I get the impression Apple's at-home workers discussed in this article aren't engineers or otherwise involved with core product development? The weird training and mock customer calls tells me it's customer support, or something similar. In which case the comparison to Yahoo's recent closing of its work at home program doesn't really seem apt (since, as I understand it, Yahoo's <i>was</i> mostly engineers).
<i>One certified Apple trainer told me that managers closely scrutinize every call</i><p>This will be a myth, otherwise you're paying a manager's rate plus a low-level employee's rate for every call. It's likely what they <i>tell</i> the employees to put the fear of god into them.<p>My money is on Apple recording every call and having the managers listen into the odd one here and there, and if there are specific issues on a past call, the recording is there... just like any other large call centre.
Notice how the hub cities are all small to mid-size with low costs of living. There are none in California or New York. This probably makes paying the workers only $9-12/hour much more viable than in parts of the country with higher costs of living. Essentially, they've "outsourced" to the less-expensive parts of the US, rather than to India or the Philippines.
Maybe it's just me, but such a training would just push me to quit.<p>I work from home once a week and it is the only day where I get a good amount of coding done, because of fewer interruptions.<p>It takes certain kinds to work from home. I do not think I could work from home every day, it would be too hard to motivate myself; but who knows, I haven't tried.
I'd be interested in seeing data from other large tech employers regarding productivity and ROI (on both the training required and the work that could be/<i>is</i> done at home). Author should've been more clear between engineers and support reps.
By the way, I see Coursera more like a nursery for future employees than an online university. If they coupled employment with high MOOC competency, maybe that would motivate people. That would solve their problem with monetizing and motivating students to take it seriously.
Yeah the story definitely isn't core-apple. The people I knew in design and engineering who worked at home while at Apple were not watched at all really...