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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?

#81

Post by corbulo »

darkwater wrote: post #57
epgui wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

Your standard for productivity is 'not collapse'?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#82

Post by [deleted] »

jack_riminton wrote: post #24
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…

Those examples are all placeholders for bad managers who don't trust their employees and/or are unable to correctly measure how productive they are. In poorly managed companies I've worked for it was very easy to get away with doing nothing e.g. I worked with a Service Designer who, when she finally quit, told everyone openly that she hadn't been given any work in a year

[deleted]

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#84

Post by _pastel »

HatchedLake721 wrote: post #70
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…

> It should be about the value I bring to the company, not where I live. There are perfectly valid reasons why that's not the case, see here: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/total-rewards/compensation... https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2019/02/28/why-we-pay-local-ra...

Interesting how Gitlab repeatedly emphasizes it's based on "cost of market", not "cost of living".

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#85

Post by anon20230209 »

michaelscott wrote: post #78
toyg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should be about the value I bring to the company, not where I live. That's like saying the price of goods and services should be about the cost of producing them. No no no: the price is about what buyers will bear. In the same way, salaries are about what the worker will bear. If there is an arbitrage lever to maximize profit, any business will use it.

Very much this. It makes the process of salary negotiation completely tied to perception rather than reality, which isn't necessarily bad for the employee. It just means that the justifications for a higher salary need to change from "your salary offer is too low because it shouldn't depend on where I live" to "your salary offer should be higher because I can improve your business in x, y and z"

Also, the expectation by employer that by paying an average salary they get 100% performance has to change. Employees can optimise for pay or life depending on what the company is willing to offer.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#86

Post by Sosh101 »

natymad wrote: post #54
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.

Most remote roles allow it in my experience.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#87

Post by gorgoiler »

It doesn’t matter where you work, as long as you get the work done

Good tech orgs list expectations for each role, and every senior role requires you to be improving the impact of others’ work as well as your own. Clearly that applies to managers — it’s literally their job — but many top IC roles pay the big bucks because you come up with projects and promote them under your own steam.

If you can do that all remotely, good for you. A lot of us cannot and we need people to be in the office N days a week for there to be some kind of personal overlap, where we can go from good to great, together.

If you make p30 salary writing unit tests for a 250,000 employee printer company then staying at home 100% of the time sounds like bliss. If you’re expected to be levelling up every six months at a series A with 30 engineers and you don’t want to come back into work post COVID… well the printer company is hiring!

The author talks about technology but everyone having laptops (versus desktop PCs) makes this worse, not better.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#88

Post by andai »

wolfium3 wrote: post #11

It strongly depends on your personality type. I'm much, much, much more productive WFH due to my ADHD. Also, noise cancelling earphones did NOT help while I was still in the office.

I am about 4-5x more productive when I disable my internet. The "human" equivalent of "disable internet" is to work when family members are sleeping. Not the healthiest solution, sadly. (Living alone was more productive, but also pretty depressing.)

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#89

Post by ChrisRR »

wolfium3 wrote: post #11

It strongly depends on your personality type. I'm much, much, much more productive WFH due to my ADHD. Also, noise cancelling earphones did NOT help while I was still in the office.

Of course ADHD is different from person to person. I personally find it easier to work in the office.

At home there's too many distractions and without people around me, I feel less accountable to actually work rather than scroll through reddit. Despite the people talking around me, I find general chatter less distracting than absolute silence.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#90

Post by mcv »

toyg wrote: post #49
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…

> It should be about the value I bring to the company, not where I live. That's like saying the price of goods and services should be about the cost of producing them. No no no: the price is about what buyers will bear. In the same way, salaries are about what the worker will bear. If there is an arbitrage lever to maximize profit, any business will use it.

Employers are the buyers of labour. If food prices depend on what the consumer can bear, then labour prices should depend on what the employer can bear. And most of them can bear a lot more than they're currently paying.
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