Linked List: March 14, 2022

Monday, 14 March 2022

‘Scott, You Don’t Understand’ 

Thinking about Apple’s for-pay on-campus employee cafes always makes me think about this story from Scott Forstall, from Steven Levy’s wonderful “Oral History of Apple’s Infinite Loop” for Wired:

Whenever I ate with Steve, he insisted on paying for me, which I thought was a little odd. Even if we went in together and he selected something quick like pre-made sushi, and I ordered a pizza in the wood-burning pizza oven, he would wait for me at the cash register for 10, 15 minutes. I felt so awkward. Finally, I told him. “Seriously, I can pay for myself, so please don’t stand there and wait for me.” He said, “Scott, you don’t understand. You know how we pay by swiping your badge and then it’s deducted from your salary? I only get paid a dollar a year! Every time I swipe we get a free meal!” Here was this multi-billionaire putting one over on the company he founded, a few dollars at a time.

Facebook to Cut Back on Employee Perks 

Mike Isaac, Ryan Mac, and Sheera Frenkel, reporting for The New York Times:

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, told employees on Friday that it was cutting back or eliminating free services like laundry and dry cleaning and was pushing back the dinner bell for a free meal from 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., according to seven company employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The new dinner time is an inconvenience because the last of the company’s shuttles that take employees to and from their homes typically leaves the office at 6 p.m. It will also make it more difficult for workers to stock up on hefty to-go boxes of food and bring them to their refrigerators at home.

I feel just awful for these awful people who willfully work for an awful company.

The changes could be a warning shot for employees at other companies that are preparing to return to the office after two years of the coronavirus pandemic. Google, Meta and others have long offered creature comforts like on-site medical attention, sushi buffets, candy stores and beanbag chairs to lure and retain top talent, which remains at a premium in the tech industry.

Apple has never really been a part of the Silicon Valley extravagant perks game. When upstart companies like Google were giving away free meals and haircuts and installing adult-sized sliding boards, Apple stayed the course with on-campus cafes where the food was good, but employees had to, you know, pay for it. People said Apple was out of touch then.

Foxconn Shuts Factories for at Least a Week Because of COVID Lockdown 

Tiffany May, reporting for The New York Times:

Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics firm that assembles Apple’s iPhones, said Monday that its factories in Shenzhen, China, would suspend operations after the city imposed a seven-day coronavirus lockdown.

Shenzhen borders Hong Kong, which has reported nearly 3,780 Covid-19 deaths and nearly 700,000 new cases since late January. While infections in the rest of China remain low compared with the rest of the world, the number of reported cases is growing rapidly. China’s National Health Commission reported 3,122 new cases on Sunday, about double the amount on Saturday and three times that on Friday.