Apple's Director of Machine Learning Resigns Due to Return to Office Work

[eTip]

Working from home is an okay band-aid solution, but when it comes to innovation and creativity, in-person interaction is needed.

Maybe YOU need that but I’m far more creative and innovative while wfh. Frankly I wasn’t the least bit surprised by this as I’ve always known I’m more comfortable in an environment with less distractions and a flexible schedule. What surprised me was that even my extrovert coworkers that may prefer the social aspect of being in the office, are actually more productive at home as well.

 

[No5tromo]

For anyone? Tell this to your dentist!

The dentist:

Me:

we can admire the scenery, chat to strangers

The scenery:

The strangers:

 

[Fomalhaut]

Any of these lazy freeloaders who want to have a permanent vacation and get paid handsomely for should be immediately shown the door with a foot in their backside by Apple. Get back to work like everyone else.

Why? Because that's what you have to do yourself? Sound like a case of sour grapes to me....

Working location and mixes of home and office working should be based on the efficiencies that each offer, not some random feeling about what "work" is. It can be measured you know!

It is hugely dependent of the role, the specific tasks, the individual and the industry.

1) Does your job involve physical interaction with people? hospitality, healthcare, retail etc.... not much choice - you need to be where the customers are.

2) Does it require mobility - e.g. logistics, construction, public services - again, you need to be out and about to do your job

3) Does it require access to specialist machine or facilities - e.g. factory or other manufacturing, engineering - hard to do most of this from home.

4) Does it require working with other people physically - a lot of the above, including armed forces, law enforcement etc.

That's a lot of jobs of course, but there are probably an equal number of services or "knowledge worker" jobs that have none of the above requirement. Financial services, IT, research (some of it), education (sometimes)

 

[Fomalhaut]

I'm in IT, and I just answered another poster about how horrible it was to be working remotely. We work better when we as a team, collaborate. Yes, I can get my work done from home. Most of us already remote into the office for maintenance work or other projects that can't be done during normal production hours. But, to work fully from home for us wasn't as cool as it sounded. Constant distraction from just the things that go on at home. Especially when your kid(s) can't go to school. Almost every call I'm on with someone that works from home. We hear all the things that go on in the background. Dogs, kids, other people. Sometimes its funny, other times it's annoying. You tend to not have this issue when you all in the office.

Again, not for everyone. But, if you needed that kind of job. You should have requested it or been in that position to begin with.

I know what you mean about distractions. Over the last couple of years I've had calls with people and thought "how the hell can you even work with all that noise!". A lot of people got caught with extended home-schooling responsibilities and not having a suitable working space - they were just sitting at the dining table, in the kitchen or in their bedroom.

My current customer has a home-working agreement and you have to demonstrate that you have a separate working area away from your family that prevents others from seeing or hearing your work-related communication, and send photographic evidence of the working environment. This actually seems reasonable to me, because I wouldn't personally want to work without a quiet personal space at home. Not everyone has this luxury though, and it could be argued that it discriminates in favour of those with large enough houses to dedicate a room as home office.

 

[MecPro]

It’s fair play to him.

Luckily I never have to go into an office as I’m a consultant and meant to travel to client sites. But our company found it much more cost effective to do 2/20 client sites visits vs remote consults especially considering we’re literally send a person in Netherlands to Japan or a person in the US to Italy.

His family life must be incredibly important for him to quit his role and since COVID I think a lot of people have realised we need to be more in control of our lives and how we want to work.

Good on him.

 

[UKgaryb]

Hybrid workings is the worst of scenatios for folk working at these companies.
1) The offices are located in probably the most expensive areas to live
2) On the days you can work from home you are typically working in a small cramped expensive place
3) It's not going to do anything to rebalance the situration with locals unable to buy property in areas where these tech companies have based themselves.

It's all about capitalizing on the return on the investment they've made on these huge offices.

 

[ksgant]

This is a tough one. Yes, working from home can be just as productive, but working in an environment with other people does have benefits as well....as long as a company encourages it. Hearing other ideas when people are just shooting the breeze can stimulate something new or spark an idea. Just sitting at your desk working on whatever you're working on, but you overhear someone else talking about a problem they're having with some project, and you have an immediate idea that could help them...or vice versa. You never get that working at home and certainly not through a "meeting" through zoom. You don't get that kind of thing in meetings in general. It's a thing that's hard to capture in a bottle, but it certainly can't happen when everyone is isolated.

But then again, working from home has many advantages too. There's no clear-cut "this is better than that" way of doing things. There's give an take in every situation. In this example of the head of AI leaving, he was the head of the department, and as such his day was probably just filled with meeting after meeting after meeting which he easily could have done over Zoom. Was he ever hands-on IN a lab doing actual AI work? I don't know, but my wild-ass guess is that he wasn't.

 

[rodriguise]

I'm not sure this is accurate. If that is the case, 50% of companies out there would be bankrupt now, after 2 years of working from home. I think Covid proved that some companies could easily go buildingless. I personally would not work for a company like that.

Probably truth is in the middle. If your assertion was true a company as progressive as Apple wouldn’t even consider this.

 

[Isamilis]

Commuting stress, road rage, less sleep, less time for yourself, less time for your family, social interactions you don't care for, uncomfortable clothes, exposing yourself to potential health hazard, less productive, more stressed. Working in the office is ********. Period.

I think the decision is on company. When they asked for WFO they should also consider the negative (and positive) consequences. Again, it’s all (plus & minus) go back to company. This is similar with office relocation, which purely decided by company’s management.

 

[HasanDaddy]

Generally, if you can keep a worker remote and at-home, then I really do think you'll have a more productive worker. However, if Apple wants office time, then people need to stop being babies, and get to the office.

My last note though is a warning - much the same way Walmart started to introduce self-check-out, and McDonalds started introducing LCD screens to take orders.... once work is jettisoned to a home-worker, this is now a job that can be done from anywhere in the world, potentially, by many people. Apple won't want to pay FICA taxes for every long, nor will many other corporations.

Soooo..... if you're a professional that works from home, you better make sure your skills are top-notch. Someone in India or South Korea wants your job, and the corporation won't have to pay FICA or provide extra benefits when they employ that individual. You won't have this worry if you have have an office position.

Good luck all.

 

[sunapple]

Nothing stops you, assuming everyone is local, from a team meeting when you need to meet in person.

It all totally depends on the kind of business and how you run it of course. Our office never got around to the work from home routine, we just went back to the office as soon as it was possible after each lockdown. We thrive on being able to instantly and spontaneously have access to the right people at any time. We make physical products out of steel at the factory which is right next to the office. We never have any scheduled meetings. I suppose that is pretty unique.

 

[ruka.snow]

Generally, if you can keep a worker remote and at-home, then I really do think you'll have a more productive worker. However, if Apple wants office time, then people need to stop being babies, and get to the office.

My last note though is a warning - much the same way Walmart started to introduce self-check-out, and McDonalds started introducing LCD screens to take orders.... once work is jettisoned to a home-worker, this is now a job that can be done from anywhere in the world, potentially, by many people. Apple won't want to pay FICA taxes for every long, nor will many other corporations.

Soooo..... if you're a professional that works from home, you better make sure your skills are top-notch. Someone in India or South Korea wants your job, and the corporation won't have to pay FICA or provide extra benefits when they employ that individual. You won't have this worry if you have have an office position.

Good luck all.

After 20 years of having remote workers and quite a bit of that being remote myself… no you won’t lose your job to someone in India or anywhere else. The best person for the job gets it, regardless of where they are. The pay differences between someone in Europe, USA, and Asia are so incredibly minor. And the pay differences aren’t a deciding factor in in who we picked, not for the last few hundred applicants and it won’t be for the next few hundred applications. The only fuss we have is shipping your computer to some places so we ask the employee to expense it. And someone from India might need to fly over to pick up a console dev kit, but we have remote builds since the pandemic so that is less common.

 

[jumpcutking]

I will say that as an efficient and hard working guy, working from home during the pandemic actually gave me a better work life experience. I could cook my own food, workout regularly, take control of my life and still make meetings, on campus events, and work more hours than a normal work week. (This was due to special circumstances.)

It was honestly a great time for me personally. However I do know that not all people were able to achieve their normal work routine when at home.

Many employers prefer collaborative environments and believe office environments are the best place for that.

 

[ruka.snow]

It all totally depends on the kind of business and how you run it of course. Our office never got around to the work from home routine, we just went back to the office as soon as it was possible after each lockdown. We thrive on being able to instantly and spontaneously have access to the right people at any time. We make physical products out of steel at the factory which is right next to the office. We never have any scheduled meetings. I suppose that is pretty unique.

That is indeed very unique. If a developer is sitting next to me and needs to ask a question they will do so on slack. It is not acceptable to physically talk to a developer.

 

[sirdir]

Good people know they're good and can make demands. Bad people will do whatever their boss says.

 

[ruka.snow]

Good on this chap for making the right choice for him. The experience he has will net him a higher paying job elsewhere that has a better work life balance.

 

[Philip_S]

Me thinks Apple should allow such work from home but with the condition that paychecks will be adjusted to the area where they live.

That just incentivises everyone to live in the highest cost of living area they can find, because then they’ll be best positioned for retirement.

 

[pshufd]

In my team the consensus is that we are much more focused and productive at home. The reason is that our office is a large open space with multiple teams working in the same area and since we almost always work in pairs or small groups, the discussions make the environment quite loud and distracting. At home it's much quieter and focused.

There are plans to re-organize the office areas, but so far none of the proposed previews is satisfying.

When I work remotely I am basically constantly collaborating with someone else and I almost never got distracted, nor experience the other party getting distracted. Most of us have a dedicated office area at home and have our time organized to achieve a relatively distraction-free working time.

I also disagree that there are less distractions in the office and even your own example supports this:

I had a large, semi-private office where the other person was 99% WFH so I essentially had a private office. It was very nice for meetings or for quiet when I wanted it. The general idea is that you close your door if you want privacy. If you really want privacy, you tape a "do not disturb" paper on your door. Someone in a cube doesn't have this option. They have noise, interruptions and people peeking over the walls or looking in the opening. People in open offices have even much less privacy, more distractions and ambient noise.

The open office concept started when millennials came of age as real estate thought that they preferred open spaces to collaborate with other people. I never really bought that idea. I thought that real estate was just looking for ways to cut costs. Then in the 201*s, we found out that millennials liked privacy as well. Managers need it for communications too and sometimes you don't have time to book a conference room.

So office design can play a part in whether or not employees want to WFH or come into the office.

If you're in the professional class, you probably have an office at home which you may have spent a decent amount of money on constructing. Or you bought a home with one or two extra bedrooms for a converted office. The fall after the pandemic started, I saw lots of ads for nannies - that is jobs for people to watch over kids that were doing school-at-home. Both parents were WFH in their own home offices and they needed someone to take care of the kids so that the parents weren't interrupted and that the house was fairly quiet during the day.

 

[ruka.snow]

Agreed. I understand that companies need employees to return and there be some pushback. After all, a taste of the work-from-home freedom is hard to give up. But some employees are downright abusing the system.

Me thinks Apple should allow such work from home but with the condition that paychecks will be adjusted to the area where they live.

If you pay less then the workers leave and get a job with a higher wage than what you where paying before. If I changed job now for any reason I am looking at a extra 20% on what I earn just now for a office job or a WFH job. The market for developers is very competitive and due to COVID I could now get hired by someone in Germany, Scotland, or even Japan.

Apple is just one of many companies and not necessarily the best to work for nor the most prestigious. It is just a job, like any other. Jobs pay so I can do my things, I don’t live to do my job.

 

[pshufd]

They can do that, lose some great employees, and replace them with less great ones who are willing to move. They lose a bit one way or another, and the execs are probably still deciding which is worse. FB went for no restrictions, and Goog tried to keep everyone from going remote but ultimately gave up.

Google office perks are really insane. I could see living in a van or box truck in the parking lot if I worked there and couldn't afford housing nearby.

I recall interns at Mozilla where Mozilla provided housing as real estate was so expensive.

 

[Pezimak]

The oil companies are playing us. Oil dropped below $100 a barrel, usually an indicator of cheaper gas prices. Yet they never came down. We became the 7th largest exporter of oil in the world - yet prices remain high because we are shipping oil off to others. Oil producers have 9,000 unused exploration leases, yet comlain how they are being handcuffed.

As far as spending goes, please. Trump and the Republcan controlled Congress set a near record deficit level, while Biden has actually cut the deficit a little bit. Trump had the third-biggest primary deficit growth, 5.2 percent of GDP, behind only George W. Bush (11.7 percent) and Abraham Lincoln (9.4 percent). Spending is not just a Dem thing, the GOP is quite adept at it too.

The Fed finally increased interest rates - something they should ahve done a while ago.

An example is the price of a barrel has dropped significantly compared to what it was 2 months or so ago, yet prices at the pump are still artificially kept extremely high. I’m in the U.K., I can go to a Shell or BP petrol station and still pay over 170 pence a litre, that’s about 2 dollars 22 I think, yet Shell and BP are the very companies who own all the gas and oil rigs digging it out the ground, they directly control the markets, they have both announced the biggest profits for a decade in the first quarter of this year, all due to massive increases in heating and fuel costs being paid to them all approved, and in the case of heating bills, enforced by the British government.

Working from home is very attractive if you don’t have to line the pockets of oil executives and share holders to do it. And control your own heating as the weather warms. I’m sure it’s more complicated then this, but record profits for a decade in the multi billions due to price increases is very black and white.

 

[pshufd]

Where I'm interviewing, they made WFH flexibility a big selling point to candidates.

It's like job postings that post the travel requirement percentage. They should post WFH percentage or if they don't allow it at all.

Gamer's Nexus, a very popular YouTube channel with 1.65 million subscribers wants to hire two people. So they put a hiring ad at the beginning of one of their videos. Pretty clever putting it at the front of a video that will probably get half-a-million views by people interested in your service. They get to show the office, grounds, equipment, people you'll work with and a lot of information that you'd normally get when interviewing. So people not interested in their location, work environment and what the job entails wouldn't apply. You also get to show the enthusiasm of management at the company in hiring people and what the culture is like.

 

[Internaut]

I think the tech firms attracting the best talent at the moment are the ones that plaster the words hybrid and remote all over their recruitment ads. Your job is neither servitude or slavery. Just a simple contract and you have a simple out.

 

[bgalakazam]

I wanna work from home while on the toilet and nobody tracks my hours. How dare you make me show up to work! Apple needs to be more progressive and allow people to sit at a desk and get paid while watching tv at home.

 

[randomgeeza]

It's all about ego and elitism... There will be a hierarchy and corporate culture that struggles to act-out when people work from home. And those at the top no longer feel at the top. It has frick all to do with collaboration and culture. It's about corporate politics and nothing else. Home-working equalises this and the top brass don't like that!