Weird take. I don't recall reading about an increase in risky behaviors when healthcare became a common benefit.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple's Director of Machine Learning Resigns Due to Return to Office Work
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
WFH has been around in the tech sector since the 1980s. It has been bigger in some companies compared to others. These tech companies typically provide very good compensation and the opportunity to become quite wealthy. So folks can retire early if they want to or do what they really want to do. The days of secretaries at Microsoft becoming millionaires was heartening.
Dude, something like half of Apple's software engineers have been WFH since the early 2000s. The Apple of right now, IS, and has been an Apple where many of the people who write the code that Makes it Go, only show up at the office once or twice a year for meetings. The exodus began when Apple created a lot of Apple Millionaires, some of whom were project leaders and difficult to replace. "We need you to stay!" - "Sorry, moving to the mountains and going on permanent vacation! Bye!" Which was followed by, "No! You can't leave. We'll give you a lot more stock, options, and increase your salary... work from home!" and they did, it's worked out just fine.
Unsure how well that translates to those who need to work on hardware. ?♂️
"Wokeness" and whatever that means these days aside, corporate America changed around the Reagan era, maybe slightly before, and the concept of the "human resource" became a thing. Employment became far more transactional and a lot of the baby boomer generation either had to adjust to this or got screwed by it. Loyalty to company and company loyalty to workers died around then.
So employment has become like any other contract and you gotta fight for what you deserve. And it doesn't stop with when you start working. That contract is continually negotiable both ways. And that guy writing your paycheck is looking far more at the bottom line than at your wellbeing in most cases.
And that pretty much means when looking at your employment it has to be "me, me, me." That loyalty is sadly gone and this is the cold harsh reality. I personally have been fortunate enough to work at a company that is dividend based rather than stock priced based and that seems to be a place where this loyalty lives on to a degree but it certainly isn't the defining trait of corporate America it once was.
"Wokeness" is a new thing in my mind. This is not. Honestly, I see this trend as workers finally looking for companies that will treat them with respect after being complacent for so long. And I hope we might see a resurgence in loyalty both directions as a result.
I suspect a lot of the work can still be done from home. It's not like they are building Apple Watches with a box of radio shack parts.
Don’t want to turn into this into a battle of project management methodologies and whose is better and who has the bigger set of internet brass tacks, but suffice it to say different strokes for different folks.
We have found some types of small decisions left untackled turn into big decisions.
Please don't throw retail, service industry, etc. workers under the bus to explain the anti-worker sentiment being spewed here.
I think that's a huge part of it. I bet these people also hate the idea that someone might have their student debt forgiven.
I also suspect some of these are small business owners, or managers, who think they have to lord over their employees (management always sides with management), based on the us-vs-them anti-worker rhetoric expressed in here. Or maybe they see themselves as "I SHOULD BE managing people", but don't have the people skills or luck to have been granted that position where they work.
Others are possibly Apple shareholders (of pathetically small numbers of shares, because that's the reality of public ownership) who think they have to constantly police public opinion about Apple for their own personal financial benefit (which is bizarre, but marginally less so than people who think they have to defend Apple just out of mere brand loyalty).
People are for choice. Choice to work for the company that is best suited for you. Choice to work where you want, choice to peruse that. Companies are under no obligation to provide for ones exact situation and one is not obligate to either accept a job or continue working for a company that doesn’t meet their expectations. It doesn’t get simpler than this.
This rockstar employee made a decision. Does apple regret his leaving and will apple have done something different if they know he would leave? I don’t know.
I miss being able to work. Now I’m a full time caretaker. I’m trying to work from home with a side business.
Sorry to hear that. I hope you are able to get a side-business going and find some success with it.
I paid off my debt, but I do not begrudge anyone getting theirs paid off for them. That's petty to me. I am happy to see any of us "little" people get ahead.
yep, my son feels this way as he recently paid off six figures in student debt from an Ivy League institution.
And while I quoted only this, there is as much anti-corporate sentiment being spewed as anti-worker.
A few people have lived in vans there. Or, more commonly, they live in really bad apartments near the office. IMO the quality of life would be way better living somewhere cheaper, maybe without the office perks. Really only for single people who want to focus 100% on work have a case for living so close to the office.
I get the impression that this guy has enough of a grasp on the subject matter that he can easily change jobs. He's got way more privilege than someone like me, for sure. I don't know that a record of working only a few years at each place says anything about his value to a potential employer. Corporations certainly show no loyalty or long-term thinking in general; why should employees need to demonstrate many years at one place?
Hey, he could turn out to be a poor fit for employment in general and have all kinds of social skills problems that lead to his inability to work with teammates. I don't know. I'm just pissed at all the anti-worker rhetoric being spewed here in this forum at someone that nobody knows anything about other than what was stated in the article.
I'm all for WFH, but no I don't want to pay for someone else's college loans. Even if they were magically forgiven out of the sky, that kind of thing tells colleges that they can get away with tuition increases since the students won't end up having to pay it all themselves. Some tech companies also pay for incoming employees' student loans, but the translation of that is, they pay younger employees more (and if they didn't, those employees would still easily have enough income to pay it off).
I have skin in both games. I'm perma-WFH, and my wife and I are getting ready to pay for her higher education. Our working plan is to get the loans even though we can afford it upfront, since they might be forgiven or at least subsidized. The extra cash will go into the stock market. This is the kind of thinking that promotes.
Last edited:
This argument only goes so far. We can't let employers have a choice over everything otherwise we see the same issues as we do with healthcare benefits. Some CEO doesn't like birth control or WFH so they refuse to pay for it claiming the employee can "go someplace else".
Which would be fine if mergers and acquisitions could be blocked if benefits don't align.
Man, you love to imply crap at people and then deny that you did so by throwing out a denial based on reasonable doubts, while continuing to spew yet more implications to rile people up, and generally be a nuisance to others.
Some countries have quite strict limitations to what can be considered a contractor vs. an employee and will force a company to provide employee benefits to "contractors" if these limitations are not respected.
In general, the whole contractor vs. employee play can happen regardless of remote working conditions: there is plenty of contractors able to offer services on-site in most situations.
What is definitely true is that IMHO remote working is going to be more and more relevant, so a young professional has to take it into account when planning their career in the long-term.
He does NOT sound like any kind of socialist with whom I would want to associate. Socialism is not a dirty word, BTW.
And yes, successful people DO have some obligation to others in their society.
Uh, who exactly is doing that here? You are the source of a LOT of the posts here demonstrating a disinterest in "basic decency and respect" for others.
Sounds like you will pick whichever supports your worldview. Let me ask you this: would you rather see acts of violence against executives or legislative redistribution of wealth? Because your attitude is driving towards one of those outcomes.
Instead of focusing on what the law says now, ask yourself how do we fix it so the employees have more say.
It's the way the world is moving and if the same thing can be done from home as it can from sitting at a computer in a cube then why force them to come into an office? Short of employee oversight there's really no compelling reason. Depending on where you live commute times can be from 1 to 4 hours per day, it's not just a hit in your personal life but your work life as well.
With Teams/Zoom that time is utilized for more meetings and getting more work done. Not only that, you're more apt to be engaged before or after normal work hours when a task requires it as all you have to do is flip open the laptop at a moments notice. I've been remote for several years now and have great working relationships both with my coworkers and clients, going back into an office would be a huge setback.
Additionally, it gives also gives companies a much longer reach to find the right talent anywhere in the world without forcing them to relocate. I regularly interview people from all over the country and the biggest concern we face is "what time zone are you in so we can adjust your schedule", done and done.
Points taken.. I see both sides of the pendulum. But, ultimately it is a business transaction for services from that regard. I have friends the work remotely here in Canada for Companies in the US. They are solid workers with a lot of brilliant ideas and products to show. My issue is when it comes to basic duties of being in the office when you are fully capable of being there. The employer is requesting what was expected of you when you were hired, but you are using your "credentials" and "self interests" to disrupt that expectation.. It is self entitlement to me. I think that is disrespectful. That's just my morals. My wife sees in her business that a lot of peopel have abused the luxury and moved towns during the pandemic without the employer even being aware. Now they are being asked back to work and the employees are surprising them with the news that they relocated. It's completely unethical. Sure, maybe it isn't exactly "Wokeness". But I don't know how to better describe that self entitlement expectation. I worked in an era of respect for your boss. You follow the expectation they laid out for you until you decide you would like to move on to something else. You can give suggestions but you don't tell them how to run their business just because you think you can.