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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

#431

Post by SaltyBackendGuy »

_bxg1 wrote: post #379
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 flipside is that it takes a lot more intentional effort, which many of us may struggle to put forth. The vast majority of friendships are made in incidental contexts: people you just happen to be around and interact with through the normal course of life. Many adults struggle to make and maintain friendships when they no longer have school forcing them to be around peers, and become very isolated. I think your in…

> people you just happen to be around and interact with through the normal course of life

My experience in the military supports this argument. I have a few life long friends through this experience. Some of which I disliked initially.

Although, I do agree with the spirit of GP 's argument. You don't have to be in the office to be social and you get so much of your time back it's hard to justify the time cost if the value proposition is small talk.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#432

Post by bosswipe »

jedberg wrote: post #375
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 "chit chat" is a basic part of human interaction. Even for remote companies it still happens.

100%. Not only does strengthening social bonds with your coworkers make work more enjoyable it also makes the work product better. People that have the mentality like they're just a robot cranking out work units do worse work and they make their teammates worse. In many teams a moderately skilled engineer with very high social IQ is worth a lot more than another technically talented engineer with poor social IQ.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#434

Post by newfeatureok »

esoterica wrote: post #369
ryandvm wrote: post #340

So... does this mean Twitter is going to transition to a globally dispersed workforce? Or are they still going to hire mostly Bay Area folks? The latter would seem insane if they are going to allow teams to be 100% remote. Why pay SF rates if you're getting a WFH employee?

You have to pay SF rates if you want to hire SF level talent, even if you are hiring outside of SF. The average engineer is cheaper outside of SF because the average engineer is worse, not because you are getting the same quality of employee for the less money. Most of the good engineers move to SF to get access to better career opportunities. I'm not saying all engineers outside SF are mediocre, but if you want the…

I'd be curious to see if you have any evidence at all to suggest that the average engineer outside of SF is more competent than the average engineer in SF.

The simpler explanation is simply that Bay Area companies have more money to spend. There is a lot of evidence to suggest this, including the fact that Bay Area headquartered companies pay more in their remote offices compared to other companies.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#435

Post by roosterdawn »

the_gipsy wrote: post #225
mjayhn wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wfh and I won't work for a company that bases my pay on my zipcode (Gitlab). I want complete flexibility on where I live. There are plenty of remote companies that don't do that, especially now post-covid. I wish more people would reject zip code COL so that companies starting to WFH don't just take Gitlabs idea of it.

Wait, so you can move to a super expensive place and the company will subsidize your mortgage investment?

I think you have things the wrong way around. If you are able to pass the interview bar for a selective company that pays market rate in a tier-1 tech city, then yes, you get to move. But, if you don't, you won't get the job whether you move there or not.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#436

Post by _bxg1 »

chrismarlow9 wrote: post #412

For me too many companies use the "family" aspect of things too much. No, we're not a family. My family would let me sleep on their couch if I got fired or lost my home. Does the company plan to let me live in the office if they let me go? Are we still doing Thanksgiving? What about a family tree, whos going to keep that up after I die? But seriously, after seeing some nasty employee outcomes over a few jobs it kind…

There is also a difference between a company/management and your peers. There's no such thing as a corporate entity being your friend. Having a boss as your friend... maybe isn't impossible, but is definitely complicated. But it's entirely possible to develop real friendships with peers, even as a group. The differentiator is whether that narrative is pushed from above, or whether it's something that naturally develops from the ground up.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#437

Post by visarga »

daenz wrote: post #247
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've had a related thought: is it ethical to pay a person less based purely on where they live? I understand that there are different cost of living factors for different places, but that's on the employee's side and should be none of the employer's business. If they employer can pay $200k/yr for a remote employee, it shouldn't matter where they live, and so scaling that value seems discriminatory to me. Anyone have…

> is it ethical to pay a person less based purely on where they live?

It's not just rent/mortgage price differences, there are also different laws regarding taxation, healthcare and retirement.

On the other hand you can't offer someone in the Bay Area a Eastern Europe level salary. Nobody would come, but you can offer a slightly higher than average salary in E.E. and they would definitely come. It's just that a global company needs to hire in both regions to be competitive.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#438

Post by toomuchtodo »

vsareto wrote: post #403
jedberg wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think people get stuck in the mental construct of "office = socializing" therefore "no office = antisocial" Not all cultures are like this. I had a German coworker who would always complain about how much time we spend socializing at work (while socializing with us). He would tell us, "In Germany, we come to work, we put our heads down for seven hours and work, then we all go out and spend two hours drinking beer…

I really wish I had taken a job in Germany when I had the chance. That seems way better than figuring out small talk.

There's still time. Germany will be around for a bit.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#439

Post by satysin »

meerita wrote: post #418
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…

I miss my mixed office/work from home life. It was the best.

The "best" solution is a mixture of working from home and going to a central office as needed from time to time.

How often will differ from employee to employee obviously.

My hope is that once this settle down companies that are able to have employees work from home without a negative impact to performance allow them to do so freely.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#440

Post by intopieces »

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…

> you could eliminate the 1 hour of wasted time daily on small talk and office distractions, as well as the 1 hour daily on commuting, that leaves you two extra hours a day of your life to focus on whatever you chose.

This assumes that work expectations won’t expand to fill the space. I’ve kept pretty strict 9am to 6pm work from home with a 1 hour offline break to eat and clean and I still find the expectations creeping in, especially since some coworkers have migrated to other time zones to be with family.

Overall, given the history of labor in the US, I am sceptical that we will see an opening up of free time because of this shift.

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