Apple employees whine about having to return to work

[User.45]

Yes, I am a CPA. I had a previous job where I was working late hours and weekends. I was burned out and over it. I realized that I didn't want to spend my life working and not enjoying life. So I found another job. I am pretty much 9-5 M-F now with the occasional late night depending on what is going on. I work maybe one weekend a year now.

OMG, who would want to do CPA work at weekend and nights?!!!

 

[Eric]

Yes, I am a CPA. I had a previous job where I was working late hours and weekends. I was burned out and over it. I realized that I didn't want to spend my life working and not enjoying life. So I found another job. I am pretty much 9-5 M-F now with the occasional late night depending on what is going on. I work maybe one weekend a year now.

I worked at HP for 5 years remotely (before it was popular) and it's not always what people think it's cracked up to be. You are basically making yourself available 24/7 unless you really have the will power to constantly turn people away. I ended up leaving them for a 9 to 5 job where I had to drive 20 miles each way and it was way worth it to just be able to leave work at 5 and be done with my day. Unfortunately, I drifted back to consulting and it dominates my life once again but it was a nice break for a few years.

 

[Eric]

OMG, who would want to do CPA work at weekend and nights?!!!

If he's my tax guy I would be grateful.

 

[DT]

One of the things I was interested in for a very long time, and a reason for my original interest in iPad was those who lived the "digital nomad" lifestyle. Meaning workers who were already working remotely years ago, and realized they didn't need to take vacations. You could literally work during your year long vacation. If you don't have to commute, why not just live & work in the place you'd like to vacation in? Also, you have the option to move about.

Funny enough one of our very good friends - who we just recently saw after a decade - she's a designer/content developer/educator, has been working from her sailboat! She left the agency office when things went to shit and continued to be employed by them and they both agreed she could remain "remote", even though that's in a boat sailing up the east coast from Ft. Lauderdale to Boston

A friend once said nobody on their deathbed ever says "I wish I would've spent more time working" and that's always stuck with me. In another year I get to retire and I cannot wait.

Yeah, it's a great saying and been a mantra of mine for about 20 years, especially the last decade or so. I've been working with this one company, local, kind of a special situation, I've stuck it out to see it through, maybe recover some of my time investment, but anyway, they want to go all tech bubble startup mode, and I keep telling them (in more diplomatic language ...), I'm too seasoned, value my time too much, I'm not going into the same cadence I would when I was 20, and time was endless, and I had no family, there's no way I'm spending any more time than I already do.

 

[JayMysteri0]

I worked at HP for 5 years remotely (before it was popular) and it's not always what people think it's cracked up to be. You are basically making yourself available 24/7 unless you really have the will power to constantly turn people away. I ended up leaving them for a 9 to 5 job where I had to drive 20 miles each way and it was way worth it to just be able to leave work at 5 and be done with my day. Unfortunately, I drifted back to consulting and it dominates my life once again but it was a nice break for a few years.

Ah, see I imagine it always falls on what kind of work you do remote.

My first gig out of school I literally worked 2 weeks a month. Ordinarily you are supposed to get 30 days for a deadline, but my "boss" wasn't a fan of mine, her bosses were. So she would always look for someone else ( commonly a friend ) to do a job, they'd fall behind, and I'd get a call midway thru the month. So I would literally spend the first half of the month hoping for the assignment, while literally chilling, then the second half of the month get a Fed Ex package or travel to the business. I would then work for 2 weeks only stopping to sleep 4 - 5 hours a day. It was a weird schedule, but used to annoy the hell out of my friends who worked regular jobs.

Would I do it again? No, it was completely unprofessional on the part of my "boss", but the flexibility was great once I adapted.

 

[Joe]

I worked at HP for 5 years remotely (before it was popular) and it's not always what people think it's cracked up to be. You are basically making yourself available 24/7 unless you really have the will power to constantly turn people away. I ended up leaving them for a 9 to 5 job where I had to drive 20 miles each way and it was way worth it to just be able to leave work at 5 and be done with my day. Unfortunately, I drifted back to consulting and it dominates my life once again but it was a nice break for a few years.

Yes, I was pretty much "on-call" with my last employer. Available 24/7. I remember I was enjoying myself with some friends at the Houston Rodeo Chili Cook Off, and my phone was ringing from my job. I couldn't even enjoy a beer with friends at the rodeo. That was the turning point and I left soon after. And like you, I went from a short commute to work to a 20 mile commute but it was worth it. I get off at 5 and I can go to the gym and not worry about my phone ringing while at the rodeo lol

 

[Runs For Fun]

I don't see anything wrong with pushing back on forcing people back in to the office for positions that can absolutely be done remotely and require little in-person collaboration. I've been working remotely 100% for the last 4 years. It's completely pointless for me to spend time commuting and whatnot to go in to the office when more than half of my team is in another state and several are completely remote. And the ones that are in the same building as me are all spread around so there's not going to be a bunch of interaction anyway. I would be wasting a bunch of time to go in to an office to sit alone in a cubical. Why do that when I can just sit alone in my home? My job can absolutely be done completely remote without any pitfalls. Forcing people in these types of positions to go in to an office is just dumb.

 

[The-Real-Deal82]

I worked at HP for 5 years remotely (before it was popular) and it's not always what people think it's cracked up to be. You are basically making yourself available 24/7 unless you really have the will power to constantly turn people away. I ended up leaving them for a 9 to 5 job where I had to drive 20 miles each way and it was way worth it to just be able to leave work at 5 and be done with my day. Unfortunately, I drifted back to consulting and it dominates my life once again but it was a nice break for a few years.

Yeah I found that since I’ve returned to the workplace, my hours are less as I leave the building on time most of the time. During the pandemic I’d be staying online for longer into the evening whilst at home and most did, so the company started expecting it. Meetings started creeping in later and later. Nice to now have a mix and return more to the office. Feels a bit more normal again and couldn’t or wouldn’t ever commit to full time gone working. My family come first and work second

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

You're making some good points but also missing a major one.

You brought up ATL as a "cheap place". I recently did a job interview and looked at Atlanta's housing. It may seem cheap(er) from the Bay Area's perspective, but it's not cheap at all. Part of that is techies pushing cost of living up wherever they go. So you raise your concerns with the issue of ridiculous housing prices but what you recommend actually just displaces it from the areas where it directly impacts you.

Exactly. Let others experience some ridiculous cost of living so that mine may be slightly less ridiculous. It's called the sharing economy.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

I thought that's what supervisors were for?

Plenty of companies learned over time how to adapt to the brief norm. Now some want it be the regular norm. If they can show they get it done like before, that's an honest argument. Over the old, there needs to be a watchful physical eye at all times.

I kind of dug how the pandemic helped the environment.

If some don't mind going in, I'm sure they are going to love if more others stay home to ease their commute. Some need the social interaction some don't, but we've learned that not every job needs to be physically present in front of some boss.

I know I'm probably being all "kids these days!" but part of being an American is hating your job and part of hating your job is having to show up to a location you don't live in. You don't get to hate your job from the comfort of your home.

I honestly don't know what these tech workers' day looked like before the pandemic. When I would take a random day off during the week just because I wanted to, when I drove by the local high end mall the parking lot is just as packed as if it were the week before Christmas. The restaurants are also packed like it's the weekend. Clearly these people were already not spending a lot of time in the office.

 

[Eric]

Yes, I was pretty much "on-call" with my last employer. Available 24/7. I remember I was enjoying myself with some friends at the Houston Rodeo Chili Cook Off, and my phone was ringing from my job. I couldn't even enjoy a beer with friends at the rodeo. That was the turning point and I left soon after. And like you, I went from a short commute to work to a 20 mile commute but it was worth it. I get off at 5 and I can go to the gym and not worry about my phone ringing while at the rodeo lol

It's ridiculous. We have "flex time" or unlimited vacation time and in three years I've taken less than three weeks off because I simply don't have the time with all my clients. I took a week to deal with my mom in hospice and my phone was blowing up all over the place, there's simply no life outside of work to be had for me at this point, I'll have to quit and find something else for that to happen unfortunately.

On a separate note about flex time, it's a sham IMO. The employer doesn't have to pay you out for unused PTO at the end of the year (the law here in CA) and instead of them allocating time off, you have to basically assert yourself to take it and then face a bunch of pushback. I would gladly take 2 or 3 weeks of PTO over it any day.

 

[JayMysteri0]

I know I'm probably being all "kids these days!" but part of being an American is hating your job and part of hating your job is having to show up to a location you don't live in. You don't get to hate your job from the comfort of your home.

I honestly don't know what these tech workers' day looked like before the pandemic. When I would take a random day off during the week just because I wanted to, when I drove by the local high end mall the parking lot is just as packed as if it were the week before Christmas. The restaurants are also packed like it's the weekend. Clearly these people were already not spending a lot of time in the office.

Yes. You are.

There's been a shift for awhile now, to better balance work & personal life. Or at least noises made about it.

There's been this crazy dream that's been picked up over the last few years, to NOT hate your job. It's with older generations that seemed to embrace "hating your job" as part of one's job.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Yes. You are.

There's been a shift for awhile now, to better balance work & personal life. Or at least noises made about it.

There's been this crazy dream that's been picked up over the last few years, to NOT hate your job. It's with older generations that seemed to embrace "hating your job" as part of one's job.

I probably went a little extreme with the hating your job bit, but honestly I think a lot of this is just an extension of being overly spoiled with the perks of working at a tech campus that just doesn’t exist in other industries. They don’t “hate” going into the office. They just got used to not having to.

And frankly I think this kind of thing is just going to further erode social skills that are already in decline. For some people interacting with people at work is the only regular meaningful interaction they have in person.

 

[JayMysteri0]

So I thought this interesting since I saw these stories literally back to back:

The return of Apple Employees NOT all wanting to go back in person to the campus...

Apple Employees Continue to Fight Return to Campuses and Push for Better Remote Working Options

Apple has made it clear that most of its employees will not be able to work remotely on a permanent basis, but that isn't stopping some corporate...

t.co

Which we've already discussed, because of the changes caused by the pandemic, and how they will affect things going forward whether some people want to accept them or not.

On the flip side of this is...

Frito-Lay Workers Forced to Work 84-Hour Weeks for Months on End Are Now on Strike

The strike is finally starting to gain national attention thanks to the absolutely horrific working conditions.

www.themarysue.com

Hundreds of workers from a Frito-Lay production plant in Topeka, Kansas are on strike, demanding higher wages and an end to the plant’s dangerous, exploitative practice of requiring 84-hour workweeks.

For weeks, the strike has made an impact locally, as many Kansans have either joined in a boycott of Frito-Lay products or seen a shortage of them on shelves.

But in recent days, the strike has finally started to get attention nationwide as more details about the plant’s working conditions come out. These workers are supposed to only be scheduled for standard eight-hour shifts, but due to low staffing they’ve reportedly been required to tack on an extra four hours daily and work six or even seven days a week. Some report working these 84-hour weeks for months straight without a single day off.

Plant workers call these shifts “suicides” because, as Vice writes, the exhaustion and stress “kills you over time.” One employee named Mark McCarter says there have, in fact, been multiple deaths by suicide over the years because of these conditions:

NEW: Frito-Lay workers reveal that they’ve worked up to 5 months straight without a day off, and that multiple coworkers—driven to exhaustion—have died by suicide.

Their strike in Topeka is gaining nationwide attention. Now Frito-Lay workers in other states are speaking out. pic.twitter.com/yppQ8iPn3n

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) July 19, 2021

“This job wears you down, it tires you, and makes you mentally exhausted. It plays with your mind. Some of these guys who work 12 hours a day everyday are destroying their marriages. They’re destroying their families,” McCarter told Vice:

I can tell you that many people have had heart attacks in the heat at Frito-Lay since I’ve been here. One guy died a few years ago and the company had people pick him up, move him over to the side, and put another person in his spot without shutting the business down for two seconds.

It seems like I go to one funeral a year for someone who’s had a heart attack at work or someone who went home to their barn and shot themselves in the head or hung themselves.

McCarter has been working for Frito-Lay–which is owned by PepsiCo–for 37 years and says he hasn’t received a raise in a decade. That includes a standard cost-of-living raise, one of the things plant workers are demanding in their strike. Other Topeka-area companies of similar size (Goodyear, Mars Wrigley, Target) offer a cost-of-living adjustment of 77 cents per hour. Frito-Lay does not. Union membership recently rejected a contract offer that would have given workers an annual 2% wage increase. For many, that comes out to less than 50¢ an hour.

“This is not a good job,” McCarter says. “At 7am, our warehouse is 100 degrees. We don’t have air conditioning. We have cooks in the kitchen on the fryers that are 130 or 140 degrees making chips and sweating like pigs. Meanwhile, the managers have A/C.”

Brent Hall, the union president, says that Frito-Lay has terminated the health insurance of striking employees–just in case we needed yet another example of why health care should absolutely not be tied to employment.

This is the first time this union (Local 218 of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers union) has gone on strike since 1973. McCarter says that the COVID-19 pandemic has changed things for a lot of people:

The affect of the pandemic on work has dramatically changed things. For some with the luxury to hash it out via slack groups, others forced to strike & losing their health insurance as a result. The pandemic has showed us, we need change in regards to work.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

So I thought this interesting since I saw these stories literally back to back:

The return of Apple Employees NOT all wanting to go back in person to the campus...



Which we've already discussed, because of the changes caused by the pandemic, and how they will affect things going forward whether some people want to accept them or not.

On the flip side of this is...



NEW: Frito-Lay workers reveal that they’ve worked up to 5 months straight without a day off, and that multiple coworkers—driven to exhaustion—have died by suicide.

Their strike in Topeka is gaining nationwide attention. Now Frito-Lay workers in other states are speaking out. pic.twitter.com/yppQ8iPn3n

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) July 19, 2021

I can tell you that many people have had heart attacks in the heat at Frito-Lay since I’ve been here. One guy died a few years ago and the company had people pick him up, move him over to the side, and put another person in his spot without shutting the business down for two seconds.

It seems like I go to one funeral a year for someone who’s had a heart attack at work or someone who went home to their barn and shot themselves in the head or hung themselves.


The affect of the pandemic on work has dramatically changed things. For some with the luxury to hash it out via slack groups, others forced to strike & losing their health insurance as a result. The pandemic has showed us, we need change in regards to work.

That’s certainly 2 extremes there. Only now I’m starting to hear some mentions of the slow chipping away of labor laws that allow for these conditions and when it’s mostly been an employer side market there’s always a looming cloud that you can easily be replaced by somebody else who will put up with those work conditions and demands. On one side you have these near one employer towns and on the other you have the tech industry as a whole where, at the end of the day, none of the big tech companies are vastly different from each other when it comes to expectations. The promise of work/life balance has been an illusion for a long time, in many ways like politician lies.

 

[SuperMatt]

That’s certainly 2 extremes there. Only now I’m starting to hear some mentions of the slow chipping away of labor laws that allow for these conditions and when it’s mostly been an employer side market there’s always a looming cloud that you can easily be replaced by somebody else who will put up with those work conditions and demands. On one side you have these near one employer towns and on the other you have the tech industry as a whole where, at the end of the day, none of the big tech companies are vastly different from each other when it comes to expectations. The promise of work/life balance has been an illusion for a long time, in many ways like politician lies.

The Supreme Court has been aggressively killing workers for decades. I have seen them go left or right on “partisan” issues of various kinds, but when it comes to companies vs workers, they pick companies... every single time. They have been hard at work entrenching the oligarchy. Workers need to do more of what Frito-Lay workers are doing. Force the hand of companies. All the government help in the world for companies won’t stop you from striking. Workers have so much power but they don’t seem to realize it.

Companies like Amazon treat their employees like shit intentionally so they will have high turnover. Who’s gonna unionize for a job they keep less than a year? But it shouldn’t matter. People need to wake the hell up and realize they CAN do something about it.

 

[User.191]

Yes, I was pretty much "on-call" with my last employer. Available 24/7. I remember I was enjoying myself with some friends at the Houston Rodeo Chili Cook Off, and my phone was ringing from my job. I couldn't even enjoy a beer with friends at the rodeo. That was the turning point and I left soon after. And like you, I went from a short commute to work to a 20 mile commute but it was worth it. I get off at 5 and I can go to the gym and not worry about my phone ringing while at the rodeo lol

I was on pager #1 AND #2 for about 6 months solid way way back in the 1990's (well there was a guy on pager 2 but he had perfected the art of never ever answering it, and remained so fireproof that he even got promoted above me a few months later on, but I digress).

I finally managed after all that time to divest myself of Pager #1 and was enjoying my first weekend of (relative) quiet, watching I believe was the final race of the Grand Prix from Down Under which was going to decide the Championship (these I think were Nigel Mansell's days if anyone's counting).

The race is in the penultimate lap when my phone went off. Being the dutiful employee (aka sucker) I picked up the phone and spoke to the caller - who was one of the developers by the name of Alan (real name - total tosser - ex army guy).

"Hey, we're getting some..." came his not so dulcet tones.
"Alan, I'm not on pager #1 - have you called pager #1 first?"
"Well no, but I knew you were..."
"Alan, as I said, I'm not on Pager #1 this weekend - call Derek - he's on Pager #1"
"Yeah, well since you're speaking to..."
"Alan, I'm NOT on Pager #1. Call Derek on Pager #1. If he doesn't respond in 30 minutes THEN call me back."
"What sort of attitude is that? Don't come to me next time you need he..(click)" - that was were I disconnected the call.

And missed the end of the race.

Alan - as I said, was a tosser - I'd never ever needed his help in the two years I'd worked with him. Never needed it after either.

Learned to hate pager with a vengeance.

 

[JayMysteri0]

Update:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1417335931221135362/

There will be a realization for some, that a change has to occur.

It will be up to each industry what side of this they will be on. The one complaining it's the workers' fault for not taking the unfavorable crumbs offered to them, or the one's who can get & retain worker's in a changing environment.

 

[Runs For Fun]

I was on pager #1 AND #2 for about 6 months solid way way back in the 1990's (well there was a guy on pager 2 but he had perfected the art of never ever answering it, and remained so fireproof that he even got promoted above me a few months later on, but I digress).

I finally managed after all that time to divest myself of Pager #1 and was enjoying my first weekend of (relative) quiet, watching I believe was the final race of the Grand Prix from Down Under which was going to decide the Championship (these I think were Nigel Mansell's days if anyone's counting).

The race is in the penultimate lap when my phone went off. Being the dutiful employee (aka sucker) I picked up the phone and spoke to the caller - who was one of the developers by the name of Alan (real name - total tosser - ex army guy).

"Hey, we're getting some..." came his not so dulcet tones.
"Alan, I'm not on pager #1 - have you called pager #1 first?"
"Well no, but I knew you were..."
"Alan, as I said, I'm not on Pager #1 this weekend - call Derek - he's on Pager #1"
"Yeah, well since you're speaking to..."
"Alan, I'm NOT on Pager #1. Call Derek on Pager #1. If he doesn't respond in 30 minutes THEN call me back."
"What sort of attitude is that? Don't come to me next time you need he..(click)" - that was were I disconnected the call.

And missed the end of the race.

Alan - as I said, was a tosser - I'd never ever needed his help in the two years I'd worked with him. Never needed it after either.

Learned to hate pager with a vengeance.

I can relate to this too much.

 

[Chew Toy McCoy]

Update:

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1417335931221135362/

There will be a realization for some, that a change has to occur.

It will be up to each industry what side of this they will be on. The one complaining it's the workers' fault for not taking the unfavorable crumbs offered to them, or the one's who can get & retain worker's in a changing environment.

I’m curious to see if there will also be a pay rate difference. Already with companies that have employees in different states the pay to do the same job is based on the cost of living in that local area. If you want to work from home in Bumfuck Idaho because you like nature, fine, but we’re not going to pay you based on the cost of living in Silicon Valley. I’m sure that was already the case but nowhere near the scale that employees seem to be demanding now.