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

[Abazigal]

Scott Forstall was an amazing software engineer (he was responsible for iOS after all), and Tim Cook had no qualms about firing him. The price of individual brilliance is collective friction, the glue that holds every Apple employee together is the ideology of design, and that no one individual is indispensable. Not even Steve Jobs or Scott Forstall or Jony Ive. If they are not a fit for company culture, then they need to go. No matter how good they are.

Are there people who are more productive working from home? I am very sure there are.

However, does this also not depend on our definition of productivity?

In the case of a software programmer, I suppose if you measured productivity in terms of how many lines of code you can churn out in a day, then yes, I agree that not having to commute to work, being able to break or take a nap at your convenience to recharge or being disturbed by co-workers is a huge boon. I would totally not be surprised if you told me that you could get the same work done in say, 6 hours at home when it would normally take 8 or 10 hours at your workplace.

However, are we also forgetting the social aspect of work? I am not talking about people having 2-hour long lunch breaks or chatting about the latest episode of game of thrones at the water cooler. I am talking about say, a junior employee being able to just walk up to his colleague whenever he has a problem and being able to have his problem resolved there and then. Some of the best ideas come outside of work, like when I share about a new platform I used for teaching with my colleagues over a meal. For me at least, I find that a lot of my learning and camaraderie comes during totally unscripted moments like this. You lose a lot of that spontaneity when everyone is working from home, and there are now walls between me and my colleagues which add friction to whenever we want to reach out to one another.

I guess the TL;DR of my point is that sometimes, we have to look beyond the tips of our own noses and understand that sometimes, what is good for an individual may not necessarily be good for the health of an organisation as a whole, because everyone would (naturally) be looking out for their own vested interests first and foremost.

Sometimes, it may well be possible that meetings are a complete waste of time the way they are conducted in some places, and the people present have already mentally checked out the door. But I believe that conducted properly, meetings can be an invaluable font of learning, and you lose a lot of that efficacy when it gets held online, and you are separated from your boss by a computer screen.

I don’t think there’s dissonance, but I do think there is a lot more nuance than simply “WFH is all good or bad”.

 

[Stephen.R]

I am talking about say, a junior employee being able to just walk up to his colleague whenever he has a problem and being able to have his problem resolved there and then.

How exactly do you imagine remote working happens that staff can’t contact each other quite easily and casually?

 

[Abazigal]

How exactly do you imagine remote working happens that staff can’t contact each other quite easily and casually?

I imagine that communications would happen only for the major stuff like "hey, where's your part of the code, I need it by lunch". And less "I can't get this line of code to work, could you help me eyeball and see what's wrong?" Or messages may be prefaced with a lot of needless "sorry to disturb you but..."

And more asynchronous than live meetings.

Again, maybe I am the anomaly, but I find that if a certain matter can't be resolved within 3 messages, I am calling / FaceTiming that person to hash things out on the spot. That's why I am sometimes amazed that entire companies can be run via slack.

 

[NoBoMac]

MODERATOR NOTE:

Posts have been deleted due to insults, name calling, bickering. Stay on topic in a civilized manner.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

“I need a break” should be a valid “excuse”. Again, the point is for your employees to get their work done, not literally glue their asses to their chair. You're paying them for their work, not their chair ass grooves, right? (if you manufacture chair cushions and literally need the ass grooves I apologize, but somehow I doubt it). Breaks actually help, especially on a nice day. In the office or remote, I take plenty of breaks to step out, talk a walk, get coffee, hit the gym, etc throughout the day. And the whole time people know where I am because my boss fosters a culture that embraces breaks so no one feels they need to hide it, and we post when we’re going to be away and change our statuses on our comms. It’s not uncommon at all on a nice day for someone to post “great day, taking a walk, be back in half an hr or so”

and as for meetings and such that’s what calendar invites are for. If you start meetings just by rounding people up such that someone stepping away creates a problem it means you're forcing context switches and pissing off everyone, I promise

I also assume you must not work for a company with multiple offices, forgetting about the portions of the team I’m on that’s always been remote, or those like me that often worked remote at least once or twice/week even before the pandemic, we also have people on the team spread through 6 timezones, and coordinate with even more folks outside the team. Plenty of them work from the office, just a different one thousands of miles away. Keeping everyone in sync works the same way as remote employees.

Tldr everything you’ve listed in all your replies are problems that exist because of lack of process and overbearing management and a paranoia that somehow your employees are pulling one over on you. Track your employees work, not their desk presence, and put in place processes to handle that and everyone will be much happier. You're the problem, not your employees taking a walk

It depends on the type of business. The company I work for are a group with two companies under the same umbrella. Our HQ is in the Netherlands and we have offices in Wales, Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy and Poland. Those of us in the UK are expected to be mostly available between 8am and 5pm. We are needed for sales, production support and technical advice. I think you missed the part where I said we have breaks. It would be breaking the law not to have one half hour break and two fifteen minute breaks in an 8.5 hour day. Employees going missing for a couple of hours during the day would be a problem.

 

[seadragon]

Also important to remember is that people are PEOPLE, not robots or machines. Seems like some companies want them to be the latter, especially if ALL they care about is productivity.

 

[Stephen.R]

I imagine that communications would happen only for the major stuff like "hey, where's your part of the code, I need it by lunch". And less "I can't get this line of code to work, could you help me eyeball and see what's wrong?" Or messages may be prefaced with a lot of needless "sorry to disturb you but..."

Well I can't speak for all remote teams, or even all remote software dev teams. But, as I said, I've worked remotely for over a decade, in software dev/infra/tooling/etc roles, generally in senior/leadership/"experienced problem solver" roles.

What you describe doesn't match with the "lived experience" of my time working remotely, at all.

Even back when I first started working remotely in the mid-2000's the company had real-time group chat, and it was extremely common for people working on a project team together, to use other realtime chat tools like Skype, Google Talk, etc.

I don't think I've ever seen a message prefaced with "sorry to disturb you but", because unlike a person physically being present at my desk, or a phone call, a text chat message isn't an immediate interruption.

 

[ipponrg]

What you describe doesn't match with the "lived experience" of my time working remotely, at all.

Even back when I first started working remotely in the mid-2000's the company had real-time group chat, and it was extremely common for people working on a project team together, to use other realtime chat tools like Skype, Google Talk, etc.

I don't think I've ever seen a message prefaced with "sorry to disturb you but", because unlike a person physically being present at my desk, or a phone call, a text chat message isn't an immediate interruption.

That is called company or team culture, and of course, it varies. That's why it doesn't match your "lived experience". It's of pure coincidence that you haven't stumbled onto that.

The company I am currently at has had a remote work culture for the last 5 years. When it comes to cross functional team communication, I've seen people be apologetic, and I've seen others that really don't care.

Again, maybe I am the anomaly, but I find that if a certain matter can't be resolved within 3 messages, I am calling / FaceTiming that person to hash things out on the spot. That's why I am sometimes amazed that entire companies can be run via slack.

I would argue it depends on the nature of the work. You can certainly run some companies entirely over DMs if it's not mission critical and you don't need to collaborate in person in real time.

As far resolving issues over calling, for me it really depends. There are people on my team that I don't have the patience to resolve over messages due to their slow typing or their seemingly lack of attention to the matter. And there are others who I can perfectly resolve over multiple messages. Generally speaking, I am in the same boat as you when it comes to resolving/triaging.

 

[Silverstring]

Well I can't speak for all remote teams, or even all remote software dev teams. But, as I said, I've worked remotely for over a decade, in software dev/infra/tooling/etc roles, generally in senior/leadership/"experienced problem solver" roles.

What you describe doesn't match with the "lived experience" of my time working remotely, at all.

Even back when I first started working remotely in the mid-2000's the company had real-time group chat, and it was extremely common for people working on a project team together, to use other realtime chat tools like Skype, Google Talk, etc.

I don't think I've ever seen a message prefaced with "sorry to disturb you but", because unlike a person physically being present at my desk, or a phone call, a text chat message isn't an immediate interruption.

I’m not a remote worker—well, save for the pandemic and the occasional day here or there—but even when I’m in the office, I’ll quickly chat someone and ask “hey, have a minute?” before walking over.

It’s not like I chew someone out or cop an attitude with them if they don’t do that for me, but I think it’s courteous to ask.

I have no idea what a given colleague might be working on specifically at any given moment, how difficult/stressful/important it is, whether it’s due in an hour or ten months, and how deep in complex thought and/or a mental model they may be.

In my mind, for me to not even consider all that/take it into account and just walk up and essentially communicate by standing there “Hey, regardless of me having no context for your situation in this moment deal with me/my/question NOW, unless you specifically say no” is not a position I want to put my colleagues in. Especially because a lot—if not the majority of those “have a sec” “quick questions” are NOT time sensitive.

Some will say, “well, you can just walk up and ask the same question in person” and sure, you can—but speaking about considering people as PEOPLE, I think that the “just walk up” approach is less considerate of people’s differing styles/personalities. It’s not the same. Some people aren’t assertive, and some people find it difficult to say no when you request *anything* of them. Some people are verbal processors, and others are introverts who might need quiet time alone to think through a request/problem before arriving at an answer. Standing over/beside them and asking them to make that decision RIGHT NOW increases a sense of pressure that may compromise their effectiveness in the interaction.

To me, a quick “heads up” over chat to inquire about availability is the best of both worlds. Not a formally scheduled meeting, it not a total “ambush” either. Not only easier to decline, but allows them—if they so choose—to say, things like “let me finish this email/code commit/whatever first, then hop over, and let’s talk”, instead of me interrupting them totally mid-stream.

The switching costs of unexpected interruption—and associated temporary drop in cognitive function—are very real and extensively studied. Much like distracted driving, people wildly overestimate how well they can handle it. Even if they say “doesn’t bother me” or “I’m a great multitasker”…the data conclusively shows otherwise for ALL people, so it isn’t about “feeling” or preference.

To me, giving everyone that little mental “buffer”, is a good aspect that remote work enforces by design, although I think it works well in person, too.

 

[pdoherty]

It is against the law for an employer to 'covertly' spy on their employee's. An employer has to acknowledge in either employee handbooks, company memo's, company employment polices and procedures or in a job interview, that the company uses various electronic means to keep track of employees safety and wellbeing (in other words, spying on the employee).

Covert action on an employee can only take place if the employee is involved in criminal activity and evidence is required by the employer to take the matter further.

How employers use technology to surveil employees | Brookings

Darrell West describes workforce surveillance technologies and the privacy protections employees need in the workplace and working from home.

www.brookings.edu

Work on firm equipment and over company digital networks generally is subject to monitoring as long as the activity takes place during the “ordinary course of business”. Both the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Stored Communications Act allow firms to track employee activities without prior notification, although the scope of the allowable oversight varies quite a bit from state-to-state. Many of the rules governing workplace surveillance are at the state level and there is wide variation in what jurisdictions allow and the legal precedents that govern such actions.

In a number of places, firms are able to use keylogger software on company equipment. If workers intermingle personal and business activities on the company device, that can expose private information to supervisors. According to Matt Pinsker, an adjunct professor of homeland security and criminal justice at Virginia Commonwealth University, “as a general rule, employees have little expectation of privacy while on company grounds or using company equipment”.

Attention tracking

In some places, organizations are using webcams to track worker attentiveness. Using biometric data such as eye movements, body shifts, and facial expressions, webcam software can evaluate whether people are paying attention to the tasks at hand and being properly attentive in workplace activities and on video calls. Those who are inattentive can be reprimanded or subject to disciplinary action.

 

[jk73]

We’re over 50 pages into this and most people are still ignoring the elephant in the room. Apple’s software quality control is the worst I can remember in almost 40 years of Apple use, and WWDC was a snoozer. The WFH people can claim WFH yields “increased productivity” all they want, but there’s no evidence of that with Apple over the past 18 months.

 

[Silverstring]

We’re over 50 pages into this and most people are still ignoring the elephant in the room. Apple’s software quality control is the worst I can remember in almost 40 years of Apple use, and WWDC was a snoozer. The WFH people can claim WFH yields “increased productivity” all they want, but there’s no evidence of that with Apple over the past 18 months.

There’s also no evidence of the opposite. Correlation is not causation.

 

[jk73]

There’s also no evidence of the opposite. Correlation is not causation.

“Evidence” is exactly what it is, unless we’re supposed to believe it’s all a big coincidence.

 

[chucker23n1]

We’re over 50 pages into this and most people are still ignoring the elephant in the room. Apple’s software quality control is the worst I can remember in almost 40 years of Apple use, and WWDC was a snoozer. The WFH people can claim WFH yields “increased productivity” all they want, but there’s no evidence of that with Apple over the past 18 months.

What's your evidence that software quality is in any way related to WFH?

Apple in 2020: The Six Colors report card

It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful…

sixcolors.com

Going by that, 2020 was actually among the better years. And I'm inclined to agree. iOS 13 / macOS Catalina in 2019 weren't particularly high points. iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur in 2020 seemed to ship OK.

 

[Silverstring]

Scott Forstall was an amazing software engineer (he was responsible for iOS after all), and Tim Cook had no qualms about firing him. The price of individual brilliance is collective friction, the glue that holds every Apple employee together is the ideology of design, and that no one individual is indispensable. Not even Steve Jobs or Scott Forstall or Jony Ive. If they are not a fit for company culture, then they need to go. No matter how good they are.

Are there people who are more productive working from home? I am very sure there are.

However, does this also not depend on our definition of productivity?

In the case of a software programmer, I suppose if you measured productivity in terms of how many lines of code you can churn out in a day, then yes, I agree that not having to commute to work, being able to break or take a nap at your convenience to recharge or being disturbed by co-workers is a huge boon. I would totally not be surprised if you told me that you could get the same work done in say, 6 hours at home when it would normally take 8 or 10 hours at your workplace.

However, are we also forgetting the social aspect of work? I am not talking about people having 2-hour long lunch breaks or chatting about the latest episode of game of thrones at the water cooler. I am talking about say, a junior employee being able to just walk up to his colleague whenever he has a problem and being able to have his problem resolved there and then. Some of the best ideas come outside of work, like when I share about a new platform I used for teaching with my colleagues over a meal. For me at least, I find that a lot of my learning and camaraderie comes during totally unscripted moments like this. You lose a lot of that spontaneity when everyone is working from home, and there are now walls between me and my colleagues which add friction to whenever we want to reach out to one another.

I guess the TL;DR of my point is that sometimes, we have to look beyond the tips of our own noses and understand that sometimes, what is good for an individual may not necessarily be good for the health of an organisation as a whole, because everyone would (naturally) be looking out for their own vested interests first and foremost.

Sometimes, it may well be possible that meetings are a complete waste of time the way they are conducted in some places, and the people present have already mentally checked out the door. But I believe that conducted properly, meetings can be an invaluable font of learning, and you lose a lot of that efficacy when it gets held online, and you are separated from your boss by a computer screen.

I don’t think there’s dissonance, but I do think there is a lot more nuance than simply “WFH is all good or bad”.

I appreciate the thoughtful response. I read every word.

Of course there is nuance, and a company defines their own standard/measurement of “productivity”.

…but you also have to allow that people’s dependence on mental heuristics means that their feelings/perceptions are often wrong. To that end, there are bosses/leaders who perceive in person/collocated work to be “better”…but have no way to accurately evaluate that, or don’t even care to! The opposite is true as well, there may be WFH companies that might work better in person, if measured.

Some will—and have—said “if the boss/company thinks it’s better…then it’s better.” Which I think is an oversimplification and a distraction , especially since the discussion evolved beyond Apple as a singular example.

One can say “my Boss/Company is wrong and/or misinformed…yet I still have to adhere to the policy to continue to work here.”

As far as the “cognitive dissonance” I was referring to in a now-deleted post, It was in reference to a specific hypothetical I posited:

How would a pro-in person meeting, collocated office culture boss who is utterly convinced—without any quantitative measurement—of the superiority of that model handle a scenario where converting to a remote workforce would cause a 15% drop in meeting efficiency, in exchange for a 40% increase in (company-defined, positive) key performance indicators. Would/should the boss take the deal?

The question went unanswered.

I am not trying to re-ask the question of you or anyone else, just providing that context for the now-missing reference.

 

[jk73]

What's your evidence that software quality is in any way related to WFH?

Apple in 2020: The Six Colors report card

It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful…

sixcolors.com

View attachment 1795378

Going by that, 2020 was actually among the better years. And I'm inclined to agree. iOS 13 / macOS Catalina in 2019 weren't particularly high points. iOS 14 and macOS Big Sur in 2020 seemed to ship OK.

Never heard of Six Colors.

My evidence is the forums here, which seem to have more software-related complaints than I can ever remember, including very serious ones, and a snoozer of a WWDC.

No sense going in circles for the twentieth time, but Apple isn’t moving people back to the office just to spite them.

 

[Stephen.R]

I’ll quickly chat someone and ask “hey, have a minute?” before walking over.

I understand that - because you just rocking up at someone’s desk is a direct disruption to their environment.

I’m saying that sending a text based message to someone - who you’re going to communicate with purely through the same text medium - “sorry to disturb you …” is weird and unnecessary to me, and I haven’t seen it really in all my time.

I’ve had people be apologetic during or at the end of a conversation when they realised the Timezone difference - but i generally wouldn’t have answered their original message if I wasn’t already at my desk or was working on something time-critical anyway, so in those instances it’s not like they’ve drawn me away from something else.

 

[Silverstring]

“Evidence” is exactly what it is, unless we’re supposed to believe it’s all a big coincidence.

Even if your anecdotal, subjective personal assessment of relative software quality and WWDC were indisputable gospel (which it isn’t), that still doesn’t function as evidence of any impact caused by WFH.

x = Apple software quality dropped
y = Apple was WFH during this same period

doesn’t mean y made x happen, the same way “It rained, I had just washed my car” doesn’t mean one washing their car caused it to rain.

Total post hoc fallacy, where the order of events doesn’t take into account the untold number of other factors that could disprove the implied connection.

 

[jk73]

Even if your anecdotal, subjective personal assessment of relative software quality and WWDC were indisputable gospel (which it isn’t), that still doesn’t function as proof of any impact caused by WFH.

x = Apple software quality dropped
y = Apple was WFH during this same period

doesn’t mean y made x happen, the same way “It rained, I had just washed my car” doesn’t mean one washing their car caused it to rain.

Total post hoc fallacy, where the order of events doesn’t take into account the untold number of other factors that could disprove the implied connection.

I said “evidence.” I did not say “proof.” Please don’t misrepresent my comments.

 

[Silverstring]

My evidence is the forums here, which seem to have more software-related complaints than I can ever remember, including very serious ones, and a snoozer of a WWDC.

I’m positive the sample size of MacRumors Forums has grown in your 40 years of Mac usage—which you used as your own baseline for your assessment. It’s grown from 10 years ago. 5, too.

An increased sample size would lead to more complaints. Not to mention that it’s been extensively demonstrated in repeatable, peer-reviewed studies that people are much more likely to report negative experiences than positive ones, which would also explain more software related complaints scaling disproportionately to the increase in number of users.

Increase number of (perceived) negative comments ≠ drop in software quality.

Not evidence.

 

[Stephen.R]

I said “evidence.” I did not say “proof.” Please don’t misrepresent my comments.

But it isn’t evidence. Two things happening isn’t evidence one caused the other.

I dropped something on my foot today and I wasn’t wearing closed shoes. I didn’t drop the item because I was wearing thongs (flip flops). It’s just an unfortunate coincidence.

 

[Silverstring]

I said “evidence.” I did not say “proof.” Please don’t misrepresent my comments.

You’re right, I apologize. Other than the word, same concept applies.

 

[Silverstring]

“Evidence” is exactly what it is, unless we’re supposed to believe it’s all a big coincidence.

We’re not “supposed” to believe anything.

We can simply say we don’t understand enough of the factors involved—to arrive at a conclusion.

 

[jk73]

But it isn’t evidence. Two things happening isn’t evidence one caused the other.

I dropped something on my foot today and I wasn’t wearing closed shoes. I didn’t drop the item because I was wearing thongs (flip flops). It’s just an unfortunate coincidence.

This is absurd.

 

[jk73]

You’re right, I apologize. Other than the word, same concept applies.

No, the same concept doesn’t apply, because evidence and proof are two different things.

A drop in quality and/or a decrease in innovation that occurs at the same time as a companywide shift to WFH absolutely is evidence of WFH being bad for quality control and/or innovation, barring superior evidence to the contrary.