Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever • Hacker News Board

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#321

Post by nathan_long » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:38 PM UTC

CodeSheikh wrote: post #273

Vysero wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree more. If I could work from home permanently I would move far far away from where I am currently living. I would get myself a nice condo or small house, and settle in. Currently, where I live, despite the fact that I make almost 30k/year more than the medium average income I still can only just afford a one bedroom apartment spending the suggested 30% of my income. Imagine being able to buy a house!!!…

What's the guarantee that say your San Francisco/NYC employer will keep paying you city rates when you are living in a small town in mid-west. At some point they will catch up and start saving money this way. Everyone at a tech company is not a crucial employee. Don't get me wrong, I am all in for getting paid SF rates while living in a cheap Texas suburb.

It cuts both ways, right?

Companies: "I don't have to pay you $big_city rates because you live in $small_town and nobody there will offer you $big_city rates."

Candidates: "I don't have to accept $small_town rates because I work remotely and can work for a company in $big_city."

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#322

Post by option » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:39 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #247

fermienrico wrote: post #85

Then why pay $200k for a software engineer in the valley when the same talent can live outside of the bay area and can do with 1/3rd of the salary? The question I have is what portion of the $200k salary is 1) due to the raw talent of the individual 2) because they live in the bay area.

I've had a related thought: is it ethical to pay a person less based purely on where they live? I understand that there are different cost of living factors for different places, but that's on the employee's side and should be none of the employer's business. If they employer can pay $200k/yr for a remote employee, it shouldn't matter where they live, and so scaling that value seems discriminatory to me. Anyone have…

the pay is based (as it should be) on market conditions, regulations and contractual obligations. Should not be based on ethics - those can vary in surprising ways.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#323

Post by thelean12 » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:39 PM UTC

amiga_500 wrote: post #230

ram_rar wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I perfectly fit the profile you described. I live in SF in a small apt. I can easily afford a much bigger place for the same amount. But working with collegues @ office is a soo much fun. if the company gets fully remote, its really hard to connect with coworkers and hangout.

What about if all of society did this, and you all had a great webcam, and for lunch you went out locally with your local friends, then when you knock off at 5pm you have all agreed to play soccer down the local park at 5:10pm ? We can have a nice local life that flourishes, once the utterly stupid situation of having everyone converge at the same time on a fixed point is forever slain.

It's much harder to make friends as an adult. Work colleagues end up being much easier friendships to make.

90% of my current friends were made through work.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#324

Post by lonelappde » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

crocodiletears wrote: post #245

deeblering4 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people fitting this description not prefer the flexibility of working remotely? As an aside -- I prefer not to use the term "work from home", as the ideal (for me) is the ability to work from anywhere at my option. Also, for what it's worth, co-working spaces can be a workable alternative to a traditional office.

The workplace is one of the last places where you're forced to interact face-to-face with a diverse range of people multiple times, on a regular basis. If you're young, and from out of town, you get a lot from that. Certainly, there are different clubs and groups out there, but the people they attract are fairly homogenous, and monofocused on their topic of interest. There are coffee-houses and bars, but you'd be luc…

> diverse range of people

At a tech company?

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#325

Post by HenryKissinger » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

m0zg wrote: post #267

throwaway713 wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could keep my current compensation and move to the low cost of living area where my family is located, I would reach financial independence 10-15 years ahead of my current trajectory with Bay Area rents/costs. I'll settle for the minor inconveniences of WFH any day in order to get a decade of my life to spend with family or to work on my own projects.

That's the whole point though. You're not going to be able to "keep your current compensation" if companies embrace this in earnest.

Top talent will. The trick is to be good enough to be top talent.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Post by aripickar » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

I think being allowed to work from home doesn't mean that people actually will all suddenly start doing that. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home (young, no kids, etc). I just don't think that this will change much.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#327

Post by munificent » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

the_watcher wrote: post #44

robbyking wrote: post #18

I work for a pretty well-known tech company, and my hypothesis is that we'll switch to a mostly at-home work week, where most people WFH 3 or 4 days a week with one day of the week being designated as a "meeting day" where everyone is in the office. I don't think this will happen because of people are worried about virus transmission, but instead because most people like working from home and we've proven we can be j…

I disagree that this is a likely outcome. For many people, this is a worst of both worlds - still requires all the costs of living within commuting distance of your employer (particularly for SFBA and NYC) and likely shrinks the average size/perks of the office you commute to. Partial remote doesn't seem to solve any problem in a way that is any better than the status quo.

The average American spends 4.3 hours per week commuting. If you go into the office every day, that gives you a 26.1 minute commute radius. If you go into the office twice a week, now your commute radius extends out to an hour.

Take a map around the office where you work. Look at the kinds of home prices you can find an hour out. See how much closer you can be to nature or other particular amenities that matter to you. Would you like to have those with zero total change to your commute time?

Sounds pretty nice to me.

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#328

Post by wlll » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #258

deeblering4 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would people fitting this description not prefer the flexibility of working remotely? As an aside -- I prefer not to use the term "work from home", as the ideal (for me) is the ability to work from anywhere at my option. Also, for what it's worth, co-working spaces can be a workable alternative to a traditional office.

Imagine you're 22. For the last 17 years you've showed up every day for an institution. It provided a schedule, a routine, social interaction with a community of peers who share common ground, even explicitly structured extracurricular events. One day that just comes to a hard stop. You're sitting in your childhood bedroom on a computer. Your friends have all scattered to the wind. What now? Of course it's possible t…

I did this. Started my first "proper" job in London (in an office). Used to go home at 5:30 and fiddle with my linux machine (that I was learning how to use) then go to bed.

So, I started going out to the London Linux User Group. I made friends there, and a few of us ended up going out for weekly curries/tech markets together, getting drinks, and eventually attending each others weddings (John, if you're reading this, we're all still sorry we laughed when the offical said your middle name was "Leonard").

I live in Manchester now, and have worked from home for about 12 years. I ran the local Ruby user group, and run the local Go group, and these groups have provided me with a group of great friends. Even in the relatively non-tech heavy NW England there's a tech event on most nights, and lots of non-tech groups to find.

I don't think the situation is as dire as you make out :)

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

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Post by yumraj » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

All this may have a rather interesting impact on SF business real estate, and other trickle down effects.

Twitter will no longer need the large office building that it has.

It will no longer need to run the shuttles, both routes and frequency, that it does today.

Some employees may not want to live in SF anymore. Some may decide to move out of BA and even CA.

Now multiply with other companies that may do that...

Re: Twitter Will Allow Employees to Work at Home Forever

#330

Post by kelnos » Tue, May 12, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

allenu wrote: post #190

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but it would also be good if more (tech) companies offered a decent working environment. That's coming from personal experience btw, where most jobs / assignments I've had, it was usually open plan, flexible seat arrangements. I have a new job now where I have a fixed desk with a set of drawers. It's a breath of fresh air and honestly it sounds so stupid and trivial. But employers don't have their employees' b…

My even more cynical take is that companies are finding employees are way more productive working from home. I think part of it could be that with COVID-19, a lot of us are looking for an outlet for our energies, and so are working harder than normal.

With COVID-19 it depends on your family situation though. People without kids are probably working more, but people with kids (and who don't have a live-in nanny) are really struggling to juggle their work with child care. I imagine many people in that situation are less productive.