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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

#161

Post by redler »

danans wrote: post #150
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.

> Families throw a huge wrench in that plan though. > Nothing crystalizes support for medicare-for-all faster... It's pretty messed up that the lack of universal healthcare throws a huge wrench in the thing that generates the future of society, at least among financially self-aware young people. It used to be even worse just a few years ago. Before the ACA insurance companies often considered pregnancy a pre-existing…

...and with cases pending before the Supreme Court, we're on the cusp of the societal shock of a sudden return to this situation.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#162

Post by JauntTrooper »

ma2rten wrote: post #50
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.

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…

I think the clearest evidence for market failure is the complete lack of price transparency. Medical providers simply don't compete on price.

Prices quoted aren't actually prices. You have zero idea how much it's going to cost you until you get the bills, often split across dozens of providers, and what you see are the results of negotiations between providers and insurers.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#163

Post by A_non_e-moose »

PeterStuer wrote: post #5

The nuance you might not get from just the title: "Microsoft will now allow employees to work from home freely for less than 50 percent of their working week, or for managers to approve permanent remote work. " In order for true relocation to be an option, that 'manager approval' must be unequivocal, unrevocable and transferable, when, as happens very frequently at Microsoft, the worker gets a new manager.

More nuance

> even seek to move internationally if remote working is viable for their particular role

This is not true, it is not related to the role but related to if you are in the USA or not. In written internal memo it is specified exceptions are possible, but reality is the manager telling you directly this is not happening for employee outside USA.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#164

Post by JauntTrooper »

jsjohnst wrote: post #151
neogodless wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

> dump a buttload of pre-tax money into a 401(k)... About $53k in one year. That’s like double the IRS allowed maximum for pre-tax 401k deferral in a year, no? This is not my area of expertise so I could easily be unaware of something. Can you explain how you did this as I’m genuinely curious and want to do the same.

There's something that's often referred to as the "Mega Backdoor Roth" that lets you shelter an extra $37,500 per year beyond the traditional 401(k) limits.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#165

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #154
ptero wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not see this around me at all. There is probably some truth in this for the FAANG "work 80 hrs a week, get rich in 5 years" jobs (probably because those who want to work 80+ hours a week and get rich quick-er tend to be young folks without major commitments). However, there are plenty of people around me who are in the 40-60 age bracket, who work in tech, are financially comfortable (even though they do not get…

> There is probably some truth in this for the FAANG "work 80 hrs a week, get rich in 5 years" jobs If you are at a FAANG company and working 80 hours a week, you're earning the same compensation as you would if you were working 40 hours a week. It's not like you're going to get richer working 80 hours. Come review time, nobody looks and says, "oh hey, you worked lots and lots of hours. You get a promotion!" It makes…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#166

Post by andreilys »

davidf560 wrote: post #138
w0utert wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> you should be paid according to the value you create for the company, and nothing else But, you need to subtract your pay from the value you create. If you create $1MM value but cost $500K, and someone in the Midwest can create that same $1MM value for only $150K, it's pretty obvious what most companies will choose. FAANG companies somehow convinced themselves that paying $500K for talent in SV made sense even if t…

Unfortunately the ability to quantitatively capture how much value you created is next to impossible for most knowledge workers. Sure you can approximate but that’s about it

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#167

Post by pembrook »

MattGaiser wrote: post #109
netcan wrote: post #104

The geopay stuff seems unstable as a norm... if that's the way we're going. It makes sense atm, maybe, for tech companies. The tech companies, currently, are extremely flush with cash. They don't need to be all that ruthless. This takes off a lot of pressure. But as things go on, "geopay" is going to become an optimizable cost structure. There will be uncomfortable conversations as people move to higher geopay places…

I have a evil theory. Geopay will act like as an assumed filter. Top go getter types who are the future leaders will (in theory) come to the office and get the high pay. The less ambitious but still capable workers will move to cheaper places and earn less and be more easily replaceable.

This is already how organizations work and have always worked.

The more ambitious, sociopathic and lucky ones rise up the ladder.

The people who don’t care that much about work remain ICs and enjoy the rest of their life outside work. There’s a great blog post about this on Ribbon farm.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#169

Post by claytongulick »

Interesting, I just interviewed with them last year and ended up not moving forward because they wanted me to move to Washington.

Same with Google, except they wanted me to move to New York.

I was pretty surprised at both company's unwillingness to be flexible on that point.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#170

Post by np- »

jsjohnst wrote: post #151
neogodless wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

> dump a buttload of pre-tax money into a 401(k)... About $53k in one year. That’s like double the IRS allowed maximum for pre-tax 401k deferral in a year, no? This is not my area of expertise so I could easily be unaware of something. Can you explain how you did this as I’m genuinely curious and want to do the same.

There is a separate, higher IRS max for employee+employer contribution (this is why many jobs can offer 401k matching), and that number is somewhere around $55k these days. But there is a loophole—when you are your own employer, i.e. self employed, you can contribute that full amount to your own 401k.
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