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Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

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Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#91

Post by woohoo7676 »

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've also switched to part time IC this year, and it has been much better for my mental health.

The ability to work on side projects or pursue hobbies with the extra time is definitely worth it for me over the extra pay.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#92

Post by st1x7 »

ghaff wrote: post #68
st1x7 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like all the downsides of an office with none of the benefits. Plus additional expenses.

But you can get a coworking space in a cheaper location if that's where you want to live. (Or get a bigger place with room for an office.) Some people prefer working in a different location than they're living.

It won't be cheaper than my employer paying for an office. That's what I'm comparing to.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#93

Post by claudeganon »

Charles808 wrote: post #85
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…

Overhead cost of providing a physical workspace is easily 50%+ of base compensation costs. Companies save a fortune by having employees work from home. "Geopay" scales are exploitation. Employee X should be compensated in relation to the value they bring through their efforts, not at the minimum possible level that the employer can get away with.

The only way to counter that is through collective bargaining, which many people on this site seem to view as beneath them. “Geopay” really isn’t any different from how Google/Apple/etc colluded in the past to suppress developer wages.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#94

Post by throwaway0a5e »

st1x7 wrote: post #6
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

IMHO companies need to either embrace WFH fully or not at all. This current "we're kinda mostly WFH but not really sometimes" is the worst, as you have archaic processes still in place from pre WFH days that are still enforced, and most importantly, if management is in the office and you're not, over time, the colleagues who will be in the office will seem to get really lucky in regards to promotions and opportunitie…

Yes - for someone living in a big city half office, half WFH is the worst of everything. It means that I have to maintain an expensive home office, don't get all the benefits of working in an office with other people (which I prefer) and I can't move out of the big city.

There are winners and losers every time there's large change.

Those people slogging out 1.5hr commutes from the outer suburbs are the winners because remote work even with a "you must be in the office 1 day a week" policy makes their land more attractive. The people who mortgaged themselves up to their eyeballs to get in on those good inner suburb commutes and schools are the losers because suddenly outer suburb housing is a more viable alternative to what they own. The people living in illegal 300sf studio departments in people's basements are neither since they weren't all in on any particular side. They can rent somewhere further out and cheaper with space for an office without too much friction.

Back in the early 90s a lot of cities were dumps compared to today. The people who bought there and held on for 20-30yr won because a lot of cities gentrified.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#95

Post by krzyk »

Taking aside all the deaths (I'm still afraid that my parents and parents-in-law will catch COVID).

The pandemic is doing a really great work on shifting minds of a lot of WFH-awerse companies/managers, and is doing an interesting shifts in economies (e.g. at my country a lot, and I mean a lot of people started doing online purchases for things that were normally bought offline - e.g. I was surprised how much I can save of diapers alone).

Some services thrive (all online) but others are declining (restaurants, pubs), interesting times.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#96

Post by hnaccy »

reincarnate0x14 wrote: post #75
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.

"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 change…

What countries are good for this?

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#97

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

dsr_ wrote: post #43
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.

Because the USA has a fundamentally broken healthcare system, which it propagandizes as the best in the world despite actual evidence that it is not.

As an American, I do believe that the US has some of the best doctors, research, and medical technology in the world. I also believe it's really, really expensive, and out of reach for too much of our population, largely due to how to tie health insurance plans to employment. That makes sense in industries with a high injury rate, but the US doesn't have that kind of economy anymore.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#98

Post by vsareto »

mc32 wrote: post #57
vsareto wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies have been milking workers as well. It's not surprising it comes back to them.

?? That’s a total non-sequitur and has no connection to the other. Slackers will slack against themselves (hire a responsible home contractor vs one who slacks off and one who shows up whenever and does things half arsed). So it’s not about revenge or getting something back (that might be a motivation for some malcontents, but most slackers aren’t malcontents.

I'm just saying: a demotivated or lied-to worker resembles slackers pretty closely. I think it's less about personal flaws than we think.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#99

Post by luxurytent »

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’d love to get into this but I’ve found the results for contracts or part time roles on job pages is quite minimal. Can you recommend how to get started?

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#100

Post by calcifer »

everdrive wrote: post #84
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #4

IMHO companies need to either embrace WFH fully or not at all. This current "we're kinda mostly WFH but not really sometimes" is the worst, as you have archaic processes still in place from pre WFH days that are still enforced, and most importantly, if management is in the office and you're not, over time, the colleagues who will be in the office will seem to get really lucky in regards to promotions and opportunitie…

>the colleagues who will be in the office will seem to get really lucky in regards to promotions and opportunities for some reason and you'll be left out because you'll miss the coffee/water cooler/cigarette chit-chat where future projects/directions are discussed casually and off the record without you The reality is that merit is only one of many reasons that promotions happen. And often not the primary reason.

> merit is only one of many reasons that promotions happen. And often not the primary reason.

Related thread from 10 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24618707

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