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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

#881

Post by z3ncyberpunk »

jjjensen90 wrote: post #781

I always thought I enjoyed remote work as an engineer/architect, I did it for 6 months by my own volition before coming back. I am extremely unhappy. I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. I've struggled deeply with overwhelming sadness at the idea of not going back anytime soon. My work has suffered from a lack of dynamic interactions. I get lots of focus time, just like I did at the office…

A lot of these are personal lifestyle issues. IDK I enjoy remote work, to each their own

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#882

Post by habosa »

product50 wrote: post #676
_nckn wrote: post #620

I think this is the hugest news yet. It suddenly opens the pool of candidates to all across the country. I expect other tech giants will follow suit. Those who previously can't afford or don't want to live in big cities like NYC/Seattle/SF because they are older, have families, or various other reasons now are included in the candidate pool. This can go two ways: either the local software business will have to compet…

You are wrong that FAANG companies will pay the same salary as you make in SF if you are in a low cost state like Indiana. I have a friend at one of those companies and they were running a survey to gauge employee's keenness for permanent wfh - and they were very clear that employee's salary will be adjusted based on which city they are based in. So, while this is still healthy, since FAANG pays pretty well, but don'…

Google pay varies by office (quite a lot) and they're upfront about it but it has nothing to do with housing costs. It's based on the cost of hiring in the local market.

I am voluntarily transferring from Google SF to Google London and I am taking a significant salary cut. London isn't really any cheaper to live in, but you can hire good developers for much less in Europe.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#883

Post by roosterdawn »

fermienrico wrote: post #596
roosterdawn wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when the same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary What makes you think this is true and not just a post-hoc rationalization? Let me put it this way: offer that salary worldwide and you will still have difficulty finding top-tier talent, as many remote-first companies are finding out the hard way. Having been a hiring manager in such a position before, I will tell you that you…

I wasn’t asserting or claiming one way or the other. I’m asking the question. Your response assumes some stance I might have - I don’t. I found your response pretty unpleasant and combative even though there is truth in what you’re saying.

> I wasn’t asserting or claiming one way or the other.

You verbatim asked "why pay $200k for a software engineer same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary" and you got a response. If you think there's truth in what I'm saying but find that response "unpleasant and combative", I have two suggestions for you:

1. Communicate more clearly. If you are meaning to express an argument rhetorically or as a "devil's advocate" but it's easy to misinterpret your statement as if you simply support it, consider rewriting your comment for clarity.

2. Rethink your premises. If you actually do believe what it is you're saying, consider that you're the argument of "same talent for 1/3rd of the price" is the original offshoring argument, which has well known conceptual issues.

If you're more thoughtful about checking your assumptions when you could be wrong, it will be much less likely that you end up in a situation where you find yourself saying "Gee, I found so and so's response unpleasant and combative, even though there is truth in what you're saying." If you put your hand on the stove, do you criticize the stove, or do you realize that maybe it was a mistake to put your hand there and then move it away?

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#885

Post by thrower123 »

jjjensen90 wrote: post #781

I always thought I enjoyed remote work as an engineer/architect, I did it for 6 months by my own volition before coming back. I am extremely unhappy. I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. I've struggled deeply with overwhelming sadness at the idea of not going back anytime soon. My work has suffered from a lack of dynamic interactions. I get lots of focus time, just like I did at the office…

I love working from home the last couple of months, but then I hate people, and I really hate not being in control of my time.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#886

Post by chojeen »

jjjensen90 wrote: post #781

I always thought I enjoyed remote work as an engineer/architect, I did it for 6 months by my own volition before coming back. I am extremely unhappy. I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. I've struggled deeply with overwhelming sadness at the idea of not going back anytime soon. My work has suffered from a lack of dynamic interactions. I get lots of focus time, just like I did at the office…

I can't imagine forced remote for all employees would ever become the norm. It feels like likely that companies would move from dedicated offices to leasing co-working spaces for those that want it.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#887

Post by tachyonbeam »

swlkr wrote: post #871
jjjensen90 wrote: post #781

I always thought I enjoyed remote work as an engineer/architect, I did it for 6 months by my own volition before coming back. I am extremely unhappy. I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. I've struggled deeply with overwhelming sadness at the idea of not going back anytime soon. My work has suffered from a lack of dynamic interactions. I get lots of focus time, just like I did at the office…

Working from home is a challenge, there’s no doubt about that, but assuming some return to normalcy, you don’t have to work from your house or apartment. Remote work means you can work wherever you want, you can go to a coffee shop for a few hours, you can head to your town’s local library, a coworking space. You can take an extended trip and live out of a van. Once starlink is up, if you can get away with high laten…

> Once starlink is up, if you can get away with high latency

Off topic but, the latency will be better than cable. They're low altitude satellites. There was even talk of using Starlink for New York / London HFT, because signals travel faster in space than they do in fiber optic (some fraction of the speed of light).

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#888

Post by mgolawala »

matwood wrote: post #829
jjjensen90 wrote: post #781

I always thought I enjoyed remote work as an engineer/architect, I did it for 6 months by my own volition before coming back. I am extremely unhappy. I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. I've struggled deeply with overwhelming sadness at the idea of not going back anytime soon. My work has suffered from a lack of dynamic interactions. I get lots of focus time, just like I did at the office…

> I really miss being in the office with my coworkers and friends. Are you young, single, and live in an apartment? I have noticed a divide along those lines with WFH. As an older, married person, living in a house with a yard, I haven't worked in an office for any length of time for last 10 years. None of my close friends are related to work. I like having lunch with my wife and going out back with the dogs when I n…

I think it is expected that we will see the full spectrum of reactions to this new work environment. Everything from : - whether you are living single or with a significant other - happily married or have your relationship just scraping by (As an aside, I read that China has seen a spike in divorces after their lockdown) - have kids or no kids, have teenagers or toddlers - have a comfortable home office or are working from your kitchen table and sitting on a dining chair - are introverted or extroverted - have great co-workers in a great workplace environment or if you dislike your office and/or co-workers - if you have a long commute or live a relaxing 10 minute walk from the office

... the list goes on and on.

It is not surprising that you will have every variation of the above. But my guess is that for the majority of the people, once they setup a proper home office, the would likely find working from home to be somewhere in the "mildly positive" to "really positive" side of things. Even if some disagree with that, at the very least, I imagine that most would agree that they would like to have the _option_ to work from home whenever they choose.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#889

Post by dkdk8283 »

cameronbrown wrote: post #821
BossingAround wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's good for you to realize this is how you feel. I, on the other hand, get a lot more focus time here, at home, than in the office. Every little 'ding' sound, every little 'hey, when did you get home last night' conversation, every time someone turns on or off the lights, all of that and much more just rips me out of my concentration. I've been able to focus _a lot_ more from home. It's good for me to reali…

I'm not sure I enjoy this argument. Why is getting distracted by a friendly face so bad?

It’s selfish on behalf of the distractor.

When using async communication the person can wait until they’re out of the flow and respond. This is one of the great things about email, and the worst thing about Slack.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#890

Post by rtkwe »

moneil971 wrote: post #13

I’m not sure why it took a pandemic to make this a real option for major tech companies. At my previous company, the bulk of my team was in NY and I would commute an hour plus each way to sit on endless video chats and conference calls with people in other time zones. But working from home was frowned upon...unless you were a contractor, in which case you had to work from home bc there weren’t enough desks.

The pandemic forced it on companies. Before that mass work from home is a Decision that needs Metrics to determine if it was right and if it doesn't work or has issues it could be someone's fault with Career Consequences. Without something forcing their hands conservative managers would have continued to take the easier path of having people come in just because the default decision isn't questioned as much.

Working in the office had huge inertia behind it and it does make things simpler for middle management because they can easily just walk around and look over people's shoulders to tell if they're working on browsing HN all day or interrupt for some face to face.

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