Apple Machine Learning Director Who Left Over Office Return Policy Joins Google

[noone]

This scenario reminds me of a friend of mine who's husband left her because she was busy (working) and hadn't yet made dinner. That was the straw that broke the camel's back and he packed his bags, telling her she was a horrible wife, etc. etc. (He was a cheating scumbag and no one understood why she kept him around as long as she did, so no big loss.)

Clearly Goodfellow was looking for an out and the WFH "issue" was it. He probably had this new job lined up well beforehand.

 

[citysnaps]

So much unwarranted hate for some chap who wanted more flexibility in his working lfe. None of you know his personal situation – sick wife, troubled kids, mental illness… no, no-one ever considered that? – so why don't you all just reel it in a bit? Jeez, Apple fanboys.

And you don't know zip about the dynamics and reasoning at Apple, one of the most successful companies in the world, that lead them to putting their policy in place.

Don't care for Apple's work at home/office transition? Simply find employment elsewhere. Without all the drama.

Easy.

 

[Enlightened Doggo]

And that even when he works at home he has to wear a mask.

Of course. Can't risk getting the wife's boyfriend sick. He's an essential worker after all.

 

[Norco]

The fanboyism here is nuts. So many anecdotal “my wife’s brother’s neighbor’s cousin worked at a company who’s productivity went down with WFH” stories.

 

[dk001]

I work with Google and they have the same 3 days a week in the office policy as Apple, and their quality of work has deteriorated greatly… and it’s not just Google. Anyone who says WFH isn’t affecting productivity clearly hasn’t worked with enough people or have teams/agencies reporting to them. There are always exceptions but for the most part, I feel like half of corporate America (and Europe) is on an extended vacation.

If WFH drastically affects the team(s) product, maybe the team needs different tools and a change in process. For my world once members got past the "oh we need to do it the same way" and/or "we need face to face" our output actually improved. Made global interactions easier.

Now if I can ever get my other half to realize work means work not "Honey-Do List" ...

 

[freedomlinux]

Every remote instance is a security breach waiting to happen. In just the last 3 months several former employees who were poached have been charged with corporate espionage. They accessed and transferred millions of proprietary files to external hard drives attached to their laptops in the hours and days leading up to their resignations.

They could have done exactly the same thing 1.) bringing a USB drive / microSD card into the office or 2.) taking their laptops home for one day. Even a 3-day-a-week office policy wouldn't stop this.

This doesn't mean that WFH is bad - It means that Apple's internal IT is incompetent at Data Loss Prevention.

 

[wackymacky]

He was bummed off as he was going to get found out going back to the office that he hadn’t been working for 2 years. His AI program had learnt to do his job for him.

 

[nebojsak]

I really don't get why so many of you are triggered over someone wanting to work from home. Like genuinely angry over it.

Puzzling to say the least.

Because these people are ignorant and have that bootlicking mentality towards their lovely Apple. And just really love to mind others' businesses.

 

[Karma*Police]

If WFH drastically affects the team(s) product, maybe the team needs different tools and a change in process. For my world once members got past the "oh we need to do it the same way" and/or "we need face to face" our output actually improved. Made global interactions easier.

Now if I can ever get my other half to realize work means work not "Honey-Do List" ...

That may be true, but what I'm witnessing is a loss of productivity across the board... more missed deadlines, things falling through the cracks, more shoddy work, etc. from just about every vendor, partner, and agency I work with in the US and Europe.

I've never had problems interacting with global teams before Covid... Teleconferencing was a thing long before Covid and Zoom. The only difference has been people WFH instead of together in an office where I believe there's more peer pressure to work harder and perform than in a home setting.

 

[dk001]

That may be true, but what I'm witnessing is a loss of productivity across the board... more missed deadlines, things falling through the cracks, more shoddy work, etc. from just about every vendor, partner, and agency I work with in the US and Europe.

I've never had problems interacting with global teams before Covid... Teleconferencing was a thing long before Covid and Zoom. The only difference has been people WFH instead of together in an office where I believe there's more peer pressure to work harder and perform than in a home setting.

Great point but that is the point. If we could work remotely on a global scale what changed?
The biggest impact for my team(s) was the tools used. To ensure we could all collaborate and work together we rolled out Teams and all the nifty MS tools it has. It took a while to work the kinks out however in most areas we are back to where we were (quality and productivity) or better for some aspects. There are a few outliers and dealing with anything regulatory (aka Government) has been a pain point (worse than it was).

Couple of aspects we did have to change - better training, new tools, and more realistic timelines (manage boss expectations).

Virtual working conferences are now the norm.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

It surprises me that Google would want anyone from Apple for AI.

Maybe he's been hired to make the coffee "Hey Siri, go make me a coffee."

 

[Madonepro]

Well I understand him perfectly. I have not been to the office since 2020. In fact, I have moved across the country since and haven’t seen my boss face to face since last October or so either.

I also work whenever I want. Sometimes I start at 7 am from my bed, other times I start at 10 am or leave the house for an appointment for hours at a time and return to work some more in the evening. There are times, I work while I am out with my dog.

9 to 5 hours are so dated. As long as you get your things done, it doesn’t matter how and where you work.

Edit: of course I am talking strictly about office jobs with no customer contact here

Or time constrained work/deadlines.

 

[laptech]

For decades there are jobs where employees have said to their employer 'why do I need to come to work and sit in this office all day, why can't I work from home' and the employer says 'it is how things have awlays been done' and yes, that is how it has always been done with employers finding excuse after excuse why their employee's cannot work from home because there was no event that allowed employees to put their work from home theories to the test until recently, the event being the pandemic.

Governments around the world forced lockdowns on it's people, companies were forced to close but jobs that were office based, suddenly these employers bent over backwards to get these office based employees to work from home, something the employer(s) previously made excuse after excuse that is was not possible or feasible to do. Now they were going out of their way to get their office based employees to be able to work from home.

Now things have started to ease off, employers are now asking their office based employees to come back into the office and these employees are asking why?. If they have been working from home for the past two years it shows that their office based work can actually be done from home. Now many employees are telling their employer to justify why they are needed back in the workplace when it has been proven they can do the work just as easy from home and as we are finding out, the employers cannot justify it with the result being office based employees resigning and going to work for some who does allow WFH (Working from home).

Not everyone wants to go back to working in the office and they should not be forced to if it as been proven they can do their job from home. Those that want to go back into the workplace, fine, allow them but allow others to WFH as well. Do not force everyone to go back into the workplace just because that is how it has always been.

 

[I7guy]

It’s a question if corporate culture and efficiency. If the companies believe it’s better for some type of in-office work, so be it. Employers have a right to dictate terms and employees have a right to find employment elsewhere.

It’s a very simple concept.

 

[I7guy]

Great point but that is the point. If we could work remotely on a global scale what changed?
The biggest impact for my team(s) was the tools used. To ensure we could all collaborate and work together we rolled out Teams and all the nifty MS tools it has. It took a while to work the kinks out however in most areas we are back to where we were (quality and productivity) or better for some aspects. There are a few outliers and dealing with anything regulatory (aka Government) has been a pain point (worse than it was).

Couple of aspects we did have to change - better training, new tools, and more realistic timelines (manage boss expectations).

Virtual working conferences are now the norm.

We found our first hand that being there in person is much more efficient than zoom. And yes the economy thrives on zoom for two years but some tasks took an inefficient drop. It’s going to take some time as knee return to normal to find the equilibrium.

 

[dk001]

We found our first hand that being there in person is much more efficient than zoom. And yes the economy thrives on zoom for two years but some tasks took an inefficient drop. It’s going to take some time as knee return to normal to find the equilibrium.

If you all work in the same local, yes. There is a lot to be said for in person collaborative meetings. As a default though that needs to be considered but not “accepted” as a “the way we’ve always done it”.

For my case I have 8 basic team members (it changes based on projects) located in 5 different countries. Going into an office for me or my team would change nothing.