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

[pshufd]

So, the alternative is don’t try to control information regarding your R and D at all?

I mean, Apple makes that decision…not the employees.

In addition, I’d say that there is no proof that Apple isn’t controlling those leaks (say, the majority of the time).

Yes, leaks will happen. My point is that Apple isn’t demanding people be on site every minute during the work week…but they appear to be looking for a compromise of half a work week on site at their HQ where a lot of this development goes down. If they do it that way, they can control what they need to control for sensitive conversations, add a little inter personality to collaboration, and then send people home to do their stuff the rest of the time.

I told you earlier that my previous company had draconian network controls. But stuff leaks out. Sometimes by management.

I didn't say that you don't control information. Your typical annual security training covers this.

Why do you ask binary questions when the answer is in the middle?

 

[dysamoria]

What is their problem? They were all absolutely fine working from office before the pandemic hit and now it's suddenly the crime of the century to be called in to work? I don't get it!

Maybe you haven't noticed, but the world changed due to a pandemic that demanded closing offices and working remotely. This exposed the lie of "we all need to pay our employers for our commute time/resources and spend all day in the office because... reasons".

When confronted by new data, reasonable people change their minds about how things are, and they allow for changes to occur when the lie of the status quo is revealed. Some people even push for that change.

Do you get it now?

 

[ocnitsa]

I told you earlier that my previous company had draconian network controls. But stuff leaks out. Sometimes by management.

I didn't say that you don't control information. Your typical annual security training covers this.

Why do you ask binary questions when the answer is in the middle?

Coolio. I thought security at a company was bigger than your typical annual security training. My bad.

 

[OhMyMy]

Maybe you haven't noticed, but the world changed due to a pandemic that demanded closing offices and working remotely. This exposed the lie of "we all need to pay our employers for our commute time/resources and spend all day in the office because... reasons".

When confronted by new data, reasonable people change their minds about how things are, and they allow for changes to occur when the lie of the status quo is revealed. Some people even push for that change.

Do you get it now?

Nope!

 

[dysamoria]

This is a tough thing to navigate. When my company allowed people to work from home the last two years, productivity definitely suffered. Granted, it was something we weren’t prepared to do and didn’t have the mechanisms in place for it to work well. I, personally, hate working from home. I don’t want to be at home that many hours a day, and I also felt my work, if it relied on input or cooperation from others, suffered. It’s a hard balance to strike for departments that can do most or all of their work remotely when they have to interact with those that can’t. Communication has been monumentally worse than it even was before when everyone was in the office.

Has any change been made at your workplace since, to make communication better?

Since this is your personal experience, your post is entirely understandable. Because you did not use your experience to demand everyone else conform to what works best for you and your company, your post is entirely fair.

If yours was the majority of the "I don't agree with remote working" posts, this thread would not be gross and inhuman.

Thanks for the reasonable post ??

 

[pshufd]

Re-read the article. Apple policy is to increase in-office attendance to more than 1 day a week in coming weeks/months.

You say "that's his choice", and then continue to attack him for making his own choices. Did he kill your dog, or something?

Some people don't like other people having options.

One of my friends owns a company and he took off with his wife and kids to live in Costa Rica for a year. His wife is a teacher and had no problems finding work there. It was an experience for their kids. They rented out their home, moved their for a year and he worked remotely. He said it was a great experience and they all learned a lot.

One of my former co-workers needed to move out-of-state to take care of his parents. He was commuting regularly to keep an eye on them. Management gave him the okay. I didn't see him in the kitchen anymore but received lots of emails from him.

Another employee wanted to move 1,500 miles away. He got management approval and the company picked up the tab for him to travel back to the office a few times a year.

Another employee couldn't decide where he wanted to live. The company relocated him five times with him working remotely a couple of times.

One employer I worked for had a severe shortage of office space. So they put me in a server room. My office was a terminal surrounded by servers. It took me about an hour to get my hearing back after leaving that room. I switched to working remotely and nobody complained. These days it would probably be an OSHA violation.

 

[dysamoria]

If you’re TOP talent employee with no physical limitations or depender care limitations (either of which Apple would fully accommodate), then you’d not be super lazy to quite for returning to office for 1-day/wk especially at this potential pay range.

You’d be dedicated fired up to work for a top Fortune 500 company to establish good report and be know. For work ethic before bouncing out.

And you wouldn’t be quitting on such frivolous circumstances. This will be a HUGE negative on is reference source calls for future employers.

I think you’re missing this angle.

You're missing the angle that this isn't your job and isn't your call. You're also missing the fact that it's not 1 day per week that's at issue. Re-read the article: Apple is demanding increases to office attendance over time. 1 day/week, then 3 days/week, etc...

If you DID notice that fact, then you're being disingenuous in citing the 1 day per week requirement of the immediate moment, just to cherry pick for the best "impact" on your attack on this employee. Gross.

 

[pshufd]

Coolio. I thought security at a company was bigger than your typical annual security training. My bad.

You didn't catch the part about draconian network requirements?

We also had required secure coding standards training every two years.

As far as security goes, think AWS. What would happen if AWS was insecure?

Back in the 1990s, we had bag checks and metal detectors. This was due to terrorist attacks at the time. At some point they were discontinued. Stuff leaks. You just stay ahead of the leaks.

 

[dysamoria]

these are 'you' problems.

They may be. But the post was entirely from that person's perspective and they weren't declaring that their experience was the model for all other jobs/workplaces.

 

[pshufd]

You're missing the angle that this isn't your job and isn't your call. You're also missing the fact that it's not 1 day per week that's at issue. Re-read the article: Apple is demanding increases to office attendance over time. 1 day/week, then 3 days/week, etc...

If you DID notice that fact, then you're being disingenuous in citing the 1 day per week requirement of the immediate moment, just to cherry pick for the best "impact" on your attack on this employee. Gross.

One of the big local companies is requiring one day per month, to increase to three days per month over time. I think that that's a good way to go. They have a lot of office perks too. It's pretty clear that a lot of employees prefer working at home but this is a rural area where a lot of homes have a good amount of space.

 

[magicschoolbus]

WFH is great! Would never go back to wasting time sitting in a car, getting aggravated in traffic, putting miles on a depreciating asset, polluting the environment - when i can get out of bed and get to work.

 

[amartinez1660]

Jeez ? This is lame. Apple is better off without people like this. I was working in the office the whole time. Why should Apple employees be different?

This blanket point of view does no good. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure you do feel that way and a lot of the people here judging by the reactions do too. Let’s just go all in:

• Guys working on the roofing industry have to work under the sun, rain and dangerous situations… why should Apple employees be different? They should have all their roofs and ACs removed.
• A company I might go to, on the perks have breakfast everyday for free and even give you a monthly gas cost allowance. My current company doesn’t… so they shouldn’t, they should not give them that!
• On a random far poor country, there are no insurances, disability programs, lots of crime, poverty… Apple employees should be no different, they should have all those goods removed, including their shoes.

There’s too much of “I don’t have it, so others shouldn’t” going on this thread even if the situation doesn’t even warrant it or people have adapted and found it better overall… in the end, company’s that change and use it for their benefit will thrive.

Example: you can begin a videogame startup today, with people willing and ready to work from their homes. Sometimes, if/when needed, rent a WeWork style space for a day or book a cafe corner for a group gathering meeting for those that are in around the zone.

Heck, Apple started from a homely garage… the irony. True that Apple
today is massive and for sure not applicable the same to all employees everywhere, but from there to “wfh is for lazy people”… come on guys.

 

[dysamoria]

You friend like myself is productive. I work just as good in either situations.

I feel you with others walking up to interrupt but I know and have learned 15yrs ago to multitask.
[...]

Can People Really Multitask?

Is it possible to multitask effectively? Here's our answer and how it all relates to ergonomics.

www.thoughtco.com

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/creative-leadership/201811/why-you-can-t-multi-task

Can Humans Actually Multitask?

Human brain is designed to handle one task at a time, engaging in rapid task-switching rather than simultaneous execution during multitasking.

www.scienceabc.com

There's plenty more out there...

 

[pshufd]

There’s too much of “I don’t have it, so others shouldn’t” going on this thread even if the situation doesn’t even warrant it or people have adapted and found it better overall… in the end, company’s that change and use it for their benefit will thrive.

We have a culture where we can easily see what other people have so it's easy to get jealous over the lifestyles that others have.

 

[dysamoria]

I’m bent out because this propagates to be the norm.

Lazy people don’t stay at a job. Fearful people maybe. But not lazy people when all their wants don’t suit them.

Wait, what are you afraid of happening when you just indicated that lazy people wont stay at a job? By your logic, bad workers will be filtered out. What's the problem?

 

[dysamoria]

I feel like it’s the same people who hate universal health care for everyone too

They also probably hate the notion of student debt being wiped out so that society can move forward...

 

[dysamoria]

Director of Machine Learning? Is it a coincidence that Siri has taken a nose dive with iOS 15 during WFH? It’s been almost unusable. Just scour the forums, here and elsewhere, on Siri with the HomePod and HomeKit and you’ll see. Absolute disaster.

Good he quit. Should’ve been fired a while ago for the product he oversaw. A lot of frustrated HomePod owners out there.

Siri was never impressive at Apple. If you want to attack Siri, do so from the context of the entire existence of it under Apple, not from the COVID19-era of work-from-home business.

 

[m4mario]

I don't see how you can state this for a whole company given the individual variances. You can state a macro statistics which is true at the macro level but not at the micro level for individual teams. And people working in companies do lie. They may or may not be sued. It takes a lot of resources to sue a large corporation.

It actually takes nothing to sue large corporations. If there is a wide reported complaint, then lawyers gang up and file a class action lawsuit. At the end, large corporations settle out of court to avoid PR problems, the lawyers take a big cut and the customers/employees who were the plaintiffs of the lawsuit get very little. The lawyers incur all costs and take most of the settlement money. This has happened several times against Apple, recently with the lawsuit for App Store 30% cut. Lawyers are constantly looking for this opportunity cause they make millions this way.

 

[dysamoria]

I manage staff of 5 professionals. Although we are fully remote. That is false. They waste 2x that commute time in the kitchen or grocery store runs.

Minority of groups and small sized companies can be remote.

Interesting. I'm curious about what your staff would have to say about their manager, especially if they're reading your complaints here...

 

[dysamoria]

I find these comments hilarious. My first programming job required me to wear a tie to work every day (btw, 1/2 my team was 'remote' in another office and we only had email/phone communication). I remember the talk about 'slackers' when ties were dropped and we moved to business casual. Eventually, I moved on to a company with jeans a t-shirt. All the while, work got done.

My last company was completely remote. We got together every so often, but also never had a shortage of ideas and creativity over Slack and Video chat. We sold that company during covid, and did the entire process completely remote.

The point is remote can work just as well as in office. People who work at home are not snowflakes or lazy. With that said, Apple can certainly require everyone come in, but they may miss out on quality people.

Yeah, remember the great "professionalism apocalypse" when ties were dispensed with and people were allowed to wear black jeans in business-casual dress...

 

[tYNS]

This guy has no respect for his employer. Must be nice to have the luxury to piss all over your employer and "protest". Good Luck finding a new job when your image is now, "My Feelings First". There are many more like him to choose from that would be more than happy to get back working as a team in person to get projects done. Unbelievable how entitled this culture thinks it is. Look at his picture, screams Entitled Woke Child 2.0. He made his choice, good luck finding a new job with your new reputation. Bozo.

 

[dysamoria]

In other words, the state of Siri is no mystery with people like this at the helm.

The state of Siri has everything to do with Apple management. It may have something to do with this guy who resigned, but Siri, and Apple software in general, have been problematic for FAR LONGER than the pandemic shutdown era. Was this guy ALWAYS the person responsible for Siri? If so, and if the problem was ALL HIM, then upper management should have long ago done something about the problem.

So many people are so ready to attack the workers, not the top executives making all the decisions on which the workers have to execute.

 

[ruka.snow]

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

The cheapest developer we have in India on my team is paid over $100k. Sound more like your company is a developer sweatshop rather than teams of highly qualified engineers.

 

[ruka.snow]

This guy has no respect for his employer. Must be nice to have the luxury to piss all over your employer and "protest". Good Luck finding a new job when your image is now, "My Feelings First". There are many more like him to choose from that would be more than happy to get back working as a team in person to get projects done. Unbelievable how entitled this culture thinks it is. Look at his picture, screams Entitled Woke Child 2.0. He made his choice, good luck finding a new job with your new reputation. Bozo.

He’ll get a new job with a 10% higher pay minimum. This is normal for IT. In our industry we hold all the cards when negotiating, not some company.

 

[dysamoria]

Is returning to office that bad because I can work from home 100% but I go to office at least once or twice a week to keep me sane. I find WFH very boring. It’s funny that people commented they want Bay Area salary but want to live in cheaper area. You think your company will still pay you same regional salary? Get real.

The existence of people working in a different region from their employment isn't remotely new (no pun intended).

If you find WFH boring, that's fine. That's you and your own experiences. It's legitimate and others can relate to you over it. It does not make you a model for others, nor does it make you the norm. There are many different ways of being, and no monolithic model suits everyone. Diversity is great.