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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?

#381

Post by hinkley »

paulrpotts wrote: post #352
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…

Being on the west coast, for half the year everyone is unhappy with the meeting time, and for half the year one side of the ocean is unhappy with the meeting time.

And then negotiating important things is fraught because it’s way too late/early for half of the participants.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#382

Post by lampshades »

piyh wrote: post #350
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.

I walked to Chipotle around 9:30 the other night and had the same realization that if I want to do anything, it has to be later at night While my wife is home.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#383

Post by Mountain_Skies »

beauzero wrote: post #363
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…

If large corporations or governments were actually trying to reduce hydrocarbon dependence they would bend over backward to promote work from home.

For about two decades I was a big-time transit advocate. Did lots of organizing and protests, in addition to working with our local transit agency to improve their service to the public. Work from home was always one of our "commute alternatives" that we promoted but once the pandemic started and a significant number of information workers started working from home, my fellow transit advocates turned strongly against the concept of remote work.

Turns out many of they were never really for remote work but simply gave it lip service because it was so uncommon and could be used to bash commuting in a car. Now they're quite open about hating work from home because their agenda was never about reducing vehicle emissions, it was about creating more transit that they desired since they don't want to own vehicles themselves. If people can work from home, that takes cars off the road, but it also reduces the need for public transportation. The latter is what they were truly after, not the former.

There's also a smaller group who want public transit to dominate because they see it as a form of egalitarianism. If lots of well-paid people can work from home, they're not forced to sit next to people different than them on the bus and train each day. It becomes easier for them to stop caring about the issues that urban areas face when they stop going to urban areas to work. This is also part of the reason why they get so angry about private bus services bringing workers into the city. Workers on those buses aren't forced to "sit with their fellow man" nor do they have reason to support increased funding for public bus services when their employer has a private bus that provides a superior service (at least for commuting).

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#384

Post by dontlaugh »

claudiawerner wrote: post #310
mejutoco wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO OP is right on the money with the labor theory of value. If the value is what offer and demand agree on, exploitation disappears, in Marx's theoretical model. While I am not an expert, I remember reading about it on "The Classical School: The Turbulent Birth of Economics in Twenty Extraordinary Lives", by Callum Williams. It made sense to me. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/49374783 While linking to the so…

>If the value is what offer and demand agree on, exploitation disappears, in Marx's theoretical model. This is not true; Marx's model of exploitation (known to modern economists as the Profit-Exploitation Correspondence Model (PECP)) does not concern itself with what demand and offer agree on within a labor negotiation. Marx says that workers do not sell their labor, they sell their labor-time (e.g. X units of time/g…

Correct, Marx talks about exploitation the same, whether of wood or labour power.

Marxism is explicitly amoral, it does not concern itself with that is morally right. It is a social science that analyses the contradictions within the material world and their consequences.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#385

Post by DrThunder »

mmaunder wrote: post #12

Because most people don’t like to be told to be in a certain place for a certain amount of time from where they can not leave. There’s another name for this situation.

I can get paid a salary more than most of the world makes and go home to my family at night if I'm a prisoner? Sign me up!

What your argument boils down to is everyone else needs to do the stuff that keeps you alive (grow food, keep your power plant running, emergency services, treat your water) while you sit at home and scroll through TikTok. Sounds just a tad elitist to me.

You get paid to do a certain thing and if that thing requires you to be somewhere at a certain (like EVERY job) then you will be there at that time. I wish I had Superman powers and was essentially immortal, but that's no more realistic than you thinking you ought to be able to do whatever you want while still getting paid to do a job and think that's sustainable for an entire society.

Alternatively, you could start your own business and make your own schedule. However, it's not going to go so well for you with the current attitude you've got. Most likely you're going to have to do things when you don't want to do them if you want your business to succeed.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#386

Post by aembleton »

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 miss asking my coworkers how their weekends went.

What stops you from doing that when working remotely? You don't just have to chat about work.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#387

Post by hinkley »

beauzero wrote: post #363
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…

If large corporations or governments were actually trying to reduce hydrocarbon dependence they would bend over backward to promote work from home.

I don’t know if they still do, but Boeing used to have a deal with the state where if they allowed employees to work from any office of their choosing they’d get a break on taxes.

In Seattle, Boeing employees are the beginning of rush hour. They like to work 7-3 and so the highways fill up just before the school day starts/ends. So getting even a few thousand people to avoid cross town traffic is huge.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#388

Post by brookst »

kazanz wrote: post #353
monkeynotes wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

This is great. Let’s all pick some random town on the beach in Costa Rica, pump it up to Manhattan-level cost of living in the crowdsourced DB, apply to Gitlab.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#389

Post by DrThunder »

optional_value wrote: post #46
chii wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where they can not leave. unlike a prison, you're free to leave the job.

you are free to choose your prison, yes

You are free to go without money and have no obligations.

However, you are not free to force others to pay for you to do that; and that's what you're asking for.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#390

Post by DrThunder »

silveraxe93 wrote: post #58
re-thc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be in another job? Still cannot leave. It's the equivalent of changing prison cells.

Of course. Having a job is comparable to being in prison. By those standards every single human to ever live has been in prison. Humanity will only be free once we're in a post-scarcity society.

Humanity would be long dead and gone if they took on this guy's attitude. Freedom to these people is forcing everyone else to do the work of keeping them alive while enjoying the fruits of THEIR labor.
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