I'm in Berlin (moved from Seattle). Want to commiserate over beer/coffee? If anybody else wants to join just reply :-)
Would love to join, my email is in my profile :)
Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
411–420 of 830 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
#412Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If what makes you happy is a condition in which someone else is unhappy, that person is unlikely to react well. I really hate zoom meetings. Unfortunately if everyone just does whatever they want, then even the in-person meetings get dragged onto zoom because there’s at least a few people who are remote and need to dial in. Early on as we returned to office we even wound up taking a lot of meetings in the office ov…
Exactly! The team has to be aligned, because if a critical mass of people are working remotely, the office ceases to offer any advantage. It's okay to prefer working from home—but you should find a team that also prefers working from home, so people who prefer the office have that option too.
Alternately find a company that supports a mix of in person and remote work and provides the tools to do "in person" things like white-boarding and the culture to provide "coffee chats" and other camaraderie building events.
I think that a lot of people who dislike WFH are missing the sense of community more than are actually missing talking with someone face to face with a cup of coffee in their hand. Not always the case, but I think those are two separate audiences that get clumped together in these conversations.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
#413> I used to love going to the office. Discussing our team's latest Python problems over a coffee. Looking over at their screen and then asking them why they look like they want to beat someone over the head with their keyboard repeatedly. Guessing people's emotions in a heated Retro from their body language. Grabbing dinner with a few colleagues after a long workshop meeting in the evening and then realizing that, as…
I don't want to be friends with my coworkers, but I do want to have a relationship with them. WFH has meant that we're basically all just doing our thing, occasionally talking on slack/jira but mostly just blissfully unaware of the interesting challenges others are facing, especially on other teams. Imo collaboration is much more difficult with people you have no relationship with, and video calls absolutely do not w…
Thanks, that is my point exactly! I was expecting the good ol' "Get some friends and stop complaining" argument here and it's completely besides the point. I am talking about group identity of teams and understanding social dynamics. It greatly increases my intrinsic motivation working for a team I identify with on a personal and social level instead of "for the company"
Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
#414> And finally, I feel no one else is realizing that they are happily hacking away at the amazingly well-paid branch they're sitting on. As soon as a company's IT department is practically fully remote, why should they page a German wage for someone who is a face on a screen, when they can pay a fraction for that same face broadcasted from a few hundred kilometers further east or south? German is hardly used in business context here anyway and lower-wage countries within ±3 hours timezones abound.
Any company that thinks this way is a company I don't want to work for because they are incredibly short sighted. Assuming "1 developer" = "1 developer" is so incredibly stupid. Developers (all humans for that matter) are not interchangeable cogs in /any/ industry (and yes, I'm including factory workers). Some jobs might be able to slot in a different person with less disruption but there is always disruption, for a developer this is massive. Even if bean counters think it doesn't matter, reality will slap them upside the head (or more realistically the company since these short sighted thinkers often hop away before the consequences come back to bite them).
Shared language/culture/understanding/rapport is so important that I would hire a "1x" dev over a "2x" dev if I got along better with the "1x" dev. The argument that I'm replaceable by someone in a cheaper country has never held water for me, I've seen first-hand outsourcing fail miserably time after time. The top-tier talent in those "cheaper countries" demands top-tier rates but for businesses who think "1 developer" = "1 developer" will also hire the bottom of the barrel talent then act surprised when productivity falls of a cliff once what was already in the pipeline runs out.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
> remarkably condescending I suspect there are two big difference between OP and many of the readers here. At least for sure, Berlin vs most major US cities is night and day different in terms of commute and enjoyment opportunity. Berlin is a fun city full of things to do, places to eat, and clubs. Plus it's all accessible without a car. Meanwhile, in the US, it's usually a very different story. Doing something after…
You may be right, but as a personal anecdote, I totally agree with the sentiment you're responding to. I don't particularly enjoy working from the office and much prefer doing so from home, but I can tolerate it. I like my colleagues and shooting the breeze with them, but they're not my friends. But boy do I absolutely hate my commute, to the point that it shadows whatever positives there are when working from the of…
In the US, I have about a five minute drive to the nearby train station and then I'm something over an hour by train and subway into the city depending upon where I'm going. Aside from not being able to actually walk to the train station, I'm not sure how you improve on that given the distance no matter what country you're in. And having done that commute about 3 days a week for over a year, it was pretty bad even though I wasn't driving.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
> remarkably condescending I suspect there are two big difference between OP and many of the readers here. At least for sure, Berlin vs most major US cities is night and day different in terms of commute and enjoyment opportunity. Berlin is a fun city full of things to do, places to eat, and clubs. Plus it's all accessible without a car. Meanwhile, in the US, it's usually a very different story. Doing something after…
I suspect commute/transport is the larger factor among the two you shared. The extracurricular usually comes down to eating and drinking. I'm sure particularly in the mid-west the options are more limited, but in a large enough city there's somewhere to go - it just might not be worth it. You'll still have to commute home in the end, and if you can't just walk to the fun destination from work then that's more time lo…
> WFH can be predicated by zoning / city density
I would add nature as an opposite factor to city density. A lot of magical places exist, but they don't usually have offices and jobs. Remote work enables one to experience them.
Many years ago I had been remote working for a couple of years and then realized that I didn't have to continue living in Dallas with 100+ degree summers and air quality warnings several days each month. I moved to a ski resort area in the Colorado mountains. Even without the time flexibility that I had (which enabled me to snowski on weekdays when the slopes were empty... fresh powder all mine!), the summers were bliss with dozens of mountainbike trails of all degrees of difficulty. Needless to say my physical fitness became the best of my life, without effort (it was "play"!)
That was probably my favorite place to live (and work) in the world, even counting beaches in Phuket, Thailand. The nature options were beyond what most people can imagine. The only reason I left was lack of available remote work when my job ended in 2011. So I moved to Amsterdam for a job and got to experience the oppsite but also awesome lifestyle.
I would suggest remote workers take advantage of their freedom and spend some time in different places. My ski resort location was planned just as a month, but I stayed three years because it was so great. Such a thing just wouldn't have been possible had I been working in an office. One can always go back to a company with an office after exploring the alternatives.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
I worked out that for me, even accounting for energy bills and such, working from home full time would be equivalent to a 15% pay rise. And on top of that, I'd have 2 hours of extra free time every day. I can't understand the kind of person who wouldn't want that.
Is that just from commuting? For me the cost is 50-100€ per month depending on the cost of the public transport ticket, and that I can deduct from taxes anyway. Plus a couple of extra lunches I would buy with WFO. So basically negligible.
Do you value your time at $0?
Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If what makes you happy is a condition in which someone else is unhappy, that person is unlikely to react well. I really hate zoom meetings. Unfortunately if everyone just does whatever they want, then even the in-person meetings get dragged onto zoom because there’s at least a few people who are remote and need to dial in. Early on as we returned to office we even wound up taking a lot of meetings in the office ov…
> “Everyone do whatever you want” as a WFH/WFO policy is kinda like “everyone do whatever you want” as a “no peeing in the swimming pool” policy. Kind of, but I dont really think the analogy works because if you flip it around its just as bad. "Everyone has to swim in the piss pool because I want to piss in the pool, but also want people to swim with". That doesn't sound agreeable either. "Nobodies allowed to piss in…
It seems to me that there isn't a consensus because, in the post-covid era, every company had a large segment of the "prefers WFH" people and they all insisted on their current company accommodating them. I'm not saying they did anything bad, there's nothing wrong with advocating for your own interests at work, but a lot of people who like WFO are justifiably frustrated because they thought they had joined a company that did have a common consensus.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The closest work-related argument I've heard is that some people work better when they're free of distractions at the office. That takes us back to companies being collaborative human endeavors. One may feel they work better in isolation, but part of ones job is to interact with others, even if that's not fun. Have you worked in an open office or cubical farm? My hearing the sales guys isn't 'collaboration', it's d…
So without hopefully coming off too flippant, noise canceling headphones can solve all of that, they did for me in an open office space at least.
I can’t have music on while I work, especially not in headphones, or I just start listening to it, so this is not a universal solution.
Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
#420> why should they page a German wage for someone who is a face on a screen, when they can pay a fraction for that same face broadcasted from a few hundred kilometers further east or south?
Because if they are worth anything, those people will find somebody else willing to pay German wages.
Pay peanuts, get monkeys.