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(Austonia)
Adding to an eventful start to 2021, Central Texans experienced snow, bringing power outages, school closures and pictures of snowy Austin to social media.
A winter weather advisory went into effect for Travis County and surrounding areas at 6 a.m. Sunday by the National Weather Service. Rain poured until finally the first flurries hit North Austin early in the day. The city continued to be covered in a layer of white snow moving down to South Austin and eventually as south as San Antonio.
It snowed for multiple hours of the day, bringing up to six inches to some parts of Austin, when up to four were forecasted. It was an amount of snow not seen since the winter of 2004.
(Christa McWhirter/Austonia)
The snowfall weighed down on trees, which knocked down some branches on powerlines. By 3 p.m., Austin Energy reported 156 power outages, affecting about 37,000 Austinites.
Repairs occurred all day, but outages continue into the morning. Some traffic light signals have also been affected; the city asks all drivers to treat traffic signals as four-way stops when not working or blinking red.
While this tree limb didn't fall on a power line, you can see how snow accumulation on trees can weigh down limbs.… https://t.co/IEGjjXnnNQ— Austin Energy (@Austin Energy) 1610325046.0
Shelters opened up by the city of Austin at 6 p.m. Sunday and will open again Monday. Single adults are directed to the Central Library and families to the Downtown Salvation Army Shelter. Everyone needing shelter will be screened for COVID-19 upon arrival.
The Texas Department of Transportation treated roads for icy conditions early Sunday and through the night to prevent ice from building up. However, with low temperatures, roads are icy into Monday morning, as seen on the TxDOT highway conditions site. Multiple car accidents have been reported Monday morning. North and northwest Austin residents are asked to avoid certain bridges and roads until 9 a.m.: 620, 360, 183, 45, 1431.
Our crews were out treating Austin area roadways today and will be working through the night to prevent ice buildup… https://t.co/DIeUyBdScN— TxDOT Austin (@TxDOT Austin) 1610327473.0
Staying clear of icy roads and power outages, local schools opted for students and staff to stay home.
Austin ISD announced Sunday it would be completely remote Monday. IDEA Austin also decided to go remote.
Other school districts, including Eanes, Del Valle, Lake Travis, Round Rock, Leander and Pflugerville, canceled classes altogether.
(Christa McWhirter/Austonia)
While ice still appears on the ground into Monday, there is no more snow forecasted this week. Temperatures will be in the 40s Monday and dip into the 20s at night. The rest of the week will get slightly warmer, staying mostly in the 60s. Thursday will be the warmest day of the week with a high of 70 degrees.
More on snow in 2021:
It's snowing! Here's what that looks like in Austin
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Popular
Two former Apple employees, one who worked at the West Parmer Lane campus, speak out about their experience working at the tech giant. (Andrea Guzmán/Austonia)
Parrish, who lives in Round Rock and worked at Apple’s Austin campus as an Apple Maps program manager for about five years, is a leader of an internal movement at the tech giant. It comes at a time when the company is expanding its local presence with a new $1 billion Northwest campus with space for 5,000 employees.
Parrish worked at this Apple campus on West Parmer Lane. (Steven Joyner)
In August, the movement known as #AppleToo launched a website with the goal of organizing employees and sharing stories about alleged workplace harassment and discrimination. Austonia talked to Parrish and another former Apple employee who are part of the movement about their claims in what they observed while working for Apple.
“I’ve been advocating for members of my immediate team within Apple for several years,” Parrish said. “And when I realized that the issues that I was seeing with my own team were true throughout Apple, there was a natural transition toward, ok let’s expand this advocacy and instead be more of an advocate for everybody at Apple to ensure that we the workers at Apple are treated fairly and equitably and get treated as human beings.”
In the lead-up to her firing, Parrish faced an allegation that she had leaked details from a recent all-hands meeting to the Verge. She says she suspects it’s this, along with her advocacy, that influenced Apple’s decision to fire her.
“I didn’t do (the leak). And I know that Apple knows I didn’t do this,” Parrish said since a few employees including herself didn’t have access to that meeting due to a system crash that day. “I was still placed under investigation.”
As a requirement of the investigation, Parrish turned in her work devices. Before doing so, she wiped the files from her computer, saying she didn’t want her personal files on Apple servers. After a few days on paid suspension, she says human resources called and told her she’d been terminated with the reason being that she’d deleted those files.
Parrish is one of the leaders of the AppleToo movement. (Janneke Parrish)
Before Parrish’s firing, Apple was taking action on leaks and workplace organizing. An internal memo from 2018 noted a number of leakers they had caught were arrested. About a month before Parrish was fired, the tech giant had fired a senior engineering program manager for allegedly leaking confidential information. And in a September note, CEO Tim Cook sent a note to all Apple employees saying “people who leak confidential information do not belong” at Apple.
Austonia asked Apple about Parrish’s case and other matters at the company. In an email reply, the company said:
“We are and have always been deeply committed to creating and maintaining a positive and inclusive workplace. We take all concerns seriously and we thoroughly investigate whenever a concern is raised and, out of respect for the privacy of any individuals involved, we do not discuss specific employee matters.”
Another piece of Parrish’s advocacy involved career opportunities for workers, particularly those based in Austin.
Even though Apple upped their presence in Austin in recent years, Parrish said Austin-area employees couldn’t enjoy networking opportunities like California workers did as Apple events were held on the West Coast. Texan Apple workers shouldn’t have to relocate to move up, she said.
“For those of us in Austin, I noticed, especially for my department, my career options were extremely limited,” Parrish said. “I was told by a manager that if I really wanted to advance in my career, I would have to move out to California.”
Parrish said Apple employees in Austin do not have the same career opportunities as those in California. (Shutterstock)
Austonia spoke to another member of the organizing group AppleToo. She requested anonymity to not hinder future job prospects in the tech industry. She’ll be identified with the pseudonym Mary.
Mary said she’s worked at Apple since 2008 in Austin, starting off as a contractor in customer support at iTunes and moving around over the years, leaving the tech giant earlier this month.
“It’s too hard to advance and there are no opportunities for development so (I was) just kind of stuck in a dead-end job,” Mary said.
Mary felt that another challenge was being a woman at a tech company. Starting out, she says she was the lowest paid in a training class of mostly men with pay of around $30,000, which rose to about $55,000 by the time she left.
But aside from pay, communication also proved to be a hurdle. To make her persona appear gender-neutral, she changed how her name was displayed on Slack, the interoffice directory and over email to just her first initial.
“The hard part was when I would have to get into a meeting with people then I felt like my voice is giving me away now,” Mary said. “But when I could avoid having meetings, I felt like it did make a difference.”
Mary says there’s been some movement in the right direction. An internal memo in November affirmed employees’ right to discuss pay after it had shut down employee-run pay equity surveys and an employee-run Slack channel. Earlier this month, it announced new efforts in a racial equity and justice initiative.
“We all want to see positive changes from Apple,” Mary said. “We all want them to look at wage disparities. We’d like to see more diversity—more minorities in leadership positions, more females in leadership positions.”
Still, Mary feels there’s more to be done. “I wish Apple was more responsive at making bigger changes,” she said.
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