Apple Staff Complain About Plans for Return to Office Work in Letter to Tim Cook

[Abazigal]

I agree. All employees should be interrogated and if they are deemed to be a threat to the corporate culture, they should be terminated immediately.

I wouldn’t use the word “interrogated”, but if the cost of individual brilliance is collective friction, and if the cost of keeping them outweighs the benefits, then I feel it is still in the best interests of both parties that they part ways. The employee is able to look for another job which (hopefully) is able to offer the working environment that he desires, and Apple is able to hire another employee who presumably has no issues with working the Apple prefers them to.

There is also less issues at the workplace for managers to manage, which means people can focus their energies on creating better products for us consumers.

Everyone wins.

 

[cmaier]

It's Smalltalk not Smally, thank you. What you seem to have missed is that many other employees support the sentiments expressed.

I’m guessing Tim Cook doesn’t like to be called “Timmy.”

And what “many other employees?” Do you have a list? Because it was 80 who signed the letter.

 

[MacN'Dawg]

It is time to start firing the signatories. There will be a line of new applicants around the block the day after the dismissals.

 

[UBS28]

I am sure many people would have no problem spending 5-days a week going to the Apple office.

 

[DeepIn2U]

spoiled overpaid brats

Agreed!

here in Canada I’m an essential worker and on rotation to go into the office. upon arrival immediately I need to fill out a form and email to management. I have absolutely NO contact with anyone in any department in the same floor and office I directly work in, however supporting 2 other offices across 2 floors each at different nearby sites we ALL wear masks.

Still a minor risk, but I’ve lasted quite well since October.

Canada has THE absolutely SLOWEST rollout of all the G8 nations and we ONLY have 41million people in this country. Let me say that again: 41 million population this includes minors!!

NYC dwarfs that alone I believe.

Apple has let almost their entire staff work from home - including retail sales mucH earlier and longer than what each state or federal guidelines asked for. With over 100 million US citizens vaccinated and more - I kind of feel those complaining - and not in direct serious risk due to REAL healthy conditions or concerns is wining to continue working lazily at home.

PS: My mom has battled diabetes type II for 30 yrs, had a stroke 5yrs ago lost 97% mobility in 1 side of her body, and in 5mths gained back 93% - that was 4.5yrs ago. Has gone and got her vaccination shot 1 2 months ago and getting her second next week. She’s a tenacious bane I tell you! So I have a ceratin view for winners - as my mom HATES doctors, hates needles, absolutely FEARS hospitals - but she’ll get what must be done, done and she has NOT retired STILL works At 68yrs old Because she’s too bored NOT working.

laziness is NOT in her, or my own, or any of my families vocabulary. My view of whiners has nothing to do with my love for apple products. If they can work safely they SHOULD

 

[DeepIn2U]

I’m 100% on Team Remote Work. I’m so much happier working at home now. I’m saving thousands of dollars a year on gasoline, and reclaiming 5-10 hours of my life per week from not having to commute. From an employer’s perspective, I’m more productive, too, and I’m never late getting to work or to a meeting. Luckily, my company has been very accommodating, and embraced working from home, so we’ve been able to reduce our office space lease from an entire floor of a large building to a couple of small offices, saving us close to $150K a year.

I agree about the benefits of remote work. Some jobs cannot fully allow for this EVEN with technology:
service desk teams may be able to on-board/off-board user in terms of accounts, mailboxes, access software - but hardware like desktops/notebooks - who’s going to be responsible for holding hardware in their homes? That kind of insurance would be a major expense. I guess figuring out partial home insurance payments/premiums and converage would be like how sorting out partial internet bills are paid by corporations and MDM mobile data usage.

I used to work for global company where the top 3 floors of the tallest building in the city was reduced down to 1 floor (3rd tallest) and sub-leased out the top 2 - that was 5yrs ago. The cost savings for the top floor alone after lease was over attuned to $640,000/annum (CAN$) - I saw the lease!

The views were incredible and mostly attained to help broken major deals, showing off the view had a unique affect in boardroom was a major distraction

Many MANY cities will have a lot of major business no longer needing top floor offices and may even reduce floor lease space and just have a satellite office. WeWork would’ve benefitted heavily after the pandemic if it started around this time frame. When too many large corporations follow suit (I’m taking national bank offices allowing pure secure verified remote work for even 50% of their employees) this will heavily affect income, tax revenue for a city and infrastructure like public transportation (At least in Toronto) relies 13% of property taxes - can cripple a city already beyond it’s budget.

This is why housing market is going through the roof insanely - people have the money to purchase homes OUT of a city.

BUT complaining for minimal in office work/commute when your job entails that when it’s absolutely safe to : having 3 people in an office of 40 square feet and work in completely different departments where in person contact would never happen - is laziness and whining.

 

[quarkysg]

Many in this thread seems to be arguing at both extremes. As usual, reality is almost always somewhere in between.

I'm sure WFH has it benefits. I benefitted from the WFH phenomenon.

What most folks arguing for 100% WFH should also agree that there are values in face to face interactions. Human beings are after all social animals.

To manage an organisation as large as Apple, they cannot have a one size fits all approach. On the other hand, employees should be negotiating privately with manangement without leveraging on public perception. This to me seems like bad faith and work ethics.

One example that I can highlight where in-person interaction is invaluable is succession planning. This is a very key responsibility of every leader in any organisation at every level. IMHO, it will not be ideal to assess a person's leadership qualities 100% virtually. It is through personal relationship that a leader can assess whether a co-worker has leadership qualities. And people have to realise that a leader is not necessary sporting the manager title, but is performing a managerial role. A person who is extremely productive (whether at home or in the office) does not mean said person will be a good leader.

Another area is training, both in technical and in the soft skills area. Virtual training may be ideal for technical skills training, but where soft skills are concerns, it is always via human interactions that we improve in this area. Virtual meetings, IMHO are not the same as face to face meetings, as you can build better rapport when in-person. Maybe I'm old school.

I'm sure there're many other areas where face-to-face interactions are better compared to virtual meetings. That's the reason parents send their kids to play-ground so that their kids can learn to interact with others.

At the end of the day, every organisations will have to find their balance in the post pandemic world.

My believe is that if you work for an organisation, you should always place the organisation's best interest before self. If both conflicts, it's best to part way. For example, we would not want to have a situation where we have contigents of arm forces putting their self interest over the country when in times of war. If everyone only think about self interests only, society will collapse very quickly.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Wow - so many old-fashioned opinions here: Just go back to how it was before COVID. Continue to kill the climate, waste lifetime in traffic jams, let germs (you don’t believe this was the last pandemic, do you?) have a party in public transport and open offices …

Getting together in a central space for work was mainly an invention of the Industrial Age. We are now in the Information Age. Many jobs are location-independent and computers and networks are powerful enough to allow for a modern workflow, which is not necessarily locked to a central workplace anymore.

Sure, it gets more difficult and complex to manage a distributed team, but hey: Reality is that more and more teams are already multi-locational anyway. And all these theories of people connecting in open spaces can only come (and be supported) from people who don’t sit in such open offices themselves.

Reality is that an open office is loud and people come by for just a chat, without asking whether it would suit you currently. Perhaps those chit-chat people are the loudest advocates for returning to the offices, I don’t know.

And commuting is another huge issue: The “we always did it this way“ is so boring! Yes, we did it and probably the vast minority was happy to waste time in traffic jams or generally in commuting, just to come to the office.

Driving a 2-ton SUV to transport 80kg of wetware (a.k.a. a human) from A to B is a thing of the past. There are studies about the positive impact on the climate when suddenly individual transportation went down massively, with many people working from home.

Many business travels can already be avoided by modern communication means (sorry folks, no more company-financed parties abroad) - and office work is the logical next step. It may not suit everyone for various reasons (e.g. space or self-discipline as well as company interests), but for those who want (and whose workplace/tasks allow for it), a modern company should offer the option of up to 100% working from home and organize the necessary infrastructure.

Some things here:

how does a 2-ton SUV (many are not 2 US tons btw lol) affect climate anywhere NEAR public transport buses running on diesel?! Many do NOT have electric public transport. I think those studies you refer to shine a MUCH larger negative impact there. But I agree it should not be needed except for liesure.
- BTW - I’ve never owned a car and I was born prior to 1980!

Modern age of computing and location independant workspaces at home.
For those of you working at a corporation. Where do you think those computers are imaged from? Many corporations STILL do not trust vendors for images and full direct shipment during on-boarding. Some software are in-house custom software, that also is not trusted to a vendor (Apple, HP, Dell, CompuServe, Lenovo etc). These businesses include mining corporations, financial corporations (national banks), Insurance etc.
- when THESE companies start allowing for virtual machines to connect to instances (persistant or not) where all the software is there and all you need is the right spect personal home PC or tablet and you connect to the VM or PC in the office (which many in our business does already) - then there really should NOT be any corporate office - as Virtual Networks from VMware can be hosted by major telco’s like Bell.

this technology HAS BEEN there for over a decade now. Why is it STILL so slow to let happen?
- look towards legacy management styles. Once this changes then businesses can be fully remote from beginning to end.

Polycom and Tandberg (purchased 10yrs ago give/take by Cisco) was THE best video conference systems for corporations in the office. Guess what … Zoom is as ubiquitous as Google now and a hell of a lot cheaper. FINALLY. Yet there are still reliability issues, and routing sound over a RDP+VPN connection unfortunately doesn’t work to the remote PC of the end users side (end users direct PC/Mac doesnt’ get microphone sound relayed to Zoom running in the office PC)

Some refinements is needed. Imaging computers and holding stock for deployment - which employee wants to share the insurance premiums increase on their home let alone be fully responsible? ‘We still got a long long way to goooo’ (P.Collins).

 

[snowcrasher]

Totally support the employees. We will also get rid of world poverty soon, at this rate... all in the name of "inclusivity"...

 

[RowellE]

Pardon my ignorance, but how does working from home promote diversity and inclusiveness? I don’t see the connection.

 

[Dammit Cubs]

It's pretty logical that a lot of the members are who submitting this are not only very talented but probably betting that they can find a different company that fits their ideal work life balance. If a person was truly desperate for a job, they wouldn't be complaining to start with.

I also believe that this remote work exception should be a case by case, group by group and team by team decision as it's really up to management to determine if their level of productivity would be increased by them coming to the office or not.

 

[9927036]

I’m guessing Tim Cook doesn’t like to be called “Timmy.”

And what “many other employees?” Do you have a list? Because it was 80 who signed the letter.

Do you know that no other employees share those same sentiments?

 

[cmaier]

Do you know that no other employees share those same sentiments?

You’re the one who claims ”many” do. All I have evidence for is 80. So, again, since your claim “many” do, why don’t you quantify it and share your evidence?

 

[jcmoney10]

What a bunch of BS. Get back to work or step aside. There are plenty of other people willing to work for a paycheck. What a world we live in today. 🤪

Apple btw breeds this insanity with some of their messaging trying to be woke.

I was expecting this comment to end with a “back in my day” story.

How dare anyone voice an opinion that goes against the status quo! Boy I tell ya, kids today just don’t know the value of a nickel.

for real though, how ridiculous, Apple slogan is “Think Different”, if you have to physically be in an office to do the same job you could do at home, that’s not really “thinking different”. As someone who works in the IT field and will soon have the same work from Home policy Apple does, I feel their pain.

 

[cmaier]

I was expecting this comment to end with a “back in my day” story.

How dare anyone voice an opinion that goes against the status quo! Boy I tell ya, kids today just don’t know the value of a nickel.

for real though, how ridiculous, Apple slogan is “Think Different”, if you have to physically be in an office to do the same job you could do at home, that’s not really “thinking different”. As someone who works in the IT field and will soon have the same work from Home policy Apple does, I feel their pain.

But apparently apple doesn’t agree these jobs can be done “the same” at home.

 

[jcmoney10]

Stop defending the type of entitlement seen in this thread.

Lol entitlement … I love it. Is the entitlement because people want to work from home or because employees feel like in 2021 they should be able to help shape the policies rather than be dictated too?

 

[seek3r]

It is time to start firing the signatories. There will be a line of new applicants around the block the day after the dismissals.

Outside of the fact that I suspect that would be against CA labor laws I can tell you, as an engineer that has had Apple recruiters ping me more than a few times (I'm happy at my current job, not jumping anywhere anytime soon), that that would be a move that would forever sour me to the idea of working for Apple. And I'm not alone, were they to do that it'd be a good way to alienate a huge chunk of folks they want to hire.

At that point it would become not just a question of WFH culture (which, FWIW, I do like being able to do, and have done my job just fine for 15 months now without setting foot in the office) but also a culture of shutting down engineers for daring to ask for better working conditions. That's not the best way to recruit folks.

 

[Ramchi]

Working from home is great concept for certain type of work where collaboration is minimum and concentration is very high with great skills. That require lots of fine graining the task by someone else and make it very specific so that it can be done anywhere.

I am not sure whether all kinds of work can be done remotely in MS Word, Excel, IDE Tools, Android Studio without collaboration.

Apple may find it difficult to keep its secrecy in terms its research projects when their team members work remotely.

Also ancillary industries like Automobile, Garments, Footwear, Food, Real Estate industries would go bust if everyone wears shorts and round neck inner wear doing their job from home !!

 

[cmaier]

Outside of the fact that I suspect that would be against CA labor laws I can tell you, …

Which law is that?

 

[jcmoney10]

But apparently apple doesn’t agree these jobs can be done “the same” at home.

What a company “feels” and what’s reality is not always the same. My company has made the same claims about “it’s better for company culture with everyone in the office”, but for the last year they’ve done nothing but praise us for not missing a beat and record sales. The reality is (much like with apple) we also just spent millions on a new building, and they know if given the option no one would show up.

if corporate culture was so important, then you would have employees begging to come back to the office. At the end of the day, I rather see my family throughout the day as I work from home rather than a bunch of coworkers. Just because it’s how it’s always been, doesn’t mean it how it always should be.

 

[seek3r]

“Campus culture” is dead. it was a BAD idea to begin with.

Now what to do with that new building…

Amen. I used to work for one of the biggest tech companies around years ago, they have a huge corporate campus for a HQ... that's nearly unused. The campus must have cost a fortune, but they built it for a different era. Large corporate campuses are, for the most part, dead, they have been for a while, it's why I was actually surprised when Apple started building the spaceship

 

[cmaier]

What a company “feels” and what’s reality is not always the same. My company has made the same claims about “it’s better for company culture with everyone in the office”, but for the last year they’ve done nothing but praise us for not missing a beat and record sales. The reality is (much like with apple) we also just spent millions on a new building, and they know if given the option no one would show up.

if corporate culture was so important, then you would have employees begging to come back to the office. At the end of the day, I rather see my family throughout the day as I work from home rather than a bunch of coworkers. Just because it’s how it’s always been, doesn’t mean it how it always should be.

Well that’s a different question. People are acting like Apple is not allowing folks to work from home full time even though it is undisputed that these people are just as productive and doing just as good a job. But that is obviously disputed.

In the end, though, the company defines the job requirements. They may be negotiable, or not, but in the end the company has the final word. So if the company values in-person collaboration, it can make that a requirement of the job. And if the employees don’t like that, they can balance that against other factors and decide if they want to work elsewhere.

 

[seek3r]

What a bunch of BS. Get back to work or step aside. There are plenty of other people willing to work for a paycheck. What a world we live in today. 🤪

Apple btw breeds this insanity with some of their messaging trying to be woke.

Do you enjoy having weekends? Having OSHA (or equiv if not in the US) and other workplace safety laws? Having child labor laws? etc

Congrats, you've announced that you don't enjoy any of those things and would have been one of the folks telling those folks that worked hard to get us there to get back to work.

Labor laws are written in sweat and blood, and workers standing up to their employers for better labor conditions shouldn't ever be sneered at.

 

[jcmoney10]

Working from home is great concept for certain type of work where collaboration is minimum and concentration is very high with great skills. That require lots of fine graining the task by someone else and make it very specific so that it can be done anywhere.

I am not sure whether all kinds of work can be done remotely in MS Word, Excel, IDE Tools, Android Studio without collaboration.

Apple may find it difficult to keep its secrecy in terms its research projects when their team members work remotely.

Also ancillary industries like Automobile, Garments, Footwear, Food, Real Estate industries would go bust if everyone wears shorts and round neck inner wear doing their job from home !!

I agree obviously not EVERY job can be done from home, but ALOT more can be. Collaboration is easy now with Zoom and MS Teams. I don’t have to physically sit next to someone to work with them, I don’t get why everyone gets so hung up on that. I find that I collaborate more now than ever before. Anyone I need to screen share with is a button click away.

 

[seek3r]

Which law is that?

The framing of the letter certainly would leave room open to challenging firings based on it on a few grounds that I can think of (IANAL to be fair), like protections on specific protected classes (they did frame it partially in terms of inclusion and equality), federal protections on precursor organizing work on unionization, disability accommodations, etc.

Also a *mass firing* of folks in the letter would likely count as an organizational layoff, which has very different rules than the general at will employment in CA.

Since IANAL I don't know how much merit those would have in court, but they're certainly implicit concerns in the letter's phrasing.

That said, as I said in the majority of my comment instead the piece you focused in on, the real pressure against firing these folks is the backlash within the industry to something like that