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Why is remote work seen as a gift?

cdoyle.me

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Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#171

Post by Aeolun »

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"

I think the tried and true “Your salary offer is too low compared to your competitors, or what I can do for myself” is pretty much fine right?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#172

Post by quickthrower2 »

mcv wrote: post #131
quickthrower2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The comment I replied to: > It’s like trying to work in an emergency room So… nothing about unsupervised. Either the working parent is doing that as per their comment, or a daycare as per mine. In reality if the kid is home the parent is not getting much work done.

If the kid is home then either office work was never an option, or there's another parent present. Just make sure you've got a separate room as your home office. (Admittedly not always possible with smaller apartments; this is the real additional cost of working from home.)

I see yes never crossed my mind the one working parent scenario for some reason. In that case you need a good setup. For me dogs barking is way worse than kids noise though. I prefer a baby cry to a dog bark terms of if I am working.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#174

Post by newsclues »

blitzar wrote: post #134
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. Tell that to the kid getting paid 14 cents an hour on the other side of the planet to make your $1,500 iPhone.

Isn’t that the point?

Most people will be envious of the transaction relationship be it employee/employer or consumer/seller and feel that they were cheated, regardless.

The wage was too low, the product was priced to high from one side and the wage was too high and the product priced too cheap from the other.

There is actual cheating but it seems like people are never(rarely) actually satisfied, and social media has made it worse.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#175

Post by selestify »

taneq wrote: post #149
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.

Of course, this is very much what a business is . It's an engine, running on the difference in energy between two or more goods or services. In fact, if you think about it, the upper limit to profit margin is profit_margin = (price_sell - price_buy) / price_sell Look familiar?

Wow, how have I not heard of this framing before? So then, are there equivalent analogies to the laws of thermodynamics? An equivalent entropy as an arrow of time?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#176

Post by Lolaccount »

fwlr wrote: post #2

The cynical answer to that question is ”you don’t need to be in the office to do your work, but your manager does need you in the office to do his work”.

100% this.

They need you around to fall back on. Honestly, this is at least 75% of the reason behind the pushback on Remote.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#177

Post by iwangulenko »

"Looking at benefits like that, it boggles my mind that companies are pushing back on remote work"

it boggles the author's mind because - likely - this person hasn't *ever* run a company or paid people with their own hard-earned money.

Everyone works better when in a physical room doing the same thing. True in the gym, in the library, at work, anywhere.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#178

Post by interactivecode »

sokoloff wrote: post #139
mcv wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And so should employees, of course. We have options too.

Absolutely! Everyone is free to select among their options the one that they most prefer.

though you have to admit in basically all situations the employer has more leverage than a single employee.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#180

Post by Kbelicius »

dorwi wrote: post #170
lunarhustler wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the market ain't going to bear it, not for a long time anyway. If I am a CEO of a remote-first company and it truly doesn't matter for me where the employees are located it makes no sense to overpay for labor in high cost of living area. So if there's a company A that pays $X in high COL area, and $X/3 in a low COL area. And then there's a company B that pays $X/2 everywhere. Then people from the low COL area…

"As a result, company B gets the same results 2 times cheaper" - that's just an assumption. If I turn it around, it sounds - "people on average in high COL area do the same work two times faster than in low COL area".

What assumption is being made? What are you turning around?
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