Question: Q: Open Plan Offices in the New Spaceship Campus

Hello Bill,

Look at the bright side. Nobody cared about working conditions for electronics assembly people in China until Apple. Apple used those factories because they were so cheap. That led to a media spotlight, better working conditions in China, and now work being potentially moved back the USA.

Maybe the same thing will happen with programmers. That "open concept" is standard practice on the west coast. Make now that Apple is using is too, people will finally start to complain about it. And maybe this will lead to more work for US citizens. Just the other day this story came out with 42% of STEM workers in California being foreign born. American tech companies like to hire immigrants because they can pay them less, they can't quit, and they can make them work in these factory-farm, assembly-line conditions that Apple is now promoting.

Unfortunately, I think your prayers will fall on deaf ears. The 9-5 is pretty much constant interruptions and meetings. Most programmers will have to get their development work done in the evenings and on weekends. That's the way the tech industry works. But there is one more, literal, bright side. With all that glass, maybe people will setup some remote light measuring equipment to track just how much Apple people are working after dark. This will "shine the light" on people living in glass houses. 🙂

Hello again Bill,

Maybe you should go out and take a full time job, just to see what it is like these days. 🙂

I did that last year. The people I worked with were so happy not to be at ****** anymore. They loved the work-life balance where they could leave work by 7pm and work from home on the weekends. You hardly ever saw people break down and cry at their desk or in the hallway. At the end of the day, fudging the numbers to match expectations of management seemed like a small price to pay.