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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?

#471

Post by RestlessMind »

ericmay wrote: post #428
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My state's DMV is able to identify postal addresses that are not physical residences. My guess is that they get this data from USPS, which requires remailing services to register their business. Wouldn't be surprised if the DMV also checks for how many people at a given address have applied for a government ID and if it exceeds a particular threshold, flag it for investigation.

Yea but you could legally run a bunk house or even just keep a spare bed “available” for someone for $50/month or something and they “live there”. Not saying it would be worth it per-se but definitely ways around that for anyone who is willing. The government can’t regulate something like that very well.

IANAL. Let's say you do that trick of renting a bunk in state X and actually go live in another state Y. Now what if your employers does not want any ties with the state Y and hence avoids establishing a nexus there? By your actions, state Y has a reason to come after your employer since their employee lives in Y (by how Y decides its residency requirements). Pretty sure a legal battle will ensue with you branded as a liar and a deceiver. Depending on how pissed your employer is, it might even go on your personal records which can haunt you next time someone runs a background check while hiring you.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#472

Post by MrGilbert »

DiggyJohnson wrote: post #373
monkeynotes wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't more complicated, it is just different. Here, let me hire for an office instead... "You may not struggle with office work and may do fine interacting in person, but that’s not true for a lot of people." I have people who do far better at home than in the office, and some on the other end of the spectrum. People come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and finding the right people is the same challenge regardles…

> finding the right people is the same challenge regardless. Are you claiming that the complexity of managing in-office is usually, roughly the same as managing remote teams? I'm asking towards magnitude/degree, not if both are sometimes true. If not, you are stating the obvious: "People come in all sorts of shapes and sizes" In my experience, more people struggle with remote than in-office. I've found a lot of satis…

I see the nuances. That's what I meant by stating "it's different": I'm currently working with an all-remote team. And it's awesome. Sure, there are moments where I miss them (in terms of in-person interaction), but once in a while we come together and do team building. And that's great.

You really need a team of like-minded people w/r to remork work. They started working as a company with people from different company locations forming "a team". And after Covid started, they realized it's perfectly fine to add people to the team that do not sit in offices.

Thinking back, at my past employer, we had a subsidiary in another city, and failed to work with them. It would have been so much easier if we'd been able to do that. But management didn't like it, so it didn't work.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#473

Post by dudul »

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 CoL argument makes no sense to me.

Why limit yourself to the CoL due to geographical location? How about the CoL of someone who is single and someone who has 2 kids in college? How about the CoL of someone who needs expensive drugs as opposed to someone healthy?

Oh you adjust to CoL? Well, then I expect my salary to be indexed on the inflation. Oh no? You only do the standard 3%? But what about CoL?

As a side note, a salary is not about the value you bring to the company either. It's just how much they have to pay to find someone with your skills.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#474

Post by RestlessMind »

lunarhustler wrote: post #137
toyg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should be about the value I bring to the company, not where I live. That's like saying the price of goods and services should be about the cost of producing them. No no no: the price is about what buyers will bear. In the same way, salaries are about what the worker will bear. If there is an arbitrage lever to maximize profit, any business will use it.

Except the market ain't going to bear it, not for a long time anyway. If I am a CEO of a remote-first company and it truly doesn't matter for me where the employees are located it makes no sense to overpay for labor in high cost of living area. So if there's a company A that pays $X in high COL area, and $X/3 in a low COL area. And then there's a company B that pays $X/2 everywhere. Then people from the low COL area…

May I ask how big your company is? And how many senior (as in, actual VPs, Directors or Architect level) employees you have? In my experience, I found all these candidates to be present in HCOL areas and the real good ones had plenty of options paying HCOL comp.

For run of the mill junior-ish employees who are treated as disposable cogs by my company, your strategy worked effectively. So we ended up with junior employees in LCOL or foreign countries (mostly Canada and Mexico) and senior levels in SFBA / NYC.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#475

Post by MrGilbert »

recuter wrote: post #80
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 find it kind of amusing (and annoying) that employers like to play the salaray game as it fits their needs. Play the game as fits your needs. For example, adjust your work output and use the freed time to look for a better employer. Also, if anybody asks, I live in Bermuda.

Well, that's the downside of being loyal, I guess. Although, over the years, I've become better at that. Yet... It doesn't feel right to me.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#476

Post by baxtr »

thinknubpad wrote: post #378
baxtr wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't follow. If you're working remotely, you don't need to spend 8h of your waking time with other office drones. You can spend it near people you care about, interacting with your coworkers briefly as needed.

So you have a job with no zoom meetings and no slack interactions with colleagues (sorry office drones)?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#477

Post by RestlessMind »

dontlaugh wrote: post #95
toyg wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It should be about the value I bring to the company, not where I live. That's like saying the price of goods and services should be about the cost of producing them. No no no: the price is about what buyers will bear. In the same way, salaries are about what the worker will bear. If there is an arbitrage lever to maximize profit, any business will use it.

Why shouldn’t the price of goods be the cost of producing them?

"your margin is my opportunity" - Jeff Bezos followed what you are suggesting and went on to become the richest man in the world.

Not sure why you are getting downvoted though.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#478

Post by pelasaco »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #330
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 should be about the value I bring to the company Your salary has never been even related to the value you bring the company. That is just the absolute maximum they're willing to pay. Your salary is the lowest your company thinks they can pay to get a suitable employee. They pay remote workers less because there are remote workers willing to work for less, simple as that.

but that's only maybe true during the hiring process. If you work well, after some months, it will be corrected.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#479

Post by MrGilbert »

mylons wrote: post #377
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…

where do you live that electricity is expensive enough that your work setup is a concern?

Germany. Prices went through the roof last year, and are currently capped by the government at 0.40 € per kWh. But only for 80% of your average consumption per year. So 8 hours work a day cost me roughly 0.50 € in electricity. Same goes for gas prices, they also went quite high.

But then again, I'm grateful that we are in the position to get support from the government.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#480

Post by hzay »

burmanm wrote: post #238
hzay wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I meant what setup keeps the kids away from your productive time.

Mostly teaching them. "When dad works, don't bother him". And since I do come out of the room in any case often enough (coffee/toilet/eat/etc), they saw me enough often. But it's not like single productive period is a long time, rather it's a patches of smaller events during the day. Of course now that they're bigger, everything is a bit different.

Let me ask this directly. Is your wife watching over the kids while you get productive time?

If so, then that's not a luxury many people (including, you know, many wives) with small children have. Hence the comment that you originally replied to makes sense.

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