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The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

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Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#521
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Europe there are not many "remote friendly" companies This is not true. There are many such opportunities if you ask, especially now. > it's not that you will get a 20% pay rise every time you switch If you work in IT (generous, but it is HN...), this should be your experience unless you switch more than once every two years. Then everyone will mistrust you, but you can still do it as a contractor. > On top, it…

> it is (socially, in terms of security) a desert hellscape >Of course, such numbers mostly make sense in the US because it is (socially, in terms of security) a desert hellscape. The lower top salary in the EU comes with the benefit of knowing that if you go blind you won't have to die shitting yourself in some crackhouse. Can you elaborate? I assume the canonical source for information about the US is American TV,…

I have american colleagues who are undergoing various treatments and they know they can't lose their job because their health insurance would end and they cannot afford to pay for it without a job. Yes some kind of medicaid or other would eventually kick in, but it would still mean potentially months of going without cancer treatment because you lost your job.

In (most) European states it's just not a concern that anyone ever has - if you are getting treatment under national health service then it has nothing to do with your employment status and any treatment would just continue. If you need time off due to ilness it has to be paid for as well(employer only pays for a while, then the state takes over).

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#522
post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it is (socially, in terms of security) a desert hellscape >Of course, such numbers mostly make sense in the US because it is (socially, in terms of security) a desert hellscape. The lower top salary in the EU comes with the benefit of knowing that if you go blind you won't have to die shitting yourself in some crackhouse. Can you elaborate? I assume the canonical source for information about the US is American TV,…

Is there a safety net? (Honest question from a European)

There’s a patchwork of federal, state, and local safety nets with a lot of holes to fall through. Generally speaking, you have to be just fortunate enough (esp. with regard to mental health, social support, and having a mailing address) to have the wherewithal to secure the benefits, but not so fortunate that you don’t qualify. People with everything stacked against them tend to become homeless, and there are few people going out into the field to rescue them.

So there is obviously no bottom-most robust safety net, as plainly evidenced by the homeless situation. But there are a bunch of safety nets that do sustain millions of people. Welfare, subsidized housing, social security (retirement, and disability), medicare, Medicaid, to name the big ones.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm - it was QuestDB, but maybe I didn't see it on HN (can't find it now..) Anyway here is the job link: https://questdb.io/careers/senior-cloud-engineer/

Hmm - it appears I was mistaken: "regional offices in London, Berlin and San Francisco." But the gentleman that interviewed me was in Austria. They are remote first, and have people all over from our conversation.

Cool, thanks for sharing

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#524

"Emergency" WFH at my workplace have been slashed, everyone back in full since the start of the month. No reason publically given, been privately told "not about people like you, but some others have taken a 2 year vacation so management is fed up". I have emails from the CEO personally thanking me for my commitment in going way over what was expected when basically saving the institution during lockdown, so now I al…

> ageism

This. WFH fights this more than anything. When interviews were happening online, i had deliberately set lighting to be low so that my wrinkles are not clear.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#525
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love working from home, and I have a very enlightened employer but I do have some sympathy with the companies that have a chunk of employees who just don't work when they're at home. The situation in my company is simple to manage - we hire good people who are very capable and then trust them to get on and do the job. That works with the sort of people we hire and the sort of work we ask them to do. If they're at h…

> Having these people in the office WOULD result in more work being done. I disagree as I think those people did no work while in the office and kept doing no work outside the office. I worked in a building where one person had a personal laptop open, daytrading all day. Instead of working. Of course they should have worked, but they didn’t. People will shirk work in the office and outside. I think it’s silly to assu…

doubt the playstation kid is one of the office people, more likely a cube or open work area

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How long until climate change or expensive gasoline forces people to just stay home?? Yes, this is just the beginning of the end. I would even say this is the beginning of the end for cities as we know them. I think 80-90% of all white collar jobs will leave cities and suburbia. This will really change the dynamics.

>will leave cities wouldn't that be the opposite? Where I live right now, the nearest grocery store is in the next town over and there is zero public infrastructure to get there. There is no uber or taxi or bus. You just don't live here without a car, period.

Jobs will leave the cities insofar as they are not bound to the city anymore. People might decide to stay in one city or another, but the job will not define where and how, this will change the dynamics

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#527
post #181
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do on your city visits? I would like to do that but everything I like to do is only open during the day, and where I live by 5pm when I finish work it's dark and cold

Travel to a sunnier part of the world.

That's quite expensive, and also bad for the environment with flight emissions

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#528
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you do on your city visits? I would like to do that but everything I like to do is only open during the day, and where I live by 5pm when I finish work it's dark and cold

I work until 16 and here in Spain you still have sun and plenty stuff to do. I live in the colder part so I it's pretty confortable. Un Madrid I guess I'll visit my friend, some museums and stuff and go eat and drink out with people.

Cries in Englishman

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#529
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a 35 - 45 minute bicycle ride which makes it a nice workout. I really felt it when we started working from home during corona and I was sitting on the couch just eating chips and ice cream.

Totally not the same for me. I anticipated that I will move less when WFH and started eating healthier and less chocolate. I think it has to do with self-discipline.

It's gotten better for me ;-)

But in the beginning it was bad.

Re: The worst part of working from home is now haunting reopened offices

#530
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some places, you get to choose when to use sick days but not vacation days. All else being equal, in that case, I'd sometimes prefer to burn vacation.

Every job I've had they are one and the same. You just have PTO.

I have unlimited sick days and finite vacation days.
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