Why is work seen as a gift?
In german, they employer is the "Arbeitgeber", i.e. the "work giver", while the employee is the "Arbeitnehmer", the "work taker".
Which is really wrong IMHO. The employee is giving his work to the employer.
Why is remote work seen as a gift?
111–120 of 564 posts
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#112Earlier 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.
Why shouldn’t the price of goods be the cost of producing them?
Because that's labor theory of value which is Marxism and marx is just some guy.
Arguments against will be that value "is" what people are willing to pay for them, which is some combination of supply and demand, but I find this just too simple. Technically it's true that the "value" of something is the price someone last paid for it, but then we get situations where we say a Bitcoin is worth 40k usd or whatever tf the price is right now. And then suddenly its value is 20k, and if you ask why you'll get thirty answers, all wrong. Maybe the price was 40k to someone and 20k to someone else, but the value? Nah. And the price alone tells us basically nothing.
The interesting thing for me is the third person. Me, in this case, to whom Bitcoin is worth 0, or less than 0 because I would consider it a labor cost to own a Bitcoin (figuring out a wallet or whatever). How does someone to whom a Bitcoin is worth 40k then then around and say "Bitcoin is worth 40k" to someone like me?
To capitalists trying to nod their heads and say ah the price is high, supply must be down or demand must be up, I say, good luck predicting human behavior, that usually goes great.
For me though I agree with you, the value of goods is some combination of their production costs, in any meaning of the word "value" that matters.
"But what if someone spends an entire lifetime of labor producing a single widget nobody wants? Clearly demand plays a part in value!" I don't know, go away. Why would that happen? Sure, ok, also include in value calculus that hopefully people only make things that people actually want. (the capitalist argument here is, the profit is to be found in the margin between cost to create and the price set by desirability - to which I say exactly, profit should be eliminated)
Edit: someone else had a comment they deleted talking about how profit is necessary so as to have surplus to save in case of equipment failure, I'll paste my response here cause my thumbs put in the labor so by golly I'll get the Payout
Traditionally, are profits sequestered to be used as savings like that? In my experience the equipment breaks and both companies go bankrupt because the executives in the c corp spent the profit on themselves already and are happy to just go find a new investment.
Actually in my experience the other company, the co-op, doesn't go bankrupt, because the workers are smart enough to safeguard their well being with rainy day funds. This might be one of the reasons coops are repeatedly shown to be far more resilient than traditional companies.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#113I 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...
I don’t buy it. Most of their reasons are why it’s better for them and not why it benefits the employees. The employees are still being discriminated against for living in low cost of living areas by being valued at less, regardless of what their final disposable income is.
For example, moving to a low cost of living area is something I did as a choice so that I could save more, and this came with a cost: my friends live further away now. They’re saying I should be penalised for this by not being able to save more compared to their employees who stayed in the high cost of living area.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#114Earlier 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.
Why shouldn’t the price of goods be the cost of producing them?
[deleted]
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#115It’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.
As a parent myself, working from home, I can't relate to what you describe, at all. What you describe sounds like a communication and relationship problem first and foremost.
If those same "emergencies" are urgent to you and demand your attention only when you work from home then the issue lies someplace else.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#116This 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.
It deserves rebuttal but is also quite the flame bait. Surprised to see it on the front page.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#117It’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.
Quite the opposite. Working close to my kids is incredibly convenient. When school or daycare calls that they're sick, then I can easily pick them up without having to travel home first.
It's exactly having kids that makes working from home extra convenient. Though of course it definitely helps to have a separate room for your home office.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#118I 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…
Do you want to play that game? Because if location doesn't matter then there are a billion people in India who are willing to do your job for much much less.
In salary per value to the company you are extremely overpaid, assuming you live in the west.
I don't think you want to open that can of worms.
Edit to add:
All those people moving from India to the US for the money could then stay in India.
You're not competing with the remote work crowd. You are competing with local cost of labor. If the market switches to just value added, unrelated to location, then you're screwed.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#119I 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.
What's at the other end of "bear" when the thing being bought is food or housing?
Seems like a dangerous analytical framework.
Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?
#120Earlier 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.
Why shouldn’t the price of goods be the cost of producing them?
There's also risk in producing "them" (goods, services, research), not just cost. If you want the price of your producing work to be the price of goods derived from your work, then be a shareholder, not an employee.