[HN Gopher] The Winners of Remote Work ___________________________________________________________________ The Winners of Remote Work Author : remt Score : 122 points Date : 2021-08-31 12:28 UTC (10 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com) | seibelj wrote: | > _There are already examples of how gains are captured by the | few and not the many._ | | The New York Times - "Feel Bad About Everything, Always" | | Remote work is amazing, net on net it vastly improves lives, | reduces commute time / traffic / car pollution, reverses the | decades long trend of economic activity centralizing in a few | boom cities, and I believe will reduce inequality longterm as | workers will be able to get good, high-paying jobs no matter | where they live. | vehemenz wrote: | 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 nowhere and doubling | down on our third-world transportation infrastructure. It means | more clearing of wild land, one of the best resources the US | has if you've done any traveling at all. It means more boom- | bust bedroom communities and vacant strip malls. It means more | culturally insulated communities and Trump-like politicians. | ghaff wrote: | >The problem is commuting, which stems from a lack of | housing. | | I think you'll find that a great many people don't want to | live in the denser areas where offices often tend to be. You | can scold about that all you want, but you could make cities | arbitrarily dense and a lot of people, indeed more, wouldn't | want to live in them if they weren't making a commuting | tradeoff because of work. | walshemj wrote: | Depends when I worked in London id have loved to be able to | live near the office in Red lion Square or in a flat with a | view of the Thames. | | Or Fitzrovia | vehemenz wrote: | If you're going to quote a line, quote the context. The OP | was talking about "boom cities" as a problem, which they | aren't by themselves. The problem is the unaffordability of | the cities, caused by lack of housing, which leads folks to | live outside of the city and commute. | | My main point was that arguing for remote work/sprawl was | not a ecologically-friendly argument. Sure, lots of people | want to live in the middle of nowhere. But the negative | externalities, looking to the future, are many, and they | are something to consider when trying to praise WFH as a | potential solution for anything. | | Yes, everyone that reads this forum supports WFH because | they benefit directly from it. From a birds-eye view | though, looking at urban development and the cultural | decline of isolated populations in the US, it looks like it | could be a disaster. | luffapi wrote: | Wouldn't wfh decrease the cost of living in the city, | since currently most high paying jobs make living within | commuting distance a requirement? To make an extreme | example, cost of living on the Bay Area should go down if | wfh becomes widespread. There are other reasons to want | to live in SF aside from getting paid a high salary in | tech, so housing prices should "fallback" to whatever | people value the culture/scenery... at. What you would | probably see is a more even (and healthy) distribution of | growth in _all_ metro areas instead of being centered in | a few with all of the cost of living increases associated | with that. | ghaff wrote: | I'm not sure SF is a great example. For most tech | workers, they're giving themselves a _worse_ commute by | living in the city rather than somewhere else in the | South Bay closer, in many /most cases, to where their | office is. So, yes, their jobs may be a major reason | they're in the Bay Area overall, but mostly not in SF | itself. | | This is of course much less true in industries like | finance. | sokoloff wrote: | That seems like a perfectly fine amount of context to | quote to me. You could make cities as dense as you want | and many people would explicitly choose to live in an | area where they can have a private yard. There's no | strategy of densification that will preserve that for | everyone. | | You can make the inside of your box as amazing as you can | imagine and some (not small) segment of people will opt | to live where the sun can shine into their yard. | slavapestov wrote: | Demand for homes in dense cities outstrips supply though, and | I suspect this will continue to hold even if all office jobs | offered remote work as an option to those that want it. | | Nevermind the fact that only a fraction of all jobs _can_ be | meaningfully done remotely, and a majority of employees | wouldn 't take the option if it was offered anyway. | | You can argue that remote work drives demand for larger | spaces, but again this comes down to the housing shortage. | There's no reason that more 2 and 3 bedroom apartments | couldn't be built if taller buildings were actually allowed | to be built in the cities where demand for housing is high. | corpdronejuly wrote: | 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 years to | build. | | Leon Krier has made this point visually here. | https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUX70P7UYAEchHS.jpg:large | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | I don't really agree with your post, but wow, that is a | _beautiful_ and profound image. | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: | But but but.. what about the gas stations, shiny offices and | all those things we have built with an explicit purpose to take | advantage of you physically moving in? | toomuchtodo wrote: | Creative destruction. | warkdarrior wrote: | That's only for poor people, those who bring you food, clean | your house, and deliver your Amazon boxes. | ecshafer wrote: | >The New York Times - "Feel Bad About Everything, Always" | | This would be a bad thing for them, if the New York Times sold | the news, which I don't think they do any more. The New York | Times instead sells brand image to people. They sell a series | of a talking points, ideas, and topics that show you are in the | in group and on the right side. So that when someone brings up | remote work, you can show how empathetic you are, and how | worldly you are and say "Remote work is fine but really it | shows how the gains are captured by the few and not the many, I | read in the Times that... ". | SonOfKyuss wrote: | Do you have a trustworthy news source that doesn't do this? | trhoad wrote: | Try telling that to the office cleaner. | seibelj wrote: | Luckily new jobs for house cleaners will be created. | avnigo wrote: | > Google [...] would reduce the pay of those who choose to work | remotely or move farther from the office. Avoiding the office | saves employees money -- in commuting costs, for example | | I don't understand the reasoning behind this, and I've seen it | being used again and again. Employees are compensated on the work | they provide during work hours, and only rarely do companies | provide compensation to specifically accommodate for commutes, | usually done as an incentive for people with costly commutes. | | The concern most companies have has to be more about the real | estate play, and how the offices they have paid for or are | renting won't be getting as much use. Other than that, in terms | of energy usage, heating/cooling, etc., I would imagine the cost | savings of having people work remotely are considerable. | | If anything, as I see it, work from home employees should be | compensated for the costs of working from home, which include | higher utility expenses, or even office furniture to enable their | work -- some companies have paid stipends for home office setups, | for example. | | I think, long term, companies may have to rethink how they set up | their offices so not as much cost is sunk in real estate, so much | so that they risk penalizing employees who would be saving them | money otherwise, if it weren't for the existing office-centric | solution. | googlr29783 wrote: | > Google [...] would reduce the pay of those who choose to work | remotely or move farther from the office. | | Sample size of 1 here: Google approved my working remotely in a | small town outside a major city at the same compensation as | working in the office in that major city. So no pay cut. | | I think there's a game of telephone going on with the facts in | these articles: | | "could see different changes in pay" -> could lose money" -> | "would reduce pay" | SlowBall wrote: | Exactly (Google employee here as well). Those articles are | completely disingenuous. You could have made the headline | "Google will increase the pay of remote workers" and it would | be equally true. | [deleted] | altgoogler wrote: | > In June, Google told rank-and-file employees it would reduce | the pay of those who choose to work remotely or move farther | from the office. | | To echo the statement from the other Googler who posted, this | quote from the article is simply not true. It implies that if | any employee chooses permanent WFH, you get a pay cut. | | If you follow the link [1] from the article, you'll see the | following reasons: | | * Google supplied an online calculator to see how their | possible relocation would affect their pay | | * Pay rates are defined by metropolitan statistical areas (MSA) | | * Google says "Our compensation packages have always been | determined by location, and we always pay at the top of the | local market based on where an employee works from," | | So, if you choose to WFH permanently _and_ you commute far | enough to live in a different MSA than your office, then you | _might_ see a paycut. | | [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/the-great-reboot/pay-cut- | googl... | adolph wrote: | 1. Perform gradient descent using online MSA calculator and | Zillow | | 2. Move to superfund site nearest NYC or FS | | 3. Profit! | kansface wrote: | > Other than that, in terms of energy usage, heating/cooling, | etc., I would imagine the cost savings of having people work | remotely are considerable. | | You'd have much higher costs around compliance and taxation, | which represent an ongoing expense since laws are always | changing and people moving. That probably works out after a few | employees in any given state. Companies also lose money by | flying everyone in once or twice a year. Now that I think about | it, I wouldn't mind seeing some math on the subject. | tonyedgecombe wrote: | >I don't understand the reasoning behind this, and I've seen it | being used again and again. | | They do it because if you won't accept a 20% cut to work out in | the sticks then there are plenty of other good people who will. | | It's got nothing to do with the length of your commute or the | cost of unused offices or even the value you provide (as long | as that covers your wages). | | They can do this for exactly the same reason they only need to | pay a cleaner minimum wage. That is there is more than enough | supply to meet the demand. | ohazi wrote: | > They do it because if you won't accept a 20% cut to work | out in the sticks then there are plenty of other good people | who will. | | So the options are: | | 1. Convince all of the other good people that they can and | should demand more. | | 2. Convince your bosses that you are indispensable. | Clubber wrote: | 3. Quit because you don't want to work for a company that | thinks so little of you. | fairity wrote: | > Employees are compensated on the work they provide during | work hours. | | Industry-average compensation is primarily a function of supply | and demand. Remote work increases labor supply and decreases | costs of labor. Both of these factors will cause compensation | to go down. How employers justify pay decreases is largely | besides the point, imo. | pvm3 wrote: | The Winners of Remote Work don't live in the United States. The | pandemic has accelerated globalization. | cblconfederate wrote: | The winner of globalization was the US though | tonyedgecombe wrote: | >The pandemic has accelerated globalization. | | Is that really the case? There is some evidence that | globalisation had plateaued over the last decade or so. I can't | find any recent evidence one way or the other. | | https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-trade-exports-const... | co2benzoate wrote: | The winners of remote work are all fleeing to New Zealand, | leaving the rest to wallow in decaying infrastructure and a | healthcare system bursting at the seams. | j8hn wrote: | I wasn't aware that New Zealand are accepting immigrants | right now. | | Which visa does NZ allow you to live there and work remotely? | ThePadawan wrote: | Only if you consider Remote Global Work. | | As a European, it is very disheartening to see how many | companies espouse "we are now embracing remote work company- | wide", which on closer inspection means "California hours +-2h | time difference". | ghaff wrote: | California to Europe is tough for many things. I work US East | Coast timezone and collaborate a lot with Europe--but that | feels like it's getting near the limit for any regular | synchronous activity unless one side or the other starts to | work atypical hours. | ThePadawan wrote: | I do totally get it. I only take an issue with the (maybe | unintentional) duplicity of pretending that "remote work in | the continental US" can only mean "remote work". | quadrifoliate wrote: | I have seen many European companies as well who do this | unintentional duplicity of "remote" meaning "anywhere in | the EU/EEA". | | In addition to the obvious time zone constraints, I think | payroll taxes and such are a major regulatory boundary | that you need to cross in addition to having "all your | shit together" as one of the top comments puts it. | handrous wrote: | > In addition to the obvious time zone constraints, I | think payroll taxes and such are a major regulatory | boundary that you need to cross in addition to having | "all your shit together" as one of the top comments puts | it. | | This can be annoying even across state boundaries, let | alone internationally, for smaller companies that aren't | already operating in several states. Consider also things | like group health insurance, which are often | geographically bound (sometimes even to a single city). | ThePadawan wrote: | Right? | | It boggles the mind that the biggest companies on Earth | are the likes of Instagram instead of a huge company | called "Adapt" which takes care of all that between | employee and employer as a third party. | ghaff wrote: | I have no personal experience but I have been told that | even if you farm a lot of things out there is a certain | amount of paperwork (and cost) that you have to handle | in-house. | ThePadawan wrote: | Hm, that's a shame. That seems to me to be just | accidental, not essential complexity, too. | ghaff wrote: | Well, a lot of it is a patchwork of government rules and | regulations. Here's a long post about it from Mitchell at | HashiCorp: | | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17022563 | walshemj wrote: | Which would then crucify its employees and suck rent out | of both sides. | | Also there are vast diferences in labor law between | countries | nathanvanfleet wrote: | It's not nearly as easy to have people in a timezone 16 hours | offset than you might think. So I am not surprised that they | would be two very different decisions. | ThePadawan wrote: | Right, so that's the point where your job offer should say | "Remote - US" or "Remote - UTC-8 +-3h". | | And I have seen a few companies do that! I would say that | this is around 20% of the companies. | | The other 80% simply list those jobs as "Remote", so they | show up on their job pages under all continents, or at | least, under their "outside the US" filters. | | Then sometimes it's not mentioned at the top of the job | offer, but in the footnotes with the "we hire regardless of | disability etc." statements. | | All of these things are _fine_. They 're just a far cry | from that blog post that the CEO made 10 months into | quarantine, talking about how the company will open itself | to global remote work. | exdsq wrote: | You can always join, work nights, and shift the hours over | the first month or two. Probably worth it for a 2x pay | increase. | mLuby wrote: | It's unfortunate for North Americans who want to work | elsewhere too. A globalized workforce is good for peace, | prosperity, and human rights. | | Another comment pointed out that shared time zone "remote | working mercilessly exposes some of the flaws in the | organization." | (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28369657) | | I'll add that global/fully async remote work is _even more | merciless,_ especially on Agile figuring-it-out-as-we-go- | along orgs. Communication has to be written and clear enough | to avoid back-and-forth, changes are possible on the order of | a day, not an hour so planning ahead and evaluating critical | paths is more important, and everyone has to be able to pick | up and put down work that 's become blocked by someone on the | other side of the planet. It's a tall order, but I'd like to | think that the benefits are worth it for both individual and | company. | 908B64B197 wrote: | Just go work for an European Unicorn. | ThePadawan wrote: | ...do you have their phone number? | SonOfKyuss wrote: | Working parents in the US have definitely benefited from the | flexibility that comes with remote work as well. | pc86 wrote: | Only to the extent that schools and daycares are still open. | 28367090 wrote: | The pandemic accelerated the _end_ of globalization. | Globalization is over. The US will become less and less | involved in the other countries -- even less than it is now -- | and corporations will not be hiring teams that are mix of time | zones, languages, and cultures. They will continue to hire | people with credentials like those in charge, who look like, | speak like, and have the same goals / culture as those in | charge. | | And that's going to be in US major cities. | WaitWaitWha wrote: | > Avoiding the office saves employees money -- in commuting | costs, for example | | It saves money for businesses exponentially more. The office | space, associated utilities, physical security, cleaning, | supplies, insurance, etc. are insane amount of savings. | | I owned a small "remote business" in the 90's and it allowed me | to be competitive with multi-million ventures. | kccqzy wrote: | And now the employee has to pay out of pocket for that ~100sqft | or so of the home that has become an office: the heating or air | conditioning of that space, the implicit cost in rent when the | employee seeks a bigger place to rent, etc. | madamelic wrote: | Yeah, but the comfort for the employee will go up because | they get to define their own space and not have to share it. | If they want blinding lights and warm: you got it. If they | want darkness and cold: you got it. | | Companies should probably kick in a small office stipend, but | the cost / sq foot of suburb vs cost / sq foot downtown is | usually pretty huge. | metalliqaz wrote: | yes but they only make those savings if they can ditch the | buildings completely, which most can't. | jackcosgrove wrote: | Those savings could be wiped out from a security breach by a | remote worker. Compliance will be much harder with remote work, | and I don't think that's priced in yet since the trend is so | recent. | neogodless wrote: | 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's just an amplification of the previous | trend towards inequality in employment that was already | happening. | | Another way to think about this is specialization. A few people | can specialize in certain remote tasks - obviously the examples | of education (for fitness, academia, etc.) - because creation is | not tied to consumption, especially for digital goods and | services. | | The distribution of employment has always shifted over time as | productivity has increased for certain types of work, and then | new methods of employment has popped up as technology and | entertainment and culture evolved. In a free country a couple | hundred years ago, many people might work their own farm and | largely sustain themselves off that work. But today a tiny slice | of the population manages massive scale farms. What does everyone | else do? Industries have evolved from nothing - large scale | housing, transportation, etc. | | To try to wrap this up, this article isn't going far enough. The | goal might be to predict the future. If everything we know we | need and want can be produced by a shrinking work force, what | will the rest of the population do to earn their keep? Will some | kind of redistribution scheme of resources arise, like socialism | or universal basic income? | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | > 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. | goldbricked wrote: | For the most part of the last century, the question was | answered by creating more demand to keep the work force steady, | thusly increasing the amount of produced goods and services | constantly with the increased productivity. | | However the increased productivity also applies to extraction | of ressources and destruction of ecosystems. On a planet with | limited ressources we need to do the exact opposite, imho. That | is decrease the amount of work done in extractive and | destructive labour and channel all following and already | existing productivity gains into sustainable work. | | This will definitely need serious redistribution schemes, as | well as lots of regulation. | drewburg wrote: | 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 balance of zoom | meetings/reporting but now have a good groove between my peers | and boss. Given HR's surveys to determine who wants to return to | the office, I would rather stay remote. Out of my past 2 startup | jobs in the past decade, it's 50/50 whether remote worked well. | | My recent anecdote: Startup out of stealth a month ago informed | me during 2nd round that they were only considering programmers | willing to relocate and live in Austin. No remote option | whatsoever. Asking what would happen if there are additional | lockdown measures reinstituted, for Delta or even just whatever | other 'virus-of-the-year' comes along, they didn't have any | answer other than to repeat Austin-based only. | | Bonus: Their founders and early execs are today only located in | SF bay area and have no plans to relocate and the in-office only | policy would only be for the devs. | [deleted] | gravypod wrote: | 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. | devonbleak wrote: | The issue with this approach seems to be that hiring is | fundamentally broken - hiring managers haven't really found a | process with a high correlation of "good interview | performance" = "good worker". I've personally been burnt a | ton of times by remote people who knocked the interview | process out of the park and then just didn't deliver and it's | difficult to tell for quite a while without some kind of | micro-managey framework in place. | | With enterprise I'm playing more with averages so that one | person on the team that may not be carrying their weight | isn't going to drag down the entire business. For a startup | where it's more critical that everybody be firing on all | cylinders it makes sense they want to have more control and | accountability to make sure their limited resources are being | spent appropriately. | bcrosby95 wrote: | What do you use in-person that is unavailable for remote | work? Butt-in-seat time? | Arainach wrote: | It's much easier to see the intangibles. For instance, | I'm a fairly senior team member who's a core subject | matter expert for a few major things our team owns. A | huge chunk of my day involves people asking me questions | about them. | | In person, it's trivial to see everyone coming up to my | desk, hear me jumping into team discussions, and so on. | Remote, it's on me to let management know that's what my | time is being spent on, and if I'm lying it's | significantly harder to verify. | throwanem wrote: | So what I hear you saying is that management has a trust | problem. | throwdecro wrote: | If it wasn't for the possibility of COVID transmission, an | office with remote management sounds like it would be a fun and | conveniently located place to hang out and chill. | masterof0 wrote: | Honest question: Why would a company pay an US based engineer a | high salary when they can get a team overseas equally or even | more qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode | count, school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) for the same amount | of money or less? I understand if you are Raedon/Being/... | Wouldn't remote work at least in the US force local engineer to | accept less money for their work? | seanmcdirmid wrote: | > when they can get a team overseas equally or even more | qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, | school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) | | Those people are already in demand and oversubscribed, so the | US-based engineers are still in demand. | | Yes, companies would love to pay less, but at the high end it | is already a world market for talent. | ameixaseca wrote: | Yes but you also have a number of other issues to take into | account: timezones, language barriers, cultural differences, | ability of an engineer to get on a plane/car/train/boat and | meet face-to-face in a reasonable amount of time, and so forth. | | Remote work within borders is one thing, but remote work from | different continents is an entirely different beast. | | Not to mention the sheer difference in labour-related laws and | conventions across the world and how little recourse you may | have if - let's say - your employee decides to take your source | code with them and resell. Or take the idea and start a product | themselves. Or anything similar that you could very easily sue | locally. How much trouble would you go to sue? Translate and | certificate every document? Comply with local laws regarding | representation? Can you even sue? | | You may think these are extreme examples, and yes it all tends | to work out in general, but even with local employees people | sometimes get burn so you need to take these into account when | jumping into something uncertain. It's becoming more common for | sure but there are risks and they are not null. | frozenport wrote: | Many small companies lack the ability to organize these kinds | of efforts, as hiring is usually local or word of mouth. | | Large companies like NVIDIA/Intel/Microsoft have tried to do it | with mixed results. In particular your savings rarely exceed | 50%. | sebular wrote: | The simple answer is that "whatever metrics you prefer to use" | include qualifications that overseas engineers often cannot | satisfy. | | Great engineers are human members of a team, and there's more | to a team member than their LeetCode score (seriously?) and/or | how many GitHub stars they've obtained. | | Just some examples off the top of my head: | | If you're building products to target US-based consumers, you | don't need to provide as much contextual information to a US- | based engineer. They will have a stronger intuitive | understanding of the product, and there's a better chance that | they'll know when it's appropriate to push back and question | something. There's a reduced cognitive load in communicating | with them. And of course, there's a better chance you're going | to enjoy spending hours working with them. | masterof0 wrote: | > Great engineers are human members of a team, and there's | more to a team member than their LeetCode score (seriously?) | and/or how many GitHub stars they've obtained. I was | referring to performance metrics in general, I didn't said | those were the ones to take into account. I have definitely | seen people here in HN referring to github stars, | stackoverflow points, etc... as some sort of badge of honor. | | Also I find your answer pretty condescending towards folks | overseas, although that's your opinion. In my team at Google, | we have people from all over the world, and they are amazing. | Don't see how they don't have the "required qualifications" | you are referring to. | babesh wrote: | I would estimate that well over half of Silicon Valley | engineers are foreign born. If you add the non local US | engineers, you are probably at over 90%. | | Those equally or more qualified overseas people working for | little were in short supply. Why would they work for you for | pennies when they could move to Silicon Valley, make tons more, | and have potential for much, much more? | | With remote work, what makes you think that the market will be | inefficient? The overseas equally or more qualified will demand | more money and look for more opportunities. | | These companies that adjust pay based on location remind me of | the wage fixing scheme led by Steve Jobs. Once Mark Zuckerberg | refused to play along, compensation exploded. Companies that | pay the best for remote workers will have their pick of the | best. | masterof0 wrote: | > Why would they work for you for pennies when they could | move to Silicon Valley, make tons more, and have potential | for much, much more? | | Who says all talented engineers overseas can come to the US? | There is a huge amount of QA companies in Ukraine that | contract their service to the west, for example, can they | come to the US? I doubt it. Overseas workers don't get the | chance to make demands, US companies have leverage over them. | Because there are way more talented engineers than high | paying jobs. I have you seen how much people get paid in | toptal, and other online contractor companies? | babesh wrote: | I am saying that the US was already playing the pick the | cream of the crop game. It was playing it in two ways. | First it identified obvious talent (math Olympiads, | etc...). Second, the people who were the most driven got to | Silicon Valley by any means necessary, showing tremendous | grit. | | Examples: | | former boss's family got out of Russia, had guns pointed at | them on the way to the airport | | coworker who got an H1-B, was desperate to get out of | Russia, we found him because a product he was working on | was exceptional | | several coworkers from other countries that were math or | computer science olympiads | | btw these people end up in American colleges as undergrads | or grads | ianmcgowan wrote: | Many big companies do exactly that, and have done since long | before Covid. I work with IT dev, support, and QA groups in | India and the Philippines and it definitely can be made to | work. There are the usual frustrations though, mostly around | timezones and some cultural differences. | cblconfederate wrote: | Are the wages of US tech workers skyrocketing because they | switch jobs often? If so, remote workers can switch even | faster. The most capable workers had already emigrated to US, | so the question is, has the pool of workers expanded more than | the pool of competitive jobs? | masterof0 wrote: | > The most capable workers had already emigrated to US | | This is insanely wrong. What makes you think that? | trhway wrote: | No. Companies able to manage additional offshore complexity | produce enough per engineer to not care for the savings, and | the effort required to deal with that complexity can in many | cases be more productively spent on growing revenues. Such | companies go offshore for additional talent, not savings. | busterarm wrote: | ^ This. | | Engineering needs product management. This isn't cheap or | easy to do when you're offshoring for cost. | justaguy88 wrote: | If they can put them in US-compatible timezone, sure. | | But coordinating teams across anything more than a 4-ish hour | difference is a total pain | foobiekr wrote: | Time zone. For whatever reason, and not for lack of looking, | there aren't really development ecosystems like | India/Pakistan/Estonia/Slovakia/... in south and central | america. | elboru wrote: | I'm a developer located in Latin America, I've worked for | several clients and I know tons of companies that outsource | work from here. What do you think is missing? I sincerely | would like to know the perception from the other side. | 908B64B197 wrote: | > when they can get a team overseas equally or even more | qualified (whatever metrics you prefer to use: leetcode count, | school ranking, GitHub stars, etc...) for the same amount of | money or less? | | If they could, they would [0]. | | [0] https://restofworld.org/2020/india-engineering-degree/ | masterof0 wrote: | Makes sense. | subpixel wrote: | I believe it will, and what Google has done, by adjusting | (down) remote salaries, essentially hands managers at lesser | companies an argument-ending example. | | There will be exceptions, especially among the most skilled and | experienced HN readers. But I am on calls all day with | engineers and managers whose salaries may vary by six figures | depending largely on their location. | | When the results of paying far less are acceptable to | companies, companies will pay less and less. | Dig1t wrote: | 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. | blakesterz wrote: | https://archive.is/Vltrp | | They attempt to answer "How will this affect the average tech | worker?" ... with ... "In June, Google told rank-and-file | employees it would reduce the pay of those who choose to work | remotely or move farther from the office." and they then say | "Should this worry the most in-demand engineers and product | management? Probably not." | | They finish with "But in the long term, remote work's promise is | more ambivalent." which seems like about the only real thing we | can all agree on. We'll know how this all shakes out in maybe 5 | or 10 years? | | What was pretty interesting, and something I've never heard | before was "some Peloton instructors earned more than $500,000". | cblconfederate wrote: | How many is "Some", because the article makes it sound like | it's a career option for all fitness people. It sounds like it | is as rare as being a TV fitness person | m0llusk wrote: | Google is a really bad point of normalization for remote work | metrics. Google has consistently emphasized working together in | offices as a central strategy and has spent vast amounts on | physical facilities and also transportation infrastructure such | as their own bus lines in order to support all of this. Even | other large companies cannot compete with this level of | emphasis on office space. | ghaff wrote: | >What was pretty interesting, and something I've never heard | before was "some Peloton instructors earned more than | $500,000". | | It's not really new in that you had doubtless well-paid | "personalities" who had workout shows on TV forever. It just | stands to reason that with mass broadcast, the money flows to a | relatively small number of popular people rather than a large | number of fairly modestly paid people teaching small classes in | local studios. | | Though I suspect that a lot of this current phenomenon is out | of necessity rather than preference from the perspective of | participants. | devit wrote: | The article starts talking about professions where working | remotely allows to service more or in fact all possible customers | in the world at once (e.g. musicians, teachers). | | That is not the case for programmers, consultants and contractors | (or more precisely, the Internet already had that effect for | website/app/SaaS builders without need for remote work). | | What will happen for them is that employees from poor countries | and outside main cities will be better able to participate, | increasing work offer, but also it will be easier for businesses | outside main cities to find workers, increasing work demand. | neonate wrote: | https://archive.is/Vltrp | OneEyedRobot wrote: | If there's a large increase in the amount of remote work, I | wonder how much software architectures will change in order to | accommodate the lessened interaction? | ghaff wrote: | Arguably, some level of modularity is good anyway and that's | been the general trend. And a lot of software, perhaps | especially large open source projects, are developed by a | fairly distributed set of individuals and teams already. | bennysomething wrote: | 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. | sct202 wrote: | You're still working for someone else in the trades. All your | clients are basically mini-bosses and your performance ratings | are public on Yelp and Angies List. | booleandilemma wrote: | Never too late to switch. Maybe this remote working trend will | lead to outsourcing of programmers and we'll see a rise of | electrician and carpenter bootcamps as people flee software | development. You'll just be ahead of the curve. | stainforth wrote: | Or be the one that sells the bootcamps, or even the one that | sells a prebuilt platform that creates bootcamps to those | that are selling the bootcamps. Picks and shovels so to | speak. But wait now you're developing software again. | joelbluminator wrote: | Its like a platform for platforms but on the cloud yes? | TremendousJudge wrote: | That's not developing software, that's selling it. | owly wrote: | 1. You still can. 2. Could be good, could be bad. | cardosof wrote: | I believe this has something to do with the statistical | distribution of compensation - normal-like for electricians, | dentists, and more power-like for coders and people from highly | creative or sports fields. | ghaff wrote: | It's all about leverage. There are certainly less good and | better electricians and dentists, but at the end of the day | they can only string so much wire and drill so many teeth in | a day at rates that are pretty much set by the market. They | have some leverage if they set up a business and employ | people but there are still both lower and upper bounds. | | Whereas a Pro Bowl quarterback or A-list movie star is worth | maybe $100s of millions to a team or studio relative to | players/actors who are "only" very competent. Coders are | somewhere in between. | analog31 wrote: | People run out of teeth, there is no limit to code. And if | your dentist runs late you don't hire three dentists to | make them run even later. | schnevets wrote: | 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 least the work | will be fruitful. | | In Software Development, you can "get by" with an effort | between 2-6 (where 5 is an average worker) or you can "excel" | with an effort of 9-10, but putting in a 7-8 just stops being | be worthwhile after a few years. Compare that to a local | business owner, where greater hustle always appears | commensurate to a greater reward. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | ... 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. | wintermutestwin wrote: | 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 they do. (and | IMO, it is still very underpaid) | handrous wrote: | 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 aches and pains from the work in their 20s or | early 30s, but are mostly out of the rougher side of the job | before it seriously harms their QOL. Like a lot of business, | the real money 's in selling other people's labor at a | markup, not in selling your own labor. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | > 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. | wintermutestwin wrote: | Quite correct, but I would add that a necessary skill is | also in being able to herd cats with a high turnover | workforce that is made up with a high percentage of semi- | functional addicts and/or flakes. | raverbashing wrote: | Correct | | Electricians have to work in less than desirable conditions | (dusty attics, outdoors, etc). Most of the material is your | responsibility. | | Accidents can and do happen. The days where you are less than | 100% but you would be able to WFH don't exist. | | Think it's annoying to plug a network cable under your desk? | It's like that but 7hrs per day or more. | walshemj wrote: | And developers don't have the risk of death by | electrocution even with low voltage - when you work with | Medium and High voltage its a lot more dangerous | edgyquant wrote: | Electrical is like plugging in a network cable through the | wall and up the ceiling, then down a really slim corridor | to another wall, before finally placing the cord in the PC | (all while trying to not pump another cord going the same | route.) I worked beside a couple of electricians in my | early 20s and it was fun but frustrating (like | programming.) | bennysomething wrote: | 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. | eric4smith wrote: | The only winners of remote work will be those who are self | disciplined enough to get work done without outside supervision | or motivation. | | That goes for every single field that does remote work - | learning, teaching, Knowledge work etc. | | But let's be honest - some people need the motivation of a | workplace -- and that's ok! | | We are all different. Im somewhere in the middle... love working | from home but it's easy to get distracted with side projects, | feeding birds, germinating seeds etc. | | I realize when I need to really buckle up, I go in the office for | a few weeks and that puts me back on track with the major | projects. | cblconfederate wrote: | > enough to get work done without outside supervision or | motivation. | | Sounds like a business opportunity | tellersid wrote: | I have been going into the office when I could work remote. | | I don't feel like it is a motivation thing. It all comes down | to for me is getting sick of being at home so much. | | I think many people on my team are not doing well mental health | wise from being at home so much. | | The most miserable people I know are software engineers that | have been working remote for years making great money. One guy | I know works at night because he can. Sleeps to 2pm. Basically, | never leaves the house for anything. Seems unable to connect | though that being a total shut in is why he is not happy even | though he is killing it objectively. Practically hiding from | the world. | slickrick216 wrote: | I think you are totally right about the self motivation part. | I'd wonder though is it just that people who aren't motivated | are easier to see in a remote work setting vs the office as you | judge people by their tangible outputs alone. In the office | setting this is obscured but the same cohort aren't actually | doing anything more or less. | papito wrote: | I can be as unproductive at work as I can be at home, but | coasting in the office is so exhausting, I'd rather do work. | ohazi wrote: | I can even recall a handful of times when I was trying to | solve a fiddly problem, and couldn't concentrate because | our (open floor plan) office was a zoo. | | I would tell my boss I needed some quiet, would go home, | would sit down and solve the problem, and would come back | the next day feeling _much_ less frustrated. | papito wrote: | I should have done that more often. Open floor, combined | with Slack and over-communication made me 4x less | productive. | abeppu wrote: | But ... in the office, was the "supervision" really from | someone physically looking at you with direct line of sight? I | feel like on a remote team, everyone still knows who else is | getting stuff done, in part because our work products are | digital artifacts which often need attention from our | coworkers, whether that's "review this PR", "review this | design", "read this email and implement the policy change | described in it" etc. | | There are some high level stats that suggest that in aggregate, | productivity increased with WFH, though I'm not sure how much | of that stemmed from people working in the hours that they | previously would have commuted. | epicide wrote: | (For me) while I also get distracted from work while at home, I | find it is about the same amount as in an office. The biggest | difference is the distractions are far more healthy and | productive than the ones I'm left to in an office. | luffapi wrote: | > _love working from home but it's easy to get distracted with | side projects, feeding birds, germinating seeds etc._ | | For programmers at least "productivity" comes from writing | leveragable code, not by working more hours. Watching birds, | gardening and generally being relaxed and rested will | _increase_ the quality of the code you write. It may even allow | you to envision solutions impossible to come up with under the | daily grind of commute- >stand up->lunch | gossip->meetings->commute. I think managers that understand how | to develop good software are few and far between. | | Productivity aside, your routine sounds awesome and everyone | who can should try to achieve something similar without concern | for their employer's productivity. I assure you the concern for | well-being is not bi-directional. | jb_s wrote: | That's lovely. I work in consulting and every hour I get | distracted I have to make up at some other point in the day. | usually late at night after my kid is asleep. | | yes I'm looking for other work... | pc86 wrote: | There are also plenty of programmers who are just lazy and | don't want to work a lot. Check out any of the dozens | (hundreds?) of comments on Blind of people working 15, 20, 25 | hours a week. Total. | | "I'm sitting on my porch drinking a beer and watching birds | but _trust me I 'm totally working right now_" doesn't take | you very far. | mcguire wrote: | That depends, though. How many people reading this thread | would say, "I'm sitting in my cube surfing the 'net, but | _trust me I 'm totally working right now"?_ | luffapi wrote: | The best code I've ever written was when I was only working | 10 hours a week. Hours worked has no positive correlation | with quality of code written. Good managers know letting | their devs watch birds and relax will result in a much | higher quality of output then forcing them into the office | and dropping by their desk to prod them. | orwin wrote: | I've had weeks were i worked 60 hours of crunch, but most | weeks, even if i was at the office i work barely more than | 25 hours. Between reading tech news, gossip, researching a | bit on this totally new tech that seems nice, trying to | justify a POC to my n+1/n+2 and preparing slides on "why | leaving Jenkins totally make sense", i did so much false | work that honestly would annoy me if i was a manager. Now | i'm leaving my computer for 30 minute pauses, it is far | healthier for me, i'm more effective at my job and i | stopped wasting my time and the time of my collegues on | meaningless presentations. I still do somes on "clean code" | or "how to rework your commits to prepare efficient code | reviews", but it is for the benefit of the team, while the | one i did pre-covid were for my entertainment. | geodel wrote: | Well wining and dining has taken management folks quite far | and writing same-old CRUD app thousandth time by hand is | not gonna take developers very far. | skrtskrt wrote: | Good for those people, I have worked plenty of jobs where I | really don't actually work much over 20 hours a week and | still get top ratings. | | Screw the grind culture crap | ffjffsfr wrote: | Large corporations will always win because they have the power | and might. Remote work will just allow them to hire cheaply from | low income locations and what employees are going to do about it. | iainctduncan wrote: | I have done remote work for a long time (because ...Canada), and | the real issue is that it requires management to have their shit | together. I also assess companies for acquisitions now so I talk | every month to companies about what's working and what isn't. | I've seen some very successful companies with partially remote or | even 100% remote teams. And... they have their shit together. | Managers have to actually know what the hell they are going to do | _tomorrow_ , instead of making stuff up when the stand-up | happens. Workers have to be lined up in their swim lanes and the | whole thing has to be orchestrated... you know, like _actual | agile_ instead of the reactive pfaffery that everyone passes off | as "hybrid agile" (boy do I hear that phrase a lot in | diligence!) | | Given how much I've seen it work, and how bad the tech talent war | is right now, I'm pretty confident there will be lots of remote | only options in 6-12 months when upper managers finally wrap | their heads around the fact that this is what they have to do to | find and hold top talent now. At the competitive companies, upper | execs/board members will start dropping middle managers who can't | hack it when they see their attrition numbers in the losing part | of the spread. | astockwell wrote: | The #1 question I wish I could get answered for any prospective | company (as an interviewee): | | "Do you have your shit together?" | | Seriously. This could avoid so much heartache. | stingraycharles wrote: | It's actually fairly easy to ask, and many candidates ask me | that: "how do you organize yourselves?" | | It's a very reasonable question to ask during an interview. | shreddit wrote: | Since most companies employ humans, i'd say most of them | don't. | georgeecollins wrote: | I think at a certain point in your career you often get hired | because things are messed up. That isn't bad, that is why | they are ready to pay for experience and skill. | Clubber wrote: | >Workers have to be lined up in their swim lanes and the whole | thing has to be orchestrated... you know, like actual agile | instead of the reactive pfaffery that everyone passes off as | "hybrid agile" (boy do I hear that phrase a lot in diligence!) | | Swim lanes isn't agile per se, it's just business communicating | their priorities and assigning it to development. I remember | when agile came out, it was great from the development point of | view. It was almost immediately perverted by consultants trying | to make a buck trying to sell scrum as a panacea to all | development costs and overruns. There's an awful lot of snake | oil salesmen in tech. Other than that, I agree with everything | you said. | | https://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html | mumblemumble wrote: | The Agile Manifesto is not gospel. | | For starters, I would argue that, "The most efficient and | effective method of conveying information to and within a | development team is face-to-face conversation," has proven, | in the fullness of time, to be an oversimplification. | | More importantly, the Agile Manifesto _not_ saying something | two decades ago does not mean that it has no place in | contemporary agile software development. We 've had 20 years' | worth of time to learn since then. It would be a shame if we | hadn't. | | To that end, I do think that active orchestration - and, for | that matter, written communication - is critical to being | really agile at any sort of scale. It doesn't necessarily | need to be done using swim lanes, but they do happen to be a | nice mental model (and visual mnemonic) for keeping track of | real-world phenomena such as varying quality of service | obligations. | | But I also think that it makes sense to leave them out of any | concrete definition of what it means to be agile. Not only is | there more than one way to satisfy that need, there's also no | guarantee that every team will have that need. | lmilcin wrote: | To be fair, same things apply when your team isn't working | remotely. It is not like being able to plan one day in advance | has less value when you work in person. | | It is just that remote working mercilessly exposes some of the | flaws in the organization. | | For example, people who look for a way to slack off now can do | this much easier. The problem really is selecting right | personnel and motivating them. If you try to treat the problem | with a stick it most likely will fail with remote people. | mumblemumble wrote: | I've bounced back and forth among remote and co-located | positions of varying levels of effectiveness. I haven't seen | much trouble with remote workers slacking off. But I have | seen a lot of tension with mixed teams, typically around this | problem of remote people getting frustrated about management | not having their shit together. The overarching theme that | I've seen is that it's really easy to confuse "enjoyable" and | "effective." And co-located offices give you all sorts of | opportunities to mix those up, because oftentimes the most | enjoyable ways for a co-located team to work aren't really | the most effective. But nobody cares, because they're | enjoying it. | | By contrast, one of the (un?)happy accidents of remote life | is that it tends to cause ineffective organization and | communication styles to also be unenjoyable. | BiteCode_dev wrote: | Yes, it's a wonderful filter, isn't it? | A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: | The whole thing is complicated and companies do, eventually, | adjust. | | Anecdote. I am in process of looking for a full time remote since | my mega boss decided that hybrid is good enough for me and no | amount of paperwork could convince her otherwise. Right now I am | remote until delta dies off or HR changes its mind. | | I told no to recruiter 2 weeks ago, because the job was not | remote. Just today it seems the company received a lot of nos, | because I got a very similar job description and it is now | remote. | | Now.. the companies are trying to make remote less appealing ( | and trying to argue that you should be paid less ), but, quite | frankly, remote is worth a lot to me now. You would think smart | companies would want to use it to their advantage. | | Instead, most of the stories I hear from my social circle goes | smth like this 'old guard wants us back in office'. | shock-value wrote: | > Now.. the companies are trying to make remote less appealing | ( and trying to argue that you should be paid less ), but, | quite frankly, remote is worth a lot to me now. | | If remote is itself valuable to you then it would stand that | companies could get away with offering a lower salary for | remote work, at least in your case. | mlac wrote: | I really do think the "old guard" has the most to lose from | commercial real estate investments. | | Think about who sits on the board for a major company... It's | owners and executives from commercial real estate firms. There | is a ton of money around commercial real estate, so letting it | all just collapse (or losing even 10% of that market) is | billions of dollars shifted around the economy. | | Most "normal" people who are working from home have little | interest in commercial property (aside from a REIT, maybe), so | they don't care at all if the office buildings go empty. | | It's not hard to imagine the board rooms having these | discussions and being pushed toward getting people back in the | office. And it's evident they are pushing the propaganda | machine with effectiveness studies and articles about how | remote work doesn't work. | pc86 wrote: | What evidence do you have that major companies' boards are | filled with "executives from commercial real estate firms?" | mlac wrote: | Sorry and thank you for calling it out. | | I should have written "Executives with interest in | commercial real estate". From heads of consulting firms to | executives with commercial real estate in their own | organizations, nearly all of them have a strong interest in | commercial real estate doing well. I would expect most, if | not all large companies to have exposure to commercial real | estate and many make a lot of money from building and | investing in commercial real estate. | | But the people that have the strongest interest in this | doing well are the people who are in the boardroom. I | really think there are few similar issues where the | interest of the board and the interest of employees are | opposed (many workers want to stay home, many board members | want them back in the office). | | Take Google - Robin L. Washington sits on Google's board | and also Honeywell's. Honeywell has $5 BN on their books in | "Property, plant, and equipment". Not sure how much of that | is office buildings vs. manufacturing, but still even 10% | is $500 M. | | It's not like it's some major conspiracy, it's just that | boards are small, you can make hops between large | companies, and it only takes a small push to make all large | corporations lean toward return to work. For most companies | with exposure to real estate it makes sense. Most others' | (I'd argue) have board members with an interest in propping | up commercial real estate. Most common people do not have a | direct interest, but will feel pain if the commercial real | estate market significantly changes. | ghaff wrote: | I'm skeptical that executives in commercial real estate have | that much leverage over major corporations. I expect things | like a bias towards the status quo, sunk cost fallacies, | concerns about long-term culture/productivity, and so forth | are more than enough to make companies hesitant to go | mostly/fully remote. | orwin wrote: | Looking at this in another way. Of the 5 managers i know at | the bank i'm working in (and i'm pretty high up since the | sbject i'm working on is transversal to 90% of devs teams | in the bank), all of them have real estate. Either because | they are now old and invested early (in the 2000's), or | because they inherited it. I'm not talking about one or two | appartments, i'm talking about whole buildings in Paris and | Villas on the Cote d'azur. The incentives are here, not | only for the executive but also for the middle-high | managment. | mlac wrote: | Exactly - board members / senior executives are the | people who can afford to invest in commercial real | estate. | Clubber wrote: | It depends if said corporations own the building / land or | not. | mlac wrote: | Even if they don't directly own the land, at some point | organizations likely service companies that would be | impacted by a drop. | | And once an organization gets to a certain size it just | makes sense to run and buy your own properties. | Clubber wrote: | I think there is also a lot of commercial real estate | tied up in derivatives. | schnevets wrote: | The article describes gains made by "superstars", who can be seen | as self-motivated and capable of making a big impact. I am | extremely concerned about how we cultivate superstars in the | remote work world. | | I have been working remote for over 5 years now, but I wouldn't | have survived without a lot of luck and years of experience as an | intern/entry level employee at an office with some brilliant | mentors. | | I have tried mentoring in the same vein as those who taught me, | but it hasn't caught on as well. I am concerned about how many | people entering the workforce fail to reach that superstar | threshold because they are missing a few key elements (which may | be face-to-face interaction). I am also quickly learning that the | high-impact employee does not necessarily make the best mentor. | ghaff wrote: | I entered the workforce in a very different time with very | different tools which makes it hard for me to think through the | counterfactual: "What if I had had to be remote when I first | started working?" But I think it would have been very difficult | and I might have been less successful as a result. | | Even today, I feel like I'm cruising a bit on existing in- | person relationships. (I was large remote pre-COVID but I still | met a lot of people at in-person events and meetings. | jdgiese wrote: | We're fully remote and have hired a few engineers out of | college. They're very independent and productive. Who knows | if they'd be even better if they worked onsite, but I doubt | it. | ghaff wrote: | As I say, very different time. I didn't even really have | email prior to entering the workplace and, while there were | conference calls to manufacturing sites and the like and | other (frequent) phone calls, it was a very in-person swing | by offices/desks/labs sort of environment. But that's | obviously different from what a fresh engineering grad has | been exposed to. | hawthornio wrote: | I'm a fresh grad who has basically only worked remote (except | a summer internship freshman year and TA-ing in person 2 | years ago), so I'll report back in 5 years as a counter- | factual ;) | muh_gradle wrote: | New York Times articles really disappointing me lately. | roflc0ptic wrote: | This article really isn't about remote work writ large, it's | about websites/organizations that provide platforms for | individuals to sell services to consumers. The fact that you can | make popular workout videos from your home is orthogonal to the | behavior of consumers on the Peloton platform. | | It's an interesting and important observation that good | communicators win disproportionately as telecommunications get | better - e.g. because recorded music is a thing, as a | songwriter/guitarist I'm competing with Frank Zappa for | mindshare. But this just isn't about remote work. Feel like I got | clickbaited. | echopurity wrote: | It's got to be clickbait. If there are winners, then how many | workers are losing by working remotely? It seems obvious that | the vast majority of people win big by not being forced to | commute into a full day at an office where they would rather | not be. | Johnny555 wrote: | _how many workers are losing by working remotely_ | | I think the big losers are the service workers that provided | services for all of those office employees: coffee shop | workers, restaurants, drycleaners, caterers that provided | employee lunches, cleaning people, etc. | | A Starbucks, a drycleaner and 2 or 3 restaurants that were in | my former office building have shut down permanently. My | company stopped stocking snacks and catering lunches 3 days a | week, and presumably they or the building have cut back on | cleaning as well as general building maintenance staff. | | Some of those jobs will come back when (if) we return to in- | office work, but since it will probably be part time in- | office work, not all of those jobs will be back. | | Food trucks seem to be doing pretty well - when employees | dispersed, they did too. I don't go into the city much since | I don't go to the office, but now I visit the same food | trucks in my own town and they seem to be pretty busy. | chipotle_coyote wrote: | Yeah, there are a _lot_ of businesses that have gone under | because they were geared to serving office workers. Out | here in Silicon Valley, a Panera-esque chain called | Specialty's just shut down completely within a couple | months after offices closed; most of their locations were | only open Monday through Friday for breakfast and lunch. | Downtown San Jose hasn't been completely decimated, but I'm | pretty sure there are a lot of places that aren't coming | back. | | (N.B.: There is one Specialty's location that has re- | opened, near Moffett in Mountain View; apparently the | family that started the chain decades ago bought the | assets, and their one original location, back.) | spaceisballer wrote: | You're exactly correct here. Our complex isn't in the | greatest area, but it sure was nice to have a dry cleaner | right across the street. But in our complex we had a | cafeteria and two satellite snack places. They are closed | until our building hits a % of capacity as stated in their | contract. I feel like there is a big opportunity for food | trucks. Maybe use those empty mall parking lots and set up | some times for people to grab food, set up outdoor dining. | francisofascii wrote: | To use an example from the parent post, local, cyclist spin | trainers are losing, since people are simply using the | Pelaton trainers at home, rather than going to an "in person" | spin class. The local, small time trainer can't compete with | a celebrity/model trainer. Similar to how TV and movies hurt | local theatres. In the end, it is more efficient, but there | are "losers". | ghaff wrote: | I'm not convinced a lot of these trends stick post-COVID. A | lot of people _like_ the in-person part of the spin class | and probably would prefer it to the highly-paid video pro. | | That said, behaviors will have changed for a lot of things | over the course of a couple of years. People have developed | new habits. Not all of that--including going into an office | five days a week in many cases--are going to just reset. | umeshunni wrote: | The same principles that apply to remote work apply here. | | Why would I want to drive 10-15 minutes, park, change and | all that for a 30 or 60 minute spin class when I can take | that same class in my garage or living room. | asdff wrote: | because then you wouldn't need a spin bike in your garage | or living room | edgyquant wrote: | There's a difference between social interaction because | you want it and working. I work from home and use the gym | and martial as (non-drinking) social time during the | week. | teclordphrack2 wrote: | There are urban areas where the housing choices, the lack | of space, means you are going to be doing your hobbies | outside of the home. | ghaff wrote: | Because you want to get out of the house and socialize | with people as well as get some exercise. Now some of the | same logic _does_ apply to people wanting to get back | into office. But I doubt it 's true to the same degree | and most people have more than a 10-15 minute commute. | | While I have no personal interest in gyms or exercise | classes, they are social for many people. | mym1990 wrote: | Because some people like to have separation of concerns | in their life. I don't necessarily want to have my home | be where I workout and where I work. Especially given | that I live in a small studio. I do classes 1x a week | still, and being in a room, 15 minutes down the street, | surrounded by people in the same mindset helps me focus | on that task. | | This doesn't fit into everyone's wants and needs...but | just because you can't fathom why YOU would want to do | something doesn't mean there isn't a completely valid | reason for those around you. | closeparen wrote: | What reason do we have to believe that there will be a | point in the future with less COVID risk than there is | today? By what mechanism will that arise? | mym1990 wrote: | Vaccination numbers still have a lot of room to grow, the | virus may mutate into something that has a lower kill | rate, the vaccine efficacy will likely improve, etc... | chipotle_coyote wrote: | My (limited!) understanding is that mutations that make | pathogens more contagious but less fatal are | evolutionarily advantageous, so to the degree we can talk | about Covid-19 having "self-interest," becoming ever | closer to Bad Case of Flu is within it. | ghaff wrote: | Well, and at some point, even relatively cautious | rational people go: "I'm not permanently curtailing my | activities." I live in a deep blue state and, while you | see masks, life has returned to normal in a lot of | respects. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | Just want to note that pre-COVID, not many people would | even have considered not-in-person equivalents to things | that they thought they preferred in-person. When I say | "not even considered", in many cases I mean "were not | even aware they existed". | | It might be that their pre-COVID apparent preferences | remain their actual preference post-COVID, but I would | not take that for granted. | francisofascii wrote: | Post-Covid, I tend to agree. If people continue to work | from home, rather than in an office, then the in-person | spin class and other in-person activities could actually | surge in popularity, since people will want more in- | person interaction. | datavirtue wrote: | Pelaton trainers, on average, are far superior to in- | person instructors. The experience is better in-home and | less time is in used travelling and changing. My | equipment. My home. Die hard educated professional | leading the class. The only in-person that comes close | runs about $300-500 a month. | ghaff wrote: | It's not all about impersonal efficiency for many people. | Damogran6 wrote: | There's also the people using spin class trainers in Apple+ | that wouldn't ordinarily use one...it's not a zero sum | game. (I have it playing the the background as I ride my | roadbike, it provides enthusiasm even if the effort doesn't | line up with the road.) | gringoDan wrote: | This makes complete sense - just another example of power law | dynamics of the internet. | | Short-term, we're going to see companies pursue a remote model in | order to attract talent. This will be great for employees; live | in Colorado, go on hikes and have a great lifestyle while | commanding a SF salary! | | Longer-term, companies are going to realize that (except for the | top ~10% of performers, who will always command a high salary) | having remote workers in the US is functionally equivalent to | having remote workers in Mexico or Argentina. US workers are in | for a rude awakening when they realize they're competing in a | labor market with a more driven, lower cost-of-living population | in the rest of the world. | | Shameless plug - I wrote a blog post about all of this back in | December: https://paranoidenough.com/2020/12/07/Labor-Market- | Arbitrage... | justaguy88 wrote: | Time zone 'compatibility' is extremely important | | Happily hire north/south, but too many hours east/west and | people have to give up off-time just to have regular meetings | datavirtue wrote: | Offshoring failed for the same reason s we will not have the | worries you espouse. | zz865 wrote: | I'm not sure why you think it failed, my company's biggest | office is in India, same as my last job. | joelbluminator wrote: | There are real drawbacks to remote only in terms of culture and | employee committment. Those who can afford it will probably | keep being hybrid I think. Those who want to cut costs will | outsource. But since software companies are swimming in money I | am not sure its a huge priority. | blahblahblogger wrote: | Agreed. My company (Pinterest) recently opened "new offices" | for engineering talent, but they were in Mexico City and | elsewhere. | | The idea that we'll be competing with other US-based workers is | wrong. | | In the long run our remote-work "more freedom" fantasy will | come to an end. | Sevii wrote: | The focus on programmers as the vanguard of the remote work | trend distracts from what could be the real change the | outsourcing of white collar work. | | Why do we need our lawyers, accountants, human resources and | other back office employees to be American when Chilean workers | will do those jobs for half or a quarter the pay? | | What outsourcing did to manufacturing jobs, remote work may do | to white collar jobs. | joelbluminator wrote: | Law and accountancy is much harder to outsource than | programming. You usually have to be U.S certified so thats | pretty much protected. | justaguy88 wrote: | You could set up a US Law school in another country | ghaff wrote: | There's no shortage of lawyers and law school grads from | 2nd and 3rd tier schools aren't actually all that well | paid on average. The big NY white shoe firm salaries? | They mostly come from a relatively small number of | schools, students who did well, often had good | internships or clerkships, maybe were on law review, | maybe have connections, etc. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | The school is less of a problem than the state-by-state | bar exam, I believe. | sangnoir wrote: | 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. | ThalesX wrote: | You have the Ubers and AirBnBs circumventing laws around | the world and you think it's hard to optimize for a remote | law and accountancy practice? Just have offshore remoters | do the bulk of work and have it signed by a certified local | lawyer / accountant. | joelbluminator wrote: | It's not impossible I guess, you will need to find people | who know U.S law well. If you're talking about | accountancy that's pretty complex stuff. You can | outsource the grunt work easily (going over Excel sheets, | that has been ousourced for decades already) but the | substantial work no, I don't think it's that easy. | ThalesX wrote: | I don't think it's easy either. There are smart people | everywhere in the world. If these people could be easily | paid and could get their results validated by a local | expert, there would be a lot of financial incentive for | these smart people to learn the US law, for example, and | create case files for the local experts to evaluate and | sign on. | | Would it cut the need for the local experts? No. Would it | reduce their numbers? Maybe, it could also diversify | them. Would it lower the cost for the service? I also | think so. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | Would it result in the "superstar" local experts (to use | TFA's terminology) making huge amounts of money? Almost | certainly. | oblio wrote: | To paraphrase Morgan Freeman in the Dark Knight: | | So your target for disruption is law firms and your | strategy is to do something illegal to build a huge | business that destroys them?!? | lthornberry wrote: | 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. | ThalesX wrote: | 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 someone | smarter than me, perhaps even yourself, will find a way | to go around it. At one point taxi medallions seemed | unmovable. | munk-a wrote: | 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-31 23:01 UTC)