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

[Stephen.R]

This is why working from home works for some and not all and it’s down to the company to decide what works best for the business.

So long as that decision is based on reality, of course.

When that decision is based on ridiculous sweeping statements like "well I think everyone prefers to be face to face" or "obviously people are more productive in a shared office space", it's a problem.

Whether someone prefers working from home or not does not usually enter the equation. Some people prefer a half day on a Friday to extend their weekend, but like WFH, it’s a perk.

All salary in the workplace above minimum wage is "a perk".

"Break rooms" in the workplace are "a perk".

Your much desired need to socialise with people at work is "a perk".


Just like all of those things, the question comes down to the same thing: Does X cost or save the company money, and if so, how much? Does X cost or save the company in productivity, and if so how much? Does X help or hinder the company's ability to hire good workers, and if so how much?

 

[Stephen.R]

People do this in the office too. Taking a lot of coffee breaks, a lot of water cooler talk and more.

Remember, slacking off and socialising in the office is fine, because you're in the office and people need that social contact... 🙄

 

[Stephen.R]

Exactly! As if people believe people don't slack off at work!!!

So many genuine wasters at my last office amongst the good guys browsing Facebook all day long.....walking past them and watching the lightning-fast alt+tab.

If anything, those who slack in the office, will slack off more at home and become even more noticeable and even more dispensable.

It's almost like companies would be better served by measuring the output of their employees, rather than assuming presence in the office means someone is useful.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Because, even if a company suddenly had zero need for the office space and they could "save the company some $$", then the manager still has to understand what the **** their underlings do.

I think you're grossly underestimating how much middle managers rely on "well bob is in the office 9 hours a day so bob must be productive".

I keep seeing this term ‘middle manager’ and is it an American term for a senior or departmental manager?

There are many reasons why it’s a positive step to return to the office. Not for all but on the whole. Working alongside colleagues naturally improves communication and in a way talking via video will never be able to substitute. Efficiency on the whole improves and the Office of National Statistics performed a study where lost time when working remotely was deemed to be the equivalent to losing 250k jobs per year.

A lot of my colleagues are spread across Europe as we are part of a big group. We communicate whether at home or in the office via Teams and email mostly, yet before the pandemic we were all actively encouraged to travel to each other’s locations for face to face communication. It’s weird how different people are in person as opposed to a face on a screen and it builds a better rapport when in physical company. It’s not all about clock watching and monitoring output even if some need that, and everything about working together in the most productive fashion. I know some guys here work in software and the very essence of that role is working independently, so WFH is a viable option. Not so much in an engineering or marketing sort of role as this has been a challenge many of us faced when forced to do it full time .

 

[Stephen.R]

Bless their little cotton socks lol. Imagine having to actually go to work and putting yourself out in order to be present in your workplace? This last 12 months has been an eye opener where everybody is offended by everything and people now think they shouldn’t have to leave their sofa in order to earn that 40 grand a year!

Imagine thinking that spending 1/4 of your adult life in an office building is "normal".

Imagine being this defensive about other people having different ideas about how they want to work.

I jumped at the chance to split my time between workplace and home.

I'm truly sorry your home life is so miserable you jump at the chance to be anywhere else.

 

[Stephen.R]

I’d think it would be easier for management to figure out who the weak links are once the “lazy” people stop being productive at home.

You'd think so, but that requires the manager to actually be good at their job too. Can't assess productivity based on the tried-and-true 'bums on seats' method if everyone is working remotely.

They have to understand what each person does, they have to know what's involved in that role, they have to know how to measure the output, and how to identify valid impediments to the work..... that sounds like a lot of work to me.. much easier to just demand they all sit in cubicles so you can tick them off as 'present' each day like kids in a pre-school.

 

[Stephen.R]

companies wanting their HQ’s and factories having a staff presence and a sense of normality

Define "normal".
BRB, gonna go ask 10 other people what's "normal", and we'll compare notes.

Also, gonna go jump in a time machine and ask people 30 and 50 years ago what was "normal". I expect a lot of them will look at me strange when I ask how much the internet affects their work.

 

[Stephen.R]

the vast majority see the benefit of being back at work

Really, you've got some metrics to show that the vast majority of people in this thread can identify actual benefits to being in an office?

whereas the ones who think about their wants first are putting the business second

So you're just going full-steam ahead on your assumption that remote working is detrimental to the business, evidence be damned? Good for you. Stick to your guns. Nobody likes a flip flopper.

 

[Stephen.R]

Why do you keep framing this as an either/or in which WFH is great and the office is awful? I live six blocks from my office and haven’t worn a tie in over a decade. There are middle grounds here.

Did you even read what you replied to? They literally said that if someone prefers to work in an office they should do that. If you feel happy living in the city walking distance to your office, and going there for 1/3 of every day, that's your choice - nobody anywhere has called those who want to work in an office "snow flakes" or "whiny babies" because they don't want to work from a home office or whatever else.

I’m glad that you enjoy going into the office, spending less time with your family, spending hours a week in traffic, spending money on gas and parking. If this is where you find happiness, then reach for the stars my friend.

No one here is telling you that you shouldn’t go into the office, so by all means, put on your suit and tie, grab your lunch box, go into the office and pull out your type writer.

 

[Stephen.R]

I’m not ‘stuck in a back in the day’ mentality

Your obsession with preventing people who are able and want to, from work remotely, says otherwise.

 

[Stephen.R]

Really? I got a warning for using the word snowflake. They censor based on their own agenda all the time. We old timers who have been here since the beginning sure are saddened by the lack of objectivity and respect for other opinions by MR.

The warning should have really been for a terrible analogy. Snowflakes are well known to all be unique... kinda like people.

if you want people to act practically like robot drones, it's probably easier to just buy literal robot drones.

 

[Stephen.R]

If you can work from home, then in probably 90% of the cases, someone else can do your job from their home — in Bangalore or Budapest or wherever — for a fraction of what Americans are paid for the same work.

Of course the most famous case of this, is where thousands of American companies outsourced manufacturing of physical products to China, India, Thailand, etc, all because they were being done by someone at home..... oh wait.


Do you know what stops all the existing remote-working companies from hiring exclusively minimum wage Bangladeshi teenagers?

Education. Experience. Productivity.


You know, the same sort of things most companies look for in an employee anyway.


To paraphrase Jimmy Carr, who was talking about the "they come over here and take our jobs" anti-immigration whiners:

If you can be replaced in your job by someone from(in) another country, with no experience and no qualifications, you're probably **** at your job.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Imagine thinking that spending 1/4 of your adult life in an office building is "normal".

Imagine being this defensive about other people having different ideas about how they want to work.



I'm truly sorry your home life is so miserable you jump at the chance to be anywhere else.

I don’t know why you can’t debate here without having personal digs at me. Suggesting my home life is miserable couldn’t be further from the truth. What right do have to say that rather than maturely discuss a topic where we have a difference of opinion. I respect your views even if you don’t mine and that’s a rather sad indictment.

 

[Stephen.R]

maybe the company will think further afield and employ overseas and save money on wages?

Yes, that is a good thing. It'd be nice if they did so.

Of course, there's also more legal work then. Paying a foreign worker is definitely more involved than paying someone domestically.

But absolutely - companies should hire the best people for the job, and if that job can be done remotely, then by all means hire people from the other side of the planet, if they're the best person to do that job.



Between the obsession with seeing people in an office and the aversion to sending work to other countries, I really get the feeling you're less concerned with actual productivity and more concerned with saving your own job?

 

[Stephen.R]

forfeiting it’s professionalism to accommodate a department who don’t like dressing smart

What makes a person in a suit more 'professional'?

Criminals in court, mafia dons, and ****, the most corrupt politicians you can ever imagine, all wear suits. Are they "professional"?


The assumption that wearing a suit shows "professionalism" is ridiculous - if you went to a cooking competition and one of the contestants had a chefs hat on, and the other didn't, would you just award the one with the hat the prize, or would you check what they'd actually made, before deciding who is better?

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

Your obsession with preventing people who are able and want to, from work remotely, says otherwise.

I haven’t once suggested people shouldn’t be able to work from home. My consistent view has been about splitting the balance between home and office and in some cases solely the office for those who are less productive at home. There is no obsession from me, just a difference of opinion between myself and you. You don’t like that I won’t back down so have resorted to suggesting I have a ‘miserable home life’, ‘have ignorant views’, and ‘aren’t allowed to use my own experiences’ even if you are. I am happy with the fact I have remained respectful and maintained my views without belittling others .

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

What makes a person in a suit more 'professional'?

Criminals in court, mafia dons, and ****, the most corrupt politicians you can ever imagine, all wear suits. Are they "professional"?


The assumption that wearing a suit shows "professionalism" is ridiculous - if you went to a cooking competition and one of the contestants had a chefs hat on, and the other didn't, would you just award the one with the hat the prize, or would you check what they'd actually made, before deciding who is better?

I don’t know as I don’t work with people who wear suits to work. I wear one to weddings and funerals sometimes.

 

[Stephen.R]

In light of the recently concluded WWDC keynote, what are your thoughts on continuing to allow Apple employees to work from home if the trade off is a slower pace of innovation for Apple products?

Slower "innovation" and more focus on stability is like the #1 thing people always claim to want in any macOS related thread.

 

[Stephen.R]

I think the proposal Apple have outlined here is very generous. A lot of companies are telling workers to come back to work or face redundancy. Asking workers to come back but still provide the option to work from home 2 days a week is a very good deal and not one they are obliged to offer.

You can think that, and nobody has suggested that people are wrong if they choose to accept Apple's existing offer of split remote/in-person working.


But you don't get to decide for other people, what is or is not an acceptable offer. That's the problem here: you keep harping on about "respect" for other view points, while telling people they're wrong for wanting something different to you.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

If you choose to take it as an insult, that's on you, my friend.

I think we are all responsible for our own posts too. If you suggest a poster who you don’t know at all personally has a ‘miserable home life’ based on the fact you don’t agree with their opinion on an unrelated topic, that’s also on you to own responsibility.

I have discussed the topic in hand and not commented on your personal situation at all. We all approach this subject with views based on our own experiences. Your experience is just as relevant as mine and if we disagree then so be it. Just respect each other

 

[grandM]

I’ve always worked in an office where a shirt was a requirement except on a Friday but you still come in smart casual. People don’t walk in wearing shorts and T-shirt’s and sit on meetings with companies like Bentley and Aston Martin, as it wouldn’t be at all appropriate. I’m sure for those people who just have contact with their colleagues and image is not at all important in the general working day, they can wear what they like. When you work in a sector where it’s a mix of internal and external meetings, a level of professionalism is required. It comes back to that old point, it ‘depends on the job’.

Working from home full time and wearing your beach wear isn’t always appropriate for everybody.

Never understood why internal bank IT folks need to wear a tie. They are picked up with/cramped into a bus at the railway station. In my head someone wearing a tie is restricted to doing meetings and has nothing to do with public transportation .

 

[Stephen.R]

When you work in a sector where it’s a mix of internal and external meetings, a level of professionalism is required.

I've worked on projects for FOX (the US TV network), Rogers Communications (the Canadian comms & media company), Pechanga (largest Casino in California) and Riot Games. None of them seemed to associate a suit and tie, with how professional our work was.

If you're overly obsessed with appearances of your staff, that's on you.

 

[grandM]

I keep seeing this term ‘middle manager’ and is it an American term for a senior or departmental manager?

There are many reasons why it’s a positive step to return to the office. Not for all but on the whole. Working alongside colleagues naturally improves communication and in a way talking via video will never be able to substitute. Efficiency on the whole improves and the Office of National Statistics performed a study where lost time when working remotely was deemed to be the equivalent to losing 250k jobs per year.

A lot of my colleagues are spread across Europe as we are part of a big group. We communicate whether at home or in the office via Teams and email mostly, yet before the pandemic we were all actively encouraged to travel to each other’s locations for face to face communication. It’s weird how different people are in person as opposed to a face on a screen and it builds a better rapport when in physical company. It’s not all about clock watching and monitoring output even if some need that, and everything about working together in the most productive fashion. I know some guys here work in software and the very essence of that role is working independently, so WFH is a viable option. Not so much in an engineering or marketing sort of role as this has been a challenge many of us faced when forced to do it full time .

Marketing? Nowadays a lot are going through Google analytics. Why couldn't that be done from home? Sure flyer girls need to flyer.

 

[Stephen.R]

I keep seeing this term ‘middle manager’ and is it an American term for a senior or departmental manager?

From Oxford British English dictionary:

middle manager

noun

a manager in an organization at a level between senior and junior managers: distrust between executives and their subordinate middle managers.

 

[Stephen.R]

Working alongside colleagues naturally improves communication and in a way talking via video will never be able to substitute.

Please provide a source for this claim. You're making an enormous generalisation there, so, back it up with some actual data.

Efficiency on the whole improves and the Office of National Statistics performed a study where lost time when working remotely was deemed to be the equivalent to losing 250k jobs per year.

Which study, where? I have a sneaking suspicion this study, like the domestic abuse study referenced earlier, covers an entire work force that is essentially forced to work from home with very little preparation.. In that scenario it would be completely irrelevant as evidence when compared to actual remote working some of us have done for over a decade.

A lot of my colleagues are spread across Europe as we are part of a big group. We communicate whether at home or in the office via Teams and email mostly, yet before the pandemic we were all actively encouraged to travel to each other’s locations for face to face communication.

How on earth do you get any work done if you need to go visit other offices 3 days a week?

Or could it be that people are able to work remotely just fine if they're motivated and given the right tools to do the job?