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The Winners of Remote Work

nytimes.com

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Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#181

Post by munk-a »

ThalesX wrote: post #150
lthornberry wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certified lawyers/accountants have ethical compliance responsibilities. They should be doing meaningful review, not just "signing off." There are savings to be realized, but they are more limited than one might think. The difference here is that there are professional associations with both the ability to discipline people who don't follow the rules, and a deep interest in doing so.

You can do meaningful reviews of folders others have prepared for you, others that get paid pennies compared to what you would pay locally. > The difference here is that there are professional associations with both the ability to discipline people who don't follow the rules, and a deep interest in doing so. If I understand correctly, then indeed yes, it would be hard to disrupt this space. But I have a feeling someo…

I think, for law, you could probably get some utility out of lawyers within the same families of legal system (i.e. english descended systems have a lot of similarities) but the specialization here is too extreme... That all said, I've got a relative that's a military lawyer who has done the standard thing of being regularly relocated across the globe - and he is still bar certified in Mass. I imagine if you could build enough of an expectation of work you could take raw law school grads in Mexico City and prep them to pass the NY/Mass/Whatever bar exam as is relevant to your company. This would be a big investment on both the individual and company's side but maybe there's some space there to cut under standard US rates?

Taxi disruption worked to various degrees depending on how much the local certification meant - in most locales it was just "Can drive cars" - in areas where there is a geographic knowledge test the ride-share disrupters have fared less well. I think it's essentially the same for lawyers - their certification is extremely non-trivial, a lot of laywers only ever get certified in a single state due to how much of an investment it is and how little value you get out of it.

I could see a proposition coming from the opposite side - trying to unify portions of the law so that the regional specialty becomes irrelevant - but you'd need to fight against a lot of unfriendly folks and sovereignty concerns to do anything on that front.

Instead, the market players we can see in the legal space today focus elsewhere - legal matters that are predictable enough that you can essentially mass-produce responses for needs. For common contract law this seems like a great fit - but as soon as anything gets complicated you need to pull a warm body into the mix.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#182

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

handrous wrote: post #74
wintermutestwin wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up on construction sites before escaping to cushy office work, I can tell you that there are a lot of negatives that many don't consider when romanticizing the trades. Physical work means physical risks: From injuries to long term issues with knees, backs and shoulders. From constant exposure to toxic materials to the ever enjoyable dust boogers. There's a reason that tradespeople get paid what th…

From what I've seen, the smart ones with good business sense are the ones who make real money in the trades, and they're mostly doing sales, supervision, training, and maybe personally handling some limited amount of the trickier bits of the actual labor (or cases where they have to come back to fix things, if they really care about customer service), by some time in their 30s. They may acquire some minor, persistent…

> Like a lot of business, the real money's in selling other people's labor at a markup, not in selling your own labor.

I hate that this is true, and am glad I found a way to make a living that avoids both, but congratulations on getting to the core of the matter with great clarity.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#183

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

schnevets wrote: post #40
bennysomething wrote: post #11

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.

I can understand programmers romanticizing "the trades", where effort is more justly rewarded. All of us have had sleepless all-nighters where that bug just didn't get resolved (or, worse, the solution didn't end up being necessary). Compare that to an engineer staying at the job site after hours to keep wiring or returning to the office to process paperwork/respond to inquiries/strategize. It's still hard, but at le…

... but the greater effort is more or less all "hustle" and not the actual work. Not really comparable, I think, to most programmers' experience of work.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#184

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

neogodless wrote: post #23

Survival of the fittest. Human society has had a lot of versions of "how things work" in regards to obtaining and distributing resources. As some of the work force transitions from physical, in-person employment (trading labor for pay) to increasingly virtual employment, some things are de-coupled, like high "cost of living" areas being less strongly related to "high paying employment centers." But for employees, it'…

> As some of the work force transitions from physical, in-person employment (trading labor for pay) to increasingly virtual employment, some things are de-coupled, like high "cost of living" areas being less strongly related to "high paying employment centers."

First of all, there's no transition from trading labor for pay. That remains in place ... because capital.

Secondly, the coupling or decoupling is mostly a short-term choice made mostly by capital. We've already seen some companies signalling their intention to pay people less if they live outside the local area and work remote. I see no reason to expect that the state of this coupling will change to anything other than what-works-best-for-capital.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#185

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

corpdronejuly wrote: post #125
vehemenz wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd have a stronger argument if remote work didn't have the potential to increase rural living and exurban sprawl, both of which contribute massively to energy waste and ecological destruction. At least in the US. Boom cities were never the problem. The problem is commuting, which stems from a lack of housing. Forcing everyone out of the cities creates a worse set of problems. It means more wasteful roads to nowher…

Why do you imagine that rural towns are all terrible suburban sprawl? The issue is that we have allowed our built environment to become too centralized. In that sense the Boom Cities ARE the problem. Instead of one strip mall a dozen corner stores on an old school, "It's a wonderful life" small town main streets we have Times Square, and a bunch of overbuilt "new urbanist" attempts to mimic the magic that took 200 ye…

I don't really agree with your post, but wow, that is a beautiful and profound image.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#186

Post by sangnoir »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #180
justaguy88 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could set up a US Law school in another country

The school is less of a problem than the state-by-state bar exam, I believe.

You don't need to pass the bar to be a paralegal & do the grunt work while the firm is billing US rates. Bigger law and accounting firms already utilize this model, whereby entry level employees do the bulk of the raw work, and the audit report/advisory/legal filing gets pushed up the hierarchy while being simultaneously refined and improved, sometimes sent back down the chain. Many revisions later, the final version is signed off, by someone who has passed the state bar, and possibly has their name on the building - if the client is a big deal.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#187

Post by bennysomething »

wintermutestwin wrote: post #51
bennysomething wrote: post #11

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.

As someone who grew up on construction sites before escaping to cushy office work, I can tell you that there are a lot of negatives that many don't consider when romanticizing the trades. Physical work means physical risks: From injuries to long term issues with knees, backs and shoulders. From constant exposure to toxic materials to the ever enjoyable dust boogers. There's a reason that tradespeople get paid what th…

Funnily enough I actually grew up on building sites too, my dad was a builder / small time property developer. Out of all the trades I noticed the electricians had it easiest. I distinctly remember holding plaster board above my head while standing on scaffolding while a joiner (USA speak: carpenter) nailed it to the ceiling. And him telling me "see this is why you should pass your exams so you don't end up doing this". However it was obvious who the smart guys were they had their own businesses and directed their guys rather than do the dirty work. When I was 16 I said to my parents I was thinking of doing electrician apprenticeship, my dad said it would be a shame to miss out on the fun and adventure of university, so I did that instead. Think it was a mistake.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#188

Post by [deleted] »

drewburg wrote: post #168

I haven't seen any mentions here if being in a startup fundamentally changes the argument. I think startups would want to leverage the individual talent and personal time sacrifice to bootstrap themselves and build their dream team. I have found the opposite, that they want to be even more controlling in work environment. I am probably biased as it did take a few months to adjust to remote work and find a decent bala…

[deleted]

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#189

Post by Dig1t »

This problem, and distribution of talent, reminds me a little of Sturgeon's Law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law)

Despite the somewhat unkind analogy, the distributions kind of line up and it makes sense to me why the top 10% of workers on platforms like Outschool or whatever earn significantly more. In many cases in life there is a group of people/things/songs/movies etc. that are significantly better than the rest in their respective category (usually about 10%), and the rest fall into a category of their own. idk, this is entirely intuitive, but I'd say it makes sense to me that people, and their ability to do some task well, would follow the same distribution.

Re: The Winners of Remote Work

#190

Post by gravypod »

drewburg wrote: post #168

I haven't seen any mentions here if being in a startup fundamentally changes the argument. I think startups would want to leverage the individual talent and personal time sacrifice to bootstrap themselves and build their dream team. I have found the opposite, that they want to be even more controlling in work environment. I am probably biased as it did take a few months to adjust to remote work and find a decent bala…

Sounds like an awful environment. If a CEO can't see the value in hiring good people that you don't need to micro manage and allowing them to decide if it makes sense to be in person or in office I don't think working at that kind of company would be fun.

Hire good people, entrust them with executing on core business needs, allow them to choose however they make the magic happen.

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