I hope that Apple fires these lazy WFH assholes!

Most tech industry positions can, indeed, be done from home. These companies are really just trying to justify the overhead costs from the buildings they've leased out for in-office work.

I am all for work from home. However, If a company has recently invested a great deal of money in a state of the art office compound (which I believe Apple has), I can understand the PTB requesting 3 on-campus days. If the commute is lengthy, most Apple employees make enough they could pay for a room for an evening to shorten the number of trips.

I personally don't care if people want to WFH. The pros: good for people that are disabled, would have long commutes, etc. It's good for the environment if there's fewer cars everyday on the road and nice to keep traffic a little more thinned out.

The cons: A business in NYC pays triple wages to the opposite side of the state for good reason. Remote work (without pay adjustment) contributes to inequality. You can see a similar phenomenon when freshly retired pensioners sell their NE homes for 500k, to an area with homes for half that, eventually ruining it by jacking up cost of living -- houses go up 3-5x in a couple years. They also have income based on COL in NE, greatly outpacing local incomes. In some places, even if you paid off your home, that means rising property taxes.

It's also kind of going against that whole thing about spreading out too much. Suddenly there's a whole lot of people wanting to move further out. More utilities spread out, more demand on keeping up with infrastructure, more environmental impacts, etc.... Which look I get it, who wants to be in a small city apartment if you WFH all day? However; people kind of need a thriving central location for lots of reasons (sports, concerts, shopping, etc)., No matter where they end up.

Either way, the situation is complex and there's no one solution to keep cities thriving, keep workers happy, keep COL down, etc. Basically I'm not strongly for or against it. I see both sides of the argument and benefits to both lifestyles.

I remember pre-pandemic Apple had some work at home program for tech advisors. I interviewed with them around 2017. I wonder what happened with program.

Dumb cunts. Covid shouldn’t allow you to use teleworking as a crutch. Bring your ass in. The pandemic is over. Oh well should be the first to go when the bots replace us all.

My employer confirmed they'd like us to come into the office once a week, but it's not enforced. I usually do go in once a week, but it's always fairly quiet and, apart from if I have an in-person meeting, I never really feel any major benefit to office working.

With Teams and webcams I feel as connected to my colleagues as I did pre-pandemic.

Added to this, our company had another very strong year financially in 2022 and has praised all the staff for their efforts. So it's clear that the home working culture hasn't turned us into lazy employees, nor has it meant we've made a loss.

With that in mind I don't see why Apple, Twitter and other companies are pushing so hard to get employees back into the office so much. They must think it helps the business more (because, let's face it, they don't really give a fuck about employee wellbeing) and yet I can't believe my employer is the only one that's benefiting from a home working culture.

Aside from healthcare, law enforcement, and certain media and entertainment positions, what jobs absolutely require one to go into an office, and for what purpose? Serious question.

Why would I give a fuck where Apple or anyone else have people working? Whatever the workers feel comfortable with is probably for the best. After Covid they're never going to force everyone into cubefarms again.

R8, shut up bitch. Ideas grow in groups.

Type-A assholes, extroverts and people who don't trust their staff or co-workers don't like WFH because they think it shows a lack of slavish devotion to your job (the type-A's), or because they need constant in-person company to be happy (the extroverts), or because they think nobody working at home really does his job (the suspicious ones).

Unfortunately, leadership in most organizations is heavily composed of these types, so I've always thought that WFH was likely to diminish except in certain situations where the company can save money. For example, one employer I know sent their entire finance department home permanently because the company was leasing their office space. The people who worked in space the company owned ... much more restricted in terms of WFH.

Many of us who love WFH have been surprised to find how many people don't like it, but the reverse situation is true as well. The super-workaholic professionals I work with have been, I think, truly astonished to find that administrative employees would rather work at home. They really didn't understand that most of us work to live, whereas they live to work. Now that they've figure it out, they don't like it.

Tech workers have been WFH since the early '90s.

Apple is going backward instead of forward. They shouldn't be investing so much money in office leases and buildings. The on-campus elaborate cafeteria / massage therapist / etc. always seemed like a trick.

R7 Banking, utility companies, and government agencies.

WFH is for slackers who want to surf the internet and watch porn all day, then put in 30 minutes of actual work and say that they earned a day's wage.

WFH should never have been allowed in the first place, Covid or no Covid.

OP seems a bit overly invested in retribution against workers for an enormous company.

Is the DL now the Cunt Central for the Loser Grievance Movement?

R7 Exactly. Technology is at a point now where being in the office five days a week is a thing of the past. When office-based businesses mostly carried on during enforced isolation, it made most people realise that they didn't need to commute every day.

R10 One of my more extrovert colleagues goes into the office quite regularly. She claims it's for her "mental health". All she does is gossip and talk crap all day, so it's not surprising she doesn't like WFH. That's why I don't get people who think office working is always more productive. They clearly don't work in an office, otherwise they'd see and hear all the procrastinating, inane babble and general time wasting that goes on.

[quote] Banking, utility companies, and government agencies.

Admin work can be done from home. Government has tons of admin work. People rarely walk into banks, anymore. Utility companies: the ones who can't WFH are probably the people who work in the field - they're still not going into an office.

Exactly, R16. So much depends on your starting point. If you start with the assumption that everyone must work on site, then ask who could WFH, you'll get a very different answer than if you start with the assumption that most office work can be done from home and then figured out who really needed to be on site.

It all depends on your default assumptions.

R16 lives in some alternative tech-douche "reality."

There are people who still demand to conduct all of their business in those areas, IN PERSON.

Thus, there will always be a need for employees in those sectors to report in to a physical office.

You're probably one of those jerks who want the world to be cashless, too.

Much to the detriment of poor people.

You sound like an entitled asshole.

R18 It's mostly only old people now who want to conduct business solely in person. And they won't be around much longer.

You can whinge and moan, but you can't stop the march of progress.

[quote] [R16] lives in some alternative tech-douche "reality."

I'm actually old and not super tech-savvy. I still walk into the Post Office. I still like to shop for my own produce and groceries (in a brick-and-mortar store). Yes, I will use self-checkout. I still use cash for purchases under $20. I'm sad about the demise of cash and I like Japan's cash system and high-value coins (e.g., a 500-yen / approx. $5 coin).

I think old people should be able to walk into brick-and-mortar banks and other places. However, younger people and older / tech-savvy people should be able to do what's convenient for them, as well.

Elon Musk disagrees with you, R19:

[quote] Elon Musk emailed Twitter staff at 2:30 a.m. telling them the 'office is not optional,' report says

Elon Musk reportedly emailed Twitter staff early on Wednesday to remind them about the company's remote-working policy.

Zoë Schiffer, a managing editor at Platformer, tweeted: "Elon Musk sent Twitter employees an email at 2:30am saying the 'office is not optional.'"

The Twitter owner said in his memo that the company's headquarters in San Francisco "was half empty yesterday," per Schiffer's tweet.

However, Musk has fired thousands of employees since taking control of the company in late October with the total now thought to be about 1,300, per CNBC.

Twitter didn't respond to a request for comment from Insider; the company laid off its communications team last week and its press office now automatically responds to emails with a poop emoji.

Musk has previously sent emails to employees in the middle of the night. In November, he sent one at 2:39 a.m. telling employees they would no longer be permitted to work remotely.

Musk began the memo by saying that there was "no way to sugarcoat the message" about the economic climate and its influence on Twitter, which depends on advertising revenue.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is no fan of remote working. Last May, he told Tesla staff to return to the office full-time or find jobs elsewhere.

Following the ultimatum, Tesla started to monitor employees' office attendance, Insider previously reported.

Ideas grow in groups? Really? That's the only way people ever have ideas and the only way they grow.

That's a proven lie. Shut up yourself, dumb bitch.

Elon Musk? Elon is a lunatic, aspie, drug addict currently throwing away his fortune and making desperate, flailing moves trying to pretend it's not all going down the fucking tubes.

As if anyone serious would take anything he says as valuable. Fucking freak. He just wants people around to bully because he's lonely. He can't keep a relationship going and he has no real friends.

What percentage of his workforce has quit over the past year across all his companies? TONS. Everyone hates him and with good reason. He's crazy, mean and unstable.

But by all means, take his junkie crypto recommendations and buy his deathtrap cars. What could go wrong?

OP does posts about WFH every few weeks or months.

[quote][R18] It's mostly only old people now who want to conduct business solely in person.

r19 And who do you think is mainly complaining about this on DL? I can assure you it's not the under-50s. Corporations are no longer tailoring how they do business to the older generations. In fact, they never did. As morbid as this sounds, corporations will always cater to the demographic that is, statistically, expected to be living long enough to continually patronize their services. Boomers are now categorized as "about to die soon and more likely to cost more money looking for discounts due to being on a fixed income." That's coldblooded as hell, but that's corporate America.

R21 I see disagreement with Elon Musk as a good thing! He's a weirdo and is clearly regretting his purchase of Twitter. The fact he's sending work emails at 2:30am shows he's got strange ideas when it comes to work.

I get he thinks working yourself into the ground is the 'right' way to do things, but I care more about my health. I still work more than I should, but my work day is more like 8am to 5:30pm (I get paid for 9am to 5pm). When I work from the office I go home earlier than 5:30pm because of the commute. Whereas I don't mind working till 5:30pm at home because once I switch my computer off I don't have to think about getting in the car and braving rush hour traffic.

So if my employer forced me into the office more, I can guarantee I'd do a lot less hours over a month, though still within the minimum stated in my contract.

R24 I find those who are vociferously against WFH fall into two main categories:

Old, retired and bitter that they didn't have the option to WFH when they were working age. ("If I had to do it, so can they!")

In an occupation where WFH isn't possible, so they're jealous of those who have the option. Also possibly shift workers that do unsociable hours and see WFH as a 'luxury' with sociable hours.

The first category can't do much, but the second category can look elsewhere for work if they want WFH flexibility. Pretty much any office based role offers it now because they know if they don't, they'll fail to compete effectively.

R22, it is properly written like this:

“Shut up, dumb bitch”.

Also, why do you troll?

You can write the English language pretty well. Isn’t there a better job for someone like you?

[quote] Old, retired and bitter that they didn't have the option to WFH when they were working age. ("If I had to do it, so can they!")

[quote] In an occupation where WFH isn't possible, so they're jealous of those who have the option. Also possibly shift workers that do unsociable hours and see WFH as a 'luxury' with sociable hours.

I started working remotely in accounting in 2017. I had been laid off from my previous job. When I started my job hunt I saw some remote positions with several companies. I applied for some of them, but never really thought I would get hired for one. A few weeks after I started my remote job, I went to a family wedding. An older relative's husband made some bitter remarks when a few relatives were asking about my job. When covid hit in 2020, he went on bitch fests on Facebook about companies setting up employees to work from home .

There are some WFH jobs especially in customer service or tech support that are shift based and aren't always flexible when it comes to scheduling. Shortly after I started working from a home, a friend of mine got a remote tech support job. She works a 12:00 pm 8:30 pm schedule which she admits sucks at times. She's a paraplegic and uses a wheelchair and she says working from home has taken off some of the stress of not always having to drive around and trying to deal with public places that are sometimes difficult to navigate in a wheelchair. Working in tech support, she has to deal with rude assholes on the phone, but being in her home makes easier for her to destress during breaks and lunch.

I have another friend is a mental health therapist and works remotely. Most of her client base are sexual abuse and assault survivors. Not an easy thing to deal with, but like my other friend she says being in a home environment makes it easier to destress after hearing difficult things from clients. She has been in social situations in which people seem bitter that she works from home. But, when people ask her about the type of therapy she specializes in they pretty much shut up when she mentions working with clients dealing with sexual abuse/assault trauma, PTSD, grief, and other difficult specialties.

@R16, people absolutely still go into banks. Where do you live?

[quote] @R16, people absolutely still go into banks. Where do you live?

R16 lives in fantasy land, where no one uses in-person services any more, and the world is cashless.

As an aside, people with their unhinged lunatic hatred of Elon Musk have strange emotional issues. I find it very weird, both their reactions to him and the way he suddenly became Hitler of the month with his Twitter purchase.

There are some days where all I do is respond to Slack messages and attend meetings on cam that should have been emails.

If I worked in the office I’d still have to deal with all of that and with office gossip and travel.

There are also more boundaries because you get to go home. With WFH, I get contacted at all hours of the day & night. I have access to everything right there all the time and they know it.

R30, I'm not R16, but I haven't been a bank in years. Who goes into banks and for what purpose? I guess if you have complicated banking matters to discuss, you would want to meet with someone, but such a meeting would be pre-arranged and could be over the phone or online.

I'm old, by the way, so it's not an age thing.

R33, yes. If you work at home, your work hours will probably spill over into what used to be non-work time. Isn't it worth it not to have to commute? To be able to get up 15 minutes before you start working? To be able to do the laundry while you're working?

If you are a strict "I work hard 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. Outside those hours, fuck you" person, you're better off working in an office. To WFH and also be stiff-necked about your work schedule is overreaching and will doom WFH.

Oh, dear. I meant "IN a bank in years".

[quote]Isn't it worth it not to have to commute? To be able to get up 15 minutes before you start working?

"You should be grateful to work from home! So grateful in fact that you work an extra 10-15 hours every week!" Working from home is just that. It is working from home. There's no other provisos attached to that other than the ones you make up in your mind.

[quote]To be able to do the laundry while you're working?

You see: when I work from home, I'm actually working from home. I don't have time to do the laundry and I shouldn't be. I should be working and that is what I'm doing. Working ... from home. - Kamala Harris.

[quote]If you are a strict "I work hard 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. Outside those hours, fuck you" person, you're better off working in an office.

Please, this isn't Twitter. You're making a lot of assumptions. I basically said, "I worked less hours when I worked in the office," and you said, "No, you didn't. You deserve to work more hours if you don't come in!" as if you fucking know or have any clue.

It's very weird and creepy.

I get that not every branch of a bank needs to be the size of a football field. But some things still need to be done inside of a branch.

It also depends on the market and the customers. When I lived in Chicago they had the big main branch there and most of the other locations only had a handful of people, often acting more as places for deposits and money counting from local businesses.

I can't remember the last time I needed to go into a bank. Oh actually I can! It was to pay a cheque in, but the only reason I had to go into a branch was because the value of the cheque exceeded the amount the app would let me pay in.

I am R16. I am older, as I said at R20. I don’t see my post at R16 as being so controversial. Office / admin work can be done at home.

More people WFH —> less traffic on the roads for those who prefer to drive to the office. I really don’t understand the opposition to this.

I agree with the posters who say that those who say people who like WFH are lazy are those who don't have a life and come to gossip and talk stupid crap and are frauing in the office all day long.

These c0rps are doubling down because they know they're losing control on the popu.

I don't have a life but I would still rather work from home given the choice.