Apple Delays Plans for Return to Office Three Days a Week, Masks Required in Common Areas Amid Rising COVID Cases

[jerryk]

The problem is that masks are not primarily for individual personal protection but rather for "source control"—i.e., keeping droplets from an asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic carrier from infecting others. I think effective non-invasive forms of testing would be a big help in controlling the disease, since carriers could be identified and isolated more quickly. It may even be that simply requiring mask use by carriers would be enough (perhaps even without extended self-isolation). In asian countries mask wearing by people with colds and flus has been common practice for as long as I can remember.

Agree with mask wearing. Especially in Asia. A lot has to do with Asian shame culture. If you due to lack of conforming by wearing a mask, infect someone else, with your cold you are not a clean person. You are dirty and some people will not want associate (be friends with you, work with, or hire) with you.

Same with theft. If you take something that does not belong to you, you are a thief and your children are children of a thief, etc. It will impact your day-to-day life. This is why in Japan (and some other Asian countries) at a mall in the food court you can hold your table by leaving your packages and wander off to browse the food. No one would dare take them.

 

[BruiserBear]

Yeah. It's just a casedemic at this point. Nobody is in danger.

There are still hundreds of people dying every single day in the U.S alone from Covid. Let me guess, you don’t think those numbers are real?

 

[I7guy]

Just give it up. The days of everyone being in the office multiple times a week are over. You made a bad investment in commercial real estate. Deal with it.

Not just apple, companies everywhere. Maybe build more homes and residential buildings instead of large pointless offices.

I work in tech. I've gotten a dozen interview offers in the last 3 months. Not a single company is requiring being in an office at all.

Somehow I don’t think apple will back track. Those employees that will leave will leave.

 

[I7guy]

100% agree

Maybe Apple should start re-tooling Apple Park to be an incredible community to live in -- it might become highly desirable to work and live at Apple

You can agree 1000%. The probability of apple back tracking, imo, is near 0%.

 

[eatrains]

This should be an interesting comment section. Personally, be responsible for your own health. If you want to wear a mask, go for it. If you don’t, you do you. Follow the guidelines of your particular company.

And follow the guidelines of your public health agencies.

 

[eatrains]

How are COVID cases still going up? So many people have natural immunity. Is this really an issue, still? Perhaps it’s the vaccinated whose immune system was wiped out by the shot.

At any rate, here in Indiana any of that COVID fear would seem highly misplaced.

That's of course not how vaccines work. Please don't spread misinformation.

 

[tridley68]

Get to work already you babies I have been to work every day since this whole sham has started we never once wore a mask and everyone in my office is as healthy as a horse.

 

[Unity451]

You can get a dozen people in Zoom a lot quicker and easier for a "face to face" than trying to arrange a meeting in a conference room.

It may be easier, but it's still different. I've spent a lot of time both in in-person meetings as well as zooms, conference calls, etc., well before covid, and I have noticed a stark difference between the two. In person meetings have a ramping up period of chit chat before the meeting as well as after. There's also the "meeting after the meeting" that happens in common areas such as the breakroom, kitchen, hallway, even bathrooms! My point still stands that good products flow out of good work culture, and good work culture is made in the spaces between the meetings. And that is what Apple was founded on.

 

[Realityck]

2 days a week is more than enough to schedule meetings and workshops.

Apple's 'Monday, Tuesday and Thursday' routine seems to be designed to force people to live nearby. If it has to be 3 days at least make it e.g. Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday.

Honestly it's as if firms want to impose misery on workers.

How is work not without some pain? Just because people can't gather like they were pre-pandemic yet is not a indication of going to work is imposing misery on workers. You are still dealing with the aftermath of a mutating variants of Covid 19. A apple employee is likely thinking highly of their company supporting them in the best possible manner by continuing to take precautions to employees getting sick. Thats the whole point of the gradual experiment to return to normalcy.

To most of us, this whole time in our lives is a major PITA. It wears on us all. Its not about rights or freedoms, its about survival.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

There are still hundreds of people dying every single day in the U.S alone from Covid. Let me guess, you don’t think those numbers are real?

They’re dying from the effects of covid. Apparently their bodies can’t handle it. I wonder why?

 

[ackmondual]

One's personal feelings about COVID aside... The apple culture is built (and has always functioned) on human collaboration hence the building of the spaceship Apple Park with the common areas in the middle and throughout. Virtual interaction is not the same as face-to-face. If employees don't return to the in-person office, the company culture will suffer irreversible damage, and by extension, the products will get worse and worse.

Perhaps an "Apple historian" could chime in on this, but it seems issues were there long before WFH was thing, no?

 

[bpeeps]

It may be easier, but it's still different. I've spent a lot of time both in in-person meetings as well as zooms, conference calls, etc., well before covid, and I have noticed a stark difference between the two. In person meetings have a ramping up period of chit chat before the meeting as well as after. There's also the "meeting after the meeting" that happens in common areas such as the breakroom, kitchen, hallway, even bathrooms! My point still stands that good products flow out of good work culture, and good work culture is made in the spaces between the meetings. And that is what Apple was founded on.

Sorry but I actually prefer working over attending meeting after meeting and chatting over the water cooler. There's too little work being done in corporate America because everyone's in a meeting about working.

 

[gbc204]

This should be an interesting comment section. Personally, be responsible for your own health. If you want to wear a mask, go for it. If you don’t, you do you. Follow the guidelines of your particular company.

How are we over two years into this and people still not understanding that masks don't just protect you, are not just for you...

 

[4jasontv]

Sorry but I actually prefer working over attending meeting after meeting and chatting over the water cooler. There's too little work being done in corporate America because everyone's in a meeting about working.

Blame middle managers. If a manager doesn't 'do something' and an employee is productive then they can't claim it was them. It's why new managers like to 'shake things up' when arrive. So they can claim their actions were responsible.

Most meetings solve the issue of justifying someone else's job.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

How are we over two years into this and people still not understanding that masks don't just protect you, are not just for you...

If someone can smell perfume or cologne perfectly while wearing a mask, that mask ain’t protecting you from any other aerosol.

 

[siddavis]

The virus mutates constantly and is really interested in its host remaining alive for as long as possible, so Omicron and other sub-variants are very contagious but far less lethal than Delta, for example. Vaccines will be playing an eternal catchup with these viral mutations, as it has been for ages with common seasonal flu.

For that reason, I really wish we could stop calling them 'vaccines'. But I guess changing the definition left my thinking in the dust.

 

[ackmondual]

In the end, Apple gets to make work-at-home policy decisions.

Likewise, employees that aren't happy about this can, and will leave Apple.

 

[gbc204]

100% agree

Maybe Apple should start re-tooling Apple Park to be an incredible community to live in -- it might become highly desirable to work and live at Apple

Now that is a great idea. But don't just make it for Apple employees. Just for anybody who wants to live in a literal Apple ecosystem. You'll never carry keys again. Screw the Apple Car, bring on the Apple Condo!

 

[dms_91]

At this point, all you can do is laugh.

 

[siddavis]

And follow the guidelines of your public health agencies.

This. They've done a superb job so far. /dripping s
Anyone care to share how this whole thing got started? You know, so we can learn from it and avoid it again? What's that? Still 'not sure' after 2.5 years?! The agencies are pathetic.

 

[dannyyankou]

I don't think the complaints from employees were COVID related for the most part. It was that the quality of work is as productive at home as in the office, and it creates a better work/life balance. Some are concerned about catching the virus of course, but I don't think that was the main reasoning for resisting a return.

 

[Realityck]

At this point, all you can do is laugh.

Being stuck at home mostly used to be looked at like a vacation, now its more like your stuck at home, can't go anywhere and escape from work.

 

[Oz.]

which "virus"? according to CDC there's no isolation and purification of any "virus"!

stop promoting this BS pLandemic!

 

[JoeShades]

And follow the guidelines of your public health agencies.

If we did that we would be social distancing and wearing masks forever if some of these public health experts had their way, of course I know some would love that. but I am not doing that. And I love the follow public health agencies line of course until it conflicts wiht the views of the people that say that, All I heard was follow CDC guidlines until they changed it to factor in hospitilizations and not focus on case numbers only but then oh no according to some the CDC is no good anymore. I find it hilarious that the people advocating most for living in a bubble and triple mask wearing are those vaxxed and boosted, they scream at the anti vaxxers but come off as the biggest anti vaxxers around

 

[mikethemartian]

Sorry but I actually prefer working over attending meeting after meeting and chatting over the water cooler. There's too little work being done in corporate America because everyone's in a meeting about working.

Probably the biggest waste of time at a company is the regularly scheduled weekly meetings where you have to listen to some manager talk about the burn down rate of their Jira tickets. A working meeting when you meet with a few other people as needed on a technical issue is perfectly fine and productive but when you get sucked into management meetings its just lost time.