Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is remote work seen as a gift?

cdoyle.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 564 posts

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#341

Post by swift532 »

gardenhedge wrote: post #292
ejb999 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't kid yourself, there is nothing you can do to prevent people from 'stealing' code they are working on if they are working from home or any other place where someone is not looking over their shoulder 100% of the time. There are reasons to force people to work on a corporate machine, preventing them from stealing code is not one of them.

How would people steal code if they're on a corporate laptop and a VPN that blocks & tracks?

If sufficiently motivated, take pics with your phone. With a good camera, you could minify a lot of code into a tiny font size, take a photo or multiple photos, and OCR them later.

Or encrypt the whole repo and just send it to a bucket somewhere. I mean there's got to be a lot of ways to do it if you really want to.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#342

Post by scotty79 »

sokoloff wrote: post #300
scotty79 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which government(s)? Taxes and social charges can vary by city, county, state, and country. If I'm going to hire scotty79 with no knowledge of where in the world they live, which governments would I coordinate with and how would I know that? Employment rules, customs, and laws vary by at least state and country (and minimum wages vary by city). How would I know what laws applied to the employment relationship?

Federal obviously. Somebody has to know what's up with all this mess. If I'm from another country government should know that and tax accordingly. I have no idea how placing burden of knowing all this on every single employer helps anybody (except IRS).

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#343

Post by fleddr »

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…

Putting on my accountant's hat...

Alright, Mr Gilbert, cloud engineer, microservices architect, UX person, whichever. What is your value to the company?

Well, I help to design a.....

No, your VALUE. As in, money. How much money do you make the company?

Errrr......

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#344

Post by tenebrisalietum »

fleddr wrote: post #339

The "return to the office" move is largely management/extrovert bias. Managers collaborate all day long, it's what they do, whilst "workers" tend to be overwhelmed by the many meetings. Further, extroverts get energy out of being around people. Another factor is that some (many) managers frankly have no idea what their employees do. Physical presence management is the coping strategy. That being said, I do agree that…

> It's an open invitation to move your position to the lowest cost country that outputs quality that is acceptable.

That was already happening way before WFH took center stage during COVID. If they're gonna outsource you, they're gonna find a way to do it with or without WFH demands.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#345

Post by todd3834 »

This entire topic really comes down to where I want to live. If there was an office near me I’d love to go in. However, I don’t want to commute. I live in the city I grew up in. I love it here, my whole family lives here. So I’m also not interested in moving.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#346

Post by ghaff »

ericmay wrote: post #276
jsty wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

What’s the definition of where one lives? For example what if you wanted the NYC salary and you rented out a bunk bed for $50/month and traveled around the country while working remote? Cities definitely don’t have the resources to track you down and I’m not sure employers especially larger ones have any mechanisms in place to keep track. I’m not advocating for this just surprised it’s not more well known. Though I s…

>How do so called digital nomads handle it from a tax perspective? Do they maintain a residence for tax purposes?

They probably have a "permanent address" at a friend's house or through some service. And it's probably technically fraud. That said, the US is not really setup for citizens not to have a permanent address in one state--even if just for things like driver's licenses. You can do things by the books for tax purposes but I suspect a lot of people moving around don't.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#347

Post by baxtr »

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 sounds like you're ok to spend 8h of your waking time with people you don't really care about.

I prefer to spend my working time AND leisure time with people I care about.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#348

Post by rr888 »

lampshades wrote: post #314

I wish I had an office to go to. I never leave my house anymore and it is becoming very very old. Before everyone says, “oh, go get some hobbies and live your life, work isn’t here for your social life,” understand that I have young children and no free time. I am nearing middle age in a city I moved to for work. I don’t have the base level of social interaction most people inherit by birth or school and no time to b…

I got a job back where everyone is in the office 4/5 days a week. Its great I love it, its really annoying when someone works from home a day and you can just go over problems. Look for jobs like this, they're still out there.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#349

Post by pjc50 »

franciscop wrote: post #66
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…

While it is true, the best you can do is vote with your feet. I have had the situation where I was offered "locally competitive salaries" (not in the USA though), and every time I've rejected it I had a 50%-100% better offer within few weeks . There ARE companies that will pay better and independently of your location, you do need to be good though (as in companies are proactively seeking you out) and keep searching.…

> specially because your marginal tax rate might be already at 50%, evaluate asking for some Stock Options/RSUs/etc.

.. where are those tax exempt? In the UK they're treated as income at the time of vesting, which is not unreasonable https://frazerjames.co.uk/rsus-a-tech-employees-guide/

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#350

Post by piyh »

lampshades wrote: post #314

I wish I had an office to go to. I never leave my house anymore and it is becoming very very old. Before everyone says, “oh, go get some hobbies and live your life, work isn’t here for your social life,” understand that I have young children and no free time. I am nearing middle age in a city I moved to for work. I don’t have the base level of social interaction most people inherit by birth or school and no time to b…

I've come to The realization that the only socialization I can do now are on weekends with other parents that have children the same age, or after 9:00 p.m. if I can drive out somewhere solo while my wife stays home.
Post reply on HN