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

[Pezimak]

It’s backwards and old fashioned. Whatever worked in the past is irrelevant. We‘ve now had two years that has proved that office work isn’t necessarily better. Just going back to the old way because ”it was like that before” is like arguing we should abandon cars because walking worked before. It worked because we didn’t know any better. Now we do.

All I’m arguing for is flexibility. Office work is great for you, well, you should have an option to do that. He and many others think working from home is better. And they should have that option as well. I personally think that hadn’t Apple recently invested billions into their new office, then this would have been a non-issue.

EDIT: Also, you seem to be under the impression that you owe your company. I earn my keep, I don't owe my company anything. I'm profitable for my company and I'm guessing so are you, or you'd be out of a job. It's that simple, either you are making them money or you don't have a job, and if there's anything, they owe me a lot of gratitude.

Well said, it’s the lack of flexibility that’s the issue, Apple should be more flexible instead of ordering staff back. If they actually had a flexible approach they would probably find plenty of staff who want to work in the office and plenty who don’t. And you have happier employees who will stay in your company. Being inflexible will just create unhappy staff who will probably quit or resent working for you. Having employees is a two way street, you want them to give you their time and skills, you should offer them options to make them the most comfortable to ensure that happens.

 

[CJM]

Cool. How does Starbucks make your drinks?

People in Starbucks don’t work in an office.

 

[dysamoria]

If you’ve ever watched a group of a handful of engineers in front of a whiteboard you know that this scenario CANNOT be replicated via zoom or teams or whatever…
There were promising tools to enable that 20 years ago but since we’ve evolved into social media type sharing…

Maybe we should encourage our society to get those tools out of mothballs, rather than just going back to the status quo of a model that does not serve the diversity of work-styles and personalities...

 

[kingalien]

Goodfellow: I’m quitting, been waiting for my corner office.

Apple: We have no corner offices!

 

[44267547]

There’s probably many side tangents we don’t know about his resignation that the story doesn’t tell. What we do know, there’s a lot of pressures with Apple to exceed a very high performance in terms of executing your Job function(s), and that’s just one example that could potentially have affected his reason to resign.

Aside from that, working from home has its advantages and disadvantages, I prefer the ‘hybrid model’ myself, but I understand the pandemic totally changed the dynamic.

 

[dysamoria]

Apple, the modern company. Not.

It's a mixed bag. Some of Apple is modern and progressive. Some of Apple is the same corporate nonsense found in every Wall Street hell hole. Human beings tend to resist change. Comfortable managers and executives all the more so. Corporations resist change unless it can be tied to an increase in profitability. Since there's endless evidence that happier workers (workers with more agency) result in better productivity, sometimes the authoritarian workplace culture overrides even changes that look like an inevitable win for profitability.

 

[dysamoria]

It’s a job that they took for very good pay that required them to work in Apple’s office. I can promise these people are going to the store, out to eat at restaurants, to events like weddings and concerts etc.

...and people shouldn't be allowed to do any of those things if they don't want to commute to their employer daily?

 

[dysamoria]

Did it ever occur to you that not every job is like yours?
Think of a team developing and troubleshooting a HW product? Yea, try doing that via Teams…

The issue is a lack of choice for work that CAN be done remotely.

 

[scupking]

If you can do your job from home and want to then you should be able to.

 

[dysamoria]

I know I’m in a different field, but I love my office and going to work. When I drive to work I listen to podcasts that I enjoy, and my mind transitions from home stuff to work things. And at the end of the day, the ride and podcasts free the day’s stress and I look forward to seeing my wife and children.
At work, in my little room I have my desk and books and computer and coffee maker and music playing and can think. Once in a blue moon when I can’t sleep I’ll go to work and work on things just to do it.
I could do most stuff at home on my laptop, but I enjoy my setup at work and the different location and the drive there. I can’t be that much of a rarity?
Plus, I can’t imagine working in an office like that one! A location that beautiful would be inspiring.

You're definitely a rarity. That's not to discount your experience. If it works for you, that's great. Congratulations. The thing is, not everyone is like you in this way. The issue at stake is choice. If you WANT to do what you do, that's great. Not everyone does or can.

 

[pshufd]

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.

It's been the management approach for the four decades that I worked in the field.

Management always tells you that the other stuff is important but if your annual review and compensation is based on features, and you mainly care about career growth, then you focus on doing features. It can make for some really interesting politics.

It's kind of like what your management says to you when you have several managers telling you to give their work item priority. Management says to try to give them all priority.

 

[spazzcat]

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.

My co-worker lives in Ecuador. On the extended team, one of my coworkers lives in the Philippines; we used to have a couple of team members who lived in Ukraine. I work on two client development projects. One of the clients is in Canada; it is a world market now there are no artificial borders of cities, states, or countries. I live in the eastern time zone, my employer is in central, and everyone is required to work in CST.

 

[dysamoria]

I highly doubt there’s proof to back up your claim about production studios for movies/tv working from home. Literally impossible with the equipment, locations, actors, etc needed to do this. Imagine a Marvel movie being edited in some dudes MacBook ha.

Uh... what? This makes no sense because it's literally being done. Did TV shows stop being made? I didn't notice a lack of programming over the last two years. I have seen countless programs being made under remote work and reduced interpersonal-interfacing models of various types. For years. The special features in the show I just watched 10 episodes of the other day showed the creative team talking about the development process from their own spaces at home or other remote locations.

 

[dysamoria]

It's been the management approach for the four decades that I worked in the field.

Management always tells you that the other stuff is important but if your annual review and compensation is based on features, and you mainly care about career growth, then you focus on doing features. It can make for some really interesting politics.

It's kind of like what your management says to you when you have several managers telling you to give their work item priority. Management says to try to give them all priority.

Sounds like a horrible experience. So many reasons to be glad that I didn't have the neurology for programming.

 

[dysamoria]

And yes, Apple built that crazy office building. Should they just abandon it? What good is it if people aren't in it? Same goes for all the other office buildings. What do we do with them?

I'd like to introduce you to "the sunk cost fallacy", also known as "escalation of commitment":

Escalation of commitment - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[pshufd]

If you can do your job from home and want to then you should be able to.

It will be interesting to see how the immunocompromised integrate back into the workforce with WFH/WFO. The number of lung transplants has increased quite a bit due to many patients with severe lung damage and these folks have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of their lives. I had chemo several years ago and I would go into the office at 5 AM, work for a couple of hours and then work from home the rest of the day as chemo kills your immune system. I have a moderate degree of disability now.

If companies can make accommodations for these employees, then they can make them for many others.

Again, my workplace was WFH-optional since the 1980s. This is no big deal.

 

[pshufd]

Sounds like a horrible experience. So many reasons to be glad that I didn't have the neurology for programming.

It's the matrix-management approach and it can be more efficient than another manager asking your boss to do something and then them asking you to do it. Unfortunately it can result in other managers thinking that they report to you. They're under the exact same pressure from their management so they inherently understand what you're experiencing but they have no choice as they don't have other levers to push.

You are, to some degree, trained to do this with undergraduate CS programs. I think that engineering programs are similar. You are generally given an amount of work that requires 60 or more hours per week to get everything done and it winds up washing out a lot of people out of the majors.

 

[ocnitsa]

If you believe the unions actually help workers, well . .

Unions of today only care about fattening the money their executive gets, disruptive harmful protesting and political lobbying.

The unions of today are not the solution, they are part of the problem.

I’m surprised they didn’t include that in this story! I mean you must be saying that this guy’s problem is that there is a union at Apple harmfully protesting and politically lobbying. I haven’t read about it enough, I guess, but it does sound like a huge problem.

 

[dysamoria]

It’s not up to you to decide whether he could work effectively from home. It’s a compact between him and his employer that is what matters. You‘re in no position to assess his relative performance at home versus at the office. Even if an employer is wrong it is their prerogative to be wrong.

Well hooray for contracts with employers who are in the wrong, because it's their right to be in the wrong, and employees should always bow to them because of "contracts"... ??‍♂️ Or are you just bothered that people have an opinion which supports the employee and not the employer?

 

[pshufd]

Uh... what? This makes no sense because it's literally being done. Did TV shows stop being made? I didn't notice a lack of programming over the last two years. I have seen countless programs being made under remote work and reduced interpersonal-interfacing models of various types. For years. The special features in the show I just watched 10 episodes of the other day showed the creative team talking about the development process from their own spaces at home or other remote locations.

There is one show that I watch that had mixed-CGI for some of the scenes. Even comic-book type panels. Pretty creative stuff.

 

[Artemis70]

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.

I'm speaking from personal experience, not from claims made by others. I have no doubt that productivity can be much higher when working from home. But that productivity may be used to do the wrong things faster. It's like somebody once said to me: I love coffee. It makes me work so much faster. His wife then commented: yes, it allows you to do stupid things much faster.

The challenge is in creating the right interactions, whether remote or in person, such that the productivity is used todo things well. For some that requires very little interaction, and for others it requires a lot of interaction.

 

[ocnitsa]

Our work computers had a lot of security software installed. If you went to the wrong website or did any number of other things on the computer or network, you received a warning and had to provide an explanation for why you did it within 8 hours or you were kicked off the network. BTW, we did have cases of people bringing in an infected computer into the office and infecting other people on the network. That was quite some time ago though.

I was thinking about IT oversight for sure, but also stuff like the ability of the company to monitor who physically is in a room while talking about a certain product and what kinds of recording devices or cameras they have on them at the time. I would think in a WFH scenario it’s a little harder to monitor who might also be listening on a remote meeting (out of camera view), or whether or not someone is recording the whole thing on a phone or camera (the employee or a family member). It seems to me that in the case of product secrecy they have more control over an actual onsite location…where they can pat people down, dampen cell signals with graphite wall panels, and at least have a better understanding of who has access to what information and how it’s been transmitted, etc. etc.

 

[dysamoria]

If you believe the unions actually help workers, well . .

Unions of today only care about fattening the money their executive gets, disruptive harmful protesting and political lobbying.

The unions of today are not the solution, they are part of the problem.

Some yes, some no. I was betrayed by a union that was utter self-important and self-sustaining garbage, who did more for the benefit of HR at my abusive employer than they even suggested being willing to do for me.

That said, I still fully support the creation of unions. What the hell else IS there for workers? The power disparity should not be this great, since workers theoretically could just leave... but theory is often divorced from practical application. We know that wage slavery and employer-linked "healthcare" means there's an almost endless supply of people willing to put up with inhumane treatment to pay their bills. There's not going to be a general strike when too many people are literally one paycheck away from losing homes, losing their children to CPS, etc.

 

[pshufd]

My co-worker lives in Ecuador. On the extended team, one of my coworkers lives in the Philippines; we used to have a couple of team members who lived in Ukraine. I work on two client development projects. One of the clients is in Canada; it is a world market now there are no artificial borders of cities, states, or countries. I live in the eastern time zone, my employer is in central, and everyone is required to work in CST.

One of my tennis partners works for a company in Singapore. He works out of Australia. One of his co-workers lives in Switzerland. His girlfriend lives in Argentina. He does software development. He worked on a software project in high-school that developed a product that was bought out by one of the big tech companies and worked for them for a short time before going to Australia to get his BS. He got stuck outside Australia by the pandemic and came to the US to get his vaccinations - I don't think that they had them available in a widespread way in Australia.

 

[mdatwood]

I'm so sick of people thinking that they have a right to work from home these days. All they're doing is killing productivity and efficiency of American businesses. In my line of work I rely on manufacturer's inside sales engineers and sales support staff so I can provide accurate quotes and accurate answers to potential customers. Since Covid, it takes an insanely long time to even get in touch with anybody now and when they finally do call back, days or even weeks later, they're at home with screaming babies or barking dogs in the background and they're completely unfocused or impossible to hear. It's ridiculous, your employer pays you a salary to do a job, they expect 40 hours per week out of you at 100%.

I've also seen people on Insta or FB posting pics of themselves out at the beach or running errands during work hours. These people who are so vehemently opposed to working from the office are simply lazy and want to goof off at home all day rather than get up and go to the office.

I strongly feel if you're given the privilege of working from home, your employer should put monitoring software on your laptop (nothing to view the webcam or keystroke loggers - but software to monitor the task manager to ensure you're actively working, being productive) and you should have to connect to the office via VPN so that they can ensure you're working from 8a - 5p as required and as you would be if you were in the office.

I feel like this is missing an /s at the end lol

If not, I think it's important to realize that remote work is not the same as pandemic forced remote work. Daycares and schools closed meant kids were forced to be at home. Manufacturers were hit very hard by covid with many people getting sick and dying. They were also not ready for remote, so it's no surprise they struggled. But that doesn't say anything about the general remote work.

Next, you claim to know people's work hours. As far back in the early 2000s the company I worked for offered flextime to hourly employees in order to be more competitive with hiring. Parents loved it because it let them work a block in the morning, be off when their kids came home from school, and then work a block at night. That company eventually expanded into remote in order to expand the hiring pool, and make flex time more efficient.

Most of the anti-remote responses boil down to covering for poor management. I was on the executive team of another company that transitioned into remote and another exec asked me, "when everyone is at home, how will we know they are working?", and my response was "how do we know they are working now?"

The point is that for many jobs (almost all in my industry), hours worked is a terrible metric for 'working'. I only care about what gets done, but this requires actual management work. Butts in seats is lazy management and won't cut it anymore. Managers have to understand the work, what should be getting done, and let those go who are not meeting the bar.