Apple Delays Plans for Return to Office Three Days a Week, Masks Required in Common Areas Amid Rising COVID Cases

[coolfactor]

2 days a week is more than enough to schedule meetings and workshops.

Apple's 'Monday, Tuesday and Thursday' routine seems to be designed to force people to live nearby. If it has to be 3 days at least make it e.g. Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday.

Honestly it's as if firms want to impose misery on workers.

Would you be saying this if there was no Work-from-Home model brought about by the pandemic? ?

 

[darngooddesign]

For that reason, I really wish we could stop calling them 'vaccines'. But I guess changing the definition left my thinking in the dust.

Why wouldn't we call vaccines, 'vaccines'?

 

[dannyyankou]

How are COVID cases still going up? So many people have natural immunity. Is this really an issue, still? Perhaps it’s the vaccinated whose immune system was wiped out by the shot.

At any rate, here in Indiana any of that COVID fear would seem highly misplaced.

It's mutating and evading antibodies. And I guess since it's becoming more infectious, it's infecting whatever small amount of people haven't caught it yet. I somehow haven't caught it yet despite working at a high exposure job, and I've had multiple long and close exposures with people who had COVID. Both before and after the vaccine.

I know they're saying some people are just naturally less likely to get COVID and that genetics could play a role, I hope that's the case.

 

[Jett0516]

Tim should just chill and delay return to office until 2025.

Then he should turn the empty apple campus into iphone factory.

 

[darngooddesign]

It's mutating and evading antibodies. And I guess since it's becoming more infectious, it's infecting whatever small amount of people haven't caught it yet. I somehow haven't caught it yet despite working at a high exposure job, and I've had multiple long and close exposures with people who had COVID. Both before and after the vaccine.

I know they're saying some people are just naturally less likely to get COVID and that genetics could play a role, I hope that's the case.

It's trending more contagious, but less severe because the vaccines are working. The symptoms are milder because due to antibodies. We were never going to eradicate it just like we never eradicated the 1918 pandemic; we just needed to get to where we are now, having it as a manageable disease.

You might have had it but been asymptomatic.

 

[mikethemartian]

While I agree, there a lot of people in tech that work with next gen hardware. That is something that cannot be done 100% from home.

I work in an engineering lab and so I work on site. But there are plenty of people where I work that don’t and if they can do their work from Panera I’m all fine with that. I have no gripe that I have to come in and they don’t because we have different functions. Besides it is nice not to be so crowded. Less demand for the same resources.

 

[citysnaps]

Likewise, employees that aren't happy about this can, and will leave Apple.

Yep. A win-win for all!

 

[mikethemartian]

I am already looking „forward“ to politicians loosing their damn mind over „raising“ numbers in the fall again over here ? taking advantage of the seasonal summer freedom while it lasts I guess. The new normal

In the past two years here in Florida we have had spikes during the dog days of summer.

 

[dannyyankou]

It's trending more contagious, but less severe because the vaccines are working. The symptoms are milder because due to antibodies. We were never going to eradicate it just like we never eradicated the 1918 pandemic; we just needed to get to where we are now, having it as a manageable disease.

You might have had it but been asymptomatic.

So funny story: My entire household is vaccinated and boosted. On the other hand, my sister isn't vaccinated and her husband is vaccinated but not boosted, and they have a 3 year old who obviously was too young for the vaccine several months ago. They visit us frequently with their kid because they live nearby and we help take care of him.

We had them over for Christmas 2021, and we find out shortly after they all tested positive for COVID. All of us in my household got tested and they came back negative. We did another test 2 days later to be safe and they were negative. Then my parents did a PCR test and they were negative. Meanwhile, my sister who is unvaccinated had very bad symptoms for like 3 weeks, she had a fever for 10 days straight too. Her husband who had the initial 2 shots was sick, but it wasn't as bad or as long. And their kid who wasn't vaccinated had some nasty flu symptoms for a while.

But in 2020, my brother came over for Christmas with what he thought was a cold, but it turned out he had COVID. He was with us for 2 days in the house, there were like 10 of us. After we found out he had COVID, we all got tests and they came back negative. The remarkable part of this is my dad gave him a 45 minute ride to and from his apartment before and after Christmas, and he didn't catch it from him in the car somehow. So I think it's a combination of some natural immunity, whether it be from genetics or T-cell immunity, and the vaccines.

Also, I had zero side effects from any of the shots. So I wonder if that's an indication existing immunity.

 

[Robert.Walter]

Only cost Apple its head of AI to get to this decision…

 

[AlexESP]

Just give it up. The days of everyone being in the office multiple times a week are over. You made a bad investment in commercial real estate. Deal with it.

Not just apple, companies everywhere. Maybe build more homes and residential buildings instead of large pointless offices.

I work in tech. I've gotten a dozen interview offers in the last 3 months. Not a single company is requiring being in an office at all.

The “investment in commercial real estate” is peanuts compared to Apple revenue. The real reason for forcing people to go to the office is to produce much better products via real collaboration (and therefore yes, more revenue).

 

[AlexESP]

Sorry but I actually prefer working over attending meeting after meeting and chatting over the water cooler. There's too little work being done in corporate America because everyone's in a meeting about working.

I’m inclined towards not attending useless meetings and clearly against empty speeches. That being said, we’re humans, not robots, and even if personal relationships didn’t affect you, they’ll affect the great majority. You need to know the people you work with. You spend 8 hours/day with them.

 

[User 6502]

This should be an interesting comment section. Personally, be responsible for your own health. If you want to wear a mask, go for it. If you don’t, you do you. Follow the guidelines of your particular company.

You can’t be responsible for your own health by deciding whether to wear a mask or not. Your likelihood of contracting the virus depends mostly on whether other people wear it or not.

 

[madrigal77]

This is stupid. Everyone needs to get back to work. COVID is here to stay. There's always going to be a certain level spreading in the community and it's going to ebb and flow. If you're going to shut everything down until it's "over", it's never going to happen.

 

[ZZ9pluralZalpha]

I’m an engineer in sci/tech research, and agree strongly with Jony Ives’ views on needing to understand the physical processes of how a thing is made in order to design it. If the work-from-homers are right and much of the American workforce can do their jobs without ever creating or touching a physical object, it suggests that a shrinking portion of our culture is familiar with or places importance in the practical arts of making things, with grim long-term ramifications. How long do we have before we find ourselves in a scenario we can‘t solve with code and paperwork, and realize we no longer have the manufacturing base to get is out? Even Golgafrinchan Ark Ship B at least had telephone handset cleaners…

 

[JoeShades]

This is stupid. Everyone needs to get back to work. COVID is here to stay. There's always going to be a certain level spreading in the community and it's going to ebb and flow. If you're going to shut everything down until it's "over", it's never going to happen.

Of course it is stupid and when republicans control evey state the morons who love the masks and lockdowns willl be too stupid to figure out why. Are you ready for another holiday season where the dopes tell everyone limit your gatherings again, eat outside in the cold, wear masks inside , test everyone, sounds like fun.

 

[Rafterman]

Of course it is stupid and when republicans control evey state the morons who love the masks and lockdowns willl be too stupid to figure out why

No one loves masks or lockdowns. But sometimes they are necessary. Maybe if people took masks seriously, they would be more effective in slowing the spread of covid. Masks don't work when only some people do it.

And its not about just covid. Work from home has reduced some company costs, reduces absenses from work and sickness from other disease (colds, flu) and improves employee moral - with no loss in efficiency.

 

[contacos]

In the past two years here in Florida we have had spikes during the dog days of summer.

Tell that to our health minister ?‍? He is already warning about new mutations and delta making a come back in the fall as if 1st anyone can tell the future and 2nd last time I checked, the northern hemisphere isn’t the only place with a FALL season

 

[Wildkraut]

Good to see employees protesting...

The misfits, the rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

 

[Rafterman]

The “investment in commercial real estate” is peanuts compared to Apple revenue. The real reason for forcing people to go to the office is to produce much better products via real collaboration (and therefore yes, more revenue).

What is "real" collaboration? Face to face or over Zoom, it doesn't matter. I don't know where people are getting this idea that being physically next to each other is so much better.

And I'll bet that for all those people who return to work at Apple's campus, most of them still meet over Facetime or whatever from their offices.

 

[Unity451]

Sorry but I actually prefer working over attending meeting after meeting and chatting over the water cooler. There's too little work being done in corporate America because everyone's in a meeting about working.

True, but that's your own personal opinion. I don't deny that there are many people that feel the same way as you, but the original culture that Steve Jobs sought to build and encourage was one where collaboration was built into the DNA of the people, products, and even the building... that is why the Apple Park looks the way it does. My point is that people love apple not just because of the products, but because of the company and culture behind the products. If you change the culture, the company and products will change. And we've already begun seeing that culture slip as many of the pioneers have left and have been replaced by corporate ladder climbers.

 

[DeepIn2U]

The market will sort this out...and by that I mean, the top tech talent will likely go where there is flexibility that rewards their talent and productive output.

Companies like AirBNB appear to have it right, at least for now (work from anywhere, no pay cut).

Not unless they communicate first and quit first ha ha ha

 

[mzeb]

Even in European countries with 90% vaccine coverage in >16s cases were at an all time high in late 2021/early 2022. The initial claimed efficacy in reducing transmission was clearly not true - at least not in any of the variants circulating by that time.

In my country we've been working mostly in office since late 2020. No masks. 60% of our small office got Covid at some point (mostly external) - everyone is/was vaccinated.

Thankfully the CFR is way down in every region.

At this stage masks is equivalent to TSA security theatre - unless N95 and strictly no mask removal (even for eating.)

NB I am vaccinated and caught it - from a friend during a 15min lunch break.

I firmly believe in the importance of FtF meetings for engineering design work - yes - sometimes working at home is great - but a few days a week in office seems to be necessary for an efficient workflow.

This is a bit tricky. The reduction in transmission is true. But it's a numbers game. What we have now with Omicron and BA.2 is a virus that replicates in the lungs much more readily. Therefore, a person who is vaccinated transmits the Omicron and BA.2 variants more easily than an unvaccinated persona transmitted Apha or Delta. Comparing what was last year to what is this year is Apple's and Oranges. If you compare vaccinated Omicron to unvaccinated Omicron there is a significant reduction in transmissibility.

I think you're probably right on the masks on airplanes issue. The judge that struck down the mask on planes order cited a lack of proper specification for masks used as one fo the reasons she did so. I suspect we will see another order with N94s or 95s as the minimum in the future. Unfortunately, the judge chose to fully strike the order down instead of simply calling for revision. This was a politically motivated move that will cost tax payers more money in the end as a new order will need to be written.

 

[JoeShades]

This is a bit tricky. The reduction in transmission is true. But it's a numbers game. What we have now with Omicron and BA.2 is a virus that replicates in the lungs much more readily. Therefore, a person who is vaccinated transmits the Omicron and BA.2 variants more easily than an unvaccinated persona transmitted Apha or Delta. Comparing what was last year to what is this year is Apple's and Oranges. If you compare vaccinated Omicron to unvaccinated Omicron there is a significant reduction in transmissibility.

I think you're probably right on the masks on airplanes issue. The judge that struck down the mask on planes order cited a lack of proper specification for masks used as one fo the reasons she did so. I suspect we will see another order with N94s or 95s as the minimum in the future. Unfortunately, the judge chose to fully strike the order down instead of simply calling for revision. This was a politically motivated move that will cost tax payers more money in the end as a new order will need to be written.

Sure if Biden and all dems never want to win again

 

[eyeseeyou]

Just give it up. The days of everyone being in the office multiple times a week are over. You made a bad investment in commercial real estate. Deal with it.

This is what I think is the main motivation behind this. ROI or at least feel like it.

Otherwise, it's a win-win for happy, quality, and productive, employees and profit-making companies.

Plus less traffic and concerns for gas prices and I guess indirectly less pollution.