Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#71

Post by ahelwer » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:23 PM UTC

ghthor wrote: post #61

ma2rten wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two parts to the answer. Firstly, health care in the US is extremely expensive. There are long articles written about this but IMO a main reason is market failure. The US, especially republicans, place a lot of value on free markets but people are willing to pay almost anything not to die. The second part of the story is that the US is richer than Europe. I moved to the US from Western Europe. Befor…

No offense meant but, before Obamacare was enacted I had an excellent healthcare premium of $77 per month. Now comparable care is $400 per month. However Obamacare changed the scene, I dont support it.

Well it got rid of insurers denying coverage or charging more for pre-existing conditions, which is obviously the morally right thing to do, but is roughly like being able to buy fire insurance while your house is already half burned down. IMO the conclusion is just that insurance is a bad model for healthcare coverage.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#72

Post by sokoloff » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

kethinov wrote: post #67

Buried in the article they also talk about cutting the pay of people who move away from big cities based on their "geopay" scale, a new trend that I have a hard time seeing as anything other than corporate greed we should vigorously oppose. I understand not every company can afford to do Basecamp's "pay everyone SF wages" thing, but any company can afford to set uniform pay grades at some level and one would think th…

I think there are reasons to make either choice (one global salary vs a localized market salary).

The former optimizes for fairness/equality of continuing employees and takes the "what is the value of the work?" as the foremost question.

The latter puts the focus on "what is the market price [the next-best-alternative] for this employee?" and tries to ensure that you don't have unhappy employees staying longer than either side would prefer because they are "stuck" with a salary that they can't match in any other opportunity available to them and so do just enough to not get fired.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#73

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:25 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #25

popotamonga wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How come its so expensive? The top top insurance in my european country is $100 and a pretty good is 30.

What is your take home pay as a software dev after insurance, vs the US? My math says the US still wins big for the top half of society (and loses for the bottom)

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#74

Post by Sytten » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #3

The really interesting thing here is the possibility of part-time work. I recently switched from full-time work to independent contracting, and have a single part-time contract while looking for a second. Honestly, part-time contracting work is really, really nice. The pay is more than enough to live on and I have a ton of free time which I am devoting to rock climbing, finally writing a bunch of blog posts, and lear…

I agree with this so much. I have been working part time for almost a year now to rebuild a house and it has been very nice. It always seemed weird to me that people make such high salaries in tech but just don't value time as the main commodity of our lives. The reality is that if you move to a low CoL area and work part-time you will almost certainly be happier.

But this doesn't mean you are idle the rest of the time. It means you can pursue what you love. We place way to much value in jobs as an end rather than as a mean to an end IMO. I tend to believe that the work week should have been reduced decades ago.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#75

Post by reincarnate0x14 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #14

x87678r wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

health insurance is my big wish. 20 hrs/wk with health insurance I'd work for 1/3rd my salary. EDIT: I have a family like most people. EDIT2: I'm thinking about how insurance isn't as expensive as giving up more than that in salary, but maybe I need the security of steady work on the resume, sick leave and a job to lean on if things get tough.

If you're single and willing to pay over $500/month you can get some pretty okay health insurance. Families throw a huge wrench in that plan though. Currently I'm just using COBRA. Nothing crystalizes support for medicare-for-all faster than ten seconds looking at the public health insurance marketplace.

"pretty okay" is unfortunately about the best you'll find, and even that can be iffy depending on where you are.

If someone's work is truly all-remote I'd seriously recommend looking into residency visas to places with functioning governments and healthcare. I'm currently working remotely at a US client from several locations in the Pacific.

I just had a complete auditory workup to diagnose some recent hearing changes that included consultation with a US-educated doctor, and some medication, and the total cost without any sort of insurance was ~250 USD. My monthly insurance premium at home is 400 USD and likely wouldn't even have covered half of that, because fuck you, that's why.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#76

Post by sokoloff » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:27 PM UTC

ghthor wrote: post #61

ma2rten wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there are two parts to the answer. Firstly, health care in the US is extremely expensive. There are long articles written about this but IMO a main reason is market failure. The US, especially republicans, place a lot of value on free markets but people are willing to pay almost anything not to die. The second part of the story is that the US is richer than Europe. I moved to the US from Western Europe. Befor…

No offense meant but, before Obamacare was enacted I had an excellent healthcare premium of $77 per month. Now comparable care is $400 per month. However Obamacare changed the scene, I dont support it.

Was $77 the entire price of the healthcare coverage? Or was that just the portion that you paid?

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#77

Post by marketingPro » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

I like globalism, I think it's good for most humans. However I can't help to think that quickly US workers will be replaced with our lower cost English speaking alternatives.

The only advantage that US workers have, is that up until now, programmers and Engineers have been managing/teaching/leading their counterparts. This is the skill employers are paying the big $$ for.

However, this stops now, no new generation of US leadership. Why hire a junior US engineer? They have never been a leader.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#78

Post by ghaff » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

kethinov wrote: post #67

Buried in the article they also talk about cutting the pay of people who move away from big cities based on their "geopay" scale, a new trend that I have a hard time seeing as anything other than corporate greed we should vigorously oppose. I understand not every company can afford to do Basecamp's "pay everyone SF wages" thing, but any company can afford to set uniform pay grades at some level and one would think th…

The problem is that if (even just keeping the discussion to the US) a company pays, say, Chicago wages everywhere, that means they effectively probably can't hire anyone in the Bay Area for example. Of course, a lot of companies already basically don't try to salary match the hire who has an offer from Facebook or Google in SV and wants to work there.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#79

Post by w0utert » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

kethinov wrote: post #67

Buried in the article they also talk about cutting the pay of people who move away from big cities based on their "geopay" scale, a new trend that I have a hard time seeing as anything other than corporate greed we should vigorously oppose. I understand not every company can afford to do Basecamp's "pay everyone SF wages" thing, but any company can afford to set uniform pay grades at some level and one would think th…

A policy like this is basically saying 'we only pay you as much as necessary to compete with your other employment options', which are currently still mostly those near where you are living.

If more companies allow remote work and they don't all do the same thing, this kind of 'geopay' policy will have to be abandoned.

But I agree it's completely backwards, you should be paid according to the value you create for the company, and nothing else.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#80

Post by iso1631 » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 1:29 PM UTC

popotamonga wrote: post #17

ahelwer wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're single and willing to pay over $500/month you can get some pretty okay health insurance. Families throw a huge wrench in that plan though. Currently I'm just using COBRA. Nothing crystalizes support for medicare-for-all faster than ten seconds looking at the public health insurance marketplace.

How come its so expensive? The top top insurance in my european country is $100 and a pretty good is 30.

Healthcare is provided for everyone in my country from central taxation - same as police, education, defence. You can top it up with private care which can offer you things like more convenient appointments, quicker appointments for non-urgent cases, nicer accommodation if you do have to stay in, etc.

For a healthy, non-smoking 35-year-old you're looking around $80 a month.

For a healthy, non-smoking 70-year-old you're looking at 3 times that.

A family with a couple c. 40 and a couple of 10 year old kids is around $200-$300 a month (with no excess). With a $1300 excess that drops to $120 a month.