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The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

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Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#51

Post by pcthrowaway »

BossingAround wrote: post #32
locallost wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a circular argument. The FBI fires gay people, so they had to fire them to prevent them from leaking information because of possible blackmail. But once they stopped firing them for homosexuality there was no need to fire them because of fear they might be blackmailed because of the possibility to fire them. It's probably true for gambling, but the rest sounds like whitewashing. They fired gay people beca…

I think the assumption you're missing in the circular argument is that gay people could be blackmailed against other entities than the FBI. For example, "give us this FBI file or else we'll release a scandalous photo of you and this gentleman to your wife" kind of a thing. Of course, as being gay becomes more normalized and less of a secret, FBI wouldn't need to take it into consideration. How true or not that thinki…

Wouldn't it be more relevant to determine if their potential hire has had an undiscovered affair in the past, or is currently cheating?

Why aren't they doing this now if it was really about the potential for blackmail?

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#52

Post by MagicMoonlight »

j7ake wrote: post #27

Unsurprisingly, workers whose skills are in high demand and short supply (eg highly educated, highly experienced people) can demand better work conditions such as pay and commute flexibility.

Honestly a lot of the “low skill jobs” actually have a high skill threshold but we just arbitrarily decide to suppress them.

Take somewhere like Starbucks. They pay them minimum wage, churn em constantly so they’re never trained and make them work arbitrary shifts like 4 hour -> 2 hour unpaid break -> additional 4 hours.

Those staff end up “low skilled” but in reality someone who was treated fairly and respected would get very good at running the shop. They’d be able to turn out twice as many drinks and they would actually care about running costs and cleanliness. You wouldn’t get the constant underlying corruption by mistreatment where they can’t be bothered to check stock levels and throw away a grand of material a week on inefficiency.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#53

Post by cowsandmilk »

cracrecry wrote: post #48

So everybody needs to be miserable as if you are not miserable the rest of miserable people will look at you and say: That's not fair!! I am miserable so you must be miserable too! Of all the "arguments" used by hired Public Relations companies hired to spin "work from home" in a bad light, this is the most stupid argument I have ever heard. This makes me uncomfortable as probably because of that it could be the most…

The article doesn’t recommend forcing more people to come into the office, so your comment reflects experiences outside of this article, not what they’re saying.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#54

Post by thefz »

madsbuch wrote: post #24
throwup238 wrote: post #2

The same inequality exists with drug testing too. A lot of low wage roles get drug tested on a regular basis while higher paying careers don’t. Outside the military, pilots rarely get tested despite the fact they’re responsible for many more lives than fork lift operators or truck drivers (who often do get tested). Doctors pretty much only get tested if they botch a surgery or someone reports them. Lawyers? Wallstree…

this comment represent a weird sentiment: if you drugt test in one field, you should equally drug test I all fields. How many airplanes crashed due to The pilot being on drugs? it seems like introducing a whole machinery to just have the same resting is an industrial scale waste of resources. However, people regularly die because of drunk and tired drivers.

Ok, what about testing politicians? Their decisions impact millions and it's in the public interest that they can reason at their best.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#55

Post by radicalbyte »

freddie_mercury wrote: post #12
jillesvangurp wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a reason for this is that not everybody agrees that drugs are all that bad. Half of silicon valley allegedly is micro-dosing all sorts of things and apparently benefiting from that. Steve Jobs famously advocated using LSD. The Vietnam war famously had a lot of drug abuse. WW II soldiers and leadership were consuming epic amounts of amphetamines. And that wasn't just the Nazis. Companies aren't testing for thi…

> Perhaps a reason for this is that not everybody agrees that drugs are all that bad As an explanation, this is implausible to the point of impossible. The same employers drug test lower-level employees but (e.g. in the warehouse) but don't test other employees (e.g. in the office). Amazon drug tests warehouse workers but not AWS engineers. It is difficult to come up for a coherent theory for that that includes "as a…

They test warehouse workers because their insurance demands it. Personal injury settlements are expensive and drugs increase the risk. If employers cannot show that they are taking efforts to discourage it then they could end up being held liable (and the insurance not covering it).

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#56

Post by oldpersonintx »

I read the title much differently than HN!

My take is, you get to work from home if your job isn't that crucial. Jobs that are driven by cost rather than result.

I don't think most remote workers understand that eventually they must be cost competitive with any legally-applicable competitive workers. Are you ready to become cost-competitive with Mexican devs who know React well enough?

In ten years I predict most "remote" work will be pay-per-ticket:

1. Log in to hiring site to complete aptitude test.

2. If pass, get a ticket and propose solution.

3. If solution isn't accepted, goto 1. If another worker solved same issue for less money, goto 1.

4. Close another ticket within X hours. If not, goto 1.

Anyone stuck in this loop may very well fantasize about aspirational careers like being a UPS driver.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#57

Post by klabb3 »

madsbuch wrote: post #24
throwup238 wrote: post #2

The same inequality exists with drug testing too. A lot of low wage roles get drug tested on a regular basis while higher paying careers don’t. Outside the military, pilots rarely get tested despite the fact they’re responsible for many more lives than fork lift operators or truck drivers (who often do get tested). Doctors pretty much only get tested if they botch a surgery or someone reports them. Lawyers? Wallstree…

this comment represent a weird sentiment: if you drugt test in one field, you should equally drug test I all fields. How many airplanes crashed due to The pilot being on drugs? it seems like introducing a whole machinery to just have the same resting is an industrial scale waste of resources. However, people regularly die because of drunk and tired drivers.

> How many airplanes crashed due to The pilot being on drugs?

This is an interesting question but not all drugs decrease performance. For instance, if a pilot responsibly takes some wakey meds before landing a long haul flight it may be a good thing. There’s a reason for the “I can’t function before the morning coffee” expression.

I remember a documentary many years ago about long haul pilots who went partying HARD the day before flying back from Bangkok, Tokyo or places like that. They wouldn’t have been allowed to drive, but flew hundreds of passengers. It was filmed undercover, but I don’t remember if there was a backlash/consequences.

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#58

Post by rapidaneurism »

Jochim wrote: post #39
rapidaneurism wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that this is partly because in Europe taxation is progressive and it quickly becomes quite high. (In the UK £100k-£120k is effectively taxed at 60%+ more if you have young kids) So there is a point where giving someone 10k take home pay rise costs the business much more than giving a frontline worker a 10k take home pay rise. But an EV car in the UK is taxed 98% less than the same amount in cash. Rest zones,…

Weren't there changes in the last few years that mean benefits in kind are now treated as taxable income? I know I recently began paying tax on employer provided health insurance for example.

Yes but an EV car is treated as a 2% benefit in kind. E.g. (simplifying) your employer can buy you a 40k Tesla and you get taxed as if they gave you 2% of that as salary. In the 40% braket that is £800 benefit in kind so you pay 320 extra tax.

Edit:

I think it is better explained here:

https://electriccarguide.co.uk/what-are-the-benefit-in-kind-...

Re: The growing inequality of who gets to work from home

#59

Post by tuffff »

silisili wrote: post #4

I feel like this is missing the forest for the trees. Perhaps salt in the wound, if you will. Pay a forklift driver or warehouse worker 150k a year, and see how many complain about not working from home.

That comment may apply to the general topic often, but this article clearly mentions "just pay them more" as a solution. It's really quite a balanced read.
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