ago
  > It's important to remember, no company has stayed at the top of the S&P500 for very long. this has been true historically, but nothing makes it inherently so if you think in the context of a human's lifespan. 100 years ago, the world wasn't a continuously connected marked. If a company got "too large" for comfort, a government could intervene and force a split. This is no longer a viable action, as companies cater to literally the whole world at the same time, so splitting them in one jurisdiction would just end up making that particular market less attractive to companies... effectively harming the government economically. There is only so much you can deduct from our history considering that the base premises is so different nowadays, especially if you constrain it to the time we've got to experience this world. Microsoft and Apple at least have been around since before the 90th, so they're already 30yrs in... thats almost a full professional life of the average employee before they retire.
giantrobot 5y ago
I can totally see the need for Apple to get people back in the office. I mean they've lost so much money during the pandem...what's that? Billions you say? Launched a new desktop architecture you say? Good heavens. Apple has a horde of middle managers that need to get back to looking busy. If they can't watch every employee every second of the day how can they do their unofficial (but totally official) stack ranking come review time? There's obviously legitimate reasons to get employees back in the office. At the same time their complete intransigence when it comes to remote work is just bull headed. Tons of work at Apple is networked by nature. There's floods of e-mail (to the point it's almost useless), Slack chats galore, and tons of communication through Radar (Apple's issue tracker). The business need for in-person interaction for most engineers is actually pretty minimal. Many have to put a lot of effort into avoiding in-person distractions. Most in-person meetings would actually be better as e-mails. I think their position is going to lose them some good talent. While on the whole those engineers can be replaced Apple runs lean engineering teams. Losing just one can hamstring that team for months. That can often mean a feature slips to the next OS release or a half-assed version lands. So an org losing even a dozen engineers all at once could screw it over for months.
- sosborn 5y ago
  To be fair, part of their argument is that the vast majority of the work they released during the pandemic was conceived and completed before everyone was working from home. Not to mention the general sales boosts all tech companies benefitted from as people spent more time at home.
- itomato 5y ago
  They can’t lease the surplus in their new HQ. They can’t do the Big Secret if people can leave for their families. The entire brand strategy hinges on that haunted building.
  - giantrobot 5y ago
    There's doesn't need to be surplus to be unable to lease. Even after Apple Park was completed and every team slated to move in had moved Apple still had all (or most) their old buildings still filled. If they allowed remote work they could consolidate their far flung offices in Apple Park, which was the original intent of the damned building. Apple Park is like all of the form-over-function complaints about Apple crystallized into a single space.
dankoss 5y ago
Apple is a hardware company, and you can't WFH using giant anechoic chambers, laser cutting machines, electronics labs, and who knows what else. The products may be manufactured overseas, but there is a lot of expensive hardware needed for designing, prototyping and testing. I get that Apple does a lot of software these days, but one of the things they are also known for is tight integration between the hardware and software, which doesn't happen without them working side by side. There may be a significant fraction of employees that can work remotely, but it would significantly change the culture of the company to split the workforce like that.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  They've done a lot of software for 4 decades. And most Apple software and services employees don't interact with hardware teams at all.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  Sure but many Apple employees don't interact with hardware at all. There's a good chance that many people who do interact with hardware only do so part of the time. Another section might work with hardware but could maybe take some of it home with them (clearly physical hardware has left Apple in the past). Sure, the remainder have to be physically present but that is the job/career they picked and even probably enjoy. Letting everyone else WFH means those remaining on-campus employees can have better offices & live closer to work. Seems like a win-win to me.
pyjug 5y ago
The FAANG have a lot more leverage over their employees than people seem to think. Very few if any outside of these companies pay a mid level engineer 700k (yes, this number is real, can we please stop debating this fact?). So, if all FAANG force their companies back to the office, the employees have effectively no leverage. This is similar to how the top cos colluded to keep engineer wages low in the 2000s, except they don’t need to explicitly make such a pact.
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
related conversation from daringfireball post on the same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684039
tenfourwookie 5y ago
Apple to itself: “ We didn't build this $5 billion UFO saucer in the middle of a residential neighborhoods, this shrine to the Ego that Was Jobs, for you to stay home! ”

99 points by geerlingguy 5y ago

>a group of Apple employees responded to the CEO with a letter of their own, complaining about the change Instead of politely asking though a letter, I think these employees should organize into a labor union with actual bargaining power.

lucian1900 5y ago
For sure. Although worth keeping in mind that organising enough to agree on a demand is part of how unions are formed. Also sending a unified demand is part of how unions negotiate.
Bud 5y ago
They have plenty of bargaining power, by and large. They're rich, and they have resumes with an Apple job on them. I would never say anything against unionizing, and more power to them if they wish to unionize, but I think they have plenty of power compared to the vast majority of workers.

underseacables 5y ago

This is Apple, anyone who resigns and leaves because they can’t work from home will be rapidly filled by someone who’s always wanted to work at Apple, and will gladly work from home.

sys_64738 5y ago
This. People who leave Apple don't work there anymore but will have a tinge or regret. Ex-Apple folk are viewed as a blessing (must be smart) or a drag (overpaid) when reentering the job market.
gilbetron 5y ago
"We hire only the best" and "there's plenty of people to replace you" seem at odds.
- ehutch79 5y ago
  Not really. There are a LOT of talented people out there. New ones being born every day.

brink 5y ago

If the employees don't like it, they're free to take their talent somewhere else.

xtracto 5y ago
Yes! exactly. Just quit and go to any of the thousands of companies that are hiring engineers to work full time. I did that, and don't regret it even 1 bit.
midrus 5y ago
Exactly. Not sure why people are downvoting you. I think from now on there will be two types of companies: remote and non remote friendly. In the same way there are different kinds of people: those who prefer an office and those who prefer to work from home. That's perfect!! We just need to switch jobs, which isn't a difficult thing for most of us. Everyone can be happy. Personally, I'm not going back to an office for as long as I can get a remote job.

jw1224 5y ago

Daring Fireball's John Gruber had a rather scathing take on this a few weeks ago... https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/06/04/apple-remote-work https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/06/04/apple-remote-wo...

gear54rus 5y ago
"Companies arent democracies" but they behave exactly like them in this case. If everyone refused to work from office tomorrow, that tim cook guy would bend in an instant. And they should refuse.
- whydoineedone 5y ago
  says you; I prefer working in-office, in-person. The energy is 100x better, I can form real relationships with my co-workers instead of online bullshit relationships with zoom and goofy backgrounds. Partially remote teams are the absolute worst. I avoid remote positions like the plague.
- duxup 5y ago
  "If everyone refused" One of the things about this is that ... I don't trust my fellow employees much more than the CEO to make good choices. The typical firebrand employees I've worked with, I want nothing to do with as far as their overall initiatives go. I might agree with them on one thing but not what to do about it and etc.
- ggreer 5y ago
  First, not everyone wants to work remotely. Some people live in situations where there are too many distractions or annoyances at home. This is especially true if they have children. Second, For those who want to work remotely, this is a coordination problem. Nobody wants to be the first to give such an ultimatum to their manager, as they'd almost certainly be fired. Even if employees could all coordinate through some back channel, the reward for defecting is quite high. If half of your coworkers quit, you are suddenly a much more valuable member of the team. Anyone who stuck around would receive very high compensation.

geerlingguy 5y ago

Well before the pandemic, I was talking to a recruiter about a position where I feel I would've been perfect, and had a great time doing some very interesting work with a pretty fun team (very distributed). I wouldn't budge on not relocating, and so the idea kind of fizzled out. People with a remote-first mindset were more rare a few years ago. Today, you're going to miss out on a lot of ideal job candidates (and lose good talent) if you can't open up to not forcing employees to congregate around managers in-person all the time.

retskrad 5y ago

I get it, the pandemic changed the game. I would personally not work for a company that doesn't give you the option of WFH but the FAANG companies are in a different ballgame. Millions of people would give their left toe to work at a company like Apple. Me included. Who cares about WFH when you get to live in California and work with some of the brightest minds? Only privileged person wouldn't value that.

d4mi3n 5y ago
I get what you're saying, but it's those same bright minds who are concerned about being in an office amid a pandemic. It's a reasonable concern. Everyone has a right to make their own decisions, but calling somebody out as privileged over a legitimate health concern seems counterproductive. What does Apple or some other big company lose from having their employees work from home a bit longer? Productivity. Money. Maybe some projects run long. What does an employee have to lose? Their health. Possibly their life. Even if you're vaccinated, you can be a carrier, you can still catch COVID--you're just not likely to have a bad case of it. That does not mean it is no longer fatal or that you can't have complications from a mild case.
- borski 5y ago
  I was with you for the first half, but it is not true that there is any reasonable chance of death or significant complications after vaccination. At that point, the risk is no greater than a fire starting in your own home. The rest of what you said, I agree with. The more salient point is people who are immunocompromised and cannot get the vaccine.
  - d4mi3n 5y ago
    After your comment I reviewed some recent research and concluded that you are correct in there mild cases have not been shown to be fatal or otherwise result in serious complications. Thank for the correction! I agree with you on the point of the immunocompromised and that those with weak immune responses are the most at risk. The AARP did a pretty good write up of the efficacy of a couple of COVID vaccines and what efficacy means[1]. They cite a number of studies and conclude that: * Breakthrough cases—infections after vaccination are possible, but rare, with multiple studies citing rate of breakthrough cases at 0.05% in a healthcare setting (high rate of risk/exposure). Small, but not astronomically so if you’re working in an open office or interacting with the general public. * Breakthrough cases typically result in mild symptoms or asymptomatic infections. * A weak immune response can turn you into a carrier even if you have been vaccinated. * New COVID variants may result in a rise in breakthrough cases. 1. https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/coronavirus-after-vaccination.html https://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-2021/...

macinjosh 5y ago

It is a tad ironic that Apple recently finished their immaculate, state-of-the-art campus and now everyone would rather just work from home.

tonywastaken 5y ago
The new campus only seats a small portion of their Bay Area employees, so a large percentage of the employees are dialing in to meetings anyway.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  This is what I don't get about the demand for in office. Many of us are already effectively remote anyways for our teams. Most of my team is in a city three hours away. Actually, with the latest departure, all of my team except my manager is in another city. So I will be going into the office to be on Google Meet.
  - treespace88 5y ago
    Glad to hear that situations like my own are not uncommon. Most of the people I work with before Covid I have never met in person.

atty 5y ago

It’s a bad look when a technology company isn’t confident enough in their own technology, tools and processes to allow and encourage their employees to have more flexibility in their lives, and restrict the majority of them to live in one of the highest cost of living areas in the country. Especially for reasons that have very little actual (read: non-anecdotal and scientifically valid) evidence of being an actual benefit. It’s a real shame. I’ve been a big fan of Apple’s products for awhile now. I did my PhD work on a 2014 MacBook Pro, and I switched from Android to iPhone around the same time, and I’ve been very happy with both. That laptop in particular has lasted me longer than any other computer I’ve used. I’d love to apply for a job there, to spend some time seeing how the sausage is made, so to speak. But I have family obligations that make it very hard for me to move. Obviously it’s the executives’ choice, but I definitely feel like they’re really cutting down on their potential candidate pool for very little potential upside. Especially considering they tend to pay less than the other big players.

MuffinFlavored 5y ago
> Obviously it’s the executives’ choice In an unbiased fashion, does anybody have any evidence that proves executives are "right" to say being managed in an office is more productive delivery wise than working from home?
- borski 5y ago
  Anecdotal, but managing through the pandemic has been significantly more challenging than in-office. Granted, we were working through a pandemic, so not really WFH, but it did leave a bad taste in a lot of managers’ mouths because people keep advocating for WFH, without making that distinction. So when a manager hears WFH, and this is that, there’s no way. But distinguishing WFH from “work through pandemic” would likely be a lot more effective.
  - MuffinFlavored 5y ago
    > has been significantly more challenging Can you elaborate? when you say managing, do you mean like... it's harder to get ahold of people to be around to get stuff done?

WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago

I can't help but keep thinking remote work will just lead to more wealth inequality. My dumb argument: => Amazon/Apple/Big-Tech petitions a city for a super center for bunch of middle-class (and upper-class) awesome jobs. => Construction, development, small shops, homes, form around the area. => Small economy/city is built. Suddenly fitness trainer "Bob" can sell $100/hr lessons, open a gym, and provide for family on unskilled labor. Etc... => Schools in area get better. Crime goes down. => And so on... If remote becomes a thing and all these "super jobs" can be done from anywhere in the world, I just can't shake a dead-end for booming neighborhoods that aren't gigantic mansions is coming.

basisword 5y ago
Surely this reduces inequality? Instead of money congregating in big cities it gets spent all over the country/world. Instead of wealthy people gentrifying certain neighbourhoods as a group and pricing everyone else out, there can be more of a mix of incomes.
- WORMS_EAT_WORMS 5y ago
  That's a really great counter argument. To be honest, I don't really know and am not claiming an exact answer. I imagine it's a little bit of both. When I was a naive kid, I moved to a highly populated city just to find work (no plan in place). I'm saying that same take-a-chance opportunity that I had, may become just that much harder for others now.
  - basisword 5y ago
    I guess it's one of those things that can be argued either way and only time will tell!
- dec0dedab0de 5y ago
  Maybe at first, but by increasing their supply of potential employees a company could pay lower wages. Which would mean more profits for executives and share holders, and a larger gap.

chadash 5y ago

It seems like there are many engineers who want to work remotely full time going forward. I'm in the opposite boat. If a company doesn't have an office, I don't want to work there. I like having a place to go to that isn't my home. I like meeting and talking to employees in different parts of the business without having to setup zoom calls for that. I enjoy the social and collaborative aspects of in-person work. I do enjoy the ability to work remotely on occasion, but I want to be in the office most of the time. People who don't like remote work are not out there making noise, because we're still living in a world where most jobs at least have the option of in-person work. But there's plenty of us who want to leave home on weekday mornings.

peytn 5y ago
Same, and I think this is the majority view. The noise about WFH is a turn-off as well and I’d rather steer clear of those making it—-if it’s that big a deal to you, there’s plenty of remote work out there.
- KingMachiavelli 5y ago
  The vast, vast majority of jobs are in-office jobs. It's extremely unlikely that supply of WFH jobs exceeds demand considering it only just became a mainstream thing ~18 months ago. Perhaps in certain locations WFH is still the temporary default but in any place with eased/lifted pandemic restrictions the default is returning to in office.
- coldtea 5y ago
  Yeah, some people just love the micro-managing, busy-work, ass kissing, dragging others into pointless meetings, office politics, shows of autority, water cooler "friends", back-stabbing, etc, and those aren't as easy with WFH.
borski 5y ago
Thanks for saying how I feel, though I respect an employee’s ability to choose whether they want remote work or not, and then to make that choice known by advocating for it or leaving for a position that offers it. There will be many more now, and many more will have flexibility. But just as I wouldn’t impose on someone to force them to be in the office, I think some people definitely value the separation.

whoknowswhat11 5y ago

Apple hired and is paying salaries at levels for in person work. Don't like it leave. Or consider doing a trade - reduced salary to be able to live in a low cost of living area and no commute.

smoldesu 5y ago
Not necessarily. Apple's engineering team was the largest advocate for WFH, and everyone involved in digital manufacture doesn't have to worry about a thing.
xiphias2 5y ago
Another option is to petition, which is a form of group negotiation. Apple still has the ability to turn it down.

xwdv 5y ago

This is a great time to poach employees from companies unwilling to provide remote work. So many are paying great salaries for remote workers and treating them as true first class citizens.

themantra514 5y ago

Apple is 100% correct in this decision to ensure their apex tech company status. From personal experience with so called "professionals" at gov level that worked from home, they think it's a vacation not work. No observation of decorum, protocol, or consistency. Your environment orients how you interpret and interact with the tasks at hand. If you have to pick between stirring the sauce before it burns or taking the time to type cohesive notes during a videoconference/call, your sense of urgency will have a bias towards saving the sauce. Because after all, you are home.

killjoywashere 5y ago
I deal with about 50:50 government and commercial employees. Big tech, start-ups, GOFOs to junior enlisted. Most government employees are paid significantly less than their commercial counterparts. They're stirring the sauce because they can't afford to have DoorDash deliver Vaso Azzurro to their door. Start-up employees, in my experience, are more like government workers, but they are still living pretty well comparatively, and, in my sample, are significantly less likely to have kids, so the dollars go quite a bit further.
bitcrusher 5y ago
This is the most hamfisted nonsense I've read in a while. Just say "I like to micromanage people" and be done with it. The fact that you're worried about what/how other people are using or dealing with their time says way more about you than about working environments. Some people don't do well without working in an office, other people do quite well working outside of a traditional office setting.
athenot 5y ago
Counter point from experience working with a large team (~2k ppl) that's distributed and working from home well before the pandemic: decorum, protocol and consistency also exist at home, they just required a different discipline and different skills from managers. If anything, we all noticed that more work gets done at home, and people are more responsive than when office.
padobson 5y ago

skwirl 5y ago

Kind of a meta comment here, but HN is way more pro-full time remote work than the people I speak to in my day to day life. I'm definitely glad that we'll have increased flexibility in the future with hybrid set-ups, but I am looking forward to getting back in the office. I would not even consider a full time remote position at this point in my life (and I've been seeing more and more recruiters reaching out with these) but I'm glad that there are increased options there for those who want them. If I worked for Apple I'd really feel like I was missing out on one of the big perks of working there if I was fully remote (and I'm not talking about the physical office - I'm talking about being surrounded by world class talent). At the same time I can understand how limiting the insane housing prices are in the area of Apple HQ, but I'd prefer satellite offices to full time remote.

deleted 5y ago

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Popegaf 5y ago

If these employees really do think it's a decision between Apple culture and family life, I wonder what decision they will take and if it will have repercussions within Apple. Unhappy Apple employees have the power here to attempt to change the company culture or simply accept what they have been ordered to do. Only time will tell.

bilbo0s 5y ago
Problem is there are way too many employees to change culture. It's different when most employees want change, a la Amazon warehouse for instance. It's something else entirely when a minority of employees want a change. (And let's be frank, it's impossible when each of those unhappy employees have literally a 1000 candidates outside Apple's front door clamoring for a chance to take his/her job.) I'd argue that companies like Apple are probably one of the places in the tech industry where the employer really has all the power. I can't really think of any skill that an employee could bring to a place like Apple that would make that person worth a culture change. Maybe some of the guys and gals in design? Probably transcendent design eyes don't come along very often. But even then, I don't know? Probably not.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  Perhaps those candidates, once hired, might also have disagreements with management about WFH policy.
- cudgy 5y ago
  Many of Apple’s employees should be millionares. If millionaires cannot live life the way they want by leaving Apple, what are they working towards? Staying at Apple despite their wishes regarding a highly impactful issue like work/life balance makes them not so bright.

justapassenger 5y ago

How’s that even a news? Company makes a decision that some employees disagree with? And then company proceeds with that decision? Even if companies were democracies, which they aren’t, you don’t need 100% to make a decision for a reason - to be able to make any decisions.

pembrook 5y ago

Not sure why this is news to anyone. Apple just built the most expensive on-site campus in history prior to the pandemic. It's a 40 year old company led by 50+ year old executives who have built their entire social and family lives around their offices. Obviously they're going to force everybody back to the way it was. This means nothing for the big shift to remote however. The economic incentives for both companies and employees are just too strong for it not to happen. It was never going to be led by gray haired execs at legacy companies like Apple. When you're currently the most profitable company in the history of earth, you can ignore otherwise rational incentives. But the key word in that sentence was "currently." Instead of talking about what the winners of the past are doing, we should be thinking about what the winners of the future will do. It's important to remember, no company has stayed at the top of the S&P500 for very long.

smoldesu 5y ago
People like to point and laugh because Apple's obligation to shareholders constantly stands in the way of their social messaging. In one hand, they never miss an opportunity to stay current and kowtow to the current trend d'jour, and on the other they make incredibly asinine business decisions that completely undermine their rhetoric.
411111111111111 5y ago
> It's important to remember, no company has stayed at the top of the S&P500 for very long. this has been true historically, but nothing makes it inherently so if you think in the context of a human's lifespan. 100 years ago, the world wasn't a continuously connected marked. If a company got "too large" for comfort, a government could intervene and force a split. This is no longer a viable action, as companies cater to literally the whole world at the same time, so splitting them in one jurisdiction would just end up making that particular market less attractive to companies... effectively harming the government economically. There is only so much you can deduct from our history considering that the base premises is so different nowadays, especially if you constrain it to the time we've got to experience this world. Microsoft and Apple at least have been around since before the 90th, so they're already 30yrs in... thats almost a full professional life of the average employee before they retire.

giantrobot 5y ago

I can totally see the need for Apple to get people back in the office. I mean they've lost so much money during the pandem...what's that? Billions you say? Launched a new desktop architecture you say? Good heavens. Apple has a horde of middle managers that need to get back to looking busy. If they can't watch every employee every second of the day how can they do their unofficial (but totally official) stack ranking come review time? There's obviously legitimate reasons to get employees back in the office. At the same time their complete intransigence when it comes to remote work is just bull headed. Tons of work at Apple is networked by nature. There's floods of e-mail (to the point it's almost useless), Slack chats galore, and tons of communication through Radar (Apple's issue tracker). The business need for in-person interaction for most engineers is actually pretty minimal. Many have to put a lot of effort into avoiding in-person distractions. Most in-person meetings would actually be better as e-mails. I think their position is going to lose them some good talent. While on the whole those engineers can be replaced Apple runs lean engineering teams. Losing just one can hamstring that team for months. That can often mean a feature slips to the next OS release or a half-assed version lands. So an org losing even a dozen engineers all at once could screw it over for months.

sosborn 5y ago
To be fair, part of their argument is that the vast majority of the work they released during the pandemic was conceived and completed before everyone was working from home. Not to mention the general sales boosts all tech companies benefitted from as people spent more time at home.
itomato 5y ago
They can’t lease the surplus in their new HQ. They can’t do the Big Secret if people can leave for their families. The entire brand strategy hinges on that haunted building.
- giantrobot 5y ago
  There's doesn't need to be surplus to be unable to lease. Even after Apple Park was completed and every team slated to move in had moved Apple still had all (or most) their old buildings still filled. If they allowed remote work they could consolidate their far flung offices in Apple Park, which was the original intent of the damned building. Apple Park is like all of the form-over-function complaints about Apple crystallized into a single space.

dankoss 5y ago

Apple is a hardware company, and you can't WFH using giant anechoic chambers, laser cutting machines, electronics labs, and who knows what else. The products may be manufactured overseas, but there is a lot of expensive hardware needed for designing, prototyping and testing. I get that Apple does a lot of software these days, but one of the things they are also known for is tight integration between the hardware and software, which doesn't happen without them working side by side. There may be a significant fraction of employees that can work remotely, but it would significantly change the culture of the company to split the workforce like that.

pseudalopex 5y ago
They've done a lot of software for 4 decades. And most Apple software and services employees don't interact with hardware teams at all.
KingMachiavelli 5y ago
Sure but many Apple employees don't interact with hardware at all. There's a good chance that many people who do interact with hardware only do so part of the time. Another section might work with hardware but could maybe take some of it home with them (clearly physical hardware has left Apple in the past). Sure, the remainder have to be physically present but that is the job/career they picked and even probably enjoy. Letting everyone else WFH means those remaining on-campus employees can have better offices & live closer to work. Seems like a win-win to me.

pyjug 5y ago

The FAANG have a lot more leverage over their employees than people seem to think. Very few if any outside of these companies pay a mid level engineer 700k (yes, this number is real, can we please stop debating this fact?). So, if all FAANG force their companies back to the office, the employees have effectively no leverage. This is similar to how the top cos colluded to keep engineer wages low in the 2000s, except they don’t need to explicitly make such a pact.

ChrisArchitect 5y ago

related conversation from daringfireball post on the same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27684039

tenfourwookie 5y ago

Apple to itself: “ We didn't build this $5 billion UFO saucer in the middle of a residential neighborhoods, this shrine to the Ego that Was Jobs, for you to stay home! ”