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

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#121

Post by neogodless » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

x87678r wrote: post #10

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…

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.

When I contracted in 2018, I paid $650-700/month for a pretty good "silver" insurance plan covering my wife (34 then) and I (39 then). Definitely varies by state and availability of insurers. But it was by choice... 1099 rate easily covered all taxes and insurance with room to spare and allowed be to set up a solo LLC and dump a buttload of pre-tax money into a 401(k)... About $53k in one year.

Taking time off was hard for me mentally with that high rate, knowing how much gross income I'd give up to take a week off for a trip.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#122

Post by wayne_skylar » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

brainbag wrote: post #120

luxurytent wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I've done a lot of IC dev work in my career of 20+ years, and I've moved cities often, so I had to frequently "start over" with reputation and networking. What I found to work best was that any time I entered a new market, I would find a local contractor organization (that already has a lot of contacts), and do short-term high-skill jobs for them for 3-6 months (for example, spending two weeks at a bank helping optim…

What would be an example of a "contractor organization"? I am interested working on contract but I live in NYC and here it seems like it's always contract-to-hire situation where they want someone long-term but are using the contract as a way to limit the damage if the hire doesn't work out. I'd love to find a series of 3-6 month contracts like you mention but have had little success.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#123

Post by satysin » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:33 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 did this back in 2009 and it was without a doubt the best decision I have ever made in my life.

I have written about this previously if anyone is interested https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23298762

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#124

Post by _qulr » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:34 PM UTC

nugget wrote: post #117

Sytten wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ti…

People in tech do seem to value time which may explain why they are disproportionately drawn to the "Financial Independence, Retire Early" (FIRE) movement. The tech industry continues to be much more supportive of 80 hour weeks until you strike it rich and "retire" early, than it is of steady part-time work over many decades of steady-state work-life balance. But the motivation may be the same for many.

I think the motivation is actually age discrimination. It's often much harder to find a job when you're older, so you have to strike it rich when you're younger.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#125

Post by hackbinary » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:35 PM UTC

x87678r wrote: post #10

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…

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.

Or, you know, vote in a government that will do single payer insurance.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#126

Post by rrdharan » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:35 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.

The Us subsidizes European drug prices:

https://www.ibtimes.com/how-us-subsidizes-cheap-drugs-europe...

Though there are lots of other ways to frame this of course since most of that is eaten up by US marketing expenses:

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#127

Post by ethanwillis » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

Sytten wrote: post #74

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 ti…

I would like to also echo this sentiment. I took a job that lets me work with a much more flexible schedule. I changed from doing straight dev work to software dev support for an API SaaS company to facilitate that.

I like software development, but I don't think I'm cut out for it in a SV work hard/play hard sense because I like to tinker too much. That's just not a good fit for deadlines, production environments, etc.

It's given me a lot less stress professionally which has allowed me to work on personal projects (software and otherwise).

In the past few months - Started learning about worm composting and I've been raising e. fetida worms to compost trash. - Started reorganizing my homelab and messing with all my server equipment - Learning about different machining techniques - Working on my cars more, and I hope to take on an EV conversion of an old car soon.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#128

Post by drdeadringer » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:37 PM UTC

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #45

znpy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes and no. My current employer and the previous one had more than one branch, geographically located in different areas (and nations). To me all the colleagues from other branches were "remote". As far as I can tell, it made no difference to me if they were in their office or at home, I still interacted with them via tickets, instant messaging, video calls etc. And yet we all worked together.

You missed my point. I didn't say remote doesn't work, I said remote will disadvantage remote employees if not done right.

I have experienced "remote not done right". I routinely felt and was in reality disadvantaged in that situation.

I am currently [back into the] same industry during COVID and am splitting time between WFH and the [pretty much] deserted office. I do not feel disadvantaged in this current situation.

I can tell you that the manager and the team makes an incredible difference.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#129

Post by hackbinary » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:38 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 actually a macro economic industry that Americans have been fooled in to believing that it is micro economic.

The USA spends 20% of GDP on healthcare. All other advanced economies spend about 10%.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#130

Post by ethanwillis » Fri, Oct 09, 2020, 2:38 PM UTC

_qulr wrote: post #124

nugget wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People in tech do seem to value time which may explain why they are disproportionately drawn to the "Financial Independence, Retire Early" (FIRE) movement. The tech industry continues to be much more supportive of 80 hour weeks until you strike it rich and "retire" early, than it is of steady part-time work over many decades of steady-state work-life balance. But the motivation may be the same for many.

I think the motivation is actually age discrimination. It's often much harder to find a job when you're older, so you have to strike it rich when you're younger.

I'm not even 30 and I was told in a reply to a comment where I suggested a research paper from the 70s, "This is what's wrong with you old people, you just want us to read all of this irrelevant stuff".

The irony is the replier was 10 years older than me. So the age discrimination bias is so prevalent even older people buy into it.