This is partly why I keep thinking I should have become an electrician or a carpenter: the only real competition is local, there is always demand in cities. I knew a very wealthy electrician who started his own business and it seems to be a common path. Unlike programming where the common path is work for someone else and burn out.
The Winners of Remote Work
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Re: The Winners of Remote Work
#12This is partly why I keep thinking I should have become an electrician or a carpenter: the only real competition is local, there is always demand in cities. I knew a very wealthy electrician who started his own business and it seems to be a common path. Unlike programming where the common path is work for someone else and burn out.
1. You still can.
2. Could be good, could be bad.
Re: The Winners of Remote Work
#13This is partly why I keep thinking I should have become an electrician or a carpenter: the only real competition is local, there is always demand in cities. I knew a very wealthy electrician who started his own business and it seems to be a common path. Unlike programming where the common path is work for someone else and burn out.
I believe this has something to do with the statistical distribution of compensation - normal-like for electricians, dentists, and more power-like for coders and people from highly creative or sports fields.
Re: The Winners of Remote Work
#14The whole thing is complicated and companies do, eventually, adjust.
Anecdote. I am in process of looking for a full time remote since my mega boss decided that hybrid is good enough for me and no amount of paperwork could convince her otherwise. Right now I am remote until delta dies off or HR changes its mind.
I told no to recruiter 2 weeks ago, because the job was not remote. Just today it seems the company received a lot of nos, because I got a very similar job description and it is now remote.
Now.. the companies are trying to make remote less appealing ( and trying to argue that you should be paid less ), but, quite frankly, remote is worth a lot to me now. You would think smart companies would want to use it to their advantage.
Instead, most of the stories I hear from my social circle goes smth like this 'old guard wants us back in office'.
Re: The Winners of Remote Work
#15The article describes gains made by "superstars", who can be seen as self-motivated and capable of making a big impact. I am extremely concerned about how we cultivate superstars in the remote work world.
I have been working remote for over 5 years now, but I wouldn't have survived without a lot of luck and years of experience as an intern/entry level employee at an office with some brilliant mentors.
I have tried mentoring in the same vein as those who taught me, but it hasn't caught on as well. I am concerned about how many people entering the workforce fail to reach that superstar threshold because they are missing a few key elements (which may be face-to-face interaction). I am also quickly learning that the high-impact employee does not necessarily make the best mentor.
Re: The Winners of Remote Work
#16The only winners of remote work will be those who are self disciplined enough to get work done without outside supervision or motivation. That goes for every single field that does remote work - learning, teaching, Knowledge work etc. But let’s be honest - some people need the motivation of a workplace — and that’s ok! We are all different. Im somewhere in the middle… love working from home but it’s easy to get distr…
> love working from home but it’s easy to get distracted with side projects, feeding birds, germinating seeds etc.
For programmers at least “productivity” comes from writing leveragable code, not by working more hours. Watching birds, gardening and generally being relaxed and rested will increase the quality of the code you write. It may even allow you to envision solutions impossible to come up with under the daily grind of commute->stand up->lunch gossip->meetings->commute. I think managers that understand how to develop good software are few and far between.
Productivity aside, your routine sounds awesome and everyone who can should try to achieve something similar without concern for their employer’s productivity. I assure you the concern for well-being is not bi-directional.
Re: The Winners of Remote Work
#17https://archive.is/Vltrp They attempt to answer "How will this affect the average tech worker?" ... with ... "In June, Google told rank-and-file employees it would reduce the pay of those who choose to work remotely or move farther from the office." and they then say "Should this worry the most in-demand engineers and product management? Probably not." They finish with "But in the long term, remote work’s promise is…
>What was pretty interesting, and something I've never heard before was "some Peloton instructors earned more than $500,000".
It's not really new in that you had doubtless well-paid "personalities" who had workout shows on TV forever. It just stands to reason that with mass broadcast, the money flows to a relatively small number of popular people rather than a large number of fairly modestly paid people teaching small classes in local studios.
Though I suspect that a lot of this current phenomenon is out of necessity rather than preference from the perspective of participants.
Re: The Winners of Remote Work
#18> There are already examples of how gains are captured by the few and not the many. The New York Times - "Feel Bad About Everything, Always" Remote work is amazing, net on net it vastly improves lives, reduces commute time / traffic / car pollution, reverses the decades long trend of economic activity centralizing in a few boom cities, and I believe will reduce inequality longterm as workers will be able to get good,…
But but but.. what about the gas stations, shiny offices and all those things we have built with an explicit purpose to take advantage of you physically moving in?
Re: The Winners of Remote Work
#19> There are already examples of how gains are captured by the few and not the many. The New York Times - "Feel Bad About Everything, Always" Remote work is amazing, net on net it vastly improves lives, reduces commute time / traffic / car pollution, reverses the decades long trend of economic activity centralizing in a few boom cities, and I believe will reduce inequality longterm as workers will be able to get good,…
>The New York Times - "Feel Bad About Everything, Always"
This would be a bad thing for them, if the New York Times sold the news, which I don't think they do any more. The New York Times instead sells brand image to people. They sell a series of a talking points, ideas, and topics that show you are in the in group and on the right side. So that when someone brings up remote work, you can show how empathetic you are, and how worldly you are and say "Remote work is fine but really it shows how the gains are captured by the few and not the many, I read in the Times that... ".
Re: The Winners of Remote Work
#20> There are already examples of how gains are captured by the few and not the many. The New York Times - "Feel Bad About Everything, Always" Remote work is amazing, net on net it vastly improves lives, reduces commute time / traffic / car pollution, reverses the decades long trend of economic activity centralizing in a few boom cities, and I believe will reduce inequality longterm as workers will be able to get good,…
Try telling that to the office cleaner.