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Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#651

Post by humanwhosits »

turtlebits wrote: post #624
bodge5000 wrote: post #118

With all due respect, this is mostly my problem with the "work-from-office" (WFO for ease) crowd. Generally, the stance of the WFH crowd is that each individual should get a choice of what makes that individual happy. Very few, if any, of the WFH crowd want mandatated WFH, it would make no sense. But then the WFO crowd often says no, I don't care what makes you happy, because you being in makes me happy. That doesn't…

Are you talking about management? I prefer to work in office and have no opinions on whether my teammates WFH or not. I do find remote meetings extremely unproductive though. What I find annoying is all the reluctance to return to office, especially where companies are trying to compromise and only require a few days a week. If there was no COVID, people would be working in office as they've always done. You were hir…

We did re-negotiate, en masse. This is why the office is no longer an expectation.

I don't know about your org, but I had a conversation with my manager, and all my reports had a conversation with me about it. This worked it's way up the org chart until the CEO understood what the new reality was.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#652

Post by JCharante »

jakevoytko wrote: post #579
_blz2 wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in NYC/Brooklyn, the crime rate and filth are both high. Not to mention the rude behavior that takes over anyone who spent more than a year there. Something like Tokyo, Singapore in terms of lawfulness and politeness is whats desperately needed in the US. Any city in the US is far from that.

As always, NYC is one of the safer US cities in the nation across basically any metric you can find, and sometimes one of the safest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... We leave our trash in the streets, and I'm an asshole. So I can concede those points! But most city dwellers in the US live somewhere less safe than NYC.

Haven’t 4 or 6 people literally died on the NYC subway in the last 6 weeks?

NYC needs more law & order

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#653

Post by z9znz »

slothtrop wrote: post #618
z9znz wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WFH can be predicated by zoning / city density I would add nature as an opposite factor to city density. A lot of magical places exist, but they don't usually have offices and jobs. Remote work enables one to experience them. Many years ago I had been remote working for a couple of years and then realized that I didn't have to continue living in Dallas with 100+ degree summers and air quality warnings several days…

There are magical places, though they seem a tad less magical when they get overcrowded. I see owning a piece of 'magic' as a level of privilege that I don't think we can expect most middle-or-above class workers to indulge in without decimating away the magic, unless the population finally drops.

> decimating away the magic

Therein lies the problem. I have struggled with this, as I've seen places I "discovered" and loved become unlovable because too many others discovered. I know it's selfish of me to want it for myself, pristine, and not want to be overrun with others like me.

Despite this, the world is really large. For example, there are magical places in northern Thailand (minus the snowskiing) where one could setup shop and have spectacular nature, relative seclusion, but still good access to low cost food, housing, healthcare, etc.

What I dislike intensely is when the youtube-influencer crowd shows up. I feel embarrassed to see other westerners trotting around, talking loudly while holding up a camera, and acting as if they are kings on holiday. I know I exaggerate a bit, but I still worry at the impression it gives to local people. I like to be welcomed and appreciated, not viewed as an exploiter.

All that beside the point, I do think that travel benefits everyone. Some measure of care must be taken to "tread lightly", but it can be done, and on budget. And who knows... whether Ecuador or Mexico or Thailand or even rural France (no jab, just light humor to the amphibians :P... it's very lovely there), there are sights and experiences to be discovered and even new human connections to be made.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#654

Post by ad404b8a372f2b9 »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #372
z9znz wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> remarkably condescending I suspect there are two big difference between OP and many of the readers here. At least for sure, Berlin vs most major US cities is night and day different in terms of commute and enjoyment opportunity. Berlin is a fun city full of things to do, places to eat, and clubs. Plus it's all accessible without a car. Meanwhile, in the US, it's usually a very different story. Doing something after…

You may be right, but as a personal anecdote, I totally agree with the sentiment you're responding to. I don't particularly enjoy working from the office and much prefer doing so from home, but I can tolerate it. I like my colleagues and shooting the breeze with them, but they're not my friends. But boy do I absolutely hate my commute, to the point that it shadows whatever positives there are when working from the of…

Preach, I haven't been to Paris since the Covid restrictions started and I feel so much more rested, I added the 2-3 hours commute to my sleep time and you couldn't get me to leave my dead little suburban town for any salary.

I do feel some nostalgia for the in-office days but mostly for the times I was alone, like driving through an industrial zone at 5 A.M and seeing the bright red lights of a biochemical plant, the smell of car exhaust for some reason, seeing someone sitting at their desk by the single lit window of an office tower, getting to work first and getting to turn on the lights and get the coffee ready in a completely empty and silent building among many completely empty and silent buildings.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#655

Post by justrudd »

mmierz wrote: post #279
kotlin2 wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WFO isn't necessarily about personal preference. People who want everyone to WFO believe that WFO produces better outcomes for the company. That is different than someone who desires to work from an office or remotely out of personal preference. For instance, I may prefer to WFH because it makes my life more convenient, but I can also accept that WFO produces better outcomes for the company. Personally, I haven't see…

At my last work from office gig, I was sitting next to a sales support person who was on the phone all day long on topics that were irrelevant to my work. And the other software people would start shooting each other with f-ing nerf guns later on in the day. It was nearly impossible for me to concentrate. My personal preferences be damned, I add way more value to the company from my quiet, comfortable home office. I…

> shooting each other with f-ing nerf guns

Well before COVID and the WFH swing, I left a job that I loved because of f-ing nerf guns. Because it just went crazy. People started with the 1 shot at a time guns. But then someone else bought one that would shoot 10 in a second. Someone figured out how to make a magazine that held 30. And so on and so forth. So when I got hit with 1 or 2 darts a day, sure. But when I was caught in a crossfire of 100s of darts, I just got sick of it.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#656

Post by LawTalkingGuy »

scrumbledober wrote: post #532
jalk wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read "not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary" as in meaning invest themselves into the job - not a general statement about the person. I have friends who are like that - they work their expected hours, but don't do anything extra - they don't expect to get raises nor promotions and they are perfectly fine with that. They put their energy into other things (which they can't live off), but they are by…

but where is the connection between investing yourself into your job and going in to the office? That assumes that you can't work hard from home, which I don't believe to be true.

> That assumes that you can't work hard from home, which I don't believe to be true.

Where's the analysis of the job to see if it can really be performed ideally remotely.

Also, "hard" is a straw man. As a boss I want output not effort and part of being near coworkers is to avoid getting stuck and wasting resources.

> where is the connection between investing yourself into your job and going in to the office

If I was your coworker or boss and I showed you that connection for the job in question would you admit it and come in?

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#657

Post by listenallyall »

yboris wrote: post #529
listenallyall wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on... people work far less than they ever did before, that should be pretty obvious if you just think about it. Further, tons of "work" is done with zero physical strain, lots of those "work" hours are the in-between stuff -- travel, meetings, calls, lunches -- meaning that actual hours laboring are even less. https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours

Have you heard about 4DWW - Four Day Work Week? This is arguably the biggest and most-needed improvement in labor / worker rights in at least a few decades. I can't wait until it is implemented across the whole world. England, Portugal, and other countries are at the forefront already.

Hey, I like the idea of working less too. But why is this needed? If 4 becomes the law, how long until people will demand 3? And we have already experienced shortages of goods recently, how will things get made or shipped or fixed if people are working 20% less?

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#658

Post by pcthrowaway »

> As soon as a company's IT department is practically fully remote, why should they page a German wage for someone who is a face on a screen, when they can pay a fraction for that same face broadcasted from a few hundred kilometers further east or south

Based on my understanding, there aren't a plethora of opportunities to outsource work cheaper than good German devs.

I say this having worked for a German company with some excellent developers. Hiring a good developer from India would actually cost a German company more than hiring one from Germany (even if it's a remote job).

This question is definitely relevant to U.S. workers though, but I think the U.S.-based companies preferring workers in their own time zones prevents cheaper off-shore remote alternatives from being hired en masse.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#659

Post by _blz2 »

jakevoytko wrote: post #579
_blz2 wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in NYC/Brooklyn, the crime rate and filth are both high. Not to mention the rude behavior that takes over anyone who spent more than a year there. Something like Tokyo, Singapore in terms of lawfulness and politeness is whats desperately needed in the US. Any city in the US is far from that.

As always, NYC is one of the safer US cities in the nation across basically any metric you can find, and sometimes one of the safest. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_cities_b... We leave our trash in the streets, and I'm an asshole. So I can concede those points! But most city dwellers in the US live somewhere less safe than NYC.

Per capita is useless metric when you spend most of the time in the most crime ridden areas (the busiest places in NYC). Crime/area is more relevant metric.

I have been beaten up bad by teenagers and cops did jack shit (across the river in jersey). A friend of mine got robbed at midnight on 5th avenue (it was busy), cops again did nothing. Gun shots in washington square park and a faculty member was robbed there. These are anecdotes from years ago, its much worse now. You've to be on guard every second when you're out (especially at night). This is not a healthy life, and no wonder people become rude, 0 trust society will do that. Traveling in subways are essentially playing Russian roulette with a few more empty chambers. You can't pay me enough to even visit that place again.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#660

Post by thedorkknight »

hirvi74 wrote: post #329
UnpossibleJim wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to hop on the train of criticism, but there are plenty of other ways to invest yourself in your career other than being a social butterfly around the coffee pot. Admittedly I'm a bit socially awkward and fully aware of my flaws, but that's part of the reason I enjoy terminal work in the first place. Commits and Slack are about as social as I was in the office, anyway and when I was social, people wished I would k…

Maybe I have some sort of Office-PTSD or something, but I make it very clear to my coworkers that we can be friendly, but we aren't friends. You don't need my cellphone number, we don't need to go grab drinks after work, etc.. I've just noticed that if you turn your back for a second, then out come the wolves. Less coffee pot talk the better as far as I am concerned. I have my friends and life outside of work, and I…

I don't inherently disagree, but "if you turn your back for a second, then out come the wolves" sounds like a sign of a toxic culture
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