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For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

economist.com

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Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#281

Post by digbert »

jimsimmons wrote: post #273

What bothers me more is that these tech companies aren’t even trying to have a conversation with their employees. If they did a survey and collected opinions from their employees the decision would be pretty trivial. But the managerial gang knows that and they want to side step it. The companies want to pretend they care about the employees. They claim to be giving them perks. In reality, these perks are just gamific…

> If they did a survey and collected opinions from their employees the decision would be pretty trivial.

I'm not so sure about that. My company recently announced that our offices wouldn't be reopening until at least November, and there was a lot of quite angry pushback from people who are desperate to get back.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#282

Post by [deleted] »

goldenkey wrote: post #220
birdyrooster wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because the weed, it makes it hard to hold it all together Edit: okay fine the stoners just want to stay WFH and blaze up during the day

Plenty of folks work long and difficult jobs while on Cannabis. Before it started giving me anxiety, I programmed on it for years. It made hard tasks more exploratory and fun. OP just sounds like a lazy manlet, not drug-induced malaise.

[deleted]

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#283

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

rytis wrote: post #270
yodsanklai wrote: post #261

I'm surprised so many people are so angry about the pay cut. Using my company's simulator, the pay cut seems to be at most 15% of the base salary and most likely less than that. In my case, considering cost of living, it would certainly be most advantageous to work remotely. I would save more money and live in a much nicer place.

It's not about the actual numbers. It's the WHY. How come the company was ok to pay X when the employee was coming to the office, but now that the same employee is WFH (and thus may be saving some dosh) they are only entitled to 0.85*X? Presumably the said employee was producing a value of Y (where Y may have been > X). Has Y changed? If yes, then it's fair to do the reduction, but I doubt that is the case. It might…

It depends on your POV. They could say when you were coming to the office they were paying you for the time lost for commuting, for having to pay higher rent, for having to deal with incompetent managers and constant interruptions in the open-plan office. Now that you don't have to deal with all these, they take away that bonus.

In any case, no matter what they say, the ability to WFH, either completely or partially, it's one of the very few good things that the pandemic brought. We need to protect this advancement in spite of the efforts of CEOs wondering why they bought monstrous campuses and how they are going to explain the sunk cost to the shareholders (hints: it's their problem, not ours).

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#284

Post by oytis »

Cookingboy wrote: post #94
RHSeeger wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I saw more sparks flying in one afternoon of social event than 3 months of planned video calls. I've seen more sparks fly from random discussions on Slack then I've ever seen in person. The ability to toss out random thoughts/idea at any time, and have others discuss/expand on them at their leisure is... powerful. Different modes of communication have different tradeoffs. There's nothing magical about in-person com…

>There's nothing magical about in-person communication. Other the fact that the brains of our entire specie has evolved for millions of years for this exact type of communication, there isn't anything magical, I guess... The information bandwidth of in-person communication is absolutely unparalleled, even if technology can now match in latency . Good luck replicating body language, eye contacts, subtle facial cues et…

If you look at how addictive digital communication is you might conclude it makes a great fit for our brains, maybe a better fit than in-person communication with may be tiresome at times.

And body language, eye contacts etc. are not necessarily useful for professional communication, these might as well be distracting and distorting a rational discussion.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#285

Post by ca01an »

higeorge13 wrote: post #112

Most HN posts always compare with FAANG jobs and salaries, while there is a whole different world out there. For instance, in Europe and especially low-paid countries in the south or eastern Europe, i foresee zero chance that top talent will stay in their countries to be given low salaries for jobs with local/low impact. These people are already working or looking to work remotely to companies in richer countries (e.…

I'm curious, what sort of salary range would there be for engineers in your country?

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#286

Post by globular-toast »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #266
globular-toast wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you do benefit from going to the office then. But here's the thing, I don't mind if you go to the office. You can even take your free lunch, I don't mind. Just don't expect me to come in every day to make you feel bad about how long your breaks are.

I don't understand why everyone commenting takes my comment as some kind of personal attack. I don't give a flying fuck what you guys do. I, personally, can't wait to get back to office.

Because your description of "the office" includes me. Specifically, that "external pressure" you are talking about. You seem to require the office to be filled with drones who are monitoring you to make sure you are working. If you were just talking about working in a location that isn't your own home, then fair enough. But what you're actually talking about is going back to that broken culture we had before where everyone commuted to the office for no reason.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#287

Post by oytis »

Cookingboy wrote: post #237
axiolite wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> evolved for millions of years for this exact type of communication A great many people identify themselves as introverts or antisocial, and would feel much better being excluded from all these neuron triggers. > The information bandwidth of in-person communication is absolutely unparalleled Yes, but that bandwidth is not all used productively but wasted on irrelevant bits which do not matter and likely distract fro…

>Such things are usually unnecessary to the task at hand, and often detrimental Have you considered the mere possibility that many people's work have different types of tasks than yours? It's so hard not to make stereotypical jokes about engineers when reading comments like this XD

But we are talking about engineering work, right? That's what discussed article is about.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#288

Post by Clewza313 »

rytis wrote: post #270
yodsanklai wrote: post #261

I'm surprised so many people are so angry about the pay cut. Using my company's simulator, the pay cut seems to be at most 15% of the base salary and most likely less than that. In my case, considering cost of living, it would certainly be most advantageous to work remotely. I would save more money and live in a much nicer place.

It's not about the actual numbers. It's the WHY. How come the company was ok to pay X when the employee was coming to the office, but now that the same employee is WFH (and thus may be saving some dosh) they are only entitled to 0.85*X? Presumably the said employee was producing a value of Y (where Y may have been > X). Has Y changed? If yes, then it's fair to do the reduction, but I doubt that is the case. It might…

Playing the devil's advocate here, why is it OK to pay a developer in India $3000/year when they could command $300,000/year in Silicon Valley?

Also, unless they joined within the last year, the current employees signed contracts obliging them to come to work 5 days a week. If they wish to permanently move to working from home in their pajamas for 5 days a week instead, the company is basically saying "Sure, but that will be a 15% paycut because we feel that makes you less valuable to us". You're welcome to disagree with the company's view, but it's not particularly "unfair" to me.

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#289

Post by jimsimmons »

digbert wrote: post #281
jimsimmons wrote: post #273

What bothers me more is that these tech companies aren’t even trying to have a conversation with their employees. If they did a survey and collected opinions from their employees the decision would be pretty trivial. But the managerial gang knows that and they want to side step it. The companies want to pretend they care about the employees. They claim to be giving them perks. In reality, these perks are just gamific…

> If they did a survey and collected opinions from their employees the decision would be pretty trivial. I'm not so sure about that. My company recently announced that our offices wouldn't be reopening until at least November, and there was a lot of quite angry pushback from people who are desperate to get back.

I’d be more comfortable with a mandate in such cases, either way. It’s at least evidence based. And like I said, I’d feel part of the conversation. Right now I’m like “I/We need to be back because … “

Re: For programmers, remote working is becoming the norm

#290

Post by thiht »

grawprog wrote: post #72

I dunno, for a group of people who seem to believe you're worth a ridiculous amount of money per hour, think of what your time is worth. You folks that make a living programming off exceedingly decent wages. You don't break your bodies every day, you're not forced to spend all day moving wood and metal, filling bags full of garbage, hauling shit that weighs 50+ lbs all day every day. You just gotta sit and think and…

Oh shut up. Just because others have it worse doesn’t mean you can’t complain when you get fucked or that you can’t try to continue improving your situation.

That’s the worse possible argument.

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