7 ms·

I think there's a large pool of good talent that can't fully be trusted to do the right thing (not slack off), but can be employed successfully with sufficient

I think there's a large pool of good talent that can't fully be trusted to do the right thing (not slack off), but can be employed successfully with sufficient guardrails (return to office). Loosely related anecdote why I feel so: For a while right after Apple started its mandatory RTO and ramped up Caffe Macs, the soda "grab n go" sections had an honor system - you paid your $1.25 for a coke and went on your way. Apparently there was a _lot_ of petty theft of drinks, so they have a person with an iPad check you off now, and I assume theft has basically plummeted since there's far less employees brazen enough to just barge off with one without checking off their name. So maybe the RTO is effective in someway? Or maybe the real lesson is that the soda should have been free to begin with.

galdosdi 3y ago
You have to.... pay... for soda... at Apple? What the hell?
- azinman2 3y ago
  You have to pay for food and drink. It’s not like Google etc.
- IntelMiner 3y ago
  Call it the Apple tax
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  Same at Nvidia. But it's subsidized. The argument I heard is it reduces food waste.
- samplatt 3y ago
  Sorry; not understanding your outrage here. You expect your work to provide you with free soda? Or you expect a FAANG company in particular to do so?
  - wetpaws 3y ago
    [dead]
  - galdosdi 3y ago
    Yes, free basic cheap commodity drinks and snacks are bare minimum for a FAANG-class employer, and every other FAANG-class employer I'm familiar with goes well above and beyond that. Even my first job out of college as a boilerroom MSP sysadmin earning $40k in manhattan gave us free soda (the only benefit lol) I mean, even if you work as a mechanic at a body shop, there is often free coffee in an old pot in the break room, it's not that crazy. But outside of that context, no of course I don't expect/care if my employer provides me with free soda. I don't even drink it. It just seems weirdly cheapskate for a supposed FAANG-class employer.
    - pompino 3y ago
      I'd rather receive benefits in cash than paying some vendor tens of thousands of dollars to stock useless items.
      - galdosdi 3y ago
        I actually kind of agree as I am not even a soda drinker, but that was not the point. The point is the message it sends. And it really doesn't cost that much on a per-employee basis -- I would guess some employees might consume a six pack per day, valued at $5, and some others might consume nothing, valued at $0, so average that to maybe say $3 or $4. This is less than that employee already paid out of pocket to commute themselves to work. And having some basic food/drink taken care of centrally is more efficient in terms of saving time stocking up, going and buying more during break, etc. But most of all, it's just the message. All the other "nice" employers do it, even some pretty "basic" employers do (not surprising, this is a very cheap perk, only a little more expensive than breakroom coffee), so if you don't, it you look like a cheapskate. Like what else are you cheaping out on? I also don't drink much coffee, but would see it as a red flag if they cut costs by getting rid of the coffee in the break room, and that's a red flag that would hold even if I was working as a retail cashier (that's not an industry where free break room coffee is standard, but it's not unusual, so while I wouldn't care if a company never offered it, if I was a cashier at a company that had it, and then they took it away, the message would be obvious -- we are preparing to cut costs at the expense of your work life, our company is no longer growing, jump ship if you can)
supportengineer 3y ago
Cokes are 2.25 now
- yakaccount4 3y ago
  I'm a coke zero guy
thefz 3y ago
> I think there's a large pool of good talent that can't fully be trusted to do the right thing (not slack off) Ever worked in an office? At any corporation size no one works 8 hours a day and if you want to slack, there are plenty opportunities in the office as well. Hell, you can spend the whole day there without doing ANYTHING. So that is a non-point for me, slackers gonna slack.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  I knew a guy whose daily routine was something like: 9:25 - Arrival (cafeteria stopped serving breakfast at 9:30. 9:30-10:15 - Breakfast 10:15-11:30 - A lot of walking around the office, having business-sounding conversations with others but really getting nothing done. 11:30-1:00 - Out for lunch. 1:00-3:00 - Sneak out to car in the parking lot for a nap. 3:00-3:30 - Daily standup. Vaguely talk about how he’s “merging code” or “updating library dependencies” this week. 3:30-4:00 - At desk working. 4:00-5:30 - Doing his walk-around-talk-arounds through the office hallways again. 5:30-6:00 - At his desk again! 6:00 - Cafeteria starts serving dinner. Grabs a bunch of food, throws it in his backpack, and heads to the parking lot. This went on for years. The other teammates joked that he must have blackmail dirt on the boss because it was obvious to everyone that he wasn’t doing anything and nobody seemed to care. He was there when I joined the company and was there when I left, years later. He may very well be still there today, merging code.
  - dijit 3y ago
    There are less serious versions of the same thing that people might unintentionally do. 09:25 - arrive. 09:30 - 10:00; breakfast 10:00 - 10:30; standup 10:30 - 11:00; Coffee after standup 11:00 - 11:30; checking emails before lunch 11:30 - 13:00; lunch 13:00 - 13:30; food coma, better just check some emails 13:30 - 14:00; coffee and a chat 14:00 - 15:00; maybe some actual work 15:00 - 15:45; someone needs help, they come over and have a chat 15:45 - 16:30; maybe some more work 16:30 - 17:00 wrap up, go home, urgently write some emails and expect a response before you arrive 09:25 tomorrow. I've seen this, a lot of this.
sys_64738 3y ago
I remember when Oracle took over Sun and they brought in the free soda drinks where you can grab a can and they're constantly replenished. I brought in a backpack and filled it then took it home. After a week of doing that I had all these soda cans to drink but I realized I didn't like soda anymore. Larry is the best.
dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago
I'm sorry but the example you gave for your argument makes no sense at all. Most people here have tasks and daily meetings where these tasks are discussed or at least briefly mentioned (in other words, your "iPad guy" is already there). If someone is slacking, it is immediately visible. Can you abuse the system by providing fake explanations for why one task takes so long? Of course, but you can do the same whether you work remotely or not, and this can also be easily verified in both cases.

galdosdi 3y ago

You have to.... pay... for soda... at Apple? What the hell?

azinman2 3y ago
You have to pay for food and drink. It’s not like Google etc.
IntelMiner 3y ago
Call it the Apple tax
teaearlgraycold 3y ago
Same at Nvidia. But it's subsidized. The argument I heard is it reduces food waste.
samplatt 3y ago
Sorry; not understanding your outrage here. You expect your work to provide you with free soda? Or you expect a FAANG company in particular to do so?
- wetpaws 3y ago
  [dead]
- galdosdi 3y ago
  Yes, free basic cheap commodity drinks and snacks are bare minimum for a FAANG-class employer, and every other FAANG-class employer I'm familiar with goes well above and beyond that. Even my first job out of college as a boilerroom MSP sysadmin earning $40k in manhattan gave us free soda (the only benefit lol) I mean, even if you work as a mechanic at a body shop, there is often free coffee in an old pot in the break room, it's not that crazy. But outside of that context, no of course I don't expect/care if my employer provides me with free soda. I don't even drink it. It just seems weirdly cheapskate for a supposed FAANG-class employer.
  - pompino 3y ago
    I'd rather receive benefits in cash than paying some vendor tens of thousands of dollars to stock useless items.
    - galdosdi 3y ago
      I actually kind of agree as I am not even a soda drinker, but that was not the point. The point is the message it sends. And it really doesn't cost that much on a per-employee basis -- I would guess some employees might consume a six pack per day, valued at $5, and some others might consume nothing, valued at $0, so average that to maybe say $3 or $4. This is less than that employee already paid out of pocket to commute themselves to work. And having some basic food/drink taken care of centrally is more efficient in terms of saving time stocking up, going and buying more during break, etc. But most of all, it's just the message. All the other "nice" employers do it, even some pretty "basic" employers do (not surprising, this is a very cheap perk, only a little more expensive than breakroom coffee), so if you don't, it you look like a cheapskate. Like what else are you cheaping out on? I also don't drink much coffee, but would see it as a red flag if they cut costs by getting rid of the coffee in the break room, and that's a red flag that would hold even if I was working as a retail cashier (that's not an industry where free break room coffee is standard, but it's not unusual, so while I wouldn't care if a company never offered it, if I was a cashier at a company that had it, and then they took it away, the message would be obvious -- we are preparing to cut costs at the expense of your work life, our company is no longer growing, jump ship if you can)

supportengineer 3y ago

Cokes are 2.25 now

yakaccount4 3y ago
I'm a coke zero guy

thefz 3y ago

> I think there's a large pool of good talent that can't fully be trusted to do the right thing (not slack off) Ever worked in an office? At any corporation size no one works 8 hours a day and if you want to slack, there are plenty opportunities in the office as well. Hell, you can spend the whole day there without doing ANYTHING. So that is a non-point for me, slackers gonna slack.

ryandrake 3y ago
I knew a guy whose daily routine was something like: 9:25 - Arrival (cafeteria stopped serving breakfast at 9:30. 9:30-10:15 - Breakfast 10:15-11:30 - A lot of walking around the office, having business-sounding conversations with others but really getting nothing done. 11:30-1:00 - Out for lunch. 1:00-3:00 - Sneak out to car in the parking lot for a nap. 3:00-3:30 - Daily standup. Vaguely talk about how he’s “merging code” or “updating library dependencies” this week. 3:30-4:00 - At desk working. 4:00-5:30 - Doing his walk-around-talk-arounds through the office hallways again. 5:30-6:00 - At his desk again! 6:00 - Cafeteria starts serving dinner. Grabs a bunch of food, throws it in his backpack, and heads to the parking lot. This went on for years. The other teammates joked that he must have blackmail dirt on the boss because it was obvious to everyone that he wasn’t doing anything and nobody seemed to care. He was there when I joined the company and was there when I left, years later. He may very well be still there today, merging code.
- dijit 3y ago
  There are less serious versions of the same thing that people might unintentionally do. 09:25 - arrive. 09:30 - 10:00; breakfast 10:00 - 10:30; standup 10:30 - 11:00; Coffee after standup 11:00 - 11:30; checking emails before lunch 11:30 - 13:00; lunch 13:00 - 13:30; food coma, better just check some emails 13:30 - 14:00; coffee and a chat 14:00 - 15:00; maybe some actual work 15:00 - 15:45; someone needs help, they come over and have a chat 15:45 - 16:30; maybe some more work 16:30 - 17:00 wrap up, go home, urgently write some emails and expect a response before you arrive 09:25 tomorrow. I've seen this, a lot of this.

sys_64738 3y ago

I remember when Oracle took over Sun and they brought in the free soda drinks where you can grab a can and they're constantly replenished. I brought in a backpack and filled it then took it home. After a week of doing that I had all these soda cans to drink but I realized I didn't like soda anymore. Larry is the best.

dvfjsdhgfv 3y ago

I'm sorry but the example you gave for your argument makes no sense at all. Most people here have tasks and daily meetings where these tasks are discussed or at least briefly mentioned (in other words, your "iPad guy" is already there). If someone is slacking, it is immediately visible. Can you abuse the system by providing fake explanations for why one task takes so long? Of course, but you can do the same whether you work remotely or not, and this can also be easily verified in both cases.