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The Winners of Remote Work

nytimes.com

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Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#151

Post by mym1990 »

closeparen wrote: post #149
ghaff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced a lot of these trends stick post-COVID. A lot of people like the in-person part of the spin class and probably would prefer it to the highly-paid video pro. That said, behaviors will have changed for a lot of things over the course of a couple of years. People have developed new habits. Not all of that--including going into an office five days a week in many cases--are going to just reset.

What reason do we have to believe that there will be a point in the future with less COVID risk than there is today? By what mechanism will that arise?

Vaccination numbers still have a lot of room to grow, the virus may mutate into something that has a lower kill rate, the vaccine efficacy will likely improve, etc...

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#152

Post by ThalesX »

joelbluminator wrote: post #120
ThalesX wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the Ubers and AirBnBs circumventing laws around the world and you think it's hard to optimize for a remote law and accountancy practice? Just have offshore remoters do the bulk of work and have it signed by a certified local lawyer / accountant.

It's not impossible I guess, you will need to find people who know U.S law well. If you're talking about accountancy that's pretty complex stuff. You can outsource the grunt work easily (going over Excel sheets, that has been ousourced for decades already) but the substantial work no, I don't think it's that easy.

I don't think it's easy either. There are smart people everywhere in the world. If these people could be easily paid and could get their results validated by a local expert, there would be a lot of financial incentive for these smart people to learn the US law, for example, and create case files for the local experts to evaluate and sign on.

Would it cut the need for the local experts? No. Would it reduce their numbers? Maybe, it could also diversify them. Would it lower the cost for the service? I also think so.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#153

Post by geodel »

pc86 wrote: post #56
luffapi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> love working from home but it’s easy to get distracted with side projects, feeding birds, germinating seeds etc. For programmers at least “productivity” comes from writing leveragable code, not by working more hours. Watching birds, gardening and generally being relaxed and rested will increase the quality of the code you write. It may even allow you to envision solutions impossible to come up with under the daily…

There are also plenty of programmers who are just lazy and don't want to work a lot. Check out any of the dozens (hundreds?) of comments on Blind of people working 15, 20, 25 hours a week. Total. "I'm sitting on my porch drinking a beer and watching birds but trust me I'm totally working right now " doesn't take you very far.

Well wining and dining has taken management folks quite far and writing same-old CRUD app thousandth time by hand is not gonna take developers very far.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#154

Post by hawthornio »

ghaff wrote: post #33
schnevets wrote: post #15

The article describes gains made by "superstars", who can be seen as self-motivated and capable of making a big impact. I am extremely concerned about how we cultivate superstars in the remote work world. I have been working remote for over 5 years now, but I wouldn't have survived without a lot of luck and years of experience as an intern/entry level employee at an office with some brilliant mentors. I have tried me…

I entered the workforce in a very different time with very different tools which makes it hard for me to think through the counterfactual: "What if I had had to be remote when I first started working?" But I think it would have been very difficult and I might have been less successful as a result. Even today, I feel like I'm cruising a bit on existing in-person relationships. (I was large remote pre-COVID but I still…

I’m a fresh grad who has basically only worked remote (except a summer internship freshman year and TA-ing in person 2 years ago), so I’ll report back in 5 years as a counter-factual ;)

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#155

Post by 28367090 »

pvm3 wrote: post #22

The Winners of Remote Work don't live in the United States. The pandemic has accelerated globalization.

The pandemic accelerated the end of globalization. Globalization is over. The US will become less and less involved in the other countries -- even less than it is now -- and corporations will not be hiring teams that are mix of time zones, languages, and cultures. They will continue to hire people with credentials like those in charge, who look like, speak like, and have the same goals / culture as those in charge.

And that's going to be in US major cities.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#156

Post by mym1990 »

umeshunni wrote: post #69
ghaff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced a lot of these trends stick post-COVID. A lot of people like the in-person part of the spin class and probably would prefer it to the highly-paid video pro. That said, behaviors will have changed for a lot of things over the course of a couple of years. People have developed new habits. Not all of that--including going into an office five days a week in many cases--are going to just reset.

The same principles that apply to remote work apply here. Why would I want to drive 10-15 minutes, park, change and all that for a 30 or 60 minute spin class when I can take that same class in my garage or living room.

Because some people like to have separation of concerns in their life. I don't necessarily want to have my home be where I workout and where I work. Especially given that I live in a small studio. I do classes 1x a week still, and being in a room, 15 minutes down the street, surrounded by people in the same mindset helps me focus on that task.

This doesn't fit into everyone's wants and needs...but just because you can't fathom why YOU would want to do something doesn't mean there isn't a completely valid reason for those around you.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#157

Post by adolph »

altgoogler wrote: post #111
avnigo wrote: post #53

> Google [...] would reduce the pay of those who choose to work remotely or move farther from the office. Avoiding the office saves employees money — in commuting costs, for example I don't understand the reasoning behind this, and I've seen it being used again and again. Employees are compensated on the work they provide during work hours, and only rarely do companies provide compensation to specifically accommodate…

> In June, Google told rank-and-file employees it would reduce the pay of those who choose to work remotely or move farther from the office. To echo the statement from the other Googler who posted, this quote from the article is simply not true. It implies that if any employee chooses permanent WFH, you get a pay cut. If you follow the link [1] from the article, you'll see the following reasons: * Google supplied an…

1. Perform gradient descent using online MSA calculator and Zillow

2. Move to superfund site nearest NYC or FS

3. Profit!

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#158

Post by papito »

ohazi wrote: post #95
papito wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can be as unproductive at work as I can be at home, but coasting in the office is so exhausting, I'd rather do work.

I can even recall a handful of times when I was trying to solve a fiddly problem, and couldn't concentrate because our (open floor plan) office was a zoo. I would tell my boss I needed some quiet, would go home, would sit down and solve the problem, and would come back the next day feeling much less frustrated.

I should have done that more often. Open floor, combined with Slack and over-communication made me 4x less productive.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#159

Post by jdgiese »

ghaff wrote: post #33
schnevets wrote: post #15

The article describes gains made by "superstars", who can be seen as self-motivated and capable of making a big impact. I am extremely concerned about how we cultivate superstars in the remote work world. I have been working remote for over 5 years now, but I wouldn't have survived without a lot of luck and years of experience as an intern/entry level employee at an office with some brilliant mentors. I have tried me…

I entered the workforce in a very different time with very different tools which makes it hard for me to think through the counterfactual: "What if I had had to be remote when I first started working?" But I think it would have been very difficult and I might have been less successful as a result. Even today, I feel like I'm cruising a bit on existing in-person relationships. (I was large remote pre-COVID but I still…

We’re fully remote and have hired a few engineers out of college. They’re very independent and productive. Who knows if they’d be even better if they worked onsite, but I doubt it.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#160

Post by ghaff »

luffapi wrote: post #86
vehemenz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to quote a line, quote the context. The OP was talking about "boom cities" as a problem, which they aren't by themselves. The problem is the unaffordability of the cities, caused by lack of housing, which leads folks to live outside of the city and commute. My main point was that arguing for remote work/sprawl was not a ecologically-friendly argument. Sure, lots of people want to live in the middle of…

Wouldn’t wfh decrease the cost of living in the city, since currently most high paying jobs make living within commuting distance a requirement? To make an extreme example, cost of living on the Bay Area should go down if wfh becomes widespread. There are other reasons to want to live in SF aside from getting paid a high salary in tech, so housing prices should “fallback” to whatever people value the culture/scenery……

I'm not sure SF is a great example. For most tech workers, they're giving themselves a worse commute by living in the city rather than somewhere else in the South Bay closer, in many/most cases, to where their office is. So, yes, their jobs may be a major reason they're in the Bay Area overall, but mostly not in SF itself.

This is of course much less true in industries like finance.

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