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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?

#491

Post by eru »

m000 wrote: post #334
eru wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If bullshit jobs are so common, does that mean capitalism isn't actually all that ruthless? Why are companies putting up with them? (I know that in eg France is basically impossible to fire people, so I can see why they might have lots of bullshit jobs.)

> Why are companies putting up with them? There's always the human factor in capitalism. And with the human factor comes ego. IIRC, Graeber roughly compares CEOs to feudal kings. You want more people under your rule as a metric of success. Also, the "king" often seeks to have a big "court" (top-level managers) to reflect their prestige. The effect is cascading. The "king's court" members want their own smaller courts…

Sure, CEOs might want an empire. But why are shareholders willingly footing the bill?

See also how share prices often increase when layoffs are announced.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#492

Post by eru »

wooger wrote: post #427
eru wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite sure what you mean. Normal people in the western world are richer are better off than ever before. The same goes for people in South Korea or Singapore, countries which have recently joined the rich world. Seems to be all going pretty well.

Better off how? Can't afford to buy a house or start a family at anything like the rate 50 years ago that's for sure.

The kind of low quality houses you could buy 50 years ago are (perhaps sadly?) outlawed today in most places.

You can always afford to start a family. The question is what trade-offs you want to make.

People used to do with less.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#493

Post by lunarhustler »

wooger wrote: post #425
dorwi wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As a result, company B gets the same results 2 times cheaper" - that's just an assumption. If I turn it around, it sounds - "people on average in high COL area do the same work two times faster than in low COL area".

There are reasons to want to live in a high COL area that attract people to live there regardless of job prospects alone. If you want to hire young smart people who're into culture and nightlife and not having to drive everywhere, the best will be in expensive cities.

There are places in e.g. Europe where a young smart person can live like a king on their American tech salary, while still putting off most of it into savings... I assure you the culture and nightlife aren't bad there either.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#494

Post by eru »

danaris wrote: post #241
eru wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite sure what you mean. Normal people in the western world are richer are better off than ever before. The same goes for people in South Korea or Singapore, countries which have recently joined the rich world. Seems to be all going pretty well.

Two things can be true at the same time: both "Normal people in the western world are better off than they were at any/nearly any given time in the past." and "There is a staggering amount of wealth inequality in the western world right now, and there are very concerning signs about what it is doing to our politics, economy, and culture."

Global inequality has been going down at a tremendous rate over the last few decades. (Mostly by China and to a lesser extent India going from dirt poor to middle income.)

Not sure what you mean 'what it is doing to our politics, economy, and culture.'? All those are doing ok as far as I can tell. At least not worse than in the past.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#495

Post by lunarhustler »

bsenftner wrote: post #199
lunarhustler wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> But eventually the market forces will do their thing. After you're necessity for that market equalization is long gone. We're in a situation where the wealth class can literally wait it out for more than a generation for market conditions they prefer to normalize. The Market is manipulated and owned, and not by us. The tipping point is past, and the majority of society has yet to realize, our only hope at this poin…

> We're in a situation where the wealth class can literally wait it out for more than a generation for market conditions they prefer to normalize.

It might be there are people who are able and willing to burn money for a long time. Sure as hell it doesn't stop me the startup founder to set whatever salary ranges I believe are efficient.

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#496

Post by paulcole »

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?

You're kind of asking what's the point of having states and that's a fair question, but one that's been long decided. As long as you've got states with the power to make their own rules, people who want to live in and do business in those states will have to follow those rules (this is theoretically one of the biggest benefits of states existing).

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#497

Post by paulcole »

ryanmcgarvey wrote: post #449
paulcole wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "l…

It surprises me that the biggest knock on HN against people who prefer the office generally boils down to "get a life." Honestly, it's pretty insulting.

And I've never seen someone comment, "I'm pro-office because I have no social life." So why is that the prevailing sentiment?

To me it's more like those in favor of remote work find people who prefer office work very threatening and really look to knock them down a peg or two and discredit them. And what better way to do that than ad hominem'ing and insulting their social life?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#498

Post by DiggyJohnson »

monkeynotes wrote: post #407
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 am saying exactly the obvious: "People come in all sorts of shapes and sizes", this is the nexus of the original comment. Case in point, you struggle with WFH, others thrive. I just don't see any problems with employees not enjoying WFH as being significantly more complex than, say, an issue with someone struggling to get into the office on time. Or being stressed out by a stupidly long commute, or having no time w…

I’m asking a different question: in aggregate, do you think more people have issues with in office or remote work? Or is it about the same?

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#499

Post by franciscop »

pjc50 wrote: post #349
franciscop wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/

There's a way to make RSUs behave more like Stock Options for tax purposes for private companies in this particular example [1]. It's not exactly the same, but for the sake of delaying paying taxes on a risky on unsellable stock, they are virtually the same (at a liquidity event they DO behave totally different, but they are basically the same at vesting events).

So yeah, you do need to learn about the different examples. It's something people just talk about in the valley and ultimately/generally is where the "high compensation" from tech comes from. In other countries/cities people don't even know what any of these things are.

[1] https://zajacgrp.com/insights/what-you-need-to-know-about-do...

Re: Why is remote work seen as a gift?

#500

Post by knorker »

eru wrote: post #490
knorker wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offshoring is not the same thing. There are great people in India. It's just more conducive for them to get better pay if they manage to get an H1B and move to the US. If they could just "work remote", then you (as an American, or at least someone who can and does work in the US? Well, applies to any western country) are no longer competing with "people from India who manage to get an H1B and have a family situation…

I don't work in the US nor Europe. > Opening up "work from anywhere" is not like offshoring to save costs. More like given two equally valuable people, why should an employer pay a premium to one, just because they chose to live in a higher cost of living country? Yes, and that's progress! That's good!

Sure. I just mostly see this argument made by silicon valley people moving to Texas or whatever, and asking why they should not continue getting silicon valley comp.

Most just think they're clever and exploiting the system, and the thought that they'd get paid lowly Texas (or Ohio) salaries never occurred to them.

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