26 ms·

After returning to the office, many Apple workers are unhappy and ready to quit

32 points by andyjohnson0 5y ago

fullshark 5y ago
> Seventy-six percent of Apple workers surveyed said they were dissatisfied with Apple’s return-to-office policy that was implemented after the COVID pandemic started waning. The survey, conducted by anonymous social network Blind, collected answers from 652 Apple employees from April 13 to April 19. Useless data
- mwint 5y ago
  Yup, the kind of people Blind can survey aren’t representative of Apple as a whole. Selection bias.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jitl 5y ago
  The Blind board for @airbnb.com emails felt like 4chan - like any attempt to engage either respectfully or to troll was just pissing into a sea of piss. Completely unrepresentative of the actual supportive and friendly culture. I decided to see if there was a Blind for my current employer… but deleted the app instead. NOT WORTH IT.
jsiepkes 5y ago
I think we've seen enough articles about how Apple workers are supposedly ready to quit in droves. If it's still not happening in this market I doubt it ever will.
- carlmr 5y ago
  I mean apart from any other biases in this survey, a lot of people are "ready to quit" at any point in time, in almost any company, but a lot of these people are still there years after giving such a statement. It might be more comfortable to stay, the alternatives may need some effort to find, another job might be too far away, the other job might be cool but pay less, you might have a family and need stability. There are plenty of reasons why people don't just move when they're "ready to quit". So that is kind of a meaningless question. The only question that matters is how many people do quit. Because if people do quit in droves, you might have an issue. Until then, I wouldn't hold my breath.
- kcplate 5y ago
  Perhaps I am an old man (well, not perhaps, I am an old man), but when I started this tech adventure nearly 40 years ago, you were damned happy if you had a desk not located in the freezing cold computer room. You thought you were the kind of the world if you had eyeshot of a window to the outside. Nowadays people are griping about having to go to perhaps the nicest corporate campus facility ever built 3 days a week. Dare I say it? Yea, I dare. I think this latest generation has become whiny and weak.
  - mgarfias 5y ago
    Some of are at lesser campuses. For instance, our espresso bar is closed and I have to walk to a whole different building to get one. It sux
    - kcplate 5y ago
      I managed some data centers a couple of decades ago. I always had trouble sleeping when I visited the Miami location. Ultimately figured out that the automated espresso machine that was literally 4 steps from my desk that I was hitting 5x+ a day, coupled with the facility’s afternoon tradition of the employees walking around dropping multiple shots of their Cuban coffee coladas on my desk would amp up my caffeine. Those were good times.
jleyank 5y ago
Boiling a frog re commutes? Turned off the gas and allowed the water to cool for two years. Now turning it back on big time and oddly enough the frog notices. The problem with good news spreading magically is that bad news spreads rapidly. People have to be willing to get back into commuting after truly seeing its cost. No clue how many will, but the companies that don’t coerce their employees due to pre covid decisions will prosper. I did my part and retired.
- lesuorac 5y ago
  The frog in the experiment was lobotomized first [1] so it's not a relevant comparison to Apple employees. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jleyank 5y ago
    Not directly, no. But given the fanatical devotion of apple fanboy’s one wonders.
    - tinus_hn 5y ago
      One wonders about the relevance of these fanatical fanboys when talking about Apple employees.
giantg2 5y ago
I went back to the office for the first time this week (different company). It was probably the first time I've worked a full day in like 1.5 years since I felt I was being watched. I'm pretty sure one of our better performers will leave this year. She has only been remote and seems to have a serious aversion to in-person interactions. I fully expect she'll find a remote job and leave.
- PraetorianGourd 5y ago
  > the first time I've worked a full day in like 1.5 years I think you said the quiet part out loud. You can split hairs between "working" and "productivity" and say you are equally as productive working 75% of a day at home, but I would be interested in what objective measure you use to make that claim.
akmarinov 5y ago
Do it Sit down with your manager, tell them they have 2 months or you quit, then be prepared to quit.
- lesuorac 5y ago
  Or just refuse to come in and keep working remotely and see if they're bluffing.
haunter 5y ago
>Average Apple Engineer yearly pay in the United States is approximately $144,817, which is 92% above the national average.
ozzythecat 5y ago
At my previous company, productivity increased on some teams. Other teams saw a significant drop in productivity, and for certain high performers, it meant they changed teams or left the company. As we continued hiring managers and engineers, we realized building a culture where everyone was remote was hard but not impossible. Again, seem teams thrived. Other teams were disasters. Difficulty getting a roadmap straight, engineers coming to standup habitually late and with fake updates, delivery constantly getting pushed, and entire sprints where the work load simply gets pushed to the next sprint. Several engineers I spoke with, who joined during COVID, told me flat out they’re not very productive, and they had come to understood this as being “normal” for their role. My take away is that working from home is not a universal solution. If you have strong teams that can continue their culture remotely, you should do what keeps them happy and work from home. If you have teams who cannot deliver remotely, then SOMETHING needs to happen. I am convinced that having those teams come in and show productivity is a pre-requisite. It might just be that we need to replace managers. The solution might be coaching or replacing certain individuals, and coming into the office makes the underlying problems very visible. At Amazon, I had three different women Senior engineers (my mentees) break down into tears during 1:1s. Their teams weren’t progressing on delivery. Their stakeholders were directly reaching out to the senior SDEs and applying pressure. Their SDMs seemed careless but then happy to throw the senior SDEs under the bus. The company didn’t want to ask anyone to come in, because they were looking at this as an opportunity to hire engineers from other companies. The companies asking employees to return. Other engineers on the team were skipping team meetings and not showing progress in their sprints. I spoke directly with one of the managers trying to understand his concerns, at one point asking if he could walk me through his top 3 challenges. They involved getting promoted to the next level, and complaints about his partner teams who were frustrated with his team not delivering. I’ll stop this long story here. One take away is that companies who are struggling to hire engineers, especially because of their toxic culture and other gaps, are ready to offer remote work as a perk.
TheChaplain 5y ago
Before the pandemic and change of work conditions, I had 2.5h/day commute. These days working from home I have less stress, feel healthier and perform much better at my work duties. It's astounding that some managers can not see the benefit.

32 points by andyjohnson0 5y ago

> Seventy-six percent of Apple workers surveyed said they were dissatisfied with Apple’s return-to-office policy that was implemented after the COVID pandemic started waning. The survey, conducted by anonymous social network Blind, collected answers from 652 Apple employees from April 13 to April 19. Useless data

mwint 5y ago
Yup, the kind of people Blind can survey aren’t representative of Apple as a whole. Selection bias.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jitl 5y ago
The Blind board for @airbnb.com emails felt like 4chan - like any attempt to engage either respectfully or to troll was just pissing into a sea of piss. Completely unrepresentative of the actual supportive and friendly culture. I decided to see if there was a Blind for my current employer… but deleted the app instead. NOT WORTH IT.

jsiepkes 5y ago

I think we've seen enough articles about how Apple workers are supposedly ready to quit in droves. If it's still not happening in this market I doubt it ever will.

carlmr 5y ago
I mean apart from any other biases in this survey, a lot of people are "ready to quit" at any point in time, in almost any company, but a lot of these people are still there years after giving such a statement. It might be more comfortable to stay, the alternatives may need some effort to find, another job might be too far away, the other job might be cool but pay less, you might have a family and need stability. There are plenty of reasons why people don't just move when they're "ready to quit". So that is kind of a meaningless question. The only question that matters is how many people do quit. Because if people do quit in droves, you might have an issue. Until then, I wouldn't hold my breath.
kcplate 5y ago
Perhaps I am an old man (well, not perhaps, I am an old man), but when I started this tech adventure nearly 40 years ago, you were damned happy if you had a desk not located in the freezing cold computer room. You thought you were the kind of the world if you had eyeshot of a window to the outside. Nowadays people are griping about having to go to perhaps the nicest corporate campus facility ever built 3 days a week. Dare I say it? Yea, I dare. I think this latest generation has become whiny and weak.
- mgarfias 5y ago
  Some of are at lesser campuses. For instance, our espresso bar is closed and I have to walk to a whole different building to get one. It sux
  - kcplate 5y ago
    I managed some data centers a couple of decades ago. I always had trouble sleeping when I visited the Miami location. Ultimately figured out that the automated espresso machine that was literally 4 steps from my desk that I was hitting 5x+ a day, coupled with the facility’s afternoon tradition of the employees walking around dropping multiple shots of their Cuban coffee coladas on my desk would amp up my caffeine. Those were good times.

jleyank 5y ago

Boiling a frog re commutes? Turned off the gas and allowed the water to cool for two years. Now turning it back on big time and oddly enough the frog notices. The problem with good news spreading magically is that bad news spreads rapidly. People have to be willing to get back into commuting after truly seeing its cost. No clue how many will, but the companies that don’t coerce their employees due to pre covid decisions will prosper. I did my part and retired.

lesuorac 5y ago
The frog in the experiment was lobotomized first [1] so it's not a relevant comparison to Apple employees. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jleyank 5y ago
  Not directly, no. But given the fanatical devotion of apple fanboy’s one wonders.
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    One wonders about the relevance of these fanatical fanboys when talking about Apple employees.

giantg2 5y ago

I went back to the office for the first time this week (different company). It was probably the first time I've worked a full day in like 1.5 years since I felt I was being watched. I'm pretty sure one of our better performers will leave this year. She has only been remote and seems to have a serious aversion to in-person interactions. I fully expect she'll find a remote job and leave.

PraetorianGourd 5y ago
> the first time I've worked a full day in like 1.5 years I think you said the quiet part out loud. You can split hairs between "working" and "productivity" and say you are equally as productive working 75% of a day at home, but I would be interested in what objective measure you use to make that claim.

akmarinov 5y ago

Do it Sit down with your manager, tell them they have 2 months or you quit, then be prepared to quit.

lesuorac 5y ago
Or just refuse to come in and keep working remotely and see if they're bluffing.

haunter 5y ago

>Average Apple Engineer yearly pay in the United States is approximately $144,817, which is 92% above the national average.

ozzythecat 5y ago

At my previous company, productivity increased on some teams. Other teams saw a significant drop in productivity, and for certain high performers, it meant they changed teams or left the company. As we continued hiring managers and engineers, we realized building a culture where everyone was remote was hard but not impossible. Again, seem teams thrived. Other teams were disasters. Difficulty getting a roadmap straight, engineers coming to standup habitually late and with fake updates, delivery constantly getting pushed, and entire sprints where the work load simply gets pushed to the next sprint. Several engineers I spoke with, who joined during COVID, told me flat out they’re not very productive, and they had come to understood this as being “normal” for their role. My take away is that working from home is not a universal solution. If you have strong teams that can continue their culture remotely, you should do what keeps them happy and work from home. If you have teams who cannot deliver remotely, then SOMETHING needs to happen. I am convinced that having those teams come in and show productivity is a pre-requisite. It might just be that we need to replace managers. The solution might be coaching or replacing certain individuals, and coming into the office makes the underlying problems very visible. At Amazon, I had three different women Senior engineers (my mentees) break down into tears during 1:1s. Their teams weren’t progressing on delivery. Their stakeholders were directly reaching out to the senior SDEs and applying pressure. Their SDMs seemed careless but then happy to throw the senior SDEs under the bus. The company didn’t want to ask anyone to come in, because they were looking at this as an opportunity to hire engineers from other companies. The companies asking employees to return. Other engineers on the team were skipping team meetings and not showing progress in their sprints. I spoke directly with one of the managers trying to understand his concerns, at one point asking if he could walk me through his top 3 challenges. They involved getting promoted to the next level, and complaints about his partner teams who were frustrated with his team not delivering. I’ll stop this long story here. One take away is that companies who are struggling to hire engineers, especially because of their toxic culture and other gaps, are ready to offer remote work as a perk.

TheChaplain 5y ago

Before the pandemic and change of work conditions, I had 2.5h/day commute. These days working from home I have less stress, feel healthier and perform much better at my work duties. It's astounding that some managers can not see the benefit.