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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?

#441

Post by Mountain_Skies »

ghaff wrote: post #346
ericmay wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wonder if it's meant to be like it is with professional sports, where players on a visiting team often have to pay taxes in the state of the home team.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#442

Post by malermeister »

nprateem wrote: post #366
horns4lyfe wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving people the option to work remotely is objectively better, because it satisfies both parties.

Well it's not because there's no point going to the office if your team still WFHs

So you think the solution is to force a bunch of people to hang out with you? I'm sure they'd be thrilled to stop doing what worked for them so as to please you.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#443

Post by dontlaugh »

mejutoco wrote: post #434
claudiawerner wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Thanks, that is a clear explanation. > The discrepancy between the value of the time and the value produced I am thinking how can one value this time. If it is valued by the market (how much someone is willing to pay for it) we would end up with the same problem, no? It must be intrinsically valued, I am assuming.

Value produced can be measured as the price of commodities sold. Thus there is a clear difference between the cumulative price of commodities a worker produces in an hour and the amount they are paid for that hour. The difference is appropriated by the owner of the means of production (the capitalist) as profit.

The capitalist wants to pay as little as possible per hour, but will on average long term not be able to pay less than the cost of living. Capitalists pay just enough so that workers as a class reproduce themselves (so there are more workers), but less than the value the workers produce.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#444

Post by sokoloff »

scotty79 wrote: post #285
paulcole wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you're going to have a republic of states, those states are going to be able to have different laws. The minimum wage in New Hampshire is $7.25/hr, while it's $15/hr in neighboring Massachusetts. If I'm an employer in New Hampshire hiring remote workers for $12/hr, that's legal if they work in NH, but not legal if they work in MA.

NH has sovereignty to set their minimum wage (subject to the limit of the federal minimum wage). They might do that to attract business there. Massachusetts has the same sovereignty to set their minimum wage. Which state should give up their sovereignty so that an employer [possibly out of state] could practically hire people without knowing where they live?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#445

Post by ryandrake »

DrThunder wrote: post #369
lbriner wrote: post #163

I wish people would stop posting articles that imply that remote working is somehow objectively better when it has already been made more than clear that it doesn't work well for everyone. I really miss the contact from the office but since most people don't go in any more, it is not worth much of my time to travel there. Yes, we employ some people fully remotely, which is fine because that's what we knew at the time…

Yes, I was pretty on the side of the remote work until the pandemic. I don't think it's mentally healthy for most people. Long commutes aren't mentally healthy either though, so I understand people that want to leave that behind. I've got a less than 10 minute commute and I can easily bike that if I need to. Society is already too segregated with technology and I really do not think it's a good idea to move all of ou…

> Yes, I was pretty on the side of the remote work until the pandemic. I don't think it's mentally healthy for most people.

I think we would need to somehow separate the mental unhealthiness of remote work from the mental unhealthiness of dealing with a worldwide deadly airborne pandemic. It could be that remote work in and of itself is great, but remote work with the additional mental/emotional toll of a pandemic is not so great.

I suspect that remote work was great before the pandemic, and will be great after the pandemic, and that in fact the pandemic is what caused our growing cultural communication issues (not to mention the other things that coincided with the pandemic: worldwide political turmoil, for example).

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#446

Post by renewiltord »

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.

It's always funny how these interactions go on HN.

Office worker: I enjoy working like this. And I really hate working like that.

Remote worker: I enjoy working like this. And I really hate working like that. Also here's an insult.

For some bizarre reason, for the folks in the office it's always like "I like this style of stuff" and for the folks remote it's always "I like this other style, but also you're a drone / have no social life / think work is the only place you get any social interaction".

We have quite a large employment market and there are enough in-office, remote-friendly, remote-only employers. Just match your preferences with theirs. Some friends of mine have been remote for ages and they're quite productive. My own org is all in-office and I like to think we're doing well. It's the kind of place I like to work at.

It's just preference matching. I want to work at a place where everyone wants to work in-office. I have that. You want something else and you have that. Yep, there's folks who'd like to do what we do but can't work here because we want them to be in-office. And there's folks like me who like other orgs but I can't because the team isn't around.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#447

Post by rr888 »

Someone1234 wrote: post #397
rr888 wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> its really annoying when someone works from home a day and you can just go over problems. If you have no way of communicating with people remotely, that seems like the core issue. Or you’re just not using the tools available?

Sure in my experience talking face to face is much much easier than remotely. Maybe I dont have the right tools or maybe not enough experience but I definitely do not like it.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#448

Post by seydor »

aembleton wrote: post #395
seydor wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really miss the contact from the office but since most people don't go in any more, it is not worth much of my time to travel there. So you are saying that working from office is objectively worse.

I think that is subjectively worse as its applying it from his viewpoint instead of an objective measure.

Regardless. In order for people like OP to feel subjectively better, they want to subject their colleagues to daily commute / office restraints.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#449

Post by ryanmcgarvey »

paulcole wrote: post #270
mejutoco wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let‘s say productivity is the same remotely and in person. Would that not make remote automatically better because of all the pollution and time lost commuting?

No. Because in your made-up equal productivity scenario we can just as easily make up the idea that people are less happy working remotely. The reality is that some people like remote work and some don’t. Some organizations have chosen to be remote and some haven’t. Nobody’s right or wrong. They can make the choice that they believe is best for them — sometimes that choice requires trading off things they like for th…

This dilemma is precisely what people who benefit from remote work went through when most companies weren't remote friendly.

My honest opinion is that most people that enjoy the office enjoy it because it's where they've gotten most of their socialization in their adult lives. As a result, they haven't built up lives outside of work. To make matters worse, our communities haven't developed to support people having "lives" outside of work (at least out here in the suburbs).

My hope is that as remote work becomes more prolific, people will rely on their local communities more for their social lives and all of these wonderful small towns will thrive again.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#450

Post by 3D25157725 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #436
kevinskii wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that remote screen sharing can be sufficient, but I'm personally a much more effective mentor in person with lots of whiteboard space.

Is that your opinion or those who you mentor? In my experience, most people learn much better from being shown concrete examples inside the workspace they already use compared to abstract examples on a whiteboard with lots of lines and arrows.

I agree.

Also, when viewing/listening remotely, I will record the session -- especially if they're assigning a complex task or series of tasks. This allows me to playback and get things exactly right.

In person, I would have to smuggle in a recorder and it's often awkward or infeasible.

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