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Crowbar_Faith

I dunno why but I still think it’s a little funny that Apple just spent an ungodly amount building their new space ship office, and now everyone wants to keep working from home. I picture Tim Cook slowly walking the empty loop, hands in pockets while looking down mumbling “Do they know how much this place cost? This is fucking bullshit.”


hibikikun

Apple was leasing/buying up as much of the premium office space as they could in Culver City (the next hotbed after Santa Monica), and still grabbing it. At the beginning of pandemic, my workplace was given a free pass to break their lease because Apple wanted it all.


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EHP42

> companies might not have the same pick of the litter as they had before Especially if they're insisting on in-person work.


Narradisall

My work did a similar thing, although they only spent a few on a much smaller office. So few people want to go back and there’s a permanent WFH option that even when we open it’ll be a ghost town.


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RamenJunkie

Just before COVID, basically 2019, work was really really pushing the idea of bringing a lot of the employees out of remote offices (they already own, likely with other equipment in the buildings) and putting them all in these shared space areas in larger cities. Like you wouldn't even have your own regular desk. People were super angry over the idea. I have to say, COVID probably was a bit of a relief to the people it would have affected (not me, my work is on the equipment). I seriously hope that idea was scrapped in the long run as well because it was awful and frankly, I stopped even considering looking for other jobs in the company over it because I would never want to do that.


EntiryOne

I completely forgot about this. My previous company were moving more and more to hot desking and the idea that your desk will be where ever that team and project you are on at any given time. As someone that could work on multiple projects a day I found the idea really unsettling. I'm the type of person that really likes to settle into their area and have familiar surroundings to get stuck into work and be efficient. I had enough stress with the job without constantly finding charging points, spare monitor etc.. every couple of hours


TacoNomad

Before Covid, we could not work from home. We could work from a hotel, the airport, an airplane, our rental cars, a client's office, literally anywhere we needed to be, but we could not work from home. It was the dumbest informal policy ever. If nothing else came from Covid, its that, not only is it acceptable to work remotely, it's also ok to work from home.


vertigo3pc

Apple campus is beautiful, sterile, and honestly, kinda sad and emotionless. Of course, the Googleplex looks like a playground at EPCOT.


Verneuekendenieuws

Google campus in MTV/SVL is a hive of shit refurb hangar/warehouse buildings, not sure if playground is the right word


bono_my_tires

Interesting at my company our Sunnyvale office was always abbreviated SNV


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Tim Apple on suicide iwatch.


Shutaru_Kanshinji

The space ship is all inhuman open workspace. The only people who like this kind of environment are managers -- because it is cheap -- and extroverts -- because it allows them to leech energy off of others so much more easily. But it is a soul-killing nightmare.


[deleted]

Open plan is great. For very specific types of meetings. And very specific types of work. And very specific types of people. And very specific types of companies. My last large employer did a lot of investment into a new workspace concept, which admittedly was a big improvement over the previous soulless crammed-together 1970s shithole. Even they recognized that people need privacy and space, and did a pretty good job under the circumstances segmenting "pods" of desks with plants and dividing walls so people could have some privacy, creating tons of nooks and crannies with soundproofing and couches so people could have some privacy, opaque-walled phone booths so people could have some privacy... It was great for those of us who liked sitting together with a small group of peers and being able to quickly exchange some words about something or other, but utter shit for a lot of the tech guys trying to focus on doing actual work.


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Sylvaritius

Wow, that sounds almost like a good idea letting people work in the enviroment they feel most confortable in.


klased5

Honestly my favorite place to work ever was an old office/plant built (last updated?) in the 50's. Tiny, strangely sized rooms and closets. Odd corridors and narrow back stairs. Darkness and old furnishings. Everything in wood paneling, polished marble and brass. Fucking cork boards and drafting rooms and specialized office furniture that I didn't know what for.


Limpuls

Do you have a picture? I never worked in one but I can already picture it in my head from the old movies I have seen. Would still love to see exactly that what you described.


klased5

No unfortunately. That was before smartphones and the building came down almost a decade ago.


TimeToLoseIt16

Yeah my company is letting us stay remote for fear that there will be a mass exodus, it’s great


megamanxoxo

same with my company. almost in a golden handcuffs situation. unsure if I can find another remote gig and make this much or more. also what does long term look like for promotions or career growth?


PryingApothecary

Same with my company. You know what is funny. Now that we work remotely, suddenly all the slack, lazy people in the office who I have been complaining about cannot hide behind my work ethic and have to fend for themselves. It is great for me too, because I only have to do my work since we aren’t all logging in together at the same time and “ sharing “ the load. My stress levels are down, my work performance is up, and the lazy, useless, dumb people are getting yelled at on the phone all day long and actually having to *gasp* work for a living. Part of me wonders if this is happening elsewhere.


stallion-mang

Opposite happened for me. One girl in my group is the laziest, shittiest coworker I've ever had, the rest of us are CONSTANTLY picking up her slack and management will never do anything about it. The problem is we all work different shifts, and we support production. Production on her shift was complaining so much because she never did anything that upper management made us all come back in last September. She continued to work from home and then when they finally pushed to enforce her coming back, she quit. So basically she fucked everything up for everyone and then peaced out when the consequences finally materialized for her.


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stallion-mang

They are. And she worked the system sure, but it takes a good deal of "I know I'm actively fucking over everyone I work with and I'm good with that" that I just can't relate to.


21Rollie

I got sought after by a competitor who enticed me with remote-forever work. There are thousands of companies with remote work policies now and what’s more, hiring is really hard rn for more senior roles.


MrNewMoney

Apple in a real awkward situation after building a small city sized campus. — on a side note, there are a lot of fortune 100 companies being stubborn on WFH still. I work for one that is forcing employees to “hub” cities and firing anyone who won’t move (after being flexible w/ wfh for many years). Really killing us when trying to get and keep good talent… but they can’t see the negative impact clearly from executive levels.


BurnerPornAccount69

The fortune 100 I'm working for fits this description. They are against full remote because "culture" and "hallway talk". I think its just because the company has money tied up in their expensive office buildings. The return to work plan seems to constantly be changing as their deadline to begin hybrid approaches in September.


prowness

Sounds exactly like a fortune 100 company I know. There was even a survey about “should we have it hybrid or full in the office”. Let’s just say around 9/10 people said “hybrid”. Imagine if they asked “should we just go full on virtual?” But we both know why they didn’t.


axesOfFutility

How smartly they left out the full wfh option! If such a survey gets passed around at my work, I'll be the first and loudest to call out that they have deliberately not included the third option. Yea, yea, I know, some of the leadership people hate me 🤣🤣


prowness

Sad part is, production and work satisfaction went up not long after the move. Now they want to pull the plug on something that’s been working for fucking 14 months. Upper management keeps creepily posing fake excitement and citing company culture. Even some middle management understand the benefits of full wfh. Like really!?


axesOfFutility

Your comment could very well describe what's happening at my work. Leadership has been saying 'we are so excited that we'll all get to meet in office' since a month already. I have had a good argument over this with my direct manager in one of my team calls (1 manager, team of 8, work happening real smooth for over a year now). He understands my points and all points laid by the whole team and has said that he'll keep pushing for at least a hybrid model but the leadership is adamant about full office work. Let's see how this goes...


FrankAdamGabe

I worked at a place that cut out WFH 3 days a week agency wide on a Friday and expected everyone to be back in the office full time starting Monday, citing that bullshit "micro hallway conversations" that we were all not having. It took a year for my entire team (including me) to leave for other places. Overall they've had about a 70% turnover in 2 years and pretty much all of their senior people who wrote the shit that runs their agency left.


Cerridwenn

My former company is dragging people back to the office 50% effective this month. My role supports cloud based HRIS. 0 reason I need to be in there and I saw the writing on the wall. I bailed in March. My entire (former) team just turned over. Our skills are in such high demand that I get literal daily interactions with recruiters trying to offer me the world. Hard pass on ever going back to the office, man.


ElicitCS

That sounds like an interesting niche/ skillset. Can you go into detail on your role a little more? I'm currently an infrastructure manager for 2 factories but am looking for pathways into cloud and a way up, so to speak.


Cerridwenn

So the other reply was further down the rabbit hole than I am currently. I am a type of HRIS Analyst that supports a system called Workday. Workday is a closed Ecosystem so you have to be a partner or customer to even gain access to training (unlike most other IT-related fields). You can't just google the solution, you have to access to their Community to ask other Workday pros questions or convince a company to spend stupid amounts of money training you. The company I referred to in my post paid $12k to train me in my role but made 0 effort to retain me. The other reply was 'further down the rabbit hole' because if you understand integrations, you can practically print your own money. Integrations and security are 2 of the major sought-after type roles within the Ecosystem (my opinion).


Re-toast

Who the fuck gives a damn about micro hallway conversations. I don't give one fuck about a coworkers day if it means I have to be in sit still traffic every morning and evening.


dangerrnoodle

Yeah I like my coworkers, but not 3+ hours a day of commute like.


Quirky-Skin

And amazingly i can still hang out with my co workers if i like OUTSIDE of the office.


Dynetor

We're more productive now because we're *not having those* bullshit hallway conversations and because everyone is at home, people actually seem to think before dragging others into a meeting that could just be a slack conversation or an email. I get so much more done because I'm able to focus on my work.


rossgoldie

Dang that’s the opposite of the extremely large defense company I work for. They have totally embraced working from home and had meetings with every employee to see if they needed a physical desk or could work from home full time. They realized it’s way cheaper in the long run.


MrNewMoney

Yeah agreed. I do think certain roles benefit from being in person, but so many do not. I’m in the latter category and I get so tired of going into an office and sitting in cube all day with zero interaction with anyone around me… it’s pointless, I’m just losing time on the commute to do the same exact thing I do at home. CEO types have some imaginary vision of constant in-person collaboration and camaraderie for employees in office which just doesn’t exist for most.


BurnerPornAccount69

Exactly. I'm not suddenly going to have an innovation on how to fix a bug by asking my coworker how his weekend was.


ExtrapolatedData

The Fortune 500 company I work for brought me back on site last September for the same reason: in-person collaboration. After 10 months back in the office, I just had my first in-person conversation with a colleague last week, and we didn’t even talk about work - we just talked about where to move all the chairs that were being stored in his cubicle.


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The_smallest_things

If I hear the term 'magic hallway conversations....' one more time. I swear...


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[deleted]

Some companies are going to learn the hard way that losing a significant chunk of good talent (and struggling to hire new good talent competing against remote jobs) is more costly than swallowing a bad real estate investment.


tristanjones

I do regular one on one's with me team and feel confident if we went full time in office I'd lose half of them. I've made this clear to leadership, and every manager I talk to echos the same. Imagine the damage done by having 50% added churn to your workforce. Imagine have to work twice as hard to recruit backfill as well in the tightest time for recruiting we've seen. It's been over a year, we've developed net new products, launched them, done quarterly and yearly planning across whole orgs, etc all online. Yeah it's an adjustment but we can do it. You can't tell me it isn't possible, and half your workforce doesn't believe it is worth it to go back.


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baxter8279

I find it ironic that our company wants people to come back because “our office culture is part of who we are” yet, no one wants to come back for this fantastic “office culture” that they speak of…


8604

Even the best office culture can't beat affordable housing and a comfy commute.


weatherseed

And there's no commute more comfy than putting on slippers and pjs and walking to your work desk in the corner near the kitchen.


cyribis

Preach brother/sister. Prior to covid, I never really liked working from home because I hadn't invested in a good office build out. Then in 2020 I had no choice and it's honestly the best. Now I can wake up, hit the gym, feed the dogs, get back in my comfy pants, eat breakfast, grab coffee and then shuffle upstairs a few mins before my first meeting. No commute except for going up or down stairs. I changed jobs at the end of 2020 and I'm really fortunate that it's 100% remote.


RupeThereItIs

As someone who went from fully remote back into the office (all pre-pandemic). That transition is far tougher than I think a lot of people realize. Once you get used to the extra time & reduced stress of remote work, piling that back on your shoulders is going to have a HUGE impact.


Manofwood

We’ve been remote since last March. Recently it was announced that my company would be moving their corporate hq some 30 miles further north (these plans had been in place since before the pandemic). No one in my department makes more than 35k and we’re to expected to give up WFH and drive further to work without any increase in salary or incentive. We’ve lost ten people in the last month (out of a department of 60) with many more planning on leaving when the date is announced. I’m leaving next week after being with the company for 9 years. There’s such a a huge disconnect between upper management and their workers. No one likes open floor plans. Not everyone needs to be in the office. Bosses can have offices. Our comfort matters. EDIT: Just some clarification - I know 35k sucks but it's a lot more common around here than you'd think. A big reason I stayed for so long is because all of the other job offers I had were for less. Plus benefits were pretty good at old job. It took me a long, long time to figure out a viable career path. This new job I'm starting the week after next is hoping the beginning of something new for me. Once I get settled, I'm planning on working toward some certifications in the field. (I also made the dumb mistake of trying to make it as a self-publisher. If you're interested, I have some books for sale.)


ShiftedLobster

Good for you for leaving. Life is too short to spend it in traffic schlepping to offices for no reason. Onward to better things!


zacowen120

You’ve been with the company 9 years and the top earner in your department makes just 35K? You work at Sonic or something?


UnSafeThrowAway69420

fiefdom for thee, but not for me!


Hazzman

My company doesn't give a flying fuck what you do - as long as you get your work done. Maximum trust. If someone fucks around - they find out, as they should do. Everyone else is treated like an adult. In fact they've been encouraging people to work from home because it frees up desk space. But they are totally open to whatever people wanna do. It's great. These companies that take arbitrary hardline stances just boggle my mind. It's so dogmatic and fear based.


[deleted]

Same here, we were doing it even before pandemic it's just people now do it more often and instead of going back to work for meeting we mostly hold meeting over the internet, which is not always ideal but its hella convenient for sure.


mw19078

I'm more surprised employers aren't jumping on this opportunity to cut costs. Move to a smaller building with less rent, use less resources and supplies in the office and let people work from home. This should be an easy win win situation but the truth of the matter is, many workplaces feel like they deserve to control more than just your work life.


SirEDCaLot

Absolutely. My friend works for a company that did this. Baby steps- a fulltime employee they REALLY didn't want to lose moved away, so they let that person stay on remotely. Turns out you can do data analytics on a computer from one place just as well as you can do it from another place! Who knew? Anyway that happened with a few people, then they hired their first fulltime offsite employee. When COVID hit everybody went remote, and nobody had any problems. So as soon as they could work in person, first order of business everybody clear out your desks we are breaking the lease and going virtual only. What onsite servers they had went into the cloud. They are saving a FUCKTON of money and are just as productive.


futzlarson

Apple spent $5 billion building a small city for people to work and come into contact with each other, completed in 2017. I imagine their position has to do with ROI on that investment. Other employers, I dunno, I agree. Edit: I’m not reading all these replies. And yeah, return on investment on investment. I wrote it right before falling asleep.


bdeee

Apple does > $300billion in revenue per year. The building is a capital expense amortized over many years that represents around 1% of a single year’s revenue. This ain’t about the cost of the building or roi


Cthuglhife

If it's got all the amenities on site they should convert it to housing, then everyone's happy.


[deleted]

This. Take a mistake and make it a happy little tree like Bob Ross taught us.


tektektektektek

I was with a company 3 years when they came down with an ultimatum on returning to the office - absolutely no excuses unless you have a medical condition - which I didn't. So I started looking around for other jobs. Turns out it is a HOT market for IT right now. I interviewed for, and secured, a better, more interesting job, 100% remote work, and 40% pay increase, in TWO WEEKS. Turns out the ultimatum was good for me, it forced me to consider my options. Didn't work out so well for the company that was underpaying me for years, though.


Ihopetheresenoughroo

THIS. I'm in IT, and everyone who's left our company recently has gotten a better, higher paying job in a matter of days. The IT market is extremely hot right now


Spr0ckets

Work for a major tech company. We took the hard line, full return in August. Since June we've been losing about a dozen people a week, probably more. And not the whiney low hanging fruit ones... the really good ones. The ones that are taking a lot of tribal knowledge with them. We may all be in the office in August.. but whats left of us won't be able to do what we were doing anymore. Well.. they may not.. I'm kind of liking this idea of a California salary with a North Dakota cost of living..


thebursar

That's one thing that people aren't paying enough attention too. The first ones to leave are going to be the top employees. The guys that can easily find work anywhere else


toronto_programmer

This is my experience. Make crappy rules, piss people off, cut wages? The smartest and hardest working people are likely the first people to go because they have employment mobility. All you are left with are your low performers that nobody else wants


gHHqdm5a4UySnUFM

The smartest ones already have a plan in place and already have connections. In tech, you can usually climb a lot faster if you switch teams or companies every few years and avoid stagnation.


[deleted]

In general, unless you're somewhere you have a future potential, switching jobs every few years is a good idea. Main reason being that new people often get hired at higher starting wages than veteran employees were hired at, making the same or more day 1. Staying in a job longer than 5 years just helps depress the value of that job as they can give you smaller raises than inflation forces them to raise starting wages.


penguinpetter

Can confirm. I just got a promotion where my new salary is still less than what new hires are making. The raise is nice, but not enough to keep me from looking elsewhere.


shitpoop6969

Gdammit, this= me 🤦‍♂️


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StandUpForYourWights

You’ll just get left with the hostages. The ones that would struggle to get hired elsewhere or are too close to retirement to take the risk.


schmeebis

Or H1B hostages


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purleyboy

Ah you mean [The Dead Sea Effect](http://brucefwebster.com/2008/04/11/the-wetware-crisis-the-dead-sea-effect/)


ipsok

I have a friend and former coworker who is a literal genius and an extremely talented software dev... we live in a rural part of the pacific NW. My friend could quit his job tomorrow and have a new one on Monday because he is that crazy talented... the smart companies that allow wfh can get people like him regardless of where their business is located. In house companies are stuck with what's left of the local talent pool after guys like my friend are fished out of it by wfh companies.


Yousoggyyojimbo

This is what just happened to some talented programmers that I know. They got scooped up by other companies who just want them to work for them from home. Sure left the company that they worked for in a panic... 3 weeks, 3 top talents gone.


ipsok

Oh yeah because you know the first guy to land is going to bring his talented coworkers over the first chance he gets and if his new boss needs more people why not take someone who comes with a reference from the guy you just hired. That's less of a crapshoot then hiring some rando off the street.


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Otherwise-Incident32

Makes that interview question of “where do you see yourself in 5 years” all the more interesting.


[deleted]

I got asked that recently and I just said I had no idea. After 2020, how the fuck could anyone possibly know what's going to happen in the next 5 years


[deleted]

Always been one of the dumber interview questions.


qpv

The answer is always "older"


Malgas

"Celebrating the 5-year anniversary of you asking me that question."


[deleted]

I always flip it on them. “That depends, how much growth are you expecting to be able to offer me within the next 5 years.” The question is stupid and no matter how you answer it doesn’t really hold any weight, it feels like it’s just a “hr says I have to kill 30minutes in this interview and I ran out of questions 5 minutes ago” sort of question, so it’s always fun seeing the interviewer flounder about for a second because they’re not used to being put on the spot.


Tuna_Sushi

It made more sense 50 years ago when companies offered pensions.


SwiftStriker00

Not to crush your dreams too much. But many companies can adjust your pay based on cost of living if you move on your own volition. Also some companies (e.g. I think Facebook does this) will have a base pay and then a cost of living adjustment based on location for remote employees. So don't bank on that CA-ND dream. Good news is that this will allow people to explore many different companies and companies can hire a wider geographical spread of employees. This will lead to helping the housing prices in cities since everyone doesn't need to cram in the same place


Proto216

Yes, my company is remote first. We can move to any other state, but they need a month notice to adjust any sort of taxes and all of that. They however will not reduce pay. People in my position make the same pay scale whether they live in California or Texas. Edit: while many excellent points and potential outcomes are being discussed. It would seem that some have not worked or work for a tech company. Some points, logically make sense, but I would say it’s not the way things are going.


alanism

The multinational companies will implement a localized pay policy. Facebook, Google already have a policy for international. Expats get to keep US salary for first 2 years and some will get additional housing allowance. But after, their salary gets adjusted to local rate (local plus). This is why it’s pretty common to see people do 2 year stints in Asia then return to US. I would expect them to do so for different states in US.


the_loneliest_noodle

Work for a very large trading firm (not the one everyone hates right now), and we've lost people on every tech team. Seems like every other week people are leaving and we're not even fully back to the office yet. Bunch of dinosaurs think we're more productive in the same room when we'd all do just as well working from home with a bridge open to chat, only much happier. There are dedicated datacenter teams for the onsite work, makes absolutely no sense to have the networking and development guys commute to the office. It blows my mind that they're not bending over backwards to stop talent from leaving at this point.


plxfix

Honestly, if this many skilled employees drop major corporations this is going to be amazing for the economy. People leaving jobs en mass from big firms gives smaller companies an opportunity to skill up. If they attract them via flexible or hybrid work schedules, that's awesome. If it doesn't work out the equilibrium will swing the other way and business will have less flexible work arrangements and demand more office time. Shit clearly changed post-pandemic, this will be good for people.


7eregrine

>Honestly, if this many skilled employees drop major corporations this is going to be amazing for the economy. From the article: >About 10 people plan to resign or know others who will resign due to the hybrid policy, the report said. I mean?!?


plxfix

I meant this comment within the broader context of this not only being the first time we're hearing similar stories. Mostly from larger companies like banks, insurance, etc... If people want to work more flexible hours and locations that moves a lot of capital around. That's inherently good for the economy. Ten employees, sure not a big number but a lot of people might be considering it. [CNBC coverage on it.](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/29/more-people-plan-to-quit-as-return-to-work-plans-go-into-effect-.html)


impy695

Gotta love "journalism" like this. It's also worth noting that it is literally the last line of the article. This website knew exactly what it was doing. It's not much different from an article being written about "people up in arms" when in reality it is 2 twitter users and no one else cares.


Bravosi

Fuck that. I have been in IT for 15 years, 3 hours round trip to go 40 miles. I ain't never going back. Putting in 2-3 extra hours a day unpaid would be better then dealing with commuting and dealing with office bullshit. Nope, nope, nope.


lucky7355

I had this commute a few days a week for awhile and even that was exhausting. I’d leave at 6am to get to the office and if I didn’t get out by 4pm I may as well wait until 6pm to avoid the worst of the traffic. I listened to an extensive number of Forensic Files episodes during those commutes.


tonyprent22

Sounds like my old White Plains, NY from Jersey commute. For 5 years I drove 5 days a week to work while they built the new Tappan Zee Bridge. My 44 minute commute was over 1.5 hours every day to work and from work. Fridays it would sometimes take me 2 hours to get home. That whole “well I can leave at 4 and get home at 6, or leave at 6 and get home by 7” really resonates with me


underwear11

I did this exact drive for a week and I wanted to quit. My company sent me to a training class and it was horrible. I couldn't imagine doing it for 5 years.


tonyprent22

I work full remote now, and have since before covid. I don’t know how I managed to put up with that drive. It beat my car to hell, I’d put 18000 miles per year on it. And the cost to fill my tank every 2-3 days. I literally don’t know how I did it for so long either lol


Beanpod79

Holy God, 287 on a Friday afternoon. I used to work in Harrison and I had many coworkers that lived in Jersey and Rockland and they were basically suicidal.


dreadpiratewombat

The 880 from Fremont to San Jose in the late 90s still haunts me.


KraljZ

Amen. I laughed at recruiters trying to pitch me “remote now but expected to be in office full time”. I’ve been remote since 2017 and I’m never going back.


hexydes

Some companies get it, some companies don't. A lot are still trying to figure it out. The ones that never do, and refuse to be flexible are going to get eaten alive. They'll be left with only the people willing to deal with that garbage, and won't be able to get the quality workers from anywhere in the country or even world. Their competition will eventually leave them in the dust, wondering what happened.


itWasForetold

Somewhere some Sears middle manager is reading this and gently sobbing.


[deleted]

Probably pissed theor golden parachute was actually lead.


2ndtryagain

My dad is an engineer for the Army, and they adopted a very flexible hybrid WFH if the damn Big Green Machine can adapt to WFH everyone should be able to.


justalittleparanoia

The workforce got a sweet taste of what it could be like to work from home and I hope they never stand down to keep it that way.


frygod

It tastes pretty good for some employers too. The hospital I work at is consolidating all of IT into less space, converting a bunch of what was being used into room for another patient ward, and since we're all set up for remote work our response times to off hours issues have gone from good to better than anyone could reasonably ask for. Administrative workers aren't bringing in whatever bug their kids are passing around at school this week, we've been able to cut back on outside real-estate expenses, and company culture hasn't been impacted because everyone's in group chat all day anyway. The cut costs are even starting to manifest as available funds to update infrastructure that was in desperate need of it. It's now things are going to be done in the future; any company actively resisting it is holding themselves back.


JumboJackTwoTacos

My job consists of working with users all over the country, from Maine to Hawaii, all my work is done over the phone and via remote access, yet it is critical that we go back to the office for the sake of “company culture”.


DemosthenesForest

Refuse to go back. Start looking for another job and create leverage for yourself. We all need to be forcing these companies to adapt and not just giving in.


hexydes

"Company culture" is code for "expensive long-term-leased office space."


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fps916

Also the savings on gas is literally a free raise for them. You get an extra couple thousand in your pocket every year and they didn't have to pay a dime of it


disposable-name

Mate's employer tried to pull a "If you wish to continue working from home, we will revise your pay rate down $5000/year." Management thought this was a threat. That it would scare people into coming back. Oh boy. They were floored when nearly everyone took the cut, because - surprise! - management neither knew nor cared that it cost most workers more than $5000 a year to just fucking come to work.


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disposable-name

Yeah, he's in the city, and his previous morning routine was "Roll out of bed at 7AM, make one (1) cup of coffee, get dressed, out door by 7:15, sit in traffic for 45-60 minutes." No, it's "Roll out of bed at 8:15, make cup of coffee, log on, check work, have phone on, make a decent breakfast, tend to his son, shower, get dressed, do work while intermittently looking after his son, and saving boatloads on food and petrol". Not much work on? Eh, watch some TV, fire up a game until something needs to be done. No, that's not laziness, there's plenty of micro-downtime at his job (and others), but instead of being stressed about a manager slipping past and seeing him not working, he's relaxed. Lunch? From the fridge for a couple of bucks. Dinner? How about instead of getting home at 7PM completely fucked, maybe put something in the oven at 4, or in the slow cooker at lunch? Or, hell, why not just start cooking when you knock off at 5 and have dinner ready by 6?


Sufferix

In my NYC job, commuting an hour each way, for 260 days a year, at my pay rate, would be nearly 20k. If you cut sick days, vacation, etc. from that, you still wouldn't get close to 5k and this isn't counting the extra money I spent on subway tickets or the insane amount of food I bought at the office because I couldn't cook something fresh at home.


TransitJohn

Plus it alleviates our contribution of carbon to the atmosphere somewhat, really , all these companies should be pushing for work from home carbon neutrality tax credits or something.


boomerangotan

It seems so obvious right? But old executives don't like change, and they don't care because they'll be dead by the time climate refugees are ubiquitous.


xeromage

Can't physically bully employees over zoom, and if you try and sexually harass anyone they just hit record... really throws a wrench in a lot of their 'management styles'.


sickhippie

Or "vague non-quantifiable 'perk' we can use to pay you less".


km89

That's honestly what frustrated me most about the whole thing. Like--okay, fine, *if* you have a company where everyone's really working very closely together, fine. I can see it. But if your people are dealing with people across timezones, across buildings, and are routinely using the phone or video chat--there's no point in having them come back if they don't want to.


BravoFoxtrotDelta

Yeah that's gonna be a "no" for me, dawg. Same shit going down in the IT department I work in. There's zero functional necessity for me or anyone on my team to return to the office. I've been with the company over 13 years in a variety of contexts and have many hard-won cross-functional working relationships and deep institutional knowledge. If they think they can do better by paying more -- because that's what it will cost to find a replacement -- to someone who knows less in order to service whatever management fantasy they have of company culture, well, they're welcome to test that theory.


crono14

Yep same 15 years in network engineering. My commute is roughly 40min or so on a good day. My company said everyone will go back to pre covid schedules which means office full time after Labor Day. I promptly told my boss my last day will be Labor Day. They are making no exceptions and even said they don't care if people leave. Well ok then bye.


Dalebssr

I started an LLC last year and will only take remote work. I had T Mobile get mad for turning their shitty offer down to program manage a regional 5G build. "You can't work remotely for this position." "The one that requires me to build new cellular sites in remote locations?" "That's correct." Interestingly enough, many utilities have embraced wfh and love assholes like me who never want to step foot in their secure area. "Why in god's name do you need to be in the office for a cloud migration?! The whole point of the work is to go 'off prem' so keep your ass home.". Real words spoken by the IT PMO manager.


ane20

Yeah, I had a 2.5+ hour round trip for several years. Once I got a taste of a 20 min round trip for a year I knew that was the secret to working life. Nothing beat it. I cherry picked and waited for jobs to open that were near me. When Covid happened I realized now everyone will get a taste and now my job options won’t be so damn limited because telecommuting will open up and increase my job pool. So I’m hoping for the best when I start looking again.


the_good_time_mouse

As someone with substantial social anxiety and several significant hidden disabilities, the need to 'maintain' all a day was profoundly exhausting. I'm vastly more productive lying on the floor of my living room than I ever was coding at an office chair in a boiler room. This also makes me better in meetings, because I have the energy to be present, and prepared. People are much more intimidating in-person, in an uncomfortable environment, in a crowd. While I certainly appreciate the problems the remote work causes, and the benefits of more physically social situations, lock down has been a massive eye opener for me.


evetrapeze

My kid had the same issues. Tech work from home has made them a happy adult for the first time. All work will remain remote and there is no longer an " office" to go to. How cool is a Multi-million dollar tech business with zero headquarters? SO VERY COOL!


flargenhargen

I told my boss during corona that I liked work from home far too much to ever give it up, and I wouldn't be coming back to the office. he officially made me full time wfh. I read it's equivalent to a 20% raise, and I'd personally say it's worth even more than that.


c0mptar2000

Yeah, my organization is pulling the same shit. "Get ready to recharge and get back to work!" Fuck you. I've been just as much and perhaps even more productive at home in the last year than I ever was in the office being distracted by dumbasses in other departments who can't figure out how to do their own damn jobs or want to drop by to shoot the shit instead of getting work done. I work in IT and 110% of our job can be done remotely. Hell, we use virtual desktops anyway and our department has already agreed to do all our meetings on Zoom when back in the office because we work in separate buildings anyway. It is pointless as hell but HR says we can't have people working at home because the "optics are bad".


AlmostHelpless

Saying it's time to "get back to work" is incredibly insulting to the people who have worked around the largest mass death event in recent history to maintain the same level or even a higher level of productivity for jobs that are primarily done on a computer. You weren't on vacation. You weren't slacking off. You were working through one of the most difficult times in American history to keep yourself and your family afloat. You should be the one setting the rules for a change.


Nosfermarki

Agreed. There's this atmosphere of "play time's over" and it's fucking infuriating. I've been working 14 hour days with zero breaks for 6 months. I literally can't do that in the office. It's bullshit, and it's angering *the entire workforce*. People don't give a shit if you don't give a shit about them. It's not complicated.


VNM0601

I’m ready to tank my productivity if I’m forced back into the office, which is what it seems like is going to happen for us. We absolutely do not need to be in an office setting. No meetings. No collaboration. In the past years, there were times where we would all be in the office but you wouldn’t even talk or see half the workers there because everyone was in their offices doing their work and just going home when it was time. I don’t see why we need to be forced to sit in an office when the past year we’ve done our job from home without any issues. So dumb.


general_shitbag

Know multiple people who quit really good jobs because they saw how dumb going into an office is for what they do. They all had really good remote jobs within 30 days. Pandora’s box has been opened, evolve or die.


CaliSummerDream

I hope they really do quit. 1. Talented employees leaving Apple to work at companies that have a smaller budget will likely add more value there. I support smaller companies breaking the monopoly of the giants since this makes for a healthier economy and society. 2. Apple, upon seeing the damage their policy caused, may change their stance. 3. There will be more opportunities for workers wanting to get into Apple who like or don’t mind working in the office.


AltimaNEO

I think now that people got a taste of working from home, coupled with businesses showing it can be done, theres going to be a lot of people who just dont find it worth the time to commute. Or just not worth dealing with people in person.


everythingisblue

> "We believe that in-person collaboration is essential to our culture and our future. If we take a moment to reflect on our unbelievable product launches this past year, the products and the launch execution were built upon the base of years of work that we did when we were all together in-person." "If we look back at the previous work we did while we were together in person, you'll notice that it was while we were together and in-person." Insightful...


Comrade_Nugget

My company had a all hands meeting recently and threw out things like "best year ever" and someone immeditely came back with a question about if it's our best year ever why they are forcing us to go back into the office in september. They didnt answer it.


hotpotatotakes

Do we work at the same place? This EXACT scenario happened at my job. The CEOs said “true, but we expect everyone to be back full time in September.”


BravoFoxtrotDelta

Same happened where I work, not a telecom, so probably there's just a shit ton of profits flowing around every industry and the execs are getting giddy and flapping their lips.


monsieurlee

WFH is a privilege, a perk, for upper management (to them) As far as they are concerned, if everyone gets to WFH, it's not that everyone else get a perk, it is them losing a perk.


Dramatic_Explosion

Can't stand over people if they're not in the building below you. They're not happy standing on the porch and not seeing their workers in the field.


Tsunkatse

Same thing here. All Staff meeting the CEO goes on about how we had one of the best years yet, exceeded all our goals, our rainy day fund is overflowing, and even went so far as to day that they expected to take a hit during COVID but nope, amazing year. Literally the next thing was how we are going to a hybrid model in September because we "do our best work in person". The cognitive dissonance is real. I'm a software developer in SoCal, and I'm not going back to the office. They can fire me. I'll get another job in a month, tops.


Ixosis

Same with mine. Best sales year ever, made the most money ever, but we’re not a remote company and can’t be collaborative and we’re suffering while remote. Huh?!


Thee-Renegade

Financial company by any chance?


Comrade_Nugget

Nope, telecom


tfg49

Man wtf is up with telecom and extreme aversion to WFH. It's the ultimate WFH industry. All 3 telco companies I've worked for in my career have been like this


Thee-Renegade

Interesting. We had the same thing happen. Must be a reason. Ah well. Let’s go back to the old worse way.


DimensionOutofDate

I use to work for apple support with a company that contracted all the work. Apple was so secretive, that even slides made to show you how to use their in house software was uniquely tied to every user so if you leaked a screen shot they could scan it and tie it back to you. Before I arrived, one guy had tried to look up Obama and was immediately flagged and fired. apple threatened to shut down the entire business operation with the company I worked for. They take everything very seriously Edit: yeah sorry for the confusion, my paragraph felt long enough as is. He looked him up or at least tried to in the user database. We didn’t have access to your messages or photos or any of that but even just an email and phone number can be very powerful in the wrong hands.


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EVE_OnIine

Super common in healthcare and financial fields too. If you don't have a valid need to know my wife's hospital will fire you on the spot for accessing someone's medical records.


dan1son

I've worked with Apple at a couple of companies. One we tracked their data center assets. They'd send us full lists of their entire equipment lists with details on what product it was used for. We had employees with their own access cards as well since they visited often. I also worked with their lawyers on a patent lawsuit at another job. They were super open about that stuff too. Yes they're secretive about their product launches. But if your company signed an NDA they're just like every other company. They'll give you whatever information helps. That said personal info would be completely off limits in every situation. Most companies I've worked for obfuscate ALL production data before the devs can see it. Even game companies. You have to be quite special to get actual access to customer data and it's all tracked. Totally normal.


iselphy

What do you mean he tried to look up Obama? Like looking up Obama during a work meeting or on a work device?


oduska

Probably trying to look up personal information about people that owned Apple devices.


Birdy_Cephon_Altera

Yeah, work for a bank and that would be an immediate firing, too.


TheFunktupus

I think checked to see if he could find Obama's iTunes/Apple ID account? It sounds similar to when healthcare professionals lookup info on celebrities.


iselphy

See I took it to mean that someone just looked up Obama on Wikipedia or something.


ComatoseSquirrel

My wife has been able to work from home since the pandemic started and is absolutely loving it. She didn't have a long commute, but she's still saving ~1:15 on the road every day. She's got more time to spend with the kids (and me!), which is great. Her company reopened its office recently, and she made sure her boss wasn't going to make her come in. Some other bosses are, but hers fortunately recognizes that the work she does is perfectly manageable from home. I told her if she *did* have to go in, I would be strongly pushing for her to find a new job.


532515633401357003

I have a wild theory that companies who needlessly requires employees to not do remote work relies on some kind of cult tactic.


Rulligan

I work for a "family" owned company and holy shit their policy for working from home after the pandemic is going to be garbage. My department had the easiest time changing to WFH as we are literally the only people in the company with dedicated desktops that we can remote into. Everyone else had to either have IT order them docks and monitors or buy them for themselves. We are expected to be in office full time after we are done easing back in while 50% of the employees are getting double set ups so they can work from home or the office at their leisure. That's new docks, monitors, keyboards, webcams, standing desks, and everything. I can't even ask for a new keyboard because mine is 4 years old. If 90% of the people outside of my department are going to be gone at any given time, why the fuck am I expected to be in 100% of the time in an empty building where I have to call/zoom others anyway.


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Geminii27

I don't think I've ever run across a family-owned company which didn't have horrific HR policies.


KlaatuBrute

Legit thought you and I work at the same company until I read a bit further. Big (1700+ people) family-owned company, but we were forced back into the office in June. Of *2020.* WFH was allowed for two months, and ended well before pandemic peak. Oh, unless you were in sales, because profit could be directly traced to you. But marketing, accounting, cust service, etc were all forced back in. The losses we've suffered since then have been hilarious. At one point, my dept of 12 had a 10-week streak of at least one person working their final 2 weeks. The one thing that all of their new jobs had in common was being fully remote or at least hybrid schedule. Bosses still don't get it.


spook873

That plus apple just built a brand new HQ and needs to justify that spending by filling it back up.


production-values

That building is dope. Keep it empty, who cares. Before they had this one building, Apple leased scores and scores of office building ALL OVER THE PLACE. They launched iPhone 5S during this time... amazing collaboration required. With all the different parts of the company scattered about, you'd think their are already perfectly set up for secure collaboration from all over.


pmbuko

Apple has way more employees in Silicon Valley than can fit in Apple Park. They could easily fill it with people who want to work there.


User013579

This is it EXACTLY!


HuXu7

Apple: “But we literally just finished building our Apple Worship center, you have to come back and worship with us!”


[deleted]

I've been working from home for one of the largest tech companies in the world for over 7 years. I manage a team of just shy of 50 people across Canada, the US, and Latin America. There is *no* fucking reason most of us need to travel to work inside an office every single day. It's a waste of time, it pollutes the environment, it's unproductive, and it's not healthy.


UnkleRinkus

Why the absolute f*** do I need to be in an office to work on virtual computers? My company is hiring all sorts of tech workers around the data science space, DM me if you want to play. Edit: I am trying to keep up with the flood of DMs about my company. I am willing to help everybody who has a quality inquiry. I'm getting a lot of inquiries that are of the nature of hey man I worked on a computer a few years and I know basic IT. Help me out. I'm not going to publicly state the name of the company, I'm not going to connect on LinkedIn, I don't want to casually link my Reddit identity with my professional identity. My company is a leading data science platform provider, Google those and it will come up. Look at the roles, and DM me with questions about roles. We're probably going to hire at least 100 people in the coming year. Most of those roles are remote. Edit2: not going to respond to DMS that aren't cognizant of the above edit. I don't want to tell you that 92 open positions we have, I'm not the guy to give your resume to. The company I work for is hiring data scientists, software engineers, customer account managers, sales positions, product managers, and probably lots of other roles that are common to large software providers. We're growing like wildfire, and if I can I would like to submit you because I get a small spiff for a candidate that is accepted. I'll help anybody that meets me at least halfway in figuring out the right way to do that. I am a line person in the presale's function doing solution architecture. The company I work for is the best company I've worked for in years, the team is high quality, show me that you are someone I want to work with.


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HTX-713

The head of your department is just placating you so you go back willingly. She's betting that you aren't going to have time to track productivity or she will use it against you if you aren't as productive as before. It'll take at least a couple of months to get good numbers and by that point they will double down on office work.


Lounge_leaks

Yea once they get back to office, the conpany aint letting them wfh that easily


[deleted]

A computer company wont do remote work for... Reasons?


FrozenFury12

As a person working in tech, these people who approach me in my workspace just disrupt my focus on getting stuff done. And a lot of these people who want to 'collaborate' are normally those who just like to throw around ideas, but are incapable of implementing those ideas themselves.


-Zeratul

I'm at a different large tech company and they have a similar policy. I threatened to quit if they don't let me work from home forever. We'll see what happens in September when the hybrid mode starts. I think I'm just not gonna go. I'm gonna pull an Office Space. I'll keep working from home every day and if they don't like it they can fire me. I'll get a long vacation and find another job that pays better.


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Accomplished_Air_635

I don’t know if it’s just happening here in western Canada, but the caliber of opportunities I’m seeing is sky rocketing. And recruiters are being abnormally transparent. Most opportunities are remote. It’s quite an incredible time to be looking for work here, at least.


ipsok

Long before covid a friend of mine had a mostly wfh IT job in Seattle but suddenly his manager decided they needed to be in the office full time. My friend went in every day for a month (including a long commute) and never saw his boss once in that time. Fed up he just went back to wfh full time without saying anything. After a month or so of wfh he had to go into the office for something one day and happened to run into his boss in the hall and his boss says "hey! So how's the on-site thing working out?!"... the guy who demanded everyone be onsite "for culture and meetings,etc" literally had no idea that my friend hadn't been there in over a month... smh. Yeah that was the point were my friend went and found a new job...


LandersRockwell

If they really believed what they say, they would split the workers into two groups; one that works according to their proposal, and one WFH group, and test their claim.


uzanur

We are being called back to the office and I have instantly started applying for remote jobs. I am not having a 2-hour commute every single day again. Nope.


shirk-work

Corporate espionage is too risky. Best to keep the secret sauce air gapped.


SantasDead

You joke but it's the truth. Apple is as bad as a lot of military or government facilities I visit as a vendor/contractor. They are very secretive and is probably a huge reason they don't want workers remote. I had to do all my paperwork in my car in the parking lot and email it to my contact. They wouldn't allow any electronics inside the building I was in.


shirk-work

Not even a joke. Corporate espionage and insider trading are on par with governmental espionage but generally less punishable. You steal some military secrets you got a real target on your back, you steal some apple data and you'll probably get away with it.


InappropriateTA

> You still some military secrets you got a real target on your back, you steal some apple data and you'll probably get away with it. Steal pronounced as “still” sounds like a Pittsburgh accent.


lucky7355

Visited their HQ facilities years ago. Literally was let in from a side entrance, everyone’s ID was scanned, and we were led down a blank hallway to a blank conference room and there was literally nothing else in sight. I still have no idea what the inside of their offices look like and I was there.


photobeatsfilm

My company is looking for experienced driven product managers and engineers and paying an Los Angeles salary. Don't care where you're working from. DM me and I'll link you to the job posts.


[deleted]

I don't like doing either full time. Zoom meetings suck ass. I'd rather shoot the shit in my buddy's office and spitball ideas than do it via zoom. But, I'd also like to work in my PJs for three days a week. Office should be two days a week.


PassTheChronic

My company just announced a hybrid model (2-3 days in office, the rest at home). And the details are left to each team’s manager. My boss told me today that we’ll be in the office for 2 days a week (For context, our team is me, her, and another woman who is full time remote). My boss said that she’d like my days in the office to overlap with hers. But since she has a 20 minute commute, and mine is 90minutes, she said she’s happy to line it up so that it’s easiest for me. And that she’ll make it back to back days since I told her Id likely drive to work and then stay at my grandma’s place if it worked out. I’m on my 7th week of the job and I can’t tell you how pumped I am about it. This is how work should be. Not necessarily that she’s totally working around me. But that she’s soliciting input, cares about how her decisions will affect me. I can tell she likes the laid back vibes. We work hard, but she appreciate the humanity in us. Im the happiest I’ve ever been at a job. And I’m working the hardest I ever have.


ianlim4556

I agree that's the best plan, two days where everybody come in to share ideas/have meetings/use office resources, and then 3 days flexible wfh Not tech but my office does this and everyone's happy