It’s not healthier physically that’s for sure….there are two parts to exercise your regular gym workouts and the “all day movement” that you get from being at work.
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Apple Sets April 11 Deadline for U.S. Employees to Return to Office
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People have come and gone from top companies since the dawn of time.
When you're working from home you're still moving around and doing things. If you're moving less than you normally would in office, there are things you can do such as working out or going on walks etc. You shouldn't prevent working from home because of negligible health benefits.
Let the employees be responsible for that element of their life.
I feel like this has been an issue since pre-pandemic. I think it's more down to them needing to bring things in line with MacOS and iOS. Like the Share icon in Mac Safari makes sense. It's literally just sharing the current page with other apps or people. On iOS, the Share icon is overloaded with irrelevant tasks like Find on Page.
The iWork apps only recently got unified icons. The News app only recently started feeling more at home on a Mac rather than an iPad app being forced into Mac duty. Both of those actually improved during WFH.
The mighty wails of "It is unacceptable that your life should suck less than mine! I want you to suffer along with me!"
That was the mantra to keep employees during the pandemic. But political pressure/social justice is building because a lot of low wage service workers depend on the whole office thing. From janitors to lunch crowds at restaurants to travel, hotel workers to daycare work etc etc....not to mention the real estate issues with office leases etc..... In the Seattle area Microsoft and Amazon are changing their plans and returning to the office. It is now an economic issue apparently.
What these companies don't realize is that many engineers suffer from varying degrees of social anxiety and do their best work when alone, not when packed like sardines in an open office.
On the east coast most of the major companies have been open with essential worker staffing. So it’s not like these corporations are opening as if they were closed. And on the east coast, there is an abundance of public transportation.
This is us in NYC. I don't see how anything but a slow gradual return to work would be possible. We slowly started coming back in October but that was put on hold for Omicron. We're back again 1 day a week but commute schedules are completely different now. Commuter buses are still on reduced schedules, commuter trains have longer and more frequent delays and prices have gone up. I actually drive into NYC now because taking the train is actually more expensive than paying tolls and parking and I save an hour in commute times. All the related services will need to start ramping up again as demand starts to increase.
We've also lost about 10% of our group as they left to more remote-friendly companies. Management acknowledged it's our highest turnover rate in more than a decade. On town hall meetings, people are literally asking for more money to come back in to cover increased commute costs. So costs are increasing as the company tries to get people back in the office.
Very good point. Imagine what the cost of keeping these building up and running and you have to remember that you have all the support services with in these buildings for there eatery's and other things.
People want to cut down on pollution, traffic and more but we want to force people back into the office.
If employee's were able to do there job remotley for the last 2 years then it should be an option for them to continue to work remotely. It's like in NYC there are allot of vacant buildings because the companies that lease them are staying with remote so now NYC is not getting tthe income they had before. That information is from NY news.
Some of us hated going into the office before the pandemic.
My company has started 'return to office'. They claim it's to be more 'collaborative' but when they moved us to open seating prior to Covid, it was the complete opposite. A noisy, crowded workspace where everyone had headphones on and ignored each other. From assistants to CEOs. People were miserable, many quit.
The real reason? They need asses in seats to get their tax kick-backs and to meet their lease agreements, which are probably long-term. We are more collaborative now more than ever. We can just hit one button to have a meeting, versus searching for a conference room, which were always scarce in this kind of setup since there weren't any private offices or even cubes to have quick meetings. You'd have to go into a tiny phone room to make a personal call - they were always occupied.
They are (currently) not forcing people to go back - they are just asking that teams start with one day per week. I said, no thanks, and decided to just go in when it suited me best and only when I feel comfortable to do so (vendor lunches, team gatherings, and so on).
We've never been more productive, and we've doubled in size and revenue over Covid. They made the mistake of hiring out of state and allowing some employees to be remote full time, and also allowing the unvaccinated to continue remote full time, so I and many others have used this as leverage. You can't have different rules for different people. So I am not forcing my team to do anything - until I am told otherwise.
The company is getting way more out of us now than they would if we went back to that awful work environment. I think one day per week is all I would agree to, or I'd start to look elsewhere.
The real reason? They need asses in seats to get their tax kick-backs and to meet their lease agreements, which are probably long-term. We are more collaborative now more than ever. We can just hit one button to have a meeting, versus searching for a conference room, which were always scarce in this kind of setup since there weren't any private offices or even cubes to have quick meetings. You'd have to go into a tiny phone room to make a personal call - they were always occupied.
They are (currently) not forcing people to go back - they are just asking that teams start with one day per week. I said, no thanks, and decided to just go in when it suited me best and only when I feel comfortable to do so (vendor lunches, team gatherings, and so on).
We've never been more productive, and we've doubled in size and revenue over Covid. They made the mistake of hiring out of state and allowing some employees to be remote full time, and also allowing the unvaccinated to continue remote full time, so I and many others have used this as leverage. You can't have different rules for different people. So I am not forcing my team to do anything - until I am told otherwise.
The company is getting way more out of us now than they would if we went back to that awful work environment. I think one day per week is all I would agree to, or I'd start to look elsewhere.
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I will gladly take a job from any employee that cries trying to stay home, I will single handedly fix apple’s ios issues. Hire me apple
This isn’t new or related to them working remote. The inconsistencies have been going on for 10+ years. Just look how long it took to get different flag colors in Mail on iOS. Even before working remote it seemed as if no one who worked on MacOS saw what iOS was doing and the other way around. “Old schoolers” will say it’s because their not in the same building, but that has nothing to do with it. It’s the team leads and managers not doing their job and making sure everyone is on the same page of development.
3 days in the office is too much. My company gave us a 20% raise in base pay and are letting us come in the office on an as needed basis. Guess what, I think I’ll stay.
Having all your food within arms reach is not how you stay healthy. Packing your lunch and not having access to unlimited food is another healthy benefit to going to work.
But if you're packing that food and bringing it to the office, you could also pack that food and not bring it to the office.
On the other hand, in the office, plenty of people don't bother to bring food in and just buy from the cafeteria or whatever fast food is nearby.
Hybrid?
Why would I accept a single day each month in an SF office?
I've consulted for SF-based technology brands from Bali for five years.
Hybrid is just prison with day release.
Don't eat the food just because it's there?
Unless you're an unsupervised 9 year old and there's a box of fruit roll-ups in front of you I don't see how this argument is valid.
My work was firing people who didnt get vaccinated and Apple might fire people who cannot bother to come back to work. The whole excessive reaction is having so many consequences. We lost all those good people...I hope Apple doesn't.