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

[jk73]

Have you ever worked in an office? Honest question.

You don’t think it’s even possible that Apple workers, knowing company history, external news about vaccine #s and local restrictions, combined with internal whispers/scuttlebutt/leaks/hints of lifting of the at-home policy led workers to start forming/articulating these thoughts and organizing a little even before the announcement, and then, when it hit…they knew they had to act quickly with their response and accelerate their timeline?

Your very premise that there is no way this could already have been percolating amongst workers…and that the entire concept literally from inception to letter came together in two day, ONLY AFTER Cook’s announcement…is a WILD stretch.

C’mon…use your head.

I can only see someone drawing this conclusion seriously if—going in—they were not willing to give the workers even a micron of credit. It’s obvious that’s the pre-conceived notion you filter this entire story and every piece of evidence we do have through...but your insistence on mapping those personal feelings and speculations 1:1 to reality...as if your conclusions are iron clad?

To use your word...comical.

“Use my head”?

Physician, heal thyself.

Tim Cook made the announcement on June 2 for a September return to the office. There was no urgency here, but the whiny employees ran to the media only two days later. The whole thing is a bad-faith, public shakedown attempt.

 

[Silverstring]

Please.

Tim Cook considered all of this already, and the employees immediately going to the media was a blatant attempt to extort/embarrass Cook into acquiescing to their demands by invoking the latest “woke” gibberish. There was nothing good-faith about any of it. Cook didn’t order people into the office the next week; he gave 90 days of notice.

"PC", mocking "diversity and inclusion"...people advocating for themselves as "whiners" and now "woke gibberish"...

Everyone...you know that sound...get out your

Overly Reductive Thinking Disguised as "Common Sense"

bingo cards and play along!

Along with the free space, we just need "Snowflake" and "Liberals" to complete the row!

 

[Silverstring]

“Use my head”?

Physician, heal thyself.

Tim Cook made the announcement on June 2 for a September return to the office. There was no urgency here, but the whiny employees ran to the media only two days later. The whole thing is a bad-faith, public shakedown attempt.

Urgency to change the policy.

Doesn't matter if it was 90 days away or a year. When you want to push back on a policy, you do it quickly, before it takes root.

 

[hatchettjack]

I have never worked in tech, but I always assumed it was a team atmosphere? Imagine a football team all working throughout the week at home, over zoom and emails! I would imagine there would be a drastic loss of cohesion! If I were an apple employee, this would be a great opportunity for advancement! I’d be at work everyday busting my hump! Things like that don’t go unnoticed! Or unrewarded!

 

[Silverstring]

I have never worked in tech, but I always assumed it was a team atmosphere? Imagine a football team all working throughout the week at home, over zoom and emails! I would imagine there would be a drastic loss of cohesion! If I were an apple employee, this would be a great opportunity for advancement! I’d be at work everyday busting my hump! Things like that don’t go unnoticed! Or unrewarded!

A team atmosphere isn’t predicated on physical proximity in all cases.

A football team is about the most extreme example I can imagine. The entire game of football requires physical presence.

Lots of people’s jobs require sitting at a computer, sending emails and documents and code around. Rarely are things printed on paper and physically handed over, I’d speculate 99% of Word documents in existence—to use one example—are never printed, even for one person’s use, let alone multiple.

I’m not a remote worker, but I’m under no delusions that my or my colleagues electronically submitted documents are somehow made better by my teammates sitting 5 feet from me instead of 5,000 miles. Now, obviously different jobs are different—a butcher can’t virtually slice cuts of beef—but for many that are computer-based, requiring colocation doesn’t have a significant impact on the work itself.

You’re absolutely right that lazy managers/leadership dramatically bias themselves in favor of people that they can physically see…but it’s a terrible way to assess actual work performance in many jobs, just a tremendously flawed cognitive bias.

Of course, many skill and output-deficient people depend on this cognitive bias to ascend at work, but if work reviews were possible to be conducted blindly similar to the way that orchestras audition musicians…many of those people would be exposed when that cover was pulled back.

 

[Mellofello808]

I have never worked in tech, but I always assumed it was a team atmosphere? Imagine a football team all working throughout the week at home, over zoom and emails! I would imagine there would be a drastic loss of cohesion! If I were an apple employee, this would be a great opportunity for advancement! I’d be at work everyday busting my hump! Things like that don’t go unnoticed! Or unrewarded!

"Tech" can mean a lot of things.

Most of my friends who work in tech, are in the software development side, and they spend their days solving their piece of the puzzle with little to no interaction with their counterparts.

My friend who works for Twitter I mentioned earlier, is in finance. She has a set of responsibilities, but doesn't necessarily need to be collaborating with people to make sure that the ad revenue checks are clearing.

I would imagine, if you were in hardware design it would be something that benefited a lot more from being in person.

If your job is just staring at a computer, making sure certain defined tasks are completed, then you can probably WFH, if you are a established person.

I will admit that it will be harder for new people, and recent grads to become part of the culture, and you run the risk of your job being outsourced to someone in India for 1/10 your salary.

 

[hatchettjack]

A team atmosphere isn’t predicated on physical proximity in all cases.

A football team is about the most extreme example I can imagine. The entire game of football requires physical presence.

Lots of people’s jobs require sitting at a computer, sending emails and documents and code around. Rarely are things printed on paper and physically handed over, I’d speculate 99% of Word documents in existence—to use one example—are never printed, even for one person’s use, let alone multiple.

I’m not a remote worker, but I’m under no delusions that my or my colleagues electronically submitted documents are somehow made better by my teammates sitting 5 feet from me instead of 5,000 miles. Now, obviously different jobs are different—a butcher can’t virtually slice cuts of beef—but for many that are computer-based, requiring colocation doesn’t have a significant impact on the work itself.

You’re absolutely right that lazy managers/leadership dramatically bias themselves in favor of people that they can physically see…but it’s a terrible way to assess actual work performance in many jobs, just a tremendously flawed cognitive bias.

Of course, many skill and output-deficient people depend on this cognitive bias to ascend at work, but if work reviews were possible to be conducted blindly similar to the way that orchestras audition musicians…many of those people would be exposed when that cover was pulled back.

you clearly aren't a team player, and you clearly have been passed over in favor of a hard worker! there is no I in team! regardless of how skilled you think you are!

 

[jk73]

Urgency to change the policy.

Doesn't matter if it was 90 days away or a year. When you want to push back on a policy, you do it quickly, before it takes root.

The desires of these employees were more urgent than WWDC, which was happening one business day after they ran to the media?

That’s really funny.

 

[iGuy73]

As long as I can show up at the office in the same attire that I wear at home, I'm good..

 

[hatchettjack]

if I could put a camera in my employees home monitoring their workstation, I might allow it! I'm paying you money to work, not play with your dog! or mowing your grass! even if you get the work done, in which case I would need to put a heavier workload on you, or pay you less!

 

[jk73]

if I could put a camera in my employees home monitoring their workstation, I might allow it! I'm paying you money to work, not play with your dog! or mowing your grass! even if you get the work done, in which case I would need to put a heavier workload on you, or pay you less!

Right, that’s the thing. I assume the WFH people would object to any type of monitoring of their work space. The people I know who are most passionate about WFH are exploiting management inefficiencies — i.e., people who have jobs that pay them for 40 hours per week but can be completed in 20 or 30.

 

[Abazigal]

Urgency to change the policy.

Doesn't matter if it was 90 days away or a year. When you want to push back on a policy, you do it quickly, before it takes root.

Well, I can certainly see the urgency to get this out before WWDC monopolises the tech news cycle for that month.

 

[Silverstring]

The desires of these employees were more urgent than WWDC, which was happening one business day after they ran to the media?

That’s really funny.

What do you mean “more urgent”?

The letter had zero effect on the carrying out of WWDC.

Was a single WWDC session cancelled? Was any announcement pushed back? Were any of the Q&A sessions compromised, the prerecorded videos not filmed?

Now, if you’re going to say that the timing helped maximize the visibility of the letter…I’d say that’s a smart way that the employees capitalized on the situation where they’re at a massive power disadvantage.

…you’ll call that “bad faith”, because apparently the only “good faith” way of handling this to you would be for the workers to sit down, shut up, take whatever they get an like it…or be fired.

Yes, because if workers sit around and say nothing ever, companies and CEOs will make working conditions better for them on pure benevolence. You know, I think that’s how the 40 hour work week came about! 🤣

We get it, you’re staunchly anti-worker. Work isn’t an exchange of value between employee and employer for the mutual benefit of both, the workers are interchangeable cogs and they have their positions only because of the gifts bestowed upon them by the “job creators”.

If they ask for any accommodations, any adjustment of policy…fire them! What a joke.

 

[Silverstring]

you clearly aren't a team player, and you clearly have been passed over in favor of a hard worker! there is no I in team! regardless of how skilled you think you are!

Hahahaha.

Simply showing up = “hard worker”, regardless of output.

You clearly don’t know how to evaluate work productivity, have no idea that this phenomena of cognitive bias has been extensively studied, and I sincerely hope you don’t manage people.

You might want to actively, aggressively distrust your workforce and use shallow, lazy mental shortcuts to determine who’s a “hard worker”…but you and your company will be left behind in short order.

Being a good teammate and colleague is about being productive, holding to your commitments and gaining trust, delivering your deliverables when asked, and assisting your teammates when they need help.

…but suuuuure…those things can’t possibly happen unless people are physically in the same building. What a silly take. Your employees need to babysat and monitored like prisoners with a warden.

I’m not even a remote worker, but still—I’ve worked with managers too smart to base decisions on “oh, Joe/Jane is always at their desk, so they’re a better worker than someone who isn’t, absent all other factors.”

 

[Abazigal]

So, if you’re a group of mid-to-lower-level workers trying to get your CEO’s eyes and consideration on something while bypassing the middle management and the inevitable distortion/possible softening that they, as middle managers, are incentivized to perform…going to the press is a smart way to cut that red tape/game of telephone.

It's also not something I would endorse or support, because it just sets a (very bad, IMO) precedent that any time employees feel like they can't get their way, they can simply choose to bypass the chain of command and run to the press, hoping to use social pressure to force me to capitulate.

I understand that the workers involved likely did this because they feel like they have practically zero bargaining power within the company, and while I also acknowledge that the optics of doing so would be very bad, were I an employer, I would be tempted to establish a policy where the moment any such letter hits the press, they can consider any further discussion of said matter off the table.

But that's also probably why I am not the boss of my own business, because I would probably lose all my employees within a week also. 😛

 

[Silverstring]

Right, that’s the thing. I assume the WFH people would object to any type of monitoring of their work space. The people I know who are most passionate about WFH are exploiting management inefficiencies — i.e., people who have jobs that pay them for 40 hours per week but can be completed in 20 or 30.

What they’d be objecting to is management that doesn’t treat them like mature, competent adults…and if management has people who aren’t that in the company, that’s their failure in hiring and performance measurement, not a lack of minute-to-minute monitoring.

If management has inefficiencies that can be exploited, then they should address them!

Because I have news for you—gasp!—there are plenty of people who physically sit in company offices for 40+ hours a week who only do 20-30 hours of “work”. A surveillance state is missing the forest for the trees and the wrong solution to bad job design and performance measurement and evaluation.

That management failure and inefficiency doesn’t magically disappear because people are in an office together.

 

[jk73]

What do you mean “more urgent”?

The letter had zero effect on the carrying out of WWDC.

Was a single WWDC session cancelled? Was any announcement pushed back? Were any of the Q&A sessions compromised, the prerecorded videos not filmed?

Now, if you’re going to say that the timing helped maximize the visibility of the letter…I’d say that’s a smart way that the employees capitalized on the situation where they’re at a massive power disadvantage.

…you’ll call that “bad faith”, because apparently the only “good faith” way of handling this to you would be for the workers to sit down, shut up, take whatever they get an like it…or be fired.

Yes, because if workers sit around and say nothing ever, companies and CEOs will make working conditions better for them on pure benevolence. You know, I think that’s how the 40 hour work week came about! 🤣

We get it, you’re staunchly anti-worker. Work isn’t an exchange of value between employee and employer for the mutual benefit of both, the workers are interchangeable cogs and they have their positions only because of the gifts bestowed upon them by the “job creators”.

If they ask for any accommodations, any adjustment of policy…fire them! What a joke.

Hahahaha.

Simply showing up = “hard worker”, regardless of output.

You clearly don’t know how to evaluate work productivity, have no idea that this phenomena of cognitive bias has been extensively studied, and I sincerely hope you don’t manage people.

You might want to actively, aggressively distrust your workforce and use shallow, lazy mental shortcuts to determine who’s a “hard worker”…but you and your company will be left behind in short order.

Being a good teammate and colleague is about being productive, holding to your commitments and gaining trust, delivering your deliverables when asked, and assisting your teammates when they need help.

…but suuuuure…those things can’t possibly happen unless people are physically in the same building. What a silly take. Your employees need to babysat and monitored like prisoners with a warden.

I’m not even a remote worker, but still—I’ve worked with managers too smart to base decisions on “oh, Joe/Jane is always at their desk, so they’re a better worker than someone who isn’t, absent all other factors.”

Good grief.

 

[jk73]

It's also not something I would endorse or support, because it just sets a (very bad, IMO) precedent that any time employees feel like they can't get their way, they can simply choose to bypass the chain of command and run to the press, hoping to use social pressure to force me to capitulate.

I understand that the workers involved likely did this because they feel like they have practically zero bargaining power within the company, and while I also acknowledge that the optics of doing so would be very bad, were I an employer, I would be tempted to establish a policy where the moment any such letter hits the press, they can consider any further discussion of said matter off the table.

But that's also probably why I am not the boss of my own business, because I would probably lose all my employees within a week also. 😛

No, you’re exactly right, and you’d be a good leader.

 

[Silverstring]

Good grief.

Wow, compelling counter!

Now your support of the laziness of evaluating workers on “face time” and “gut” and nothing else tracks.

Charlie Brown Management strategy!

 

[jk73]

What they’d be objecting to is management that doesn’t treat them like mature, competent adults…and if management has people who aren’t that in the company, that’s their failure in hiring and performance measurement, not a lack of minute-to-minute monitoring.

If management has inefficiencies that can be exploited, then they should address them!

Because I have news for you—gasp!—there are plenty of people who physically sit in company offices for 40+ hours a week who only do 20-30 hours of “work”. A surveillance state is missing the forest for the trees and the wrong solution to bad job design and performance measurement and evaluation.

That management failure and inefficiency doesn’t magically disappear because people are in an office together.

Nobody claimed otherwise. But it’s far easier to oversee output and police too much time at the water cooler when the boss and the employees are in the same building.

 

[Silverstring]

No, you’re exactly right, and you’d be a good leader.

Theirs is a measured take that acknowledges the downside of such an insecure, vindictive management strategy.

Yours, not so much.

 

[jk73]

Theirs is a measured take that acknowledges the downside of such an insecure, vindictive management strategy.

Yours, not so much.

No, that person basically said the same thing I said. No decent CEO allows himself to get extorted through the media by employees, least of all employees who didn’t have the decency to try to address their concerns privately and on a reasonable timeframe. Bashing Tim Cook in the media one business day before his most important event of the year was absurdly stupid.

 

[Silverstring]

Nobody claimed otherwise. But it’s far easier to oversee output and police too much time at the water cooler when the boss and the employees are in the same building.

See, if you think employees need to be “policed”, you’ve already failed…and feeling the need to look over employees’ shoulder constantly is a thin bandaid on a much deeper gouge.

Funny too, that for all of your support of the in-person model…you want to “police” one of the admitted advantages of that approach…time at the watercooler for employees to engage…talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!

 

[jk73]

See, if you think employees need to be “policed”, you’ve already failed…and feeling the need to look over employees’ shoulder constantly is a thin bandaid on a much deeper gouge.

Funny too, that for all of your support of the in-person model…you want to “police” one of the admitted advantages of that approach…time at the watercooler for employees to engage…talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!

You’re not even trying.

 

[Silverstring]

No, that person basically said the same thing I said. No decent CEO allows himself to get extorted through the media by employees, least of all employees who didn’t have the decency to try to address their concerns privately and on a reasonable timeframe, rather than by bashing their boss in the media one business day before his most important event of the year.

Bringing up concerns and asking for them to be addressed:

“extortion”, “bashing boss” and “indecent”.

…taking these things personally and having such an emotional read on things…inhibits one’s ability to make a good business decision. If I was on Apple’s board, I wouldn’t want Cook acting so rashly!

…and once again, you have no insight into what happened privately before the letter.