Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 290 posts

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#171

Post by spoonjim »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #63
adamnemecek wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time zone differences are bad.

I'm a remote contractor, and my policy is to essentially work my clients time zone. Right now I'm 11am-7pm (I'm in NZ, they're mostly in Sydney, Australia). For a while my team was all in Malaysia, so I did 2pm-10pm. Hell for the right contract I'd work as far east as texas, mon-fri 10am-6pm for them, tues-sat 5am-1pm for me. No one asks me to do this, but it just makes life easier, and clients like knowing that I'm…

How do you get work in such diverse places?

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#172

Post by onion2k »

pfp wrote: post #56

Don't negotiate. Dictate. I'm not joking either. I tried negotiating this (pre-covid), only to get a "final offer" of a measly couple of remote days etc. Being on the spectrum, I took their word at face value, found another job that does 100% remote, and put in my resignation. Surprisingly that "absolutely final" position wasn't that final anymore, and they'd've rather had me remote than not at all. Had the new job n…

You also need to consider what this looks like from the other side - an employee has looked a new role, interviewed for it, and been given an offer. That's a strong signal that they're unhappy and looking for the exit. You may say the fact you're not remote is the reason, but what if it's also about money or the work is boring or there's friction with your manager? The only information the company has is what you're saying, so it's likely to be incomplete.

Whenever someone on my team has approached me to say they have a better offer but they'll stay if I can match the terms I've always recommended they take the offer even if I'd be sad to lose them. Keeping someone on the team who is unhappy enough to go through the hiring process and find a new role is a short term fix at best.

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#173

Post by BeetleB »

chrisseaton wrote: post #79
naturalauction wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that sounds about right - maybe you are looking at a different kind of life insurance. Just take the SSA yearly chance of dying (the real chance of dying is likely less if you are healthy, but on average this should be the price) from [0] and multiply by 10 million. Only 16k for a 25 year old but around 160k for an average 65 year old. [0] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

> Only 16k for a 25 year old but around 160k for an average 65 year old. I mean you can just go on a price comparison site right now for yourself and see that this isn't even remotely the price quoted for multiple providers and a wide range of levels of cover - nothing is even remotely close to even 16k.

I think those quoting huge costs are looking at whole life whereas the rest are looking at term life. Looking at one place, if you're 30 years old, and getting only 100K for whole life, the premium is over $1400/yr. Multiply that by 10 for 1M and it's 14K/yr.

People often get these expensive plans because they can treat it as a retirement fund, and can borrow against it at any time with no penalties, etc. With term life your premiums are wasted if you cancel at 65. With whole life, you get back your premiums, and their growth (you may be able to control the investment vehicle as well).

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#174

Post by faeyanpiraat »

jonathanfoster wrote: post #101
ineptech wrote: post #61

I manage people and have some advice. Start with, "I'd like to be converted to full remote, what's the process for that?" The answer is probably "I don't know but I don't think it would fly." Insist that your manager ask up the chain for an official answer. If the answer is "nope", next say: "I'm not comfortable returning to the office for health reasons. Will I be fired?" This is two-pronged: a) it introduces privat…

@ineptech knows what he's talking about. Follow this advice. Here are some more ideas to consider. Source: 18+ years of experience as an engineer, manager, and director. The theme is make your manager's life easy and he/she will do whatever they can to help you out. Depending upon the size of your company, your manager may have more or less discretion with WFH. Whatever you do, don't put him/her into a corner with an…

How can you patiently explore your options or loopholes for HR, when there is an urgent deadline to return to the office?

Wouldn’t simply not showing up give them a “bureocratic obligation” to fire you for disobedience?

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#175

Post by mkhpalm »

ineptech wrote: post #61

I manage people and have some advice. Start with, "I'd like to be converted to full remote, what's the process for that?" The answer is probably "I don't know but I don't think it would fly." Insist that your manager ask up the chain for an official answer. If the answer is "nope", next say: "I'm not comfortable returning to the office for health reasons. Will I be fired?" This is two-pronged: a) it introduces privat…

> (If they ask, "what health concerns?" remind them that's private. Don't invent a fictitious medically-fragile aunt.)

I don't think anybody needs to make anything up in the midst of worldwide pandemic. This past year is a blockbuster example of why somebody could reasonably be concerned.

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#176

Post by taurath »

onion2k wrote: post #172
pfp wrote: post #56

Don't negotiate. Dictate. I'm not joking either. I tried negotiating this (pre-covid), only to get a "final offer" of a measly couple of remote days etc. Being on the spectrum, I took their word at face value, found another job that does 100% remote, and put in my resignation. Surprisingly that "absolutely final" position wasn't that final anymore, and they'd've rather had me remote than not at all. Had the new job n…

You also need to consider what this looks like from the other side - an employee has looked a new role, interviewed for it, and been given an offer. That's a strong signal that they're unhappy and looking for the exit. You may say the fact you're not remote is the reason, but what if it's also about money or the work is boring or there's friction with your manager? The only information the company has is what you're…

Simply don’t tell them you’re looking. Or (less simply) have savings enough to float for a few months and take a vacation. “Fuck you” money is a joy.

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#177

Post by spurgu »

spoonjim wrote: post #167
pfp wrote: post #56

Don't negotiate. Dictate. I'm not joking either. I tried negotiating this (pre-covid), only to get a "final offer" of a measly couple of remote days etc. Being on the spectrum, I took their word at face value, found another job that does 100% remote, and put in my resignation. Surprisingly that "absolutely final" position wasn't that final anymore, and they'd've rather had me remote than not at all. Had the new job n…

You're much better off at a company that actively offers remote work instead of browbeating your current employer into conceding it to you. In the latter case you will always be seen as a second class citizen and they will never take your career development seriously.

Not if it's part of an ongoing process where other employees through this are empowered to go full remote as well, until it becomes the norm.

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#178

Post by jasonkester »

pfp wrote: post #56

Don't negotiate. Dictate. I'm not joking either. I tried negotiating this (pre-covid), only to get a "final offer" of a measly couple of remote days etc. Being on the spectrum, I took their word at face value, found another job that does 100% remote, and put in my resignation. Surprisingly that "absolutely final" position wasn't that final anymore, and they'd've rather had me remote than not at all. Had the new job n…

Don't negotiate. Dictate.

If you're already in place and have proven that you're good at what you do, this is the way to go.

"I wanted to let you know that I'll be staying remote from here on out. This last year has been a huge improvement in quality of life for me, and honestly I couldn't imagine working out of an office again. I'd love to stay with you guys (this is a great team), so let me know if that's an option. If not, I'm sure I can wind down my projects by next month."

Good developers are hard to find, and the market right now is on fire, so you're a lot more valuable to them then they are to you.

Even back when that was less the case than today, this was my standard method of negotiating things like long leaves of absence and shortened work weeks. I've written about it previously:

https://www.expatsoftware.com/articles/2007/02/two-weeks-vac...

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#179

Post by sgtnoodle »

dbenny wrote: post #54

CTO at Markforged here. If you can't work it out with your employer hit us up. We're hiring remote software engineers. We'll ship you a printer so you can dev from home. Good luck! Like a lot of other commenters have posted - you have options.

We have a bunch of onyx printers at work and the parts are so pretty! The mechanical engineers probably go through $1k of filament a week at least. I've been iterating on my hobby printer for a few years now, and like to compare my prints to the onyx prints for inspiration. I think you guys cheat a little bit since it's such a matte finish; it hides a lot of blemishes. :-) The one time I printed a part myself on an onyx, I noticed that the slicer didn't print "thin" walls and instead left gaps in the part, though. Is that a quirk of the slicer, or did I probably just have a setting wrong?

Re: Ask HN: How to negotiate continuing to work remotely?

#180

Post by spuz »

onion2k wrote: post #172
pfp wrote: post #56

Don't negotiate. Dictate. I'm not joking either. I tried negotiating this (pre-covid), only to get a "final offer" of a measly couple of remote days etc. Being on the spectrum, I took their word at face value, found another job that does 100% remote, and put in my resignation. Surprisingly that "absolutely final" position wasn't that final anymore, and they'd've rather had me remote than not at all. Had the new job n…

You also need to consider what this looks like from the other side - an employee has looked a new role, interviewed for it, and been given an offer. That's a strong signal that they're unhappy and looking for the exit. You may say the fact you're not remote is the reason, but what if it's also about money or the work is boring or there's friction with your manager? The only information the company has is what you're…

I agree to some extent here. I think it's perhaps better in general that employees raise their specific needs very clearly with their employers and if they feel like they are not being listened to then they should start to look to find another offer. If the very first step an employee takes before negotiating for free tea and coffee in the break room is to slap another job offer on the table then I agree it looks bad.

It seems pfp did it right by first making their requirements well known and then putting themselves in a good negotiation position.

Post reply on HN