Being Asked to Show up to Work Is Racist – Opinion

Another one for the “You can’t make this stuff up” file: Apple employees are telling the company that its request to have them return to the office is in effect “racist.” As I joked in a RedState satire Saturday, the left is changing the word racist to mean, “anything it doesn’t like.”

In a Friday open letter, available here, around 200 employees from a group called “Apple Together” complained about the company’s decision to have workers return to the office after the long COVID hiatus.

“It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
– Steve Jobshttps://t.co/heTNv9PLRL #AppleTogether

— Apple Together (@AppleLaborers) April 29, 2022

This whiny monologue sounds like something your 13 year old would use to try to persuade you to not make them go to school tomorrow. Evidently, you will be coming to work.

…make Apple younger, whiter, more male-dominated, more neuro-normative, more able-bodied, in short, it will lead to privileges deciding who can work for Apple, not who’d be the best fit.

They don’t really explain Why? that would be the case, but they’re clearly convinced of it.

These complaints follow a statement by Tim Cook, Apple CEO, that staff needed to be present at the office on a minimum of one day each week. He also stated that after three weeks, they should come back to work three times per week. The third week was for Apple employees. The horror! The privileged are the only ones who can withstand the demands of the actual job.

Privileges like “being born in 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. You might be able to hire others to take care of your care.

Aren’t these the challenges that every working person since time immemorial has had to face?

Consider how great it feels to work for one of the top companies in the world. Instead, they’re triggered by the fact that their boss actually gets to tell them what to do:

It is not our intention to force everyone to work remotely. Together with our direct managers and teams, we are seeking to determine what arrangement is best for us all, whether it be in an office or at home. We don’t need to be treated like elementary school students who have to know when and how to complete their homework.

You’re not school kids—you’re employees! Sorry people, when they’re paying you actual money, they’re allowed to tell you what to do, and if it isn’t onerous, dangerous, or illegal, you’re supposed to do it. A visit to the office is not uncommon and doesn’t seem excessively taxing.

In-person collaboration is a great way to get creative ideas across the board. This isn’t something that many people need all the time. Hybrid working pilot is the best way to ensure everyone can stay together in one place, even if it’s not necessary every so often.

Imagine if gardeners, construction workers, truck drivers—everyday working Americans—decided it was simply too much of a burden for them to shed their pajamas and get themselves to the worksite. It would cause the world to shut down.

Zoom, Slack, Google Meetings—all those technologies helped us find new ways to work during the pandemic. They are all great tools that offer greater flexibility and should be used by companies. Their widespread use, however, was because we were in a crisis—they were not supposed to become the “new normal.” The innovation and creativity of so many great American companies requires that people actually collaborate (not over a screen) and meet in person.  Claiming that being required to show up every now and then is “racist” and overly burdensome reeks of an entitled, privileged viewpoint that is not a healthy bellwether for the future of our economy.