I’m neither of those and I’m in favour of returning to the workplace. I haven’t seen any posts that even hint to what you’ve said here either? Was that a guess?
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Apple Staff Complain About Plans for Return to Office Work in Letter to Tim Cook
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IDK, I'm a boomer who has WFH full time for probably the last 4 years or so. I would HATE having to go back to the office 3 days/week just so I could sit in a cube and do the same thing I do at home...
Nah.... that started long before the pandemic.... like, perpetually for a decade. Honestly, I feel like the last few updates while they've been at home have been less buggy.
These are great points.... some work is better collaboratively in person.... some is not.... and for a tech company that tries to lock down everything they are working on, having your people out in the wild is a risk.
2 days a week at home for most people is a very reasonable offer with 14 days a year to request. Managing a team that is 100% remote vs. a hybrid team is far easier form a leadership point of view. The diversity of work Apple and most companies do don't make this a black and white issue, and this is happening to every company in America right now as they try to recall workers
The fact the getting a mask on and going to the bathroom means it’s not safe yet. Pre-pandemic, I never wore a mask in the office. And what about conference rooms or huddling next to a whiteboard for a bit? Again, quick 15 minute store run is more safe than an 8 hour work day. Some people WILL forget to mask every time they get up.
In my state(the great garden state) it’s not like that in businesses where people who are starting to return. It’s not back to full pre-COVID normalcy. When Broadway opens up with no restrictions in September it’s a sign it’s over.
I can’t imagine being an employee again. As a business owner and investor staying home isn’t an option. I do see the appeal though if I was still doing the grunt work. But I work in a field where I’m mostly at clients or having lunch with them, etc.
Still if you want to advance quickly then you need to get out of your house. I could live with experienced staff that I didn’t have to babysit working at home at times. Depends on the person.
That said I don’t have much patience for staff that want to gripe. It’s costly to train them. I’d sooner fire them and find someone else.
It doesn’t mean it’s not safe, it’s just a precaution we have all gotten used to. Meeting rooms haven’t been used where I work since last March. If people need to be gathered together, it’s done in smaller groups and in larger offices with distanced seating. Companies have adapted to the current climate as needed.
It absolutely is an option to work "from home" (or wherever you like) as a business owner.
Source: the last 9 years of my life.
As an investor? I don't know. I thought we were talking about people who actually work for their money 🤣
Yes... Some of us. BUT, I also think there is a latent unrealizable wish/dream that a lot of us boomers had that we never really thought could be fulfilled. That old dream was "working from home on our computer device"... not having to put on the white shirt and tie, not having to do the daily commute.
If a group of youngers are insisting on being able to work from home, I'm actually thanking them as well as realizing they might have to suck it up like we've always had to.
Finally, any ONE DAY being able to work from home is a single day winner winner chicken dinner! Dog is happy I'm home and that's super duper!
It's funny because I work in the healthcare industry, and when covid hit we all stepped up to bat. We had over 52 releases in 2020, with very few (maybe only 2?) reported bugs that we weren't aware of before release. Every metric of productivity increased or remained the same. WFH was literally the best thing that happened to our product, and our managers all agree.
That's not to say that Apple was able to execute the same way our team was, but it's clearly an execution problem and not a WFH problem. If Apple were so inclined, they could make it work, but they might need to sacrifice some things (like their fortified silos) in order to make it happen, which they don't appear to want to do.
What, exactly, is wrong with taking an exercise break (“going missing”). The point of working is to get your work done, not to spend 8 hours glued to a screen just because. Taking breaks, especially exercise, is a good thing. And you can do that in the office too, my office has a gym in the building for employees…. As long as they made the time they were unavailable visible what’s the problem?
In school, they preach identifying what you value before negotiating with an employer. I made it clear early on that I work best in a t-shirt, jeans, and hat. I will wear a tie, but only for events where I personally would feel uncomfortable not wearing one. Any loss of pay I accepted in exchange for that condition was quickly reversed in bonuses led by increased productivity. When employers accept that the old school way of doing business isn't always the best, and listen to their employees, they stand to gain a lot.
Useless middle managers everywhere would disagree with you. They're wrong, but they'll still disagree with you.
Our department has a policy that encourages people to go outside for an hour each day. Most people go for a walk, but others sit in the sun and read something. I would say, 10% of people go for a run or ride their bike a few miles. It's great and personally, I think it makes the afternoon easier to focus.
When we went remote they kept emailing us to remind us that just because we were home didn't mean we could ignore self-care. It's great because there are no restrictions on when. I love seeing colleagues on Teams out for a hike in their backyard.
I suspect part of this is just wanting to use their new campus to justify its cost.
Well it certainly became a good excuse to make lazy, unfounded accusations about other people's productivity, that's for sure.
Yup! I have colleagues I have literally worked with for *years* now at my current job, who I have had beers with over zoom and just ********ted for hours (and I mean pre-COV19 too), who I work closely with often... and have literally never met in person.
Yup yup! Years ago I worked with an agency type company that was basically all remote. We had remote "Work Christmas Parties". I occasionally worked with a couple of them who were in the same city as me, and eventually met a handful more of them in person, during a couple of on-site client trips. One guy I worked with for years remotely, purely through email and chat systems - never once even a voice or video call, and then met him in person for a project years later (after we'd both moved on from the original company).
Claiming that remote workers don't have any kind of social interaction honestly says more about the person making that claim, than it does about actual remote working.
Also became a good excuse to make lazy, unfounded assumptions about Apple management.
Depends on the job doesn’t it? Some places require employees to be available during the core office hours and especially if they are working on projects with others and need to be contactable. If someone decides to go on a 2 hour run but work on in the evening then that might be ok once in a while but not everyday. That also creates the headache for management to make sure that employee is in fact making up their hours. People are paid to work at the end of the day and disappearing and loving it up at home is not part of the deal when working from home in my view.