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Apple can mandate whatever the hell they like, but there will be no putting the toothpaste back into the work from home tube. I won't even consider roles that f

• spoonjim 4y ago
  That's totally OK... Apple doesn't need to hire you to thrive.
  • emptyparadise 4y ago
    Apple doesn't need you to defend them either.
    • spoonjim 4y ago
      I’m not defending them. This is just a market transaction. Apple is hiring from a smaller supply pool but outside of a Jony Ive level VP there is nobody they really need to hire.
      • wiseowise 4y ago
        > I’m not defending them. You’re literally defending them and creating halo effect around them, lol.
        • spoonjim 4y ago
          I couldn’t possibly care less what does or doesn’t happen to Apple. I’m just saying that “I won’t work at Apple!” hardly has any impact on Apple and thus on its decisionmaking.
          • washbrain 4y ago
            "I won't work at company because...." Is a useful signal for other folks. I have a long list of companies I won't work for thanks to people sharing their individual experiences and opinions. So maybe if you don't feel swayed, just move on next time?
  • ultrarunner 4y ago
    Last time I went to work in the office I was inundated with chatter, interruption, and distraction. People walked by and said hi and then messaged me from their desks anyway. I had to leave early because there were actually things things that needed to be done. Maybe Apple has this problem sorted (and strangely I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they have a no unapproved talking rule implemented) but the simple fact is that efficient and productive work will win in the end, and that isn’t necessarily defined by commuting to a building and being trapped there between certain hours.
    • onion2k 4y ago
      Apple aren't dumb and they know exactly what impact this will have. I suspect this is Apple cutting staff without saying they're cutting staff.
      • linkjuice4all 4y ago
        There's a couple of factors that companies might be taking into account when considering RTO - We can fire people that don't want to come back (avoids legal issues with layoffs/firing and directly saves money) - Managers need to see people working and be seen working (people justifying their position - but hard to say if this actually saves money) - We're paying for office space (Apple just paid a lot and can't just give up their lease) - The C-suite's mansions are close by and they need to visibly show they're working/earning their pay Few of these things make sense for a company engaged in profit generation - except getting rid of people and amortizing a fixed/sunk cost. Are there any other reasons that "someone" would want people back in person? Is it really that much more productive to make people get ready for an office (cleaning up, putting on appropriate clothing, etc) and commuting in?
        • zxcvbn4038 4y ago
          Apple can turn their headquarters into a palace for Harry and Meghan! No, on second thought that would be a bigger waste of space then leaving it empty. :)
  • weq 4y ago
    Then tell the dammed FANNG recruiters to keep to the collage kids and stop with the linkedin. They need devs to grow their revenue, these companies were built on attracting talent. That was the 00s. Gone are the days where people were gullable enough to think have an inhouse chef was for the employees benifit. lets face it, bigtech would tape you to a chair, itubate both ends and pump processed nutriants through your system if they had a choice.
    • bl0b 4y ago
      Ha! The soldier in white from catch-22
  • strikelaserclaw 4y ago
    It apparently didn't need Ian Goodfellow either.
• catchnear4321 4y ago
  Are you sure? I’ve been seeing numerous headlines suggesting that you don’t actually feel that way - in fact no one does, and everyone really wants to go back to the office. Additionally, fabric of society, progress, puppy dogs, and America. Think of the children (during your commute.) We’re in this cubicle together. (Management thought it would cut costs.)
  • eloisius 4y ago
    You get cubicles? Fancy. My last corporate gig was one step away from hot desking us. Everyone in non-engineering roles had already been moved to hot desks and a generous, adorable little cartoon bear decorated cubby to store your personal items. Engineering raised such a fuss about setting up monitors and whatnot they we stalled the full rollout for a spell, but the writing was on the wall. Imagine that. Forcing employees into an office, but not even guaranteeing a desk. It’s hardly better than going to a cowork or even a coffee shop.
    • richev 4y ago
      My expectation is that hot desks will become the norm, as companies will (in time) decrease their office space in line with the % of the workforce who are actually in the office on an "average" day.
      • catchnear4321 4y ago
        At some point companies may even try having some employees offer to work from somewhere other than the office, like a coffee shop or even home if you absolutely had to, to deal with any over-crowding issues that come up from this. You can’t really work in the office if it is over-subscribed. Can’t have people standing around waiting for desks. (Hmmm… or conference rooms for that matter…) Sure you won’t get the in-office perks, but the company appreciates your understanding.
        • throwaway787544 4y ago
          Starbucks should just open co-working spaces. It's literally just a Starbucks but with monitors, keyboards and mice.
• Gigachad 4y ago
  This is probably true of most companies, but I feel that Apple probably does have the power and ability to put toothpaste back in a tube. If I was looking to work at Apple I'd be fine to go back to the office vs working at a generic web saas company.
  • isbvhodnvemrwvn 4y ago
    You do realize that you are extremely likely to write some crud app nobody cares about anyway?
• JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
  Does anyone else get major 1929 vibes when they read posts like this? I suspect there may be a day where people are happy for any job that pays them to stay alive and have food, WPA style. An office might not sound so bad after a few years of laying sidewalks and repairing bridges.
  • babypuncher 4y ago
    You say that like we are just months away from another Great Depression. Spoiler alert: we're not.
    • JohnJamesRambo 4y ago
      How do you know this? http://pc.blogspot.com/2015/08/quotes-of-morning-before-after-1929.html http://pc.blogspot.com/2015/08/quotes-of-morning-before-afte...
  • icelancer 4y ago
    The great layoffs have begun. People are still talking like it's the Great Resignation period. The very best can dictate their work conditions, as always. The majority of the workers cannot, and remote work is not here to stay for most.
  • temende 4y ago
    If we get to the point where the choice is between starving on the street or going to an office, then sure I'll go to an office. But as long as there's at least a few companies hiring that offer fully remote, I'll find a way to make those roles work even if it's a bad team-fit or culture-fit otherwise.
• icelancer 4y ago
  That's what they're banking on - people quitting instead of needing to enact layoffs and pay severance.
  • rajman187 4y ago
    Probably true but then there are cases like Ian Goodfellow [0] quitting over RTO [1] which they wouldn't have wanted [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Goodfellow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Goodfellow [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-17/ian-goodfellow-former-apple-director-of-machine-learning-to-join-deepmind https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-17/ian-goodf...
• 999900000999 4y ago
  You might as well call me reversible toothpaste then. People are getting offers, which are so insane, a friend of mine, more like a distant friend of a friend recently got a total comp package of slightly over 250k per year. He only has to go in 2 days per week, and it's pretty flexible. You can make the days up. But he's also the type of person who really likes to get out of the house, they own dogs so often he'll just need to get out of there.
  • p1esk 4y ago
    Wait, 250k total comp sounds insane to you?
    • 999900000999 4y ago
      Oh hacker news, This is the only website where you can say a friend is making 250k people act like it's not a big deal I guess lawyers and doctors make this amount of money too, but programming is the only profession you can learn with just a used laptop and a Starbucks internet connection. And then still expect to hit a minimum of 100K within 3 years of installing Visual Studio. Even if you're a college dropout. That's what happened to me. God Bless America.
      • p1esk 4y ago
        We are talking about FAANG salaries here. I have friends at Meta and Google who make 600k+. Similar experience level to mine. The problem with 250k is that you can probably get a maximum of $1M mortgage with that. Can you buy a decent average house in Cupertino for $1M? Now imagine you have 3 kids and you like to take a nice family vacation twice a year. So with an average house in SV you will end up spending almost all of that 250k, good luck saving for college.
        • 999900000999 4y ago
          Not everyone's getting FAANG jobs. If I ever have kids, I'd probably tell them to go to community college like I did . Even at community college, I was meeting students from Sweden, China, etc. Even went out with a K-pop supermodel once. You can attend college in California, at a community college for about $1,000 a year. Everything included. Then go to UC Berkeley, where at most it's going to be $20,000 a year for 2 years, that's only a total of $42,000 to get a degree from one of the best schools in the world. Now I imagine, let's say my first girlfriend finds my number, we end up having the twins that she wanted. And then our twins are super geniuses who get into Harvard. Then maybe 250k isn't enough, it's weird though because I would think that anything over 200k is doing absurdly well. Plus if you only need to go into work one or two days a week, just drive from Sacramento..
• up2isomorphism 4y ago
  You just say this because of the pandemic. The truth is if another guy has the same skill level as you and he can work on site you are out. As covid comes to an end, companies has to enforce rto gradually in general and making remote as an exception. There is no way around it, because the company that allows you to walk your dog at 11am will lose to the ones that ensures you are at work at the same time. It is the competition, that’s it.
  • andyp-kw 4y ago
    Last time I checked, there was a worldwide developer shortage, meaning most of us are in a good position to negotiate or go elsewhere.
    • washbrain 4y ago
      Won't be that way forever, which is why we should be using our strength to unionize now rather than later.
      • mycentstoo 4y ago
        Maybe not forever but the developer shortage is accelerating [1]. 1 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US48223621 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=US48223621
• psi75 4y ago
  > there will be no putting the toothpaste back into the work from home tube. This is true, but it's also dangerous. The lizardfolk [1] have learned that WFH works, that's the good news. The bad news is that nothing prevents said lizardfolk from taking the jobs right out of our pockets and shipping them to places where workers have even fewer rights than in the US. COVID-19 isn't over, and it is still capitalism's Chernobyl. It might, however, first hurt American workers because it is also possibly nationalism's Chernobyl. People accept national governments when those governments protect them, either from foreign invaders, or from the private-sector smeg-thugs called "employers". The success of WFH has proven that most work can be done anywhere. This isn't just bad for local real estate barons; it's bad for nations. Western governments have done a piss-poor job, over the past 40 years, of protecting their own people from their bosses... but what happens if they can't even do that? The world becomes ungovernable. WFH eviscerates false consciousness, which is a good thing (acceleration) but dangerous. We no longer pretend work is the most important thing in our lives, a "passion" because we somehow lack the imagination to conceive of better uses for our time than subordinate labor. (We still do it, and competently, but not for 50+ hours per week.) The bosses no longer pretend to be invested in our careers or to see us as future colleagues rather than disposable subordinates. Work becomes a commodity, a trade of (too much) of one's finite time for (too little of) an artificially scarce commodity called money. And that's really fucking depressing. "Antiwork" on Reddit (which is mostly just meme posts at this point) is just the beginning. ---- [1] No, I don't believe the corporate upper class are literal reptilians. It's important to use imagery like this to dehumanize the private jet set, in order to prepare the public in case peaceful means to remove these people from power are exhausted and we have to go into the second half of the alphabet, so to speak.
• dbbk 4y ago
  Then don't work for Apple, that's fine. There are plenty of companies who are fully remote.