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Apple's Director of Machine Learning Resigns Due to Return to Office Work
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I only came to this thread to see what the attitude is in here. Looks like maybe a majority of people are licking corporate boots, based on the anti-worker commentary/rhetoric and the “reactions” numbers.
Sadly, this is what I anticipated. People act incredulous or throw fits when told about studies indicating the country is a plutocratic oligarchy, because most privileged people are deeply acculturated into believing in the myths of the prosperous status quo; they’ll happily promote them at any opportunity, and that includes engaging in anti-worker rhetoric when someone dares complain about their working conditions. Doesn’t matter the job; there’s a line of anti-worker rhetoric to attack each.
“Wage slavery” exists as a term because subsistence employment isn’t freedom. Life under corporate/hustle culture is also not freedom, but that world is dominated by status quo warriors who’ve long promoted their world as a haven to poor people, if only they’d “work hard enough” and “pull themselves up”. The existence of the divide is a feature.
They’ve long utilized “American dream” propaganda and innovation/ingenuity rhetoric to hijack various types of “freedom” language for the promotion of corporate-friendly ideologies, and de-American-ize low wage workers as “lazy”. They also have rhetoric for members of their own domain daring to rebel.
Corporatism has been so successful, by this point in the 2020s, as to say they’ve mostly strangled freedom to death, propping up the corpse like a creepy “Weekend at Bernie’s” marionette, with a Hallmark greeting card audio chip, battery, and piezoelectric speaker installed into the rotting mouth, spewing the same tired anti-worker phrases about anyone daring to challenge the status quo, at any level of employment.
The corporatist rhetoric should be transparent and embarrassing to everyone by now, yet it’s still taken up by every millionaire-wannabe hoping to ride corporate coattails into their own “inevitable” market success story.
And then there are the ones who think “if I had to suffer, everyone else should too”, gladly subscribing to the workplace myths (or promoting them as golden rules for all workplaces and job positions, even if they’re only applicable to some).
It’s not a formalized grand conspiracy; these are emergent properties that are deeply interdependent and add up to an outcome that certainly has the stench of “by design” to it. Getting average people to be the foot soldiers furthering the propaganda is part of the culture promoted by its power-holders.
Colorful language aside: there are unfortunately few people who have the high privilege to just up and quit their jobs over issues of human agency like this, so it’s unlikely to force national workplace culture to change.
It might even widen the gap between classes a little, if companies finally decide it’s in their own best interests to get rid of office rent and middle management:
All the “essential workers” forced to stay on the frontlines of the interface between the masses and their access to materials (both necessary and non) during the pandemic shutdowns were thrown a bouquet of overwhelmingly insincere rhetoric to intercept the all-too-real risk that they might actually organize mass walk-offs and really shut things down.
Few of those workers were privileged to stay home and isolate, and none of them can change workplace culture by walking off jobs they depend on for subsistence, when the job doesn’t even provide a living wage. These are the “essential” and expendable members of the workforce…
… often looked down on by the disposable workers in offices, because it’s always “hey, at least you’re doing better than other people” when they dare make the social faux pas of complaining about something.
Neither of these groups are actually “free”. Each have their personal agency suspended by and for their employers’ personal self interests (with Wall Street millionaires and billionaires at the top of the hierarchy).
Neither of these groups are “better or worse” types of people. Both are acculturated into their lifestyles, with a very small minority of them moving from the lower to the upper socioeconomic status… and an ever increasing amount of movement in the opposite direction.
Both of these groups have valid complaints about how they’re controlled by their employment (from paycheck to time usage to “healthcare”). That’s why anti-worker rhetoric exists to attack both: both need to be kept in their places and made to dislike that other. If they suddenly aligned with each other (instead of harboring culturally-encouraged hostility toward each other) THAT’S when corporate authority would be in trouble.
No, I’ve never read Marx or followed Marxists. I lived the descent from lower-middle-class upbringing to subsistence poverty, through no fault of my own. At every opportunity, corporate bootlickers and laissez-faire capitalist disciples, knowing nothing of my life, will tell me how it’s my own fault anyway. I was acculturated into the same culture as everyone else, holding a strong work ethic, etc… but I saw through the rhetoric after a few passes through sociopathic workplaces. Any system that beats on and abuses its members will inevitably generate rebellion.
I don’t support anti-worker sentiment, regardless of whether the complaints come from a computer programmer in a white collar office job, a fast food slinger, a librarian, a nurse, or a sanitation worker.
There ARE a few systemically toxic vocations for whom I don’t default to benefit of the doubt or sympathy, but they generally enjoy a huge amount of support from society and authorities (and frequently from the same people who are otherwise quick to attack employees elsewhere), so they don’t really need my support.
Sadly, this is what I anticipated. People act incredulous or throw fits when told about studies indicating the country is a plutocratic oligarchy, because most privileged people are deeply acculturated into believing in the myths of the prosperous status quo; they’ll happily promote them at any opportunity, and that includes engaging in anti-worker rhetoric when someone dares complain about their working conditions. Doesn’t matter the job; there’s a line of anti-worker rhetoric to attack each.
“Wage slavery” exists as a term because subsistence employment isn’t freedom. Life under corporate/hustle culture is also not freedom, but that world is dominated by status quo warriors who’ve long promoted their world as a haven to poor people, if only they’d “work hard enough” and “pull themselves up”. The existence of the divide is a feature.
They’ve long utilized “American dream” propaganda and innovation/ingenuity rhetoric to hijack various types of “freedom” language for the promotion of corporate-friendly ideologies, and de-American-ize low wage workers as “lazy”. They also have rhetoric for members of their own domain daring to rebel.
Corporatism has been so successful, by this point in the 2020s, as to say they’ve mostly strangled freedom to death, propping up the corpse like a creepy “Weekend at Bernie’s” marionette, with a Hallmark greeting card audio chip, battery, and piezoelectric speaker installed into the rotting mouth, spewing the same tired anti-worker phrases about anyone daring to challenge the status quo, at any level of employment.
The corporatist rhetoric should be transparent and embarrassing to everyone by now, yet it’s still taken up by every millionaire-wannabe hoping to ride corporate coattails into their own “inevitable” market success story.
And then there are the ones who think “if I had to suffer, everyone else should too”, gladly subscribing to the workplace myths (or promoting them as golden rules for all workplaces and job positions, even if they’re only applicable to some).
It’s not a formalized grand conspiracy; these are emergent properties that are deeply interdependent and add up to an outcome that certainly has the stench of “by design” to it. Getting average people to be the foot soldiers furthering the propaganda is part of the culture promoted by its power-holders.
Colorful language aside: there are unfortunately few people who have the high privilege to just up and quit their jobs over issues of human agency like this, so it’s unlikely to force national workplace culture to change.
It might even widen the gap between classes a little, if companies finally decide it’s in their own best interests to get rid of office rent and middle management:
All the “essential workers” forced to stay on the frontlines of the interface between the masses and their access to materials (both necessary and non) during the pandemic shutdowns were thrown a bouquet of overwhelmingly insincere rhetoric to intercept the all-too-real risk that they might actually organize mass walk-offs and really shut things down.
Few of those workers were privileged to stay home and isolate, and none of them can change workplace culture by walking off jobs they depend on for subsistence, when the job doesn’t even provide a living wage. These are the “essential” and expendable members of the workforce…
… often looked down on by the disposable workers in offices, because it’s always “hey, at least you’re doing better than other people” when they dare make the social faux pas of complaining about something.
Neither of these groups are actually “free”. Each have their personal agency suspended by and for their employers’ personal self interests (with Wall Street millionaires and billionaires at the top of the hierarchy).
Neither of these groups are “better or worse” types of people. Both are acculturated into their lifestyles, with a very small minority of them moving from the lower to the upper socioeconomic status… and an ever increasing amount of movement in the opposite direction.
Both of these groups have valid complaints about how they’re controlled by their employment (from paycheck to time usage to “healthcare”). That’s why anti-worker rhetoric exists to attack both: both need to be kept in their places and made to dislike that other. If they suddenly aligned with each other (instead of harboring culturally-encouraged hostility toward each other) THAT’S when corporate authority would be in trouble.
No, I’ve never read Marx or followed Marxists. I lived the descent from lower-middle-class upbringing to subsistence poverty, through no fault of my own. At every opportunity, corporate bootlickers and laissez-faire capitalist disciples, knowing nothing of my life, will tell me how it’s my own fault anyway. I was acculturated into the same culture as everyone else, holding a strong work ethic, etc… but I saw through the rhetoric after a few passes through sociopathic workplaces. Any system that beats on and abuses its members will inevitably generate rebellion.
I don’t support anti-worker sentiment, regardless of whether the complaints come from a computer programmer in a white collar office job, a fast food slinger, a librarian, a nurse, or a sanitation worker.
There ARE a few systemically toxic vocations for whom I don’t default to benefit of the doubt or sympathy, but they generally enjoy a huge amount of support from society and authorities (and frequently from the same people who are otherwise quick to attack employees elsewhere), so they don’t really need my support.
"My point is, while it can work really well here, many homes just aren’t suitable. I’d be interested to hear if that’s a UK thing only?"
In my previous job, I spent a lot of time on Zoom with coworkers in India and there was a ton of background noise. One coworker had construction going on in a neighboring apartment. In a local Zoom conference, I once heard a lawnmower, probably from a neighbor. You might have a dog barking from a neighbor too. So background sounds can very depending on your residence. If you live in a quiet, wooded lot and you have a room which is sound-insulated, then you might get much better results. If you live in a big city with lots of noise from traffic, and construction or you live next to a hospital with ambulances delivering patients, then you might have background noise problems.
But these things happen in offices too. There are office buildings where there are distractions in meetings and office spaces.
Panera Bread was very successful for a long time because you could hold a business meeting there. I have seen business meetings there of a dozen people and it's one way to interact if you don't have a physical office. If a company can manage with the distractions of holding a meeting in a public restaurant, then people can manage with the distractions at home. If things are really bad at home, I could book a room at the local library to do a Zoom or phone call.
In my previous job, I spent a lot of time on Zoom with coworkers in India and there was a ton of background noise. One coworker had construction going on in a neighboring apartment. In a local Zoom conference, I once heard a lawnmower, probably from a neighbor. You might have a dog barking from a neighbor too. So background sounds can very depending on your residence. If you live in a quiet, wooded lot and you have a room which is sound-insulated, then you might get much better results. If you live in a big city with lots of noise from traffic, and construction or you live next to a hospital with ambulances delivering patients, then you might have background noise problems.
But these things happen in offices too. There are office buildings where there are distractions in meetings and office spaces.
Panera Bread was very successful for a long time because you could hold a business meeting there. I have seen business meetings there of a dozen people and it's one way to interact if you don't have a physical office. If a company can manage with the distractions of holding a meeting in a public restaurant, then people can manage with the distractions at home. If things are really bad at home, I could book a room at the local library to do a Zoom or phone call.
I understand, but it’s a pretty dangerous game you are playing in the long run.
An experienced developer in California costs almost 10 times the price of an experienced Indian developer (I'm not talking of cheap consulting service, but real hiring an experienced dev here providing very good service).
How long will it last before companies understand that you are, in no way, 10 times more productive and they can hire 5 overseas devs while cutting costs by a factor of 2?
Right now, managers are happy because you are there. They are the boss and seeing you in person gives them this feeling of being a boss that remote work doesn't.
Once everyone is online, this big psychological factor stops being considered and it's all about productivity per $ spent.
And I'm sorry but we, western programmers, are way less productive per dollar spent than the other half of the world.
Lazy, freeloader, whiner, …
Who hurt you people?
You don’t know anything about this man. Would you have said the same about Steve Jobs if he worked from home?
Your remarks say more about your own work ethos than about this man.
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Would you claim to be representative for everyone else? Or could it be that other people actually can be as productive (if not more) when working from home? Why is your want to work in an office more important and should overrule the want of people who’d prefer to work from home?
So many companies are now using “the cloud” for everything. Which usually means that even huge companies don’t have everything on their own servers anymore, but instead rely heavily on cloud services of a few big market players. Because it’s cheaper ?
Sure, those market players promise they would never-ever (*crosses fingers*) misuse or forward your data and managers really believe such marketing BS! :-O Use Office 365 and talk about data protection …
Many company buildings are “only” rented and not owned. Wait until the bean counters eventually discover, how much money could be saved by “unrenting” lots of office space …
If you look into history, you’ll find that working from home was the norm, until industrialization came and required to use big machines, which of course need a central place. Some tasks today still require to gather at a central place to do your job, but others don’t. Why should different things be treated equally without need?
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Nobody ever gives actual examples of this in-person “creativity”. They just repeat the claims, almost word for word, and disappear.
There’s no doubt that many people are emotionally energized from social interactions (definitely not everyone), but the data suggests actual productivity is greater when people can choose to avoid workplace non-work distractions (including micromanaging bosses and non-actionable meetings) and their unpaid stressful commutes.
Not providing you with links. It’s easy to find the references in a quick search engine excursion.
There are some industries that don't have that option or where that option is difficult.
There are a bunch of defense contractors in my area and they need clearances and US citizenship for many of their jobs.
Hospitals seem to strongly prefer people living in the United States. My son works for one of the megahospitals in Boston and they hire people from around the world to work there. Even if the position is WFH.
It's a matter of trust.
Some days my teen calls from school to be picked up. It's an 8 minute round trip for me. If I decide to get him, I email my boss to say what I'm doing. Sure, I could get away with it - I don't field a lot of phone calls each day, probably wouldn't be caught. But I know that the owner of the company I work for is concerned about people who work from home rorting him, so - I am open about it. What's an extra 8 minutes at the end of my day, when I don't have to spent 30 minutes in the car coming home? Or the 40 minutes getting there in the morning.
People like this… they’re basically doing little more than supporting hazing. If they had to suffer, then everyone else should too.
Either that, or they’re the exact type of micromanaging, potentially sociopathic, boss that reasonable people hate working for…
He was a director at Google. I doubt that he needs $$$. Given his background, he could probably get a job as a college professor if he wanted to.
When hiring for a senior developer then cost difference between the USA, Europe, and India is negligible. It is always around a 10% difference with the USA often being middle of the pack. Indian developers aren’t 10x cheaper, they know what they are worth and that they can command the same wages as everyone else. They also have the same expenses as any other developer and often have lived and studied in the UK.
I’d agree that most office jobs can be done from home and I’d argue that potentially with the right people it would be more productive. It’s unfair on the companies for employees to demand to be working from home. If Apple excepts this then it could set a precedent that smaller companies won’t be able to accommodate etc
we have different experience
nowdays a majority of Forbes 500 have officies in India, especially Bangaluru and they all try to expend their operations there
The salary difference is a huge factor, especially when you have big teams with hundred of engineers costing 10 times more each
time difference was an issue tho, has we had to have meeting early in the morning so that it was late in the evening for them
Apple software has been problematic for far longer than the pandemic’s existence. Look elsewhere for the blame of your discontent with the software. Look to Wall Street and computer industry corporate culture in general.
There is some amount of reshoring due to geopolitical risk.
India has been friendly with the US but there's some friction because India is still buying oil from Russia. As we've discovered this year, geopolitical risk can escalate very quickly.
I heard Indian managers are also way cheaper than Western ones …
Besides, I have yet to meet an Indian developer that is indeed way cheaper when all side costs (language barrier, availability, work result, communication, QA etc.) are properly factored in. And even then there‘s still the difference between a programming mercenary vs. an actual employee …
As I said to the other guy: Apple software has been problematic for far longer than the existence of this pandemic. Look elsewhere for the blame, like Wall Street and computer industry culture in general.
Some of it is the incentive structure of the industry. You are rewarded for features, not maintenance nor quality. So the smartest engineers develop features and avoid maintenance and QA like the plague. Ideally you work on a feature, then move to another group so that you don't have to maintain your own code.
Great Idea.
I'm an Anesthesiologist. I hate getting up early to put you to sleep for surgery. I'll just lay in bed with my iMac on my stomach and put you to sleep by talking to you. Sweet Dreams.
Maybe that will be possible someday.
You must have pretty solid abs to work with an iMac on your stomach. Those are difficult to balance. My iMacs weigh about 30 pounds.
It is not
From Glassdoor, the average senior software engineers salary in Bengaluru is 18000$ before compensation
In San Jose, it is 155000$ per year. Once adding compensation we are indeed close to the 10x factor.
So a huge difference.
They know how much they are worth, but the environment limits their negotiation capabilities.
That's unfortunate but companies don't care about your expenses, they only care about theirs
Mmmmm… this is only true for the pinnacle, but a senior developer in India is (at least) 5x cheaper than in Europe. And Europe can be up to 3x cheaper than US.
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Yes, but I don't know if that is as much up to individual engineers as it is up to management. I suspect it's way more management than individual software engineer.