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Why is remote work seen as a gift?

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Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#51

Post by Garlef »

papito wrote: post #39
epgui wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite position could just as well be said to rest on the opposite assumption.

From personal experience, I am MUCH happier getting out of the house a couple of times a week. Lockdowns felt like house arrest, and commuting 5 days a week felt completely unnecessary and exhausting. For many people I know this is the case, so I don't think pure remote or location work are "it".

> From personal experience

That's nice for you.

From personal experience on the other hand {statement of preference}

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#52

Post by manuelfcreis »

squokko wrote: post #32
epgui wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite position could just as well be said to rest on the opposite assumption.

The burden of proof is much higher on remote work. The entire history of civilization from hunter-gatherers to 2019 was built largely with in-person work. If companies are going to make a permanent change to the way work is done, they will need affirmative proof that the new way works better than the old way, otherwise the much more tried-and-true old way is a much safer bet.

Well, in the entire history of civilization most people used to work at home, and not at some other place. Offices aren't part of human nature.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#53

Post by luckylion »

herbst wrote: post #13

Before Corona I travelled a lot and now I live so remotely that a office job is out of the question without moving. The actual remote jobs I've seen in that time all had weird issues like fixed (early) meeting times, more often than not even daily. Or performance tracking that went as far as installing third party monitoring Software while not even getting a dedicated work computer. Or being available at slack the wh…

Pretty much all of that goes away once you switch from salary to freelance. I think it's mostly a framing-thing where people figure "I pay this person to work for me 40 hours a week" and then they want to get the most out of those 40 hours and feel like they need to make sure that you're actually working and not doing chores around the house.

When you freelance on a project-basis, it's "I pay this person to create this thing for me", but they don't care whether you take 10 or 100 hours to do so as long as you deliver it at the price you agreed upon and the quality is what they expected.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#54

Post by natymad »

herbst wrote: post #13

Before Corona I travelled a lot and now I live so remotely that a office job is out of the question without moving. The actual remote jobs I've seen in that time all had weird issues like fixed (early) meeting times, more often than not even daily. Or performance tracking that went as far as installing third party monitoring Software while not even getting a dedicated work computer. Or being available at slack the wh…

It's hard to believe that there's IT companies that would trust you to work on your own personal PC. It's a glaring security issue that sounds like a company problem, not a general difficulty for remote work.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#55

Post by nly »

Our employer is moving offices soon (just down the road) and my manager recently gleefully announced that he had "good news" and that we "would remain a hybrid team after the move"

Everyone on the team looked at one another awkwardly. It had never been discussed that anything else was a possibility.

The problem is even though all jobs are being advertised as "hybrid" or WFH 3 days a week, the contracts don't reflect that. They all stage your place of work is the office.

Now if my manager complains I'm late, I point out that I have a 45-50 minute commute with trains that come only every 20 minutes with very few backup options. 2 cancellations and I'm 40 minutes late. Tough. Either let me work from home full time, pay me more so I can live closer to the office, or be more flexible.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#56

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

jahnu wrote: post #38
MrGilbert wrote: post #25

I find it kind of amusing (and annoying) that employers like to play the salaray game as it fits their needs. I got interviewed a few times, and some stated that they cannot pay the salary I was asking, because i don't live in a high-density, high-cost-for-living area, while others argued that they have to respect their local salaries, which are below what I would expect in my area. I'm yet to meet the employer that…

> they cannot pay the salary I was asking, because i don't live in a high-density, high-cost-for-living area Imagine haggling with a supplier like this. Crazy we put up with it.

They do though.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#57

Post by darkwater »

epgui wrote: post #17
kqr wrote: post #5

This article rests basically everything on one assertion: organisational productivity is equal or better with remote work. It would be prudent to show some evidence of this when making the subsequent points.

The opposite position could just as well be said to rest on the opposite assumption.

Well, actually the status-quo was already challenged and proved to be "wrong" during 2 years of pandemic. Companies did not collapse because white-collars worked remotely. If your business was positively impacted by the pandemic, they actually thrived and expanded (even too much). So it is safe to assume that, while being different, remote work is not detrimental to a white-collar company, and more specifically to companies based on software.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#58

Post by silveraxe93 »

re-thc wrote: post #37
chii wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where they can not leave. unlike a prison, you're free to leave the job.

To be in another job? Still cannot leave. It's the equivalent of changing prison cells.

Of course. Having a job is comparable to being in prison.

By those standards every single human to ever live has been in prison. Humanity will only be free once we're in a post-scarcity society.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#59

Post by nly »

zpeti wrote: post #15

It’s a gift if you don’t have small children. It’s ridiculously harder if you do. It’s like trying to work in an emergency room, where every minute there’s some emergency, and you’re trying to do something different. Of course most people working in tech aren’t facing this issue and so think working from home is great for everyone.

And what if the alternative is spending 25% of your take home salary on day care?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#60

Post by rizach8 »

MrGilbert wrote: post #25

I find it kind of amusing (and annoying) that employers like to play the salaray game as it fits their needs. I got interviewed a few times, and some stated that they cannot pay the salary I was asking, because i don't live in a high-density, high-cost-for-living area, while others argued that they have to respect their local salaries, which are below what I would expect in my area. I'm yet to meet the employer that…

This is so foreign to me, living in Europe. The salary here is in my experience based on where the company is located. Big city, big salary.
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