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Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

nytimes.com

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

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what the theory says, but my experience disagrees. I find that when the remote workers have to be kept in the loop or the work doesn't get done/get done properly, then managers make sure they are always up to date.

I've not found that to be true in my career. Where remote work is the exception, rather than the rule, the remote employees are frequently in the dark, and often simply fail to work out. Managers can only do so much when you're missing the critical water cooler/hallway/impromptu meetings. I've worked in remote-only environments, and (effectively) local-only, both of which worked pretty well. Local-first/remote-rarely…

> missing the critical water cooler/hallway/impromptu meetings

Maybe that's the crux of it. I've never worked in an environment where things like that amounted to much. If one of those meetings started to become important, it would always end up with "let's find a meeting room and include Charlie and Susan and get this hashed out."

I'd go so far as to say that if that's the way a team is primarily communicating, there is something structurally wrong.

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

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Aha. Interesting. So you're saying an Indian engineer should earn the same salary as a Californian engineer if they're both bringing in the same revenue? Interesting. But it won't happen. Or... you're not suggesting Indian engineers are worse, are you? Because that would be kinda racist. On the other hand, someone living anywhere in India on the same salary (per contract) as someone living anywhere in the US is earni…

Indian engineers in India did tend to be worse on average than American engineers of any ethnicity when I did a lot of hiring about 10 years ago. As far as I could figure out, the main reason for this was the large number of Indian technical schools with very outdated curriculae and low standards for matriculation, along with a rote learning style. Engineers from these schools needed to have every little detail meticulously specified to get anything done correctly. Pair that with frequently mediocre english, and you have a recipe for disaster.

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

#233
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is revenue tied at all to efficacy? Your analysis is too shallow to have any meaning.

Its not my analysis, those are the facts, their revenue keeps going up, their profits keep going up, their share price keeps going up, their clients keep going up. Now you do the math.

That has nothing to do with quality of work. Ok their financials are going up. Maybe they’re charging more, maybe they’ve reorg’d, maybe they laid off a ton of people, maybe they made good investments and sold. I’m not taking “they’re making more money” to mean anything other than the sole fact that a number on the balance sheet went up.

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

#234

I just wish I could find a 100% normal in person job. Like I had in Feb 2020. I don't want to work from home. I don't want to interact with others through a screen. Zoom calls are like torture to me. I don't want to spend all of my time in the same place. I want to go to work on the Tube, have lunch and go to the pub with my colleagues, and then go home. I think video work is another thing we'll just regret in 10 yea…

That’s great for you and I hope you find that but there’s an entire class of us who are sick of 1+ hour commutes, inane “water cooler” conversation that goes nowhere and just want to do work.

Work for me is not an extension of my social life, it is how I provide for my family and support my social life outside of work.

We’ve waited for ages for WFH to be normalized and I hope that this trend continues.

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

#235
post #96

Wall Street banks posted record profit and revenue during the pandemic, as government stimulus supported consumers stuck at home and companies sought to do deals, proving to bankers and traders that they have little need to work out of the office the way they used to. The attendance numbers are low. The financial industry employs 332,100 people in New York City. In October, only 27 percent of those people came in dai…

Government stimulus is the main reason there's been a bull market and that's why banks' profits have been through the roof. I'm pretty sure that whether or not bankers worked remotely had little to do with it. When J Powell eventually turns off the money printer, the market is going to pull back, the banks are going to go through leaner times, and the old-school executives in charge of them are going to be in a much…

They will have to come up with very strong arguments to the board though. It can be pretty hard to explain why should they spend a lot of money during leaner times to rent prime-location offices in some of the most expensive cities in the world.

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

#236

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,…

The career-related reasons why early-career employees want to go in to office are valid. But that is not the whole story.

For many early-career engineers living away from families in cities like SF, Seattle etc have better office spaces than personal living spaces - better buildings, better air conditioning, better TV, better restrooms, better kitchens, better stocked fridges etc. This factor does not apply as much to later-career employees who live in the suburbs.

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

#237
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government stimulus is the main reason there's been a bull market and that's why banks' profits have been through the roof. I'm pretty sure that whether or not bankers worked remotely had little to do with it. When J Powell eventually turns off the money printer, the market is going to pull back, the banks are going to go through leaner times, and the old-school executives in charge of them are going to be in a much…

They will have to come up with very strong arguments to the board though. It can be pretty hard to explain why should they spend a lot of money during leaner times to rent prime-location offices in some of the most expensive cities in the world.

A key word being "rent". There are a lot of downtown office space renewals coming up that are not being renewed.[1]

[1] https://wolfstreet.com/2021/08/24/end-of-the-era-of-voraciou...

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

#238
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cycle into my office every day, 1h round-trip. It certainly increases my quality of life and I'm glad I had the choice (not requirement) to return

If you didn't have to commute, you'd have an extra hour per day to cycle wherever you wanted instead of having to specifically bike that path. Hell you could still bike that path if that's what you like. In the absolute best case scenario, commuting is breakeven, but realistically you are objectively worse off for it.

When this came up before, I was reminded of this video:

https://youtu.be/vMed1qceJ_Q

I love using a bike to get around and do all of my daily activities. But I hate just riding around in circles for no purpose other than exercise or getting out of the house.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aha. Interesting. So you're saying an Indian engineer should earn the same salary as a Californian engineer if they're both bringing in the same revenue? Interesting. But it won't happen. Or... you're not suggesting Indian engineers are worse, are you? Because that would be kinda racist. On the other hand, someone living anywhere in India on the same salary (per contract) as someone living anywhere in the US is earni…

Indian engineers in India did tend to be worse on average than American engineers of any ethnicity when I did a lot of hiring about 10 years ago. As far as I could figure out, the main reason for this was the large number of Indian technical schools with very outdated curriculae and low standards for matriculation, along with a rote learning style. Engineers from these schools needed to have every little detail metic…

That's kinda racist. You can't possibly be saying that there's no way there exists an Indian engineer that can compete hand-in-hand with a Silicon Valley engineer on an intellectual level (connections is a different thing).

So this being the case. Why does the Indian still earn less than the Silicon Valley peep?

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

#240
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not my analysis, those are the facts, their revenue keeps going up, their profits keep going up, their share price keeps going up, their clients keep going up. Now you do the math.

That has nothing to do with quality of work. Ok their financials are going up. Maybe they’re charging more, maybe they’ve reorg’d, maybe they laid off a ton of people, maybe they made good investments and sold. I’m not taking “they’re making more money” to mean anything other than the sole fact that a number on the balance sheet went up.

You dont have to speculate with maybe's. You need to look at the facts

All the big IT outsourcing companies are publicly listed, you can go to their website and check their annual reports to see how their revenue is going up for. You can see the number of employees keeps going up, the number of clients keeps going up. All these figures are available for 20 years now.

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