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I work at an insurance company in downtown Toronto, Canada. Our bitch of a VP made is making us all go back to work in the office. All the work I do is on a computer, and nearly all my communication is done via email or MS Teams. There's ZERO point in going back to work. Anyone who thinks you need to come in, is doing this out of malice. I can't stand having to wake up early just to WASTE 2 effing hours a day just to do the same job at location B instead of A.
thats too bad. I work Downtown Toronto as well, and we moved to a new premises just recently. A plan that was in the making way before COVID. Company expanded from 1000 staff to like 1500 the past 3 years and they have been smart about it.. no need for Extra office space rental to the company growth, I believe 95% of people are coming in on scheduled days. Ie 1-2 days a week. The rest work from home. Yep, we get back so many hrs a day of commute and save some $$. Try looking around, so many companies are hiring now.
 
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You said:


I'm not sure what you're saying I misunderstood. You called the guy a "lazy snowflake wanting everything his way". You then repeated "[his] laziness" and "lack of effort".



He asked to keep WFH, they refused, he left. I don't understand what the problem is with this. I don't see what reason you have to make ad hominem attacks against the guy's work ethic and character.



Yes, I do get mad. Here's why: I've been repeatedly abused by employers. When people start making attacks on workers, as the way this thread was started, I get angry and feel compelled to push back on it.

The power disparity between employee and employer is horrible. Employers almost never suffer consequences for abuses, but employees lose their health, jobs, income, homes & families, and sometimes the ability to work ever again. Most workers in the world are employed in subsistence scenarios, forced to work multiple jobs to pay for basic life sustenance. The belief in "the American dream", or that anyone can be successful with "hard work", is a belief in propaganda and/or a mental block by way of survivorship bias. The way people lick the corporate boot while punching downward at those with less power is grotesque. It's literally a PTSD trigger for me to see people promoting anti-worker rhetoric.

You have an employer do you not?
You have agreements and responsibilities to be paid by them and rules governed by HR do you not? This is regardless of WFH or not right?
Do you got stock options as part of you bonus?
Are you an executive level at your place of employment?

Questions 1-3 if you answered yes then that called being aun The Rat Race! Many confuse that as being called The American Dream.

The American Dream is opportunity of jobs to not be in poverty that your $ value of worth isn’t determined by being an employee but having the ability to rise up to start your own business, or have a better quality of life and opportunities (be it jobs, investment, being your own boss, etc), and finally living in a democratic free society. This for the most part despite jaded citizens holds true for so many immigrants or refugees to the USA today, citizens included!!

Texas has no state income tax, Alberta has no provincial sales tax a HUGE difference between the two (Texas wins here by a long shot). If we look at the average income of all citizens of every country (looking at average e hang e rate), and compare cost of living cost of home ownership on a mortgage, car insurance, employment benefits, travel costs for vacations anywhere in the world starting from each country, very few are better at most of those metrics than the USA.

Many jaded people take that for granted. Other than China programmers I’d say American. Orders, on average live a pretty decadent life compared to your factory worker in the USA or live like rock stars ( without the drama, drugs, and notorious lifestyle).

Musicians in the USA have the biggest influence on the world than any other on average and earn the biggest incomes, more successful side businesses, and more easily transition to other careers with higher success rates.

Compare the average cost of a 3bdrm home in Texas, Arizona, Ontario (CA), British Columbia (CA). Look at the cost equating for current exchange rate or average the last 15yrs, then look at the average square footage. You’d poop just looking at Ontario home costs and smaller land size!

Course you’d get angry cause you don’t agree with me and others and see it as a continued attack against your personal view or situation becaus maybe how difficult it is to transition to this new paradigm, and I can see you’re internalizing even just a bit becaus of how close it hits to home. Likewise as I’ve stated my personal experiences it also hits close to home on the reverse view.

When someone waits THIS long, as a leader of a team and suddenly bounce out, with a slow transition yet it was VERY publicly known for 7 months that Apple would be going this right, I say it’s lazy to have waited this long. You cannot deny its strange to wait this long and lazy to not even take the time to help the transition of those working under his leadership! Like he didn’t even consider others may have wanted what he wanted, his send off email speaks only for himself. As a leader at such a a IG corporation after leaving yet another big influential corporation this move speaks as a lazy effort.

By definition: lack of effort or care. He didn’t care for his team to aid in transition. Waiting to suddenly bounce out again after 7 months of public knowledge is a long time.

Maybe he could’ve got what he wanted if he worked with his team collaboratively to negotiate this with Apple, who knows.

I guess we can both agree to disagree. That’s fine with me, that’s what discussions and debates are for becaus we’re not the same, our experiences are not the same. Yet this situation is far from over with various companies of various sizes.

Example: It took a very long time for corporations to eschew suit and tie business attire for men. I can thank Apple mostly for that, as I personally loathe that. But I’d not go into a workplace having to wear suit and tie expecting it to change because I want it to after a temporary global event changed that, and think it would remain the same.
 
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There is absolutely zero evidence for your assumption here. It is likely this guy was talking to Apple management well in advance, but what we get to see is a truncated story without the details.



How is attacking someone's work ethic NOT PERSONAL??
There Is nothing proving he did try to negotiate with Apple for months ass well.

Your work ethic is how you work.
It has nothing to do with: how you look, how you dress, your orientation, life preferences, your family, your home or where you live, the languages you speak, your age, gender, or physical condition. While some of these may affect your work ethic (physical condition meaning abilities or limitations regardless of how these came about), but even so the work ethic you put in isn’t personal to these or directly apart of these.

I’ve learned a VERY long time ago when some drops a laptop to me and screams and curses about their hardware or services of the business is angering them, that it isn’t personal to me. They don’t KNOW me well enough to be angry, unless of course they have an issue with my heritage for example. They’re angry because what they’re having to deal with exasperates that they need to accomplish being delayed or stopped. This has happened in 10ths almost 4x a week, and lately only twice in 7yrs. Of all those times I’ve been understanding, shaken only twice the last two times, and only the last two times did each person not apologize directly or indirectly.

Of the last two the most recent, the persons manager an executive thanks me for how I handled it , still helping the person (that simple kindness was done out of that executives way, he’s now the ceo of the corporation, and no I don’t feel important nor protected but I know good people work here), the other a few years back was fired for their misconduct. My pint again is my work ethic is not personal to me as a person. I can separate “work from church” as the saying goes even if a good friend whom asked me to describe my job summed it up as “so from in day to Friday 9 to 5 and after hours support, you basically take crap and complaints from people all day long, have to work under pressure to fix it, barely get a thank you, and possibly have to take crap and friends to fix their computer issues on your personal time”. ;)
 
How many where hospitalized? Here in Ontario still over 1360 cases gov pushing to extend mandatories in province well over 5 million! 2nd day in 30 days reporting (none more) still no deaths.

How many deeaths reported?

This is an epidemic not a pandemic now all global bodies have stated this, just no gumption to make it official cause reasons. But that’s a topic for another thread.
I think the word you’re looking for is “endemic,” or in other words a disease that no longer causes substantial disruption. While COVID is very likely in the process of becoming endemic with the high transmissibility and relatively low severity of omicron infection (especially when vaccinated for the latter), I’d hold my horses on declaring it endemic, which is why “all global bodies” have not said that COVID has become endemic.

Cases in the United States are up 50%, not far from the peak of the delta wave, and hospitalizations are up 20%, over the past two weeks. Deaths are about flat over the past two weeks.
 
His employer no longer met his needs, and so he separated his employment from that employer, to use HR’s preferred language. I imagine if he was able to secure a position as a director at Apple, he likely has solid offers if not a new employer already. No one is irreplaceable, but some employees have enough skill and value to negotiate terms that meet their needs with you or elsewhere, and they have every right to leverage their value to do just that.

Employers’ needs change and employees’ needs change, sometimes they are no longer compatible and it’s time to part ways. The level of anger and vitriol being directed in these comments is absurd; people are spending far too much emotional energy on an employee quitting a job that no longer suits them, something that happens thousands of times a day! You’d think he was suing Apple for breach of contract or wrongful termination or something with the reactions displayed here.
 
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Many people like myself do this. I also the same as I did before albeit without the commuting costs. Think of the environmental impact too!

Anyway, my new office is so much better now…plus my dogs are happy to have me home wink 😉

Yes, its not always easy to move - I know people who have commuted to the Bay Area weekly by plane for months or years, leaving their family most of the week, because the pay differential that motivates the job goes away if they have to rent or buy locally.

(When I have a business trip over that way, there isn't even a remote chance I'll have some preferential status on the flights)

I didn't fault any of them for eventually deciding to quit then, and don't really fault anyone who decides they can get a more reasonable work-life balance now with some companies being more amenable to a higher remote-work mix.

Also, I went 100% remote a few years ago (basically was pushed out of the office pre-COVID). My dog is basically sick of me :)
 
IMO, he's a privileged whiner, complaining about actually having to show up a work a couple of days/week.

The vast majority of workers have absolutely ZERO flexibility, and have to be at work 5+ days/week, every week.
The vast majority of workers in the US work for probably less than 1/10 his salary. Doesn't mean he has to.

Same guy quit Google not too long ago, either for better pay or just cause he felt like it. Nobody here was complaining then.
 
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Being in a position of power to affect things is literally freedom.



🤷🏽‍♂️ I mean... I can sort of get where you're coming from, but I don't think that's how most people use the term "freedom".



That's not freedom. That's assertiveness, confidence, and/or bravery.


"Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom


So if you take away the position of power by your first sentence quoted above, then that would mean that takes ones freedom away then, right?

But then that would go against the definition quote at the last quote of your post above then, right? To act without constraint OR to possess the power and resources to fulfill one’s purpose. Is one resource the sheer will to act, could be considered to fit that narrative/definition then? Hmmm.

Freedom I see is a state of being without anyone’s direct influence, control, or will to enact your state of being, purpose or resolve or direction, regardless of you position, sate of wealth or comfort. If any of the latter 3 I’d a condition of freedom, then when you have that it could be a sense of false freedom as it suits “he who has the gold makes the rules”, yet ignores “he who giveth the can take the away”. Many in late 2008 found that out the hard way very suddenly when mortgages couldn’t be paid and lost their homes due to that recession as an example, I felt for a lot of people who’s sense of wealth and power was gone, and thus their “ability to control their sense of freedom was gone with it.

One has to be assertive, confident, and brave to fight or keep their freedom, but doing so unconditionally makes one free, having a certain status to fight or keep freedom is not brave, but it does show confidence and assertiveness for sure.

Cheers.
 
I work at an insurance company in downtown Toronto, Canada. Our bitch of a VP made is making us all go back to work in the office. All the work I do is on a computer, and nearly all my communication is done via email or MS Teams. There's ZERO point in going back to work. Anyone who thinks you need to come in, is doing this out of malice. I can't stand having to wake up early just to WASTE 2 effing hours a day just to do the same job at location B instead of A.
You have my condolences on having to use Teams, as well as the office situation!
 
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I have no issues with it. I have a Homepod Mini, I have a lot of Homekit scenes and devices, and iOS 15. No issues here. I think people make mountains out of molehills sometimes.
You must be one of the lucky ones then. Check out the HomePod/HomeKit forum here and/or Reddit. A lot of users would disagree with you.

I assume this was just a molehill, ya know, since you were asking for recommendations on something better:

 
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You're blaming a director of ML for Siri's failings... And I'm telling you that that employee may not have even been involved with Siri at all.

By your own admission, you know nothing about ML, I'm telling you that the field of ML has a scope that goes beyond virtual assistants.

In other words, you're assuming he was charged with Siri for reasons that aren't really clear to me. All I can imagine is that you as a consumer don't have a good understanding of what ML actually is and you therefore conflate it as Siri.
- Goodfellow was the director of ML
- A director oversees all operations and evaluates them
- Siri uses ML
- Siri is trash

If he had no part in evaluating Siri, then he was no Director.

I’m not saying Siri is the only feature that uses ML. But Siri is definitely one of the features that does. I can go on picking apart iOS features that use ML and are not working well but I don’t have the time and Siri stands out the most to me.

Every year is the same thing. New iOS comes out in September and it’s broken until around this time, right before the new iOS is announced. Takes quite a few updates to polish it.
 
- Goodfellow was the director of ML
- A director oversees all operations and evaluates them
- Siri uses ML
- Siri is trash

If he had no part in evaluating Siri, then he was no Director.

Actually his Linkedin states "I’m a Director of Machine Learning in the Special Projects Group.".

This implies there might be multiple directors overseeing different teams working on different projects and his team potentially had nothing to do with Siri or the ML technology it uses.
 
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Actually his Linkedin states "I’m a Director of Machine Learning in the Special Projects Group.".

This implies there might be multiple directors overseeing different teams working on different projects and his team potentially had nothing to do with Siri or the ML technology it uses.
Possible. All the articles I read just say “Director of Machine Learning.” Didn’t specify any subdivision.
 
Your last sentence is where the difficulty comes in. It's perfectly fine for anyone to share how THEY feel about THEIR working needs, but it's not their place to decide those needs for someone else. What is entitled about leaving a job that does not suit your working preferences? Privileged? Sure. I'll definitely give you that.
You do realise that Ian Goodfellow and most of his team had joined the Apple team more than 4 years ago? At that time office presence was mandatory, for him as well as for his team. I do get that there is a disagreement between Apple and some employees on the efficiency. But eventually it's up to the contact they signed. Ian simply quit, as he appears to disagree with the contract he and his team signed. This is the appropriate reaction, and I agree that this has nothing to do with entitled. Love it, change it, or leave it...
What I dislike is the whole discussion and complaining about the situation and making it such a public topic. Protest letters etc. I definitely perceive this as entitled. I know how it is to run a distributed remote team, and while it is doable and works with some very senior guys, it's also quite a nightmare at times! I think the suggestion from Apple is quite forthcoming in that regards!
Simply refusing to go back to office is quite a WTF moment for me.
 
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What I dislike is the whole discussion and complaining about the situation and making it such a public topic. Protest letters etc. I definitely perceive this as entitled. I know how it is to run a distributed remote team, and while it is doable and works with some very senior guys, it's also quite a nightmare at times! I think the suggestion from Apple is quite forthcoming in that regards!
Simply refusing to go back to office is quite a WTF moment for me.
Some decades ago people worked on Saturdays as well, 6 days per week was the norm. You would probably been having that WTF moment as well when workers started to push for the 5-day workweek, right? Entitled workers...
 
If you want to simp for corporations, be my guest. But quality of life is a valid reason for people quitting their jobs for remote-only work.
I don't want to "simp" for anyone. But I am an adult with a family and mortgage. I have some inclination of how the real world works and sadly, many people on this forum just don't get it. Lol "simp for corporations!" "need to stick it to the man!" lol
 
He removed himself from a situation that was no longer working for him. Why do you feel he should stay?

He's an adult with options, he is exercising his options.

Honestly, most of you just sound bitter that you don't have cushy jobs where remote work is an option. That is the legitimately the only reason I can think of for people to be upset about a complete stranger's career choices lol.
I have a cushy job that is remote if I want.

I generally prefer my office in the city, so for me, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't really care about this individual, either.

What I am mocking are the childish Apple employees banging their wooden spoons on their highchairs and demanding to work from home.

This guy's actions will embolden that childish behavior, but here we are.
 
Again, I’m a consumer, not an employer. I don’t need this guy’s resume. I don’t care what he did other than his involvement with the products I purchase.

Siri may be a trivial feature to you, but to me and the many other HomePod owners, it’s a critical feature when that’s the main way to interact with it. It’s obvious you don’t own any HomePods. When a headlining feature of a product is Siri, it’s not trivial.

Yes, I understand ML goes beyond that of a voice assistant. You can continue to be condescending but just because it works with other features doesn’t make me happier that it doesn’t work well with Siri. Stuff working as advertised should be a bare minimum but you can congratulate Apple on a fine Spotlight search feature.

Further… of course an Apple employee should be blamed for a botched feature. Who the heck else you going to blame? A Google employee? The consumers? Sheesh.
Re: Siri---you are 100% correct.
 
Some decades ago people worked on Saturdays as well, 6 days per week was the norm. You would probably been having that WTF moment as well when workers started to push for the 5-day workweek, right? Entitled workers...
You are mixing up workers with workers. This privileged entitled bunch has nothing to do with the workers you are referencing! Yes, I’m also part of a very privileged bunch, and know what I’m talking about.
I live in a country where that US-Amazon/Union thing would not have been possible (legally). So I think you might be advising the wrong guy here about worker rights. There are enough things happening in the US worth an outcry, but for sure not this one here.
 
You must be one of the lucky ones then. Check out the HomePod/HomeKit forum here and/or Reddit. A lot of users would disagree with you.

I assume this was just a molehill, ya know, since you were asking for recommendations on something better:

Nobody posts when things work well. Otherwise we would have 10 times the amount of threads and posts about “yep everything good here”. Look on any forum, every product is an absolute disaster if you base number of forum complaints.
 
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Some people just need their coworkers to hold their hand through everything it seems. Reminds me of group projects where one or two people get carried by the rest of the group.

If you're an experienced professional in any field of science, you shouldn't need a physical whiteboard to effectively communicate ideas.

We have so many virtual tools these days that the only reason I can think of people needing to meet in person is to socialize or not being able to accomplish things on their own.

Having someone in the office is helpful with new hires.

When we onboard, the manager usually tries to get a senior engineer to commit to a few days in the office per week to work with them. If that doesn't work out, then it's the manager's job to be in the office to help out the new engineers. Of course during the pandemic, it was all Zoom and Slack. One other thing that I noticed was that it was quite a pain getting hardware to new hires.
 
I have a cushy job that is remote if I want.

I generally prefer my office in the city, so for me, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't really care about this individual, either.

What I am mocking are the childish Apple employees banging their wooden spoons on their highchairs and demanding to work from home.

This guy's actions will embolden that childish behavior, but here we are.

 
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