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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?

#351

Post by ghaff »

brookst wrote: post #298
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…

The cost of living thing is a mess. I think it will get sorted out as it becomes clear remote workers can and do still get offers. The current thinking seems to be “if you live in a low cost area, that means there is no competition for you”. Which used to be true, and is not true. And there are tons of just dumb things in remote work policy today. My company does cost of living adjustment based on the state you’re in…

Even companies that try to be more granular than the state level can only do so much. Even if you leave out my relatively nearby major metro, I bet there is 2x difference in housing prices across the suburbs/exurbs/smaller cities around the area based on school systems, how rural towns are, and other factors.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#352

Post by paulrpotts »

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 doesn’t matter where you work, as long as you get the work done."

Having worked with a number of overseas teams in China and India, it's actually somewhat difficult for US-based teams to work with teams up to 12 hours "distant" and also who have different sets of official holidays. I've been in so many status meetings that are either late at night for me or late at night for overseas team members so we can sync up, only to have bad network weather make it difficult to hear each other. Management tolerates these difficulties and added delays and inefficiencies because the labor cost difference is so large. While I love the idea of relocating overseas myself I don't think they'd tolerate continuing to pay what I earn as a US-based person once I was no longer US-based.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#353

Post by kazanz »

monkeynotes wrote: post #313
brookst wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The cost of living thing is a mess. I think it will get sorted out as it becomes clear remote workers can and do still get offers. The current thinking seems to be “if you live in a low cost area, that means there is no competition for you”. Which used to be true, and is not true. And there are tons of just dumb things in remote work policy today. My company does cost of living adjustment based on the state you’re in…

During the hiring process Gitlab literally reclassified my city based off of data from a free crowd sourced website with about 10 data points. They struck their original offer and reduced it by ~10k just as I'd passed the final round. They refused to even talk about it, even as I protested they'd wasted so much of my time and I was about to sign. I walked away and found a much better paying job elsewhere.

Unethical, but could you seed the crowd sourced site with datapoints that increase the cost of living data, increasing the offer they'd make you next time?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#354

Post by steve1977 »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #312
steve1977 wrote: post #111

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.

In german "geben/nehmen" itself has no implication of exchange or lack thereof and can mean one or the other or anything in beween, unlike the related English word "gift" which does somewhat come from "given" or "gegeben" but only means given without reciprocation.

I was referring to the title of the original post: “Why is remote work seen as gift?”.

So I’m asking why see work as a gift in general? And from there I brought up the fact that in german, work is something that is given by the employer to the employee. Which is really the wrong way round.

Because, as you indicated , there is an exchange happening. The employee is giving work and is getting money in return.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#355

Post by imchillyb »

> Why is remote work seen as a gift?

Justification. Rationalization. Denial.

Companies have spent untold billions of dollars on physical assets, structures, infrastructure, etc. and are loath to give up that power. The only way to keep the power is to keep those physical assets utilized.

In the mind of those holding the corporate money-bags, they /are/ being generous and gifting employees /additional/ resources by allowing Work From Home.

Try to put yourself in the CFO's position. Your company has 150 million dollars in physical asset / infrastructure in your city. And, yet, your employees refuse to utilize this infrastructure; they're revolting /refusing/ to use this already bought-and-paid-for buildings, networks, furniture, phone systems...

For the CFO, it IS a gift to grant WFH to employees. For the CFOs, the employees are a bunch of whining, ungrateful, assholes that they can't wait to terminate...

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#356

Post by quacked »

nikau wrote: post #288
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.

Makes perfect sense to me. That actually sounds like a good time.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#357

Post by ghaff »

Lio wrote: post #272
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…

I've heard this arugment before. What's daft is no company I've heard of only wants to sell locally. They all want to sell nationally or internationally whilst paying based on what they think the local market value for labour should be.

LOTS of small companies only sell locally.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#358

Post by CalRobert »

ejb999 wrote: post #254
CalRobert wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it matters but I have a limited company and am an employee of said company, which means I deal with taxes on my own and can perform work for (almost) any company in the world - I just invoice them like any supplier. Maybe this is the future? Though some companies would rather you were their employee I suppose.

I think an awful lot of employers would prefer you were a contractor; in the USA at least, it is the IRS/government that prevents this from happening more by putting the fear into said employers that they will be fined and forced to pay back taxes for anyone improperly classifying people as contractors when they are in fact employees.

Incidentally I like this because it makes it easy for American companies to give me money (I do not live in the US). Though I also have to give an accountant more money to deal with SS/public pension contributions and US/Irish totalization agreements.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#359

Post by thinknubpad »

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.

We tried that before, outsourcing was a huge trend maybe 20-30 years ago?

The problem is the second part of your sentence. There's a reason that particular business practice settled into a niche of call centers.

It turned out that good workers want to be paid what they are worth, regardless of location. Everything, including labor, is priced based on what people will pay for it - not what it costs to produce.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#360

Post by CalRobert »

chii wrote: post #248
CalRobert wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it matters but I have a limited company and am an employee of said company, which means I deal with taxes on my own and can perform work for (almost) any company in the world - I just invoice them like any supplier. Maybe this is the future? Though some companies would rather you were their employee I suppose.

> I have a limited company and am an employee of said company, which means I deal with taxes on my own and can perform work for (almost) any company in the world which means you're a contractor, rather than an employee. I do think this is a better way tbh, as you can potentially own all of your healthcare costs, and optimize your taxes properly. And you can probably charge a lot more as a contractor, to make up for t…

I don't get a lot of tax optimisation (my home country makes it really hard to do anything useful) but I DO have a much easier time getting better-paid work from the US. Otherwise I'd need to go through something like oysterhr.com, boundlesshq, etc.
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