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Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

nytimes.com

111–120 of 250 posts

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#111
post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

At a certain income threshold, rent becomes irrelevant. The difference in top decile salaries between, say, NYC and Pittsburgh is far more significant than the slight difference in a rent.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#112

>She often woke up at 4:30 a.m. to drive from her home in New Jersey, catch a bus into Manhattan, hop on the subway, squeeze in a workout and get to Jefferies’ trading floor by 7:30 a.m. Work dinners ran late into the night, and redeye flights to London were common. >For Ms. Batchelor, Jefferies’s new policy means coming in to the office three days a week. Although she plans to travel to meetings when necessary, Ms.…

> As if anyone would believe this woman with 3 children was not fully aware of the tradeoffs they were making in exchange for the higher pay.

I believe her. Life doesn't have an open enrollment period every year where you're presented multiple career and lifestyle options, and asked to choose one. Instead, one generally converges into a local optimum and breaking out can involve significant energy and risk.

From the perspective of remote work, the pandemic helped a lot of people break out of their local optimum.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#113

I'm finding with the teams I'm working with that the junior employees are the ones most impacted by not working from an office, but they often don't realize what they're missing -- the less formal forms of mentorship, stronger community, interacting with more people that's not on their team and in their role, overhearing context, the ability to have a 3-min quick chat with a senior person without a scheduled meeting,…

This seems like it would be taken care of fine by formalizing some remote training, mentorship, and pair programming activities. Something that better work environments already think about, remote or not. Not sure why this would be some sort of unsolvable problem.

Edit: also a remote culture of hopping onto a one-on-one voice, vid, and/or screenshare helps too.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#114
post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

> Or put another way, your competitors can compensate me less and I'll consider it a better deal. It seems a lot of people disagree with you: > In an accompanying survey of more than 1,200 technology professionals, Hired found that 75% of employees would begin looking for a new job if their salary were to decrease, while 45% of candidates disagreed with using the cost of living of the employee's location as a baselin…

Never underestimate the gap between what people say they will do and what they'll actually do.

If you poll employees about literally any topic where one answer benefits them and the other answer doesn't, people are going to respond with a preference for the answer that benefits them.

But in the real world, they still have to go out and find that better job that pays more and doesn't factor their location into cost of living. They're out there, but there far more rare than these articles suggest.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#115
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while your competitor says I can live anywhere and remote in I think most companies still consider your location when determining your pay. Facebook does for instance, even going as far as tracking your IP to make sure you're being honest. If you choose to move to a lower cost city, they'll adjust your wage. Not sure about the other way around. That'll probably eventually change, but it could be a useful indicator.…

> I think most companies still consider your location when determining your pay. Facebook does for instance, even going as far as tracking your IP to make sure you're being honest. If you choose to move to a lower cost city, they'll adjust your wage. Not sure about the other way around. Truthfully, I don't see this working out in the long run. Companies like Facebook are making desperate grabs to keep control over ho…

> Truthfully, I don't see this working out in the long run. Companies like Facebook are making desperate grabs to keep control over how work is done and how it is compensated, but I believe market forces will kill efforts like ZIP code based compensation.

I think you're right, but I don't think the end game is that everyone gets FAANG-level salaries everywhere.

When companies realize that they can hire people for a fraction of SF Bay Area salaries while still paying them 20-30% more than their local salaries, the overall compensation structure will slide downward toward that number.

Then the next step is when they realize they can hire foreign people in similar timezones at another lower step on the compensation ladder (while still paying more than their local jobs would offer). The compensation then slides further down toward this average.

> In reality, if you're top tier talent, you can command top tier compensation no matter what your ZIP code is.

Works in theory, not as much in practice. There's still value to having people collaborate in person (I say this as someone who has primarily worked remote long before COVID). Companies paying top dollar have a lot of leverage to get employees to move and work in-person still.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery, by its very definition, involves force. From Merriam-Webster's dictionary: Someone who is legally owned by another person and is forced to work for that person without pay

Slavery isn't just chattel slavery, it comes in many forms, including wage slavery. The abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass had this to say on the subject[1]: > [E]xperience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other From Wikipedia[1]: > Douglass went on to speak…

Working at FB isn't wage slavery, though, is it? If they can work there, cant they go get a similar job?

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#117
post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

[deleted]

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery, by its very definition, involves force. From Merriam-Webster's dictionary: Someone who is legally owned by another person and is forced to work for that person without pay

That's the point I was trying to make. Generally employees do not actually have much of a choice, if any. Especially if they have families to provide for so the distinction is rather moot

Employees have numerous options? Slaves cant just get a new master, it was criminal to escape?

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point I was trying to make. Generally employees do not actually have much of a choice, if any. Especially if they have families to provide for so the distinction is rather moot

Employees can find another job. Or they can choose to have no job, and potentially starve to death etc. But the latter is the default of the human condition, and has little to do with the whims of corporations.

Ah yes they can just choose to starve to death! Couldn't slaves make the choice to be beaten to death or executed for not working? Thank you for proving my point

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point I was trying to make. Generally employees do not actually have much of a choice, if any. Especially if they have families to provide for so the distinction is rather moot

Employees have numerous options? Slaves cant just get a new master, it was criminal to escape?

Does an unskilled laborer have options in silicon valley? What options are those?
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