When everything's “ist”, everything's an “ist”
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A group of Apple employees have accused the big-tech giant of racism over its push for corporate workers to return to the office, saying that the shift back to an in-person model will make the company 'younger, whiter, [and] more male-dominated.'
The employees, organized under the newly-formed group Apple Together, petitioned the company on Friday in an open letter after CEO Tim Cook told staffers that they would need to work from the office one day a week starting on April 11, two days per week after three weeks, and three days per week after May 23.
They wrote that the decision to bring employees back to the office was not motivated by a 'need to commune in person,' as Cook wrote in his letter to staff, but rather was driven by the company's 'fear of the future of work, fear of worker autonomy [and] fear of losing control.' [Which is what used to be called, “working for someone else” — if you don’t like having a boss, start your own company — Ed]
Although Apple will 'likely always find people willing to work here,' the group wrote, the shift back to working in the office will 'change the makeup of [the company's workforce].'
'It will lead to privileges deciding who can work for Apple, not who’d be the best fit,' the group wrote.
'Privileges like “being born in the the right place so you don’t have to relocate”, or “being young enough to start a new life in a new city/country” or “having a stay-at-home spouse who will move with you."'
'And privileges like being born into a gender that society doesn’t expect the majority of care-work from, so it’s easy to disappear into an office all day, without doing your fair share of unpaid work in society. Or being rich enough to pay others to do your care-work for you.'
One could make a strong argument that the cost of housing has grown so exorbitant in Silicon Valley that employees are, just like the rest of California’s middle-class, being forced out of the city to housing that’s hours away from work; that might very well justify abandoning the central-office model and going remote. But these children see everything that affects them through a prism of victimhood, and couch their arguments from that, to me, unpersuasive world-view.
Corporate executives have only themselves to blame for losing their companies to an invasion of petulant infants: they raised them that way, and sent them on to colleges designed to continue their insulation from responsibility and unpleasant tasks. You made ‘em, you deal with them.
Here’s someone who thinks he’s got an answer for the next crop :
