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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?

#91

Post by anon20230209 »

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".

> For many people I know this is the case,

You guys can go to office together, and leave the rest of us out of this?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#92

Post by skrebbel »

jamespo wrote: post #69
sdiacom wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By saying "serendipity" here, we abstract it into its own unique cutesy concept, preventing proper analysis of its actual tangible benefits. This leads people to talk about it as if it's some magical emergent property of water coolers. When we talk about some of the tangible things that we might actually want this "serendipity" for, these are the ones that I constantly see pop up: - Spontaneously detecting and addres…

IMO that Slack room would be a wasteland, if you've seen it work you're lucky

We have that Slack room and it works fantastic.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#93

Post by andai »

silveraxe93 wrote: post #58
re-thc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

While "freedom from labor" might be just around the corner (AGI, basic income etc.), there's still a lot of wiggle room between "confined to a specific chair for 8 hours" and "can spend all day snoozing on the beach" !

To put it another way, there are ways to make money that spark more or less joy, and much of this variation is possible even for "regular folks" working "regular jobs". But most of that possibility space is yet unexplored.

Not sure whose fault that is, but I am reminded of the quote, "the opposite of courage in this country is not cowardice, it is conformity."

Most people just do what everyone else is doing (i.e. the 80% who are dissatisfied with their work) and then wonder why they are dissatisfied with their work.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#94

Post by sokoloff »

komali2 wrote: post #27
chii wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

To an extent, sure, but this is wildly variable based on personal circumstance. I know plenty of people working 2 jobs and simply don't have time to find a replacement for one. With wages at record lows, that also means if they lose one for any reason, it's not like a little breaky break while they find another, it means something on their extremely narrow budget gets the axe for that week or whatever. Usually health…

It will vary by country, I’m sure, but wages overall are not at record lows (nor anywhere near that) in the US broadly, and SWE salaries in particular are near record highs in all of the SWE markets worldwide that we hire in.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#95

Post by dontlaugh »

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.

Why shouldn’t the price of goods be the cost of producing them?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#96

Post by [deleted] »

austhrow743 wrote: post #40
jahnu wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Suppliers can absolutely charge different rates in different locations.

[deleted]

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#97

Post by mcv »

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.

Oh, that definitely happens. Consider the power that supermarkets hold over farmers.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#98

Post by darkwater »

corbulo wrote: post #81
darkwater wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'?

Not collapsing was an hyperbole. Many companies went in real hypergrowth phase, with 100% remote workforce.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#99

Post by yxhuvud »

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.

What, no! It should be about what offers you can get from other places. If your offer is close to your local salaries, then that mean the company thinks you would have a hard time getting a better offer from somewhere else.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#100

Post by mcv »

anon20230209 wrote: post #74
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. But they are not hiring you for "value", you are just a body in a seat filling a "role". Real game to play is: you ask for X money, they propose Y money, agree and do Y amount of work and not the X amount of work. It's entirely reasonable to "quite-quit" even at non-minimum-salary compensation levels.

Then they should hire someone else. There are cheaper bodies for filling seats than mine.
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