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Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

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261–270 of 278 posts

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#261
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What countries are good for this?

Well it's more limited right now but under normal circumstances most of southern Europe, Pacific Asia, New Zealand, European-associated Caribbean islands, Costa Rica, Belize, etc, are all decent options. I spent several months working from the Canary Islands and other than my difficulties in mastering the local Spanish it was great.

Did you make it to La Palma? I did my coronavirus lockdown there. A nice place to be stuck :)

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about other peoples experiences but all the best and smoothest projects of my career were done with groups who had good social cohesion, got on with each other, supported each other and most importantly socialized with each other. There is close to zero opportunity for free creative brainstorming in the workplace and all the true innovation we made came out of discussions outside of work at the pub. Definite…

The group ideas are only as good as the smartest member. All this chit chat talk is bullshit

>The group ideas are only as good as the smartest member

Even the smartest members tend often to not realize the brilliance of a random idea they have (out of their list of many). A cohesive group of people that you trust and can bounce ideas off of is valuable, both in case of bad and good ideas.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#263
post #92
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It will be cheaper if the local coworking space costs less than your commute to the employer's office.

Both financially and in time spent.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#264
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Do you think taking care of children is a low status work that people have to do and not want to do? I know my wife certainly feels that way.

As long as she excepts that other women might have different feelings about the matter, she is completely entitled to her own. I just find it weird that when women prefer a career over raising children it is considered normal and when they prefer raising children it is viewed with suspicion (they must have been forced). Can't both preferences be equally valid and normal?

>Can't both preferences be equally valid and normal?

They can. They are to me.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#265
post #252
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming that the ratio is disproportionate because people are being pushed out of the industry against their will. Some people get burned out, some people retire early, and some transition into management or start their own company. The industry has grown exponentially in the 20-40 years those people have been working. If the industry now is 10x the size it was in 2000 (arbitrary number), then 40 year old dev…

> Some people get burned out I'd say if management routinely burns out programmers and prevents them from having long careers, that in itself is a form of age discrimination. > If the industry now is 10x the size it was in 2000 (arbitrary number), then 40 year old developers should be 10% of the workforce, even discounting any other factors. IMO this seems to be an ageist assumption. If an industry is growing, why sh…

> I'd say if management routinely burns out programmers and prevents them from having long careers, that in itself is a form of age discrimination.

It's not management though that may be a part. Building complex systems with cutting (i.e., bleeding) edge technology is hard. A lot of projects fail, often with career consequences for the people in them. If you experience 2-3 of these you start to look around to see if there's an easier way to make a living.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#266
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply put. Some people need “structure” (that can be in the form of peer pressure, accountability, visibility, etc). Without it they flounder. At work if someone is not mainly on their job, people will eventually come to know them as slackers. Working from home allows quite a few slackers to fly under the radar. It has parallels in learning. Some people are self paced self learners and can learn remotely. Some need…

My question is why would they perform better at the office? In your example their performance is the same and they become labeled as "slackers" by their co-worker and management. If we allow these people to perform poorly in the office, shouldn't we also allow them to perform poorly when they work remotely? If a manager is not providing adequate structure at the office, it seems unlikely that this would change regard…

> My question is why would they perform better at the office?

If you spend the whole day watching Youtube in office, your boss/colleagues will notice that and ask questions, no one is going to do that when you are at home.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#267
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…

Except the most common instance of "part-time" work is actually full-time, just without benefits, and the majority of those jobs are not cushy expensive contracts with large American companies. They just call it part time because they aren't monitoring hours strictly.

I probably should not bother trying to describe this here because almost no comes on HN and admits they aren't highly compensated.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#268
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

It was the entire portion, was not through an employer.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#269
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're also now 10 years older. Health insurance pricing never goes down as you get older, only up . That $77 might have been $150-200+ for someone your age now 10 years ago.

This was an immediate reaction, I went from being able to afford healthcare to not affording it.

Re: Microsoft is letting employees work from home permanently

#270
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It was the entire portion, was not through an employer.

It sounds like you had the equivalent of “short term health insurance.” They might not have called it that back then, but it’s sold now under that name (with limitations on how long you can remain in the policy that were relaxed recently) to remain ACA compliant. You can still buy these type of plans (at least in my state, North Carolina) for under $100/mo. There are lifetime maximums, exclusions for pre existing conditions, and high deductibles, but that’s probably the same as what you had pre-ACA as well.

These plans are typically referred to as “junk insurance” but if you can’t afford or just don’t want a more comprehensive plan they’re better than nothing.

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