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Is remote work bad for the economy?

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Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#231

Post by newswasboring »

theshrike79 wrote: post #138
newswasboring wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe within a city, but people are not moving to another town/city to get access to a good school. The primary factor for people moving somewhere is still jobs. If that wasn't the case why will these people move out of the place which made them this capable?

The only reason we DIDN'T move during Covid was because of the school, otherwise we'd be living in the sticks in a huge house that's 50% cheaper and 200% bigger.

Yes, but we all accept covid times were exceptions right? But it can become the norm if remote work becomes the norm. The reason you moved to wherever you were during covid was probably because you had a good job there.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#232

Post by newswasboring »

chii wrote: post #90
newswasboring wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's how that works. It's evident by the fact that there are no school towns like there are college towns. Once the people earning the money move out, there is no taxes left to fund education. Unless we nationalize education, which is not going to happen (at least in America).

> no taxes left to fund education which is why it's really a stupid policy decision to fund schooling via local taxation. There should be federally funded schools.

It is probably stupid, but I don't think that can ever change. The US political system is not set up to encourage nationalization, or even state based control, of anything.

edit: It also rewards the wrong people. The schools which made someone capable of getting a high paying job does not get anything in return. In fact with people moving out they get less and less money to improve themselves. Even in the most individualistic view of the system, the wrong individual is being rewarded.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#233

Post by manfre »

treis wrote: post #221
sw104 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those gentlemen would probably also waste time in an office environment. You're just substituting wasting time at work with wasting time at work (from home). In the office I work in, walking past anybody's desk you see procrastination window and tabs quickly disappear. Either that, or people don't even bother hiding it (except from management). If people working from home didn't manage the same workload at home, it w…

>Those gentlemen would probably also waste time in an office environment. You're just substituting wasting time at work with wasting time at work (from home). There's way more distractions at home and not everyone can handle it. It's just wild what people find appropriate to do during meetings that they're supposed to be paying attention to. In office yeah maybe someone would read emails but you wouldn't be fully imm…

> Feel like for most people if you're stuck in the office you might as well do some work.

The biggest distractions in the office are the coworkers. Random hallway conversations, loud talkers in neighboring cubes/offices, people walking up to your desk with a question that should've been an email/chat (but really they are too lazy to check the ticket system/wiki/doc store for the answer). The level of distraction varies with each type of job, but for many quiet focus time is important. Working from home provides that quiet focus time.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#234

Post by carlosjobim »

csomar wrote: post #73
maxfurman wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do see the irony that jobs at places like restaurants and theaters cannot be done remotely, right?

There is an "infinite" amount of people that need a job and can't do something remotely (because they are not too "techyy" for that). Right now, they have to 1.5H commute from Jersey to Manhattan because that's where the job is. They are not originally from NJ but that's where they found the cheapest rent. I'm pretty sure they'd be happy to serve the Digital Nomads or the Remote worker that picked small town, out of…

>There is an "infinite" amount of people that need a job and can't do something remotely (because they are not too "techyy" for that).

There are tons of jobs you can do remotely, without being good with tech. I will wager that most people working low paid manual jobs today have the full potential to handle a remote job. They just haven't had or made that opportunity.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#235

Post by neoromantique »

carabiner wrote: post #119

Such a straw man article. He ignores the main argument against WFH which is that people are walking their dogs or doing yoga instead of actually working. I take long naps. I know I'm less productive but I can't help it.

How do you measure your productivity? Personally my working hour after a walk or a nap is much more productive than anything I could ever achieve in the office.

I've been doing full remote for six years now and it's wonderful, especially when you have good asynchronous workflows in your team to rid of "working hours" concept entirely. (Though possibility of that heavily depends on the role and team composition).

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#236

Post by stuaxo »

chii wrote: post #89
michaelteter wrote: post #74

This applies everywhere: just because a job or business has existed does not mean it has a right to exist forever. This is not being harsh on people; it's just a reality. The blacksmiths in the horse and buggy days saw demand for their services fall when time and technologies changed. The coal miners began losing their jobs when we realized that coal as fuel was more harmful than it was beneficial. History is full of…

> This obviously is a financial loss for the economy it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? The replacement is gonna cause huge growth!

GDP is such a damaging measure to use for anything, we need to stop.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#237

Post by wildrhythms »

Tade0 wrote: post #130
smackeyacky wrote: post #79

There was another article in the Sydney Morning Herald [0] behooving everybody to get back to the CBD because...mental health...cafes will close... What if you work in a tech park that has few or no amenities, or your work office is in a cruddy bit of town you really dislike? When the house is tidy and the washing done in the 10 minutes an hour I can wander away from the work laptop, I feel a lot happier than worryin…

I started working remotely in late 2015 and when I first stepped into the office after some months of this it struck me as insane that we expend all these resources just to have people in particular places, at particular times, producing massive traffic in the process. It bothers me that it took a pandemic for companies to embrace remote work.

...and yet the people in charge of those companies are starting to revert back to 'the good old days' of making everybody commute sometimes hours to sit at a (generally worse) workspace to do the work. It's maddening to me.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#238

Post by SamoyedFurFluff »

doublerabbit wrote: post #214
atraac wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> better alternative would be to have your own chosen days off. Sure, I'll just let my dog sit for 10 hours straight on those other days. It might be a better alternative for YOU, but I doubt it's true for most peole who want fully remote work. > It is proving insanely hard getting in contact with folk. (...) Trying to find someone to give me basic mentoring, even trying to understand the hierarchy. Sounds like a com…

And there the typical 35 year aggressive attitude I have to deal with daily. Your joking right in thinking that no communication is loss via email? Team, zoom meetings take away facial expressions and as someone with social blindness it makes my job harder to engage. Why so hostile? As from what I see the culture here, the prosperity that they give has been one of the I best fitted environments I've worked in. Very s…

Forgive my confusion, but why do you specify needing space away from work now when the vast majority of your concerns prior was struggling with textual mediums? I could suggest if you want to be on prem, you can be. But none of that will address that not only do you want to be on prem you have frustration that other people are not. Couldn’t difficulty with communication be resolved via personal occupational therapy or coaching?

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#239

Post by johnwalkr »

watwut wrote: post #170
saiya-jin wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generation of our parents lived much more frugal lives from current perspective. Less traveling, adventures, exciting matters and more grind of work & kids care. I utterly respect them for that, but its not a life I would call ideal and strive to have. Financials now for buying real estate became ridiculous for many places globally. It can be counted from ie how many salaries of similar jobs you need to buy a house i…

Is that actually true? Yes people now have less kids, but are they really having adventures more in some large numbers? I mean, there are regular outrages here over people living frugal - not buying cars, living with parents, generally having less, having massively larger college debt to pay. It is combined with outrage over them not buying this or that subscription someone is pushing. Bycicle transport is cheaper th…

Anecdotally among my peers, we make more money than our parents, yet mostly need two incomes instead of one to have kids and not all of us can buy a house. I'm 40 and can't buy my house but my parents could just get a mortgage in their 20s. I doubt they even considered renting, it was just normal to buy a house if you had a job.

The number of big vacations is similar to our parents (about once in five years). We probably eat in/order from restaurants more than our parents but the high cost of groceries and fact that both parents work means it's not as simple as claiming we are simply not being frugal. We have Netflix and smartphones but these are hardly the reason we can't afford houses.

In terms of adventures, many of my friends' parents had a cabin and boat, and as kids most of our families went on weekend trips skiing, to a lake beach/cabin, camping etc multiple times per year. As middle aged adults now, none of us have cabins and weekend trips might be done 1-2 times per year instead of 5-6 times per year because it's so expensive.

Anyway, it's easy to check inflation and cost of housing vs salaries to verify that the problem is cost of living and wages, not excessive vacationing and avocado eating.

Also note that this website is heavily skewed towards American software developers, so things are generally worse than indicated by the comments here. Even the discussion about remote work is a fairly privileged one, as most workers need to do work at a workplace (factory, warehouse, retail, service, etc).

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#240

Post by wildrhythms »

INGSOCIALITE wrote: post #210

The issue is that middle managers are being proven as ineffective and useless. The guy who wanders around the office synergizing everyone now has a spotlight on them, because its been proven over the last few years that people can be efficient and productive without Lundberg stopping by and asking for a progress report. The only part of the industry that has now been proven unnecessary are the ones clawing and fighti…

I agree with this a lot, and I've started defining this phenomenon with 'B.S. Jobs': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs Not to say that the people currently doing the middle-management synergizing should be banished from society, but that the job function itself shouldn't exist at all.
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