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Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

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Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#241

Post by _ktx2 »

inconceivable wrote: post #240
_ktx2 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really tripped off a cliff in interpreting what I wrote. The person I replied to said, "I got what you got working remotely by living close to where I work". Do you understand now why there's such a far degree of separation between those two things? Far more people can afford to work remotely than those that can afford to live near a tech campus. Having privilege isn't shameful. Often privilege is gained along si…

your transparent, smug condescension is greatly appreciated.

Not so much smug, but annoyed at your meltdown, and I agree it wasn't helpful.

I do get that hearing about privilege, especially if you're exposed to those conversations a lot (or more than others) can be pretty annoying. I've found myself in that seat before and I've felt how, I think, you're feeling.

That said, I've also gotten used to realizing that not everyone hears that point of view every day or even often enough. The hybrid work conversations have been a glass house of just that. Nobody wants to hear how good they have it compared to new entrants, they just want to be getting what they've been getting and in order to do that everyone else needs to fall in line.

The other annoyance that I had was some of your invented strawmen about how I don't empathize for people that make less than I do. I certainly do, and members of my family are among those folks. Like others, I've had to make hard decisions on how to best support them, even if it means at times giving up things that this life could afford me. That's why I do my best to argue for a world where all or most people can succeed; the point of pointing out privilege isn't to say, "You shouldn't have that". It's to say, "Other people should be afforded what you have too, especially if the difference is just geography".

I did mean that I hope you have a better day.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#242

Post by louison11 »

flangola7 wrote: post #57
louison11 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And see all billionaires disappear to whichever country doesn't do that? The point of remote work, is that a lot of wealth is now very geographically volatile.

This is just a paraphrasing of that braindead restaurant story conservatives love to quote. Billionaires can be stopped from taking their money elsewhere. Their bank accounts and corporate assets can be frozen or seized, and America's massive concentration of intellectual talent is unlikely to be moving out any time soon.

15% of US billionaires are foreign born. And a large portion of the top-paid talent hired by billion $ companies are foreigners too.

Going on a billionaire witch hunt would not only push residents out, it’d stop future wealthy residents from coming in.

The US actually doesn’t have much that other places don’t have, especially in the age of remote work. There is excellent education and talent in many parts of the world, often accompanied with a better quality of life too. The freezing of assets and seizures you’re describing would be very hard to enforce. And if such exit taxes were announced, they would likely lead to mass exodus before being enforced.

I’d add that this excessive confidence in American exceptionalism might be what will cause its demise. We already see it happening at the state level. California and NY are so arrogant in thinking they just have the best people, that they’re messing up and losing significant taxable income to Nevada, Texas and Florida right now. At the country level, many Americans are already moving to Portugal, Bahamas, Costa Rica, and others.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#243

Post by kodah »

alistairSH wrote: post #212
_ktx2 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, it did take optimizing house location/commute, etc To spell the quiet part out loud here, what you're describing is an extreme privilege in a world where homes near tech campuses often go for $1M+. New fathers aren't going to have a down payment for even $600k+. Tech at this point starts as a rich persons game which is why so many tech workers intermarry with other wealthy people. It takes two or a trust fund…

SV isn't typical. No trust fund here. Parents are immigrants from a farming community in Scotland. I won't deny being more privileged than many, but my socio-economic background was typical professional middle-class (dad=engineer, mom=teacher, own their home, valued education, etc). I live in the heart or Reston VA, work for a reasonably well-known (but not FAANG) company, and bought a typical 4 bed SFH when I was 26…

> But, it's certainly available to just about any white-collar couple in the area.

That qualifies as one of the things that I described as a privilege. Making the assumption that two white collar people are married isn't great.

Also, frankly, if you bought in 2004 then you were part of an explosion of equity nation wide. People who are initially buying in in the twenty teens are in a very different market.

I do agree that SV isn't typical, but I wouldn't say that's a reason to write off what I said.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#244

Post by kodah »

txsoftwaredev wrote: post #155
_ktx2 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, it did take optimizing house location/commute, etc To spell the quiet part out loud here, what you're describing is an extreme privilege in a world where homes near tech campuses often go for $1M+. New fathers aren't going to have a down payment for even $600k+. Tech at this point starts as a rich persons game which is why so many tech workers intermarry with other wealthy people. It takes two or a trust fund…

I lived in a home no where near that expensive in DFW and commuted 45-60 mins each way when my kids were young. Plenty of places you can work in tech and not own a million dollar house. Even still so today.

Actually, I moved out of DFW because of my 60 minute each way commute and the average salary of an engineer there. This was some time ago, so things may have changed, but I wouldn't describe DFW (especially in it's current expansive state) as much different given the labor market to real estate value ratio.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#245

Post by _ktx2 »

swsieber wrote: post #153
_ktx2 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But, it did take optimizing house location/commute, etc To spell the quiet part out loud here, what you're describing is an extreme privilege in a world where homes near tech campuses often go for $1M+. New fathers aren't going to have a down payment for even $600k+. Tech at this point starts as a rich persons game which is why so many tech workers intermarry with other wealthy people. It takes two or a trust fund…

> what you're describing is an extreme privilege No, it's not. Working for a huge tech company _and_ doing what's described is an extreme privilege. But working for a huge tech company is a huge privilege in and of itself. And you don't have to work for one of those, at which point doing what's described can become a lot easier.

Both are privileges, but claiming that a remote worker can "just move close to a tech campus and get the same things" is a pitch from left field that requires at least four relays. That was the purpose in calling out that privilege, not to say that no one deserves privilege or that all privileges are the same.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#246

Post by bradstewart »

sgtnoodle wrote: post #140
tyoma wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. But not like its sound proof. And sometimes your partner just needs help. And other times your kids stop by and ask for something. You can say you’re “at work” as much as you want, but you’re still at home. And yes, I am sure once everyone is at school for a big chunk of the day it all gets much easier.

Indeed. We have a 5 month old and a 4 year old, and my wife broke her leg with a compound spiral fracture two months ago then subsequently developed vertigo and hearing loss from unexplainable inner ear damage. I can't say preschool has helped us out much, either. After the whole family became violently ill from a preschool norovirus, I've now been plagued with an upper respiratory infection going on 20 days or so. I…

Thank you for this. Similar situation here, 2.5 year old and a newborn, and I have been having serious trouble keeping my head on straight.

I've had so many viruses since the older one started preschool 8 months ago, I can't remember what feeling good feels like.

The lack of sleep from trying to help my wife feed the newborn on top of keeping a norovirus-infected toddler away from said newborn in-between my own trips to the bathroom has been.....not fun.

I honestly cannot describe how much better I suddenly feel knowing I'm not the only one in that boat. I was totally unable to remember that this is temporary, we will stop getting sick, and I will feel good again until I read this.

I just smiled at the toddler for the first time in a week.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#247

Post by jjav »

munificent wrote: post #216
fnordpiglet wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet, there’s plenty room to improve - especially for fathers.

I find it interesting that you feel the need to say that. At probably no point in US history are fathers spending more time with their kids than today. And yet our parenting culture is so toxic that we still feel the need to tell parents they aren't doing a good enough job.

> At probably no point in US history are fathers spending more time with their kids than today.

That seems very unlikely, if going back more than a few decades. When parents used to work on the family farm one could be around the kids all day.

> tell parents they aren't doing a good enough job

It's not about not doing a good job, it's about wanting to be near the kids when they're young.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#248

Post by nextlevelwizard »

balfirevic wrote: post #154
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always need to remember that most vocal people about WFH are Americans who have hours and hours of commute time with very strict office times and just plain expectation of doing 9 to 10 hours of work per day. Taking remote days was never an issue for me and spending 15 minutes commuting to the office isn't a big deal and around these parts people always looked me funny if I was in the office past 15:00. So the expect…

> Americans who have hours and hours of commute time Europeans, on average, have longer commutes than Americans: https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter8/urban-trans...

What is your point? That America has more people in mega cities who live close to their work?

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#249

Post by nextlevelwizard »

horns4lyfe wrote: post #121
nextlevelwizard wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like with everything else nothing is universal. My team and I are again dipping our toes to office and our office day is by far most productive day of the week for us. Only problem is that we transitioned to "open smart office" over the pandemic, so we no longer have personal desks. However that too should be resolved by Q4 as renovations come to and end and hopefully we can carve out our own space again.

I think the point is that parents spending more time with their children might be more important than squeezing every last ounce of productivity out of people.

Depends who you ask and who is involved. I don't care one bit how much time you spend with your kids. However I do think it is a bit odd if you want to spend work time with your kids and expect your employer to be fine with that.

Yes, yes, I know your point is that you can spend the commuting time with your kids, but realistically how strict are you about your WFH office? Do you even have a dedicated office where you can go and your kids and wife won't bother you? For most my coworkers that is not a thing. They are working on the kitchen table or in their bedroom while the family goes about their lives around them. Constantly distracting them, constantly bothering them, and more annoyingly distracting and bother other people who are on the zoom call.

As I've said time and time again; life is about sacrifices. You can choose what sacrifices you are going to make, but you have to make some. To me it seems you can either sacrifice say ~1 hour per day of looking after you kids or you can sacrifice 10-20% of your pay check. Or you lower your commute time by moving closer to your office, which probably means moving into a smaller house/apartment, again a sacrifice.

Re: Early Remote Work Impacts on Family Formation

#250

Post by sgtnoodle »

yulaow wrote: post #163
sgtnoodle wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. We have a 5 month old and a 4 year old, and my wife broke her leg with a compound spiral fracture two months ago then subsequently developed vertigo and hearing loss from unexplainable inner ear damage. I can't say preschool has helped us out much, either. After the whole family became violently ill from a preschool norovirus, I've now been plagued with an upper respiratory infection going on 20 days or so. I…

This sounds more like a problem of your country culture of not encouraging to take sick days. I would have been on sick leave for all the time needed to not have sleeping problems anymore

On a whim I scheduled a last minute video doctor appointment today to get some antibiotics to try and knock out this infection. The doctor asked if I was able to take time off work, and I told her that I had an incredibly supportive workplace, but stretches of time off weren't my issue. My lack of sleep is due to my inability to go more than 5 minutes without having a violent coughing fit, a sick 5 month old baby, a 4 year old daughter that likes to test limits, and an exhausted wife with a broken leg and vertigo.

I don't think this is actually a good anecdote in support of your stereotype? Let me tell you more about my recent personal work experiences. After taking 3 months of paid paternity leave, I eased back in by working a few 10-20 hour weeks, then my wife broke her leg while we were out of town helping her mother who herself had broken her shoulder. The CTO of my company immediately called just to say not to worry at all about the company, and to focus 100% on taking care of my wife and daughters. I worked a few 5 hour weeks, mainly just asynchronously answering people's technical questions to keep the cogs of progress turning. There was a re-org while I was on paternity leave, and my new manager who was also a new hire was getting worried that maybe I should take some sort of formal leave. To be honest it sounded pretty good at the time, since I was stressed out to the point of having abdominal pain; 3 month old, post-partum wife bedridden in extreme agony, unable to breastfeed, young daughter bouncing off the walls. I called the CTO just to mull over with, then called my former manager who himself had just gotten back from a several month leave that he spent doing yoga on an island off Portugal. He had me fully convinced to just take the next 4 months off, abandon my family and zip off to Portugal; just kidding. The CTO called me back to say that he talked to the head of engineering and the HR rep, and they all agreed that it seemed silly to take leave. They all agreed that I should continue not worrying at all about the company and focus 100% on my family, at least for another month or two. "You've always gone the extra mile for the company, so let the company do the same for you." He suggested that I should only consider taking leave once my wife's leg is better, if I felt burnt out and I thought it would make be happier. He also offered to go check in with my new manager, just to make sure he himself wasn't stressing out about the situation. Then the HR rep called, and clarified that there's no company policy or legal reason why I would need to take leave. She preferred the zero paperwork option of just calling it paid-time-off (the company has an unlimited vacation policy.) I've been gradually ramping up my hours since then, and I would describe my current situation as a positive feedback loop between productivity and sleep deprived euphoria. My work is a lot of fun and very rewarding, and it's easy for me to get sucked into it. https://youtu.be/DOWDNBu9DkU

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