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Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#391

Post by Vysero »

CodeSheikh wrote: post #273
Vysero wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. If I could work from home permanently I would move far far away from where I am currently living. I would get myself a nice condo or small house, and settle in. Currently, where I live, despite the fact that I make almost 30k/year more than the medium average income I still can only just afford a one bedroom apartment spending the suggested 30% of my income. Imagine being able to buy a house!!!…

What's the guarantee that say your San Francisco/NYC employer will keep paying you city rates when you are living in a small town in mid-west. At some point they will catch up and start saving money this way. Everyone at a tech company is not a crucial employee. Don't get me wrong, I am all in for getting paid SF rates while living in a cheap Texas suburb.

"What's the guarantee" - There is no guarantee. Then again, there is no guarantee that the person who bought my drink didn't spike it with molly either...

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#392

Post by adrianN »

pmlnr wrote: post #382
101404 wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It is good for your work to have a rough idea what your colleagues are working on and what they're thinking about. This eventually builds "gut feeling" about who might be able to help you with your current problems if you're stuck. Just chit-chatting with them seems to be an effective way of sharing this information.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#393

Post by filoleg »

amiga_500 wrote: post #230
ram_rar wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I perfectly fit the profile you described. I live in SF in a small apt. I can easily afford a much bigger place for the same amount. But working with collegues @ office is a soo much fun. if the company gets fully remote, its really hard to connect with coworkers and hangout.

What about if all of society did this, and you all had a great webcam, and for lunch you went out locally with your local friends, then when you knock off at 5pm you have all agreed to play soccer down the local park at 5:10pm ? We can have a nice local life that flourishes, once the utterly stupid situation of having everyone converge at the same time on a fixed point is forever slain.

The actual demographics matter. A mid 20s software engineer in SF would probably not be interested in hanging out with his suburban neighbors in midwest in their mid 40s as much as they would with young professionals living in a city.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#394

Post by tfehring »

jrockway wrote: post #197
redisman wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a win-win-win though? Salaries become more normalized across the country so people can work from where they choose, SF rents will go down as techies start streaming out of the Bay Area, hiring pools for companies become inclusive of people who don't want to move to the Bay Area (or the other 2-3 tech cities). The rest of the country also certainly doesn't pay 1/3rd of your salary.

Will people start streaming out of the Bay Area, though? The thing that always interested me about the Bay Area was that my friends in Mountain View would be posting long bike rides throughout the winter. Where it's snowy and below freezing in New York, it's 55 degrees and sunny there. I imagine people like that a lot, and is part of the reason it's a popular place to live. There are other places in the US that are w…

Is the Bay Area unique in the US for being progressive, relatively walkable/bikeable, and having great weather?

This is a sincere question, by the way. (It's also a practical one - I just accepted a fully remote position, and I'd move to the Bay Area in a heartbeat if it weren't so expensive.)

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#395

Post by visarga »

throwaway713 wrote: post #182
dddbbb wrote: post #137

I work at a large tech company on a young team (average age is late twenties). In my experience many don't view working from home regularly as a benefit. I understand that must change drastically when you're middle aged, have a family to live around and a spacious house in the suburbs. But most younger people want to live in the middle of the city (i.e. small, often shared apartments but a short commute) and have no…

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.

Spent 20 years WFH on various personal projects, earning money on my own, and now I am hired and working from office. Too much freedom can be hard to cope with. A little bit of structure can be great.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#396

Post by wlll »

hota_mazi wrote: post #364
wlll wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for places that pay me for what I'm worth, I don't work for places that pay me based on where I live. I'm not cranking out code that is somehow less effective while living in the NW England, and so to pay me less than someone else is downright insulting. I also, to be clear, don't have any hard feelings about people who live in even cheaper[0] places than me, it's their choice. I used to work with a guy in the…

> I work for places that pay me for what I'm worth, I don't work for places that pay me based on where I live. That is very short sighted. Your dollar value is highly dependent on where you live, that's just reality.

Two things here.

1. That is very short sighted.

Short sighted? You mean, the area-independent wages I've been earning for the last 10 years or so are going to stop? I can't see that happening, if that's what you mean.

2. Your dollar value is highly dependent on where you live, that's just reality.

Only if I am doing something that requires me to be in a certain place, because that's where the value is created. There is a local market for drywall fitting in SF, and there is one in Bunghole, Montana. You can't make the CA rates in MT because you can't provide the value in CA while still being in MT.

As a programmer though, I can provide value wherever it is needed from pretty much anywhere I want to be. I'm not providing value in my house, here in England, I'm providing the value at the place I work for.

It's for this reason that I'd fully expect to be able to charge Polish rates to a Polish company, and SF rates to an SF company.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#398

Post by francisofascii »

jrockway wrote: post #197
redisman wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this a win-win-win though? Salaries become more normalized across the country so people can work from where they choose, SF rents will go down as techies start streaming out of the Bay Area, hiring pools for companies become inclusive of people who don't want to move to the Bay Area (or the other 2-3 tech cities). The rest of the country also certainly doesn't pay 1/3rd of your salary.

Will people start streaming out of the Bay Area, though? The thing that always interested me about the Bay Area was that my friends in Mountain View would be posting long bike rides throughout the winter. Where it's snowy and below freezing in New York, it's 55 degrees and sunny there. I imagine people like that a lot, and is part of the reason it's a popular place to live. There are other places in the US that are w…

But isn't the rest of the world coming around on LGBT causes as well, and that you don't have to live in NYC or SF for LGBT friendliness? So I think most cities with decent weather is viable.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#399

Post by echelon »

fermienrico wrote: post #85

Then why pay $200k for a software engineer in the valley when the same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary? The question I have is what portion of the $200k salary is 1) due to the raw talent of the individual 2) because they live in the bay area.

I live in Atlanta and make over $200k total comp. As do my coworkers.

I think your perception about salaries outside of the valley is skewed.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#400

Post by hintymad »

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…

Working in office is not equal to socializing, but face-to-face communication has great values, at least to some people. I'm just not sure it's a universal truth that working from home is a greater benefit to every employee, as so many comments passionately argued here.

Case in point, I'm an introvert in every way: hate going to loud places like bars to socialize, prefer chatting with small number of friends in a quiet setting, prefer staying home reading , think Americans' obsession with sports is insane (not that I don't like sports. I myself was reasonably athletic and was in school's track and field team for years), can't understand why students in school were so obsessed with being popular... You get the idea. Yet I'm still more productive in office, still prefer 1-on-1s in person, and still miss the days when I worked with my co-workers on a whiteboard.

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