Perhaps the most compelling argument was that Apple was being hypocritical in the way it markets its own products. "We tell all of our customers how great our products are for remote work, yet, we ourselves, cannot use them to work remotely?" the letter states.
> We tell all of our customers how great our products are for remote work, yet, we ourselves, cannot use them to work remotely? How can we expect our customers to take that seriously? How can we understand what problems of remote work need solving in our products if we don't live it?
I'd have to agree. If you're building products and market them for "remote working", then you better have figured out remote working yourself in your own environment, otherwise I won't trust that you've actually gotten it right.
Of course, there is also a difference between different job functions. If you're in the hardware team, I can see how it's hard to actually collaborate remotely on a bunch of stuff. But for the pencil pushers in corporate? Definitely should have figured out how to make that work.
Tools can be ideal without the situation they call for being ideal. Apple isn't pushing for remote work, it just has a good solve for it. Its not hypocritical at all.
> Turkey creating great drones does not require them to believe war is good.
I don’t think that’s the correct analogy. It’s more like Turkey creating great drones while also believing that drones are not an effective way to wage war.
Your Turkey allegory isn't fitting due to "si vis pacem para bellum". Turkey can say war isn't good, and one of the best ways to dissuade potential enemies is by being good at war. Nothing similar is at play with Apple.
There’s a big difference between what’s needed to design and build something and what’s needed to use something. I hope Tim Cook fires all these whiners.
They aren’t being fired for having different opinions.
They are being fired for
(a) essentially explicitly stating they are not gonna do a good job working in the way the company thinks its employees should be working
(b) trying to get the company to change through “open letters” through the press.
Both (a) and (b) are reasons for firing on their own. It has nothing to do with differing opinions.
It’s like me telling my team that since the Product Owner did not prioritize the feature I think is critical for us to work on first, I will not really do a good job with working on the features the PO did prioritize.
The company would be foolish to fire me because I said our PO sucks and makes terrible decisions. The company would not be foolish to fire me because I said that because I disagree with the PO I’m gonna do a half hearted job. Especially if the way I communicated this to the company is through a half page advert in the NYTimes.
>>They aren’t being fired for having different opinions.<<
Just to be clear, no one mentioned anything about anyone being fired in the article that I could see. There is a return to the office mandate for two days a week, so I guess if you just don't show up for work two days a week, yeah, you'll be fired but that's a different thing.
In an anonymous poll given (article linked below) there were quite a few employees who stated they were going to look for remote jobs and quit.
