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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

#171

Post by kube-system »

mgkimsal wrote: post #54
tuna-piano wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well for many reasons (good and bad) healthcare is more expensive in the US than any other country. But why is healthcare bought individually more expensive than healthcare an employer buys for all their employees? One is real and one is hidden. The hidden price difference is that most employees think they pay $200 per month in health insurance, but actually their employer is paying $600 and chips in $400 so the empl…

> When an entire employee base gets health insurance together, the people needing expensive care and the people not needing any care all average out together. Often/usually, the people needing very expensive care aren't employed in the first place, as they're often not able to work, or at least not able to work in a company with employer-provided health insurance in the first place.

That is sometimes the case, but you also don't have to work a job to be covered under employer-sponsored health insurance -- you could simply be related to someone with a job.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#172

Post by michaelt »

_qulr wrote: post #142
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…

> I do not see this around me at all. Are you denying the existence of rampant age discrimination in tech, which has been highlighted countless times by many people? Otherwise, I'm not sure what the comment was intending. > there are plenty of people around me There's a bit of survivorship bias there. The older people driven out of tech may be invisible to you.

> Are you denying the existence of rampant age discrimination in tech

My interpretation was that ptero meant "I don't see my peers working 80 hours a week, with the aim of getting rich and retiring early"

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#173

Post by cryptica »

It's great to see Microsoft jumping on board. I think the reason that Microsoft was hesitant to do this initially was because they have enjoyed high productivity increases over the past few years (especially on the software development side thanks to awesome tools like TypeScript) and so they didn't want to risk losing that momentum. Thankfully it appears that Microsoft employees have been able to adapt to remote work and were able to maintain similar productivity levels.

I think it speaks to the high quality of project managers who work at Microsoft. Project managers are the foundation of any solid tech business.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#174

Post by apexalpha »

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…

In the Netherlands it's the law that you're always allowed to reduce your hours, while keeping the same (hourly) salary and benefits. If your employer disagrees the burden of proof is on THEM to proof that your job would not be doable part-time.

This (and to be honest also fiscal policy) has resulted in the largest part-time workforce in the world. In Dutch e-mail it's very common to find the days people work in the signature at the bottom.

Even though it's not mandatory most people will start by taking Wednesday and/or Friday off. So over time the work culture here became to plan meetings on Mo-Tue-Thu, along with drinks on Thursdays in stead of Fridays. As someone who works 40h still this is such a net-positive for me as well, I love that people don't really plan meetings on Wednesday and Fridays and you can just work.

73% of all women work part-time, as do 23% of the men. Only half of all working Dutch people work fulltime.

Part-time is anything between 12h and 32h a week.

I hope this would become the norm everywhere as it truly frees up everyone to suit their needs.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#175

Post by snegu »

sushshshsh wrote: post #107

My wife and I were about to buy a 1.4M house in Redmond but for the past two weeks we've been considering a completely different rural area with beautiful new houses and lots of land

This could be such a boon for Redmond. The area is way too expensive and the traffic is horrific, and this is mostly due to Microsoft workers needing to be in the office. We finally quit our jobs and left, but this could certainly help for the future!

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#176

Post by koheripbal »

wrkronmiller wrote: post #133
koheripbal wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ultimate outcome, no matter what companies do, is that tech workers just won't live in big cities any longer. If remote work is an option, then paying high rents just doesn't make sense. Moreover, as this trend continues, the ultimate outcome is not US workers moving to low-cost locations, it is foreign workers supplanting US workers in extremely low cost locations.

I don't buy this. > If remote work is an option, then paying high rents just doesn't make sense. I live in NYC because I like NYC, not because the pay is higher. I took a net pay cut after rent, taxes, etc after moving here from Maryland, in spite of getting a substantial pay rise. I suspect that's not uncommon. > the ultimate outcome is not US workers moving to low-cost locations, it is foreign workers supplanting U…

> This was already on the table. Generally speaking, you get what you pay for.

Right, but now companies are a LOT more comfortable with it than before, and have the tools, the management training, and the executive buy in to accelerate this.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#177

Post by tlbsofware »

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…

Some people find satisfaction in their work and enjoy creating things outside of the usual work week. It doesn’t have to always be money driven

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#178

Post by farseer »

If this works, it would be Indians, Chinese and Eastern European coders who would make up the majority of Microsoft rank and file in a few years. Killing the H1B visa was not going to save American jobs, the corporations are always a step ahead. We are looking at a Microsoft with a truly global workforce. Why pay $150k to a dev when it would buy 5 Romanians instead who are just as good.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#179

Post by gregkerzhner »

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 think for part time to be successful it has to be the right environment. Contract work seems perfect - you are focused and have a singular mission. I can also totally see working on a personal project 20 hours a week and being super productive.

However, working part time for a large organization seems tricky. There are so many meetings, distractions, and responsibilities other than just coding that it seems like your actual focus time to do work would be pretty nonexistent in a part time scenario.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#180

Post by luckylion »

JauntTrooper wrote: post #152
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.

To add another US data point, for my family of 4 I pay $770 per month for health insurance and my employer pays an additional $1,370 per month. My health insurance is through my employer, a large publicly-traded company. My insurer is one of the large well known providers. Our insurance is very mediocre. We pay the first $3,000 out of pocket and 20% of the cost beyond that, but that's only if a doctor is "in network"…

> Plus my wife and I pay an extra 0.9% of our paychecks for all combined wages above $250,000.

Calculate how much taxes you'd pay in e.g. Germany or Belgium, and put half of that towards health expenditures. I think you'll still come out ahead by a large margin.

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