I work remote so no judgment, I just don't know if I feel like my life was infinitely worse when I worked in an office.
Cycling around cities is fun. The gym with others was fun. Post work beers / dinner was fun. Making friends with colleagues was fun. Being able to study martial arts in the city is something I wanted to do, seems fun.
Average house price in Cupertino (not that you'd live directly in the same place) is 2.6+ million. $300-400,000 salary doesn't cut it anymore.
I wouldn't want to finance the average house on the average Apple salary [2] or a doctor's salary [3].
Realistically, to comfortably afford a 3 million house with 10% down assuming 3% financing (good luck getting that now), you'd need clear about $780,000 per year in cash [4].
[1] https://www.redfin.com/city/4561/CA/Cupertino/housing-market
[2] https://www.levels.fyi/companies/apple/salaries/software-eng...
[3] https://www1.salary.com/CA/San-Francisco/Doctor-Salary.html
[4] https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-much-should-you-make-to...
If you could live in a 3 bedroom luxury apartment 10 minutes from your office in an area with nice cafes, restaurants, gyms and access to great public transport to airports etc, how would you feel then?
Rents will follow mortgage rates as well. I just did a quick lookup of 3 bedrooms around Apple's office in Cupertino and they are about $7,000 or so a month which means you're paying about $90,000 in cash a year in rent.
> having to commute 1-2 hours after work
> possibly losing money on the commute, trains whatever, traffic, road rage
> loss of personal space, dealing with noise,
> loss of control of environment, people talking over your head, coming and going, so many visual and audio distractions, temperature
> cannot use your own bathroom, sometimes have to queue for a piss
> less time with your family
> have to wear uncomfortable work clothes
> have to sit at a desk for 6-8 hours like a pleb
> people coming to your desk to tell you they sent you an email about a slack message they sent
this is off the top of my head, i'm sure there are more.
but the biggest problem is that we;ve seen the last 2 years its not necessary to work from office, just because - it's cruel and unfair.
The problem isn't so much offices in general, but the particular one in question. Apple spent five billion dollars on a gargantuan vanity project that actually leaves their individual contributors worse off than they were before with respect to personal space, privacy, and the ability to work without constant interference and distraction from their coworkers.
Some teams revolted [1], and a few even got away with it, but most employees had no choice but to fall in line. When the pandemic came along, life suddenly got better for those people... an utterly-unprecedented phenomenon that a more enlightened management team would have taken like a dash of cold water to the face. Instead, Apple management has been trying to double down on their $5B sunk-cost fallacy by herding their workforce back into the industrial-scale circular feedlot where they belong.
Meanwhile, because of the shortage of housing within reasonable commuting distance of their new campus, even those earning well into six figures are going to have to spend 1-2 hours a day stuck in traffic or cooling their heels on a bus or train for the privilege of working for Apple. The execs can afford to live nearby, of course, so they DGAF about the needless time burden they're imposing. I would be incandescently pissed about this if I worked at Apple.
1: https://www.computerworld.com/article/3660071/apple-employee...
We spend time visiting them for a couple of weeks at a time. They all are 70+, so it is that time when we want to take advantage of having them.
Even having to go to the office 1 day a week wouldn't make that possible, thus it is an instant disqualification for me.
- I get to pick the furniture I need for work. Currently I have an embarrassing amount of screen space with no regrets. I choose my won ergonomy.
- My house: my own kitchen, my own bathroom.
- I get to start working early if I wake up early.
- I can control distractions.
- On slow days when I am done I can get up and do something else.
Older more established higher paid people, or younger staff trying to build their career.
This is where I see a lot of remote work being in favor of people who already have a career and are on the path to retirement. If you're younger looking to get mentored and build networks, you're out of luck.
Offices suck. The only reason the cattle are being called back into them is because a bunch of propertarian squidcunts convinced some corrupt mayors to say "it's time" even though COVID is still quite active (I'm recovering from it as I type this, and it sucks).
I saved myself a lot of money and time even if I paid more rent than others with cars and suburban mortgages.
I just told my colleagues if I had my headphones on , not to disturb me unless urgent. I got a fair bit done in the startup I worked for, it sold for a lot of money a year ago so I guess it was productive enough.