Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

buzzfeednews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 1001 posts

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#381

Post by echelon »

So many companies see their offices as a cost center. Why do you think we have so many open office plans despite our hate for them?

Prior to the Covid situation, we already had examples of successful remote-only companies (eg. GitLab). Now companies are using the circumstances to experiment with existing hypotheses of going remote-only or remote-mostly. I know my company was already wanting to experiment, and I think we would have done so even in the absence of the virus. Now we know it works.

Why pay rent when you can offload the cost to your engineers? Many already have a home office, and the cost of furnishing their home environment is negligible. Employees may even get a tax write off.

This may be the new norm for everyone.

I shudder to think about what's about to happen with the corporate real estate market, REIT stocks, etc. It's certainly yet another death knell for WeWork.

I also wonder if this will begin making cities with low cost of living and affordable real estate attractive. Who wants to work out of their tiny New York apartment every day when they can have a dedicated room for their office in another city?

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#382

Post by pmlnr »

101404 wrote: post #370
gregkerzhner wrote: post #356

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

Socializing is just as easily possible when working from home. Just meet for a coffee in Zoom or Skype or Whereby and "video chat" for an hour or so. Those are usually my most productive meetings.

Why would I "socialize" with colleagues? I'd rather do that with communities I actually share an interest with. (If a colleague happens to be part of it, ok, but it's rare.)

For many of us, a workplace is a very small piece of our consciousness, and thus, the amount of shared interest with colleagues is bleak.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#383

Post by buboard »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #12
amateurdev wrote: post #2

I have a feeling a lot of companies will follow suit. It saves up huge costs in real-estate by not having to provide seats to people. It also might just open up more companies to hire from any time zone.

The interesting question is, why now? I mean on the surface sure - because we have a pandemic and state ordered quarantine. But the more interesting question is - why is this finally provoking companies and why do we think they will continue the trend in the future post-quarantine? I've been a remote worker since 2006. It's been obvious to me for a long time that companies could go all remote or some version of remot…

I ve had the same question. I think it's because over the years, companies and employees have gone virtual

-- Companies have gone virtual, they exist in slack, basecamp-type tools etc. In the 2000s it would sound unthinkable to put your corporate secrets in someone else's server. Today it's commonplace

-- Employees have gone virtual. Their CVs are in github, and the flaky silicon valley market has made them conscious of their personal image / website. They prefer a supermarket of opportunities rather than a long-term relationship

These things oiled up the gears for the transition, and covid gave it a big push.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#384

Post by pmlnr »

paulie_a wrote: post #360
gregkerzhner wrote: post #356

I think if you work with a brilliant group of coworkers that you love to hangout out with, then you are lucky and I can see how you miss being in the office. But, thats not the case for many of us. The crux of work relationships is that they are not voluntary. You might get lucky and have ones you love, or you might get some that are distracting, or at worse, you dislike. Either way though you are stuck with them. I…

The office distractions and chitchat are never going to go away regardless of format

It sort of did for us since we went remote. In case of that 2 or 3 colleagues I actually like to speak with, it's a shame, other than that, it would be ideal if I wasn't cut off from my other friends and groups.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#385

Post by bpicolo »

vinniejames wrote: post #307
throwaway713 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could keep my current compensation and move to the low cost of living area where my family is located, I would reach financial independence 10-15 years ahead of my current trajectory with Bay Area rents/costs. I'll settle for the minor inconveniences of WFH any day in order to get a decade of my life to spend with family or to work on my own projects.

Companies don't do this. They will adjust your salary down based on your city of residence. Square is one example of this. You're not compensated for the value you provide, you're compensated for the cost of living near the office. You're also now competing against a national talent pool vs locals only

> Companies don't do this.

Some do. I've gotten this deal in the past personally and know others that have as well. Always for employees with tenure that they want to keep around. Remote salaries in tech are typically well-above "local" rates, either way.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#386

Post by andarleen »

cvlasdkv wrote: post #243
andarleen wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will have to shamelessly try and sway you. Get a large house, a swimming pool, a home office room with all the games and gadgets you ever wanted, a nice surround 5.1 system optically connected to a gaming pc, a nice couch to rest now and then and plan your code ahead. See if you still miss your cubicle (nothing wrong with that, but just what i wrote a thought). Thats my lifestyle since i starting working remotely.…

Is your answer: "try being rich"? People with what you have are rarely sitting in cubicles or open offices any way.

I’m far from rich, but see, remote work lets you own a property in a much nicer, cleaner, safer, area than in crowded cities for less money than a studio. A remote engineer doing work for a high paying company can be the richest outside crowded urban areas.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#387

Post by znpy »

danso wrote: post #5
znpy wrote: post #3

cool news, but "forever" is a big word, nonetheless

I wonder if it’ll come to have the same meaning as “unlimited vacation”, a vague policy that in practice, is used unofficially in job evaluations to implicitly punish employees who take advantage of the policy.

I've always wondered how the "unlimited pto" works in practice.

Can you just say "i'm taking the next week off" to your manager and that's it ?

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#388

Post by esoterica »

AlwaysBCoding wrote: post #333
saurik wrote: post #299

What is Twitter even doing? Like I realize they likely have an infinite number of people working for them, but are any of them doing anything important at all? This is not like the usual "I just don't see how a company needs that many people" laments: this is specific to Twitter, as they seem to have at most one engineer working on new features... it took like five years for them to implement "increase size of Tweet…

I've hung out a bunch at Twitter's offices (in both SF and NYC). It's pretty eye-opening and a good lens into why Twitter the company is so fucked up. The vibe that comes off is more of a social hangout club than a serious tech company. You meet your friend for lunch and there's professional chefs cooking gourmet meals, you hang out in the social area while the celebrity of the day comes into the office and everyone…

> Anyone with right of center political views is casually censored from the platform with no recourse

You have a persecution complex. Almost every conservative political figure and media personality has a twitter account that they post regularly on. Only a small number of abusive psychos (e.g. Milo) have been banned for breaking Twitter rules.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#389

Post by JoeAltmaier »

danso wrote: post #5
znpy wrote: post #3

cool news, but "forever" is a big word, nonetheless

I wonder if it’ll come to have the same meaning as “unlimited vacation”, a vague policy that in practice, is used unofficially in job evaluations to implicitly punish employees who take advantage of the policy.

Yes its a hoax. A real attempt at this would include a minimum, so folks know they're really intended to take time off.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#390

Post by andarleen »

TomVDB wrote: post #222
andarleen wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will have to shamelessly try and sway you. Get a large house, a swimming pool, a home office room with all the games and gadgets you ever wanted, a nice surround 5.1 system optically connected to a gaming pc, a nice couch to rest now and then and plan your code ahead. See if you still miss your cubicle (nothing wrong with that, but just what i wrote a thought). Thats my lifestyle since i starting working remotely.…

I have everything you list above, and I'm not swayed. I still looking forward to going back to normal. I've never been the social butterfly who sees tons of friends on a regular basis out of work, and yet I enjoy talking to others. Work gives me that, lunch at work gives me that too. Some of my colleagues are razor smart. I can have lunch time discussions about rocketry or special video coding algorithms or War time…

That is true - I miss this kinds of chats and interaction. But our team grew up in the IRC days and we are used to long chats about such topics over slack. Tho indeed remote work is a matter of choice - doesn't mean we all have to enjoy it.

Re pool, i occasionally jump in during breaks, just enough to refresh my mind and have a clear view over why that microservice is misbehaving. I only started working remote 1.5 years ago and it may be the excitement of something new, but i am loving it thus far!

Post reply on HN