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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?

#281

Post by hackererror404 »

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 says a lot that they pay based on things like "where do you live" VS the value of the work that you do.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#282

Post by jen20 »

MrPatan wrote: post #193
regularfry wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People go hungry and homeless. This is visible today. This is literally why one function of the state is to act as a non-market-participant so it can provide a safety net. There are some things markets can't and shouldn't try to do.

Yes! I can't wait for food production and distribution to be put in the hands of government officials. Access to food is going to be equalized so hard! The market has been taking care of it for too long, we're getting too fat, we need a few decades of food controlled by the police to get back into shape.

> we're getting too fat

I don’t know if you’ve seen the average American waistline, but yes, this part is absolutely true. Unhealthily so.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#283

Post by scotty79 »

sokoloff wrote: post #145
scotty79 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "Where do you live?" should be one of those questions employers shouldn't be allowed to ask? Like what's your religion or what's your sexual orientation?

So long as there are governments involved in the employee-employer relationship, this can’t happen. I don’t actually care where you live, but I do care that I can legally employ you, pay you, pay taxes/social charges, and that I understand the obligations of the arrangement we’re contemplating entering.

It could be set up completely differently. Employer could pay 100% to the government and government could pay employee after properly taxing the income. But that would require work from the government that it doesn't want to do.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#284

Post by PragmaticPulp »

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…

> What annoys me the most is that there are still companies out there stating that remote is "complicated". It's different, and you need to adjust your processes, but it's not "complicated".

I’ve worked remote and managed remote teams for a long time. I would say it is indeed more complicated.

You may not struggle with remote work and may do fine interacting remotely, but that’s not true for a lot of people. It’s very common to hire good engineers into remote positions and discover that they can’t focus at home, they misinterpret digital communications, or that they just wanted a remote job because they read somewhere that they could work 2 hours per day and nobody would be able to tell.

The obvious retort is that you just need to hire “right”, but that’s not an easy thing to do.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#285

Post by scotty79 »

paulcole wrote: post #267
scotty79 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "Where do you live?" should be one of those questions employers shouldn't be allowed to ask? Like what's your religion or what's your sexual orientation?

This just wouldn’t work in the US. The regulations vary greatly from state to state and even city to city. Choosing to employ a person in a state for the first time can be a very costly decision (in both time and $$$) for a small business. The second, third, fourth, etc. employees are marginally less expensive but “breaking the seal” and hiring that first employee in a new state isn’t something that every business ta…

The question is, should it be like that? Shouldn't government handle the legal differences between states so that employers don't have to deal with that?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#286

Post by hu3 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #260
baxtr wrote: post #160

I really hate working fully remote so much. I love going to the office and meeting people. It gives me energy and a sense of belonging. I would never want to work for a fully remote company.

I get my sense of belonging with my friends and family. I don't feel a need to bond with the other office drones.

This is harsh, but true.

We can, and should, strive to fill our social needs outside of work.

Why? Because work environment can change drastically, more frequently than friends and family. It is, on average, less stable.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#287

Post by nikau »

newaccount74 wrote: post #148

When you are in the office, the company has almost all your attention. There is almost nothing to distract you from work. When you are at home, there are a million things to distract you. There's laundry that needs to be done, the kitchen cleaned, kids that want to play, there's a full fridge with stuff to make a sandwich, a TV that you can turn on, etc. When you are forced to go to the office, you are forced to take…

When I go into the office people are yelling into their mobile phones constantly and distracting me, I get bored people coming over for social chit chats, then end up wandering down for a coffee.

Then there is the the 5 minute round trip each time to take a piss or get a water refill, the wandering around between meeting rooms for 5 minutes that would just be a 10 second call drop and reconnect in teams. And because I'm in the office I don't have a feeling of guilt when I waste any of this time because fuck it, that's what they are pushing for.

Horses for courses.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#288

Post by nikau »

quacked wrote: post #151

If I were given unlimited money, I wouldn't go to Office, but I would go to Home. Remote work allows me to spend more time in the place that I actually care about. Easy choice. Many people point out that this makes team cohesion harder. I don't care, my economic output is meaningless in the context of greater life. I'd like to do the least amount of bullshit work and the most amount of important work possible, and th…

I've found team cohesion better than ever by just going into the office once a fortnight or so to have some after work drinks.

Seems to work out better as people have a few weeks of gossip and rants to offload vs seeing everyone daily.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#289

Post by bojangleslover »

jsty wrote: post #228
ericmay wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really surprised that nobody has set up address as a service yet so that you can claim for example to live in New York by virtue of an address auto command “a New York salary”.

There’s plenty of virtual office / forwarding address services, but claiming you live at one when you don’t for a pay gain risks (1) fraud against your employer; and (2) tax fraud (if eg in a different city / state / country).

(1) and (2) are separate. The IRS/state department of revenue won't care, and they won't tell your employer. Say you live in HCOL, actually live in LCOL, and at the year claim a refund from HCOL and file properly with LCOL.

You can just say plans changed and you moved in the case of an audit. You could tell your employer the same thing. Much harder to dock someone's salary once they've started working.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#290

Post by jen20 »

gardenhedge wrote: post #278
senttoschool wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many individual contributors are not very good and mostly overrate their own ability to be productive while working from home.

The feedback loop is a lot quicker for an IC than a manager. It could take several quarters or longer to uncover that a manager is not performing.

I typically find it takes about 3 minutes of sitting in a meeting with them to discover that.
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