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Working From Home: Bougie Kings, or Middle Class Normalcy, We Report You decide

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Posts

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products, Transition Team regular
    dporowski wrote: »
    Calica wrote: »
    dporowski wrote: »
    Madican wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    I think we are losing the ability to interact with people who are not us.

    It was happening before COVID-enforced WFH but woo boy that sure did accelerate it. People have become absolute shit-flinging monsters in society since they stopped having daily inoculations of diversity and this is not a good thing.

    I see it when people are getting deplaned on the regular for not having some basic decency regarding their in-flight neighbors, around ride-or-die interactions on political topics becoming the norm...

    Isolation makes us more extreme; isolation with very online communities being your only remaining outlet is worse.

    Yeah, the office should absolutely not be the only social outlet you have, but for lots of folks it was and the disruption is having long term effects on society.

    edit: to be clear I am not advocating for a full return to office, that is bananas at this point. But something does need to fill that gap it offered for many, or some kind of hybrid model for teams to meet a few times a month.

    Idk. The office made me feel more socially isolated than before. Having to share a room with someone who would share Clinton conspiracies or talk about how climate change was fake or trickle down economics worked or Lightyear was woke was fucking miserable and not being able to push back because other people shared his views and you don't want to rock the boat and sour your first job out of college sucked. And getting to WFH and not listen to that shit has been fantastic. Maybe that makes me a ride or die shit flinging monster without daily inoculations of diversity, but I don't want that shit in my life and work pushed it on me.

    No one should have to be one of the anchors that keeps a monster from going off the deep end. Sure, interacting with others may temper an extreme mind, but when people are saying that's why forced interaction is a good thing what they don't realize they're actually saying is that we should be forced to sacrifice our mental well being to keep someone else's in check.

    The point here is that we are all that. We all go funny if we don't have that semi-forced interaction with "not like us". Sometimes, sure, it's an absolute dipshit, and we reinforce "how to not start a fight on the bus". Sometimes it's a perfectly nice someone who just like, doesn't care about my Starfield character and I really don't care about their toddler, so we're going to both work on "find a neutral/common thing to talk about", which is also a skill you lose if everyone around has those by default. (And this is probably going to involve some smile and nod from both of us about each other's "don't care" thing, just as a societal lubricant.) And hell, maybe I decide "wine tasting as a hobby" sounds kind of fun and go learn a thing.

    Edit: Hell, sometimes--and I'm not even kidding--it's "oh right, people do come in other configurations" and eventually the nice lady in the hijab you see every day on the bus is just Mrs. Whatsername down the street, and you didn't even notice the Sikh dude behind you at the corner store.

    Okay but the situation @Madican describes is one where the other person was a right-wing conspiracy theorist, and they (Madican) didn't feel empowered to remind the guy about the limits of socially acceptable behavior - not least because the workplace tacitly accepted such behavior.

    Our society is currently such that a significant fraction of the people around us are Nazis or proto-Nazi assholes, and when they are our coworkers and bosses, we are not empowered to kick them out of the bar, or even gently push back on their behavior, because the cardinal rule at work is "don't rock the boat." It's an environment practically tailor-made for bullies to thrive.

    Yeah, some of those people will be assholes. We still have those; we've been trying to get rid of 'em for thousands of years. Still got 'em. The existence of assholes in wider society is not an argument against the thesis that regular interactions with not-you is of net benefit, both individually and societally, to absolutely everyone. It's not some kind of asshole therapy, here.


    Butts.

    In the same way people are saying that a boss asking them to come into the office is grounds for looking for other work... being in an environment where you cannot go to HR because someone is actually spewing nazi shit (not difference of opinion, mind you - you have to be able to roll with that - but actual pray away the gay, shithole countries nazi shit) - I would find another job. Being remote doesn't mean removing all interactions with these folks.

    SW-4158-3990-6116
    Let's play Mario Kart or something...
  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products, Transition Team regular
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    SW-4158-3990-6116
    Let's play Mario Kart or something...
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    edited October 2023
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Sure it does, cause you’d be willing to pay Manhattan prices for the thing you need from them. If you’d be willing to pay a worker in Manhattan for that work and have the money to dedicate to it then that’s the value of that work. You’re short changing the other worker because you think less of them because of where they live. The thing they are providing doesn’t lose value based on where they live. You just get to decide they are worth less.

    It’s straight up worker abuse on whim that you get to make the decision to do. Judging them to be a less valuable asset merely because of where their feet are trapped.

    Sleep on
  • override367override367 ALL minions Registered User regular
    edited October 2023
    Calica wrote: »
    The argument that in-person collaboration is better/easier (which I don't think anyone here is making, to be clear) rings especially hollow for me, because even when I worked in an office, my coworkers and I mostly communicated via Google chat, because it's asynchronous and doesn't automatically interrupt a person's train of thought. The main difference when working remotely was that instead of a chat message saying, "can we talk when you have a minute, I have a question," we'd send a message saying, "can we jump on a call when you have a minute, I have a question."

    oh my god this

    Today is my WFH day and I needed to go edit a whole bunch of group policies, while interacting with another person, and in the office I know he would have walked over to my cubicle and tried to talk to me about requirements while I worked and it would have taken 6 times as long because it's hard for me to keep everything someone has verbally told me in my head as opposed to just, putting their teams message on my second monitor that has a whole ass writeup of what they want, with the work on the other monitor

    override367 on
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Like let’s do that another way if I’m that Minnesota worker and I decide, you know what Fuck Minnesota I want that Manhattan life. Do you up my pay and help with relocation costs simply because I wanna live in a more expensive place?

  • GilgaronGilgaron Registered User regular
    Here our COL tables are 'internal public' like the salary ranges are, so you can see what your multiplier would be if you moved to a different metro area. While potentially significant, which quadrant you negotiate yourself within in the salary range is going to be more important to what you take home, but it does make it a nonargument to what your adjustment should be if you moved.

  • HerrCronHerrCron It that wickedly supports taxation Registered User regular
    I'm with Sleep on this one.
    If a company hires me at X salary and doesn't specify that I have to be in location Y to do my job, and I then move to bumfuck nowhere to really make the most of the salary, that's entirely fair. Likewise if you're willing to pay someone X salary to do a job, and they can do it remote, then X shouldn't decrease because the location only had one Tim Hortons for the entire town.

    The company I work for have had conniptions about this because people have just moved to more rural parts of the province, as opposed to staying here in the city, and my thinking here is If the company doesn't like it, they can write their employment contract more carefully in the future.

    Or more succinctly, fuck the company.

    Now Playing:
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  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Why, exactly, "doesn't it make sense" - especially if they're doing the same work? Sleep's whole point is that the argument that there should be pay differentials is built on some rather questionable priors.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • schussschuss Registered User regular
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    This is the company perspective. It's why call centers or operational centers are in bumfuck parts of the country - the labor is less costly. If you're going remote first you find a solid salary point that will provide for cost of living in most places then hire at that. You won't get Manhattanites, but you don't have to pay them that either. Unless your work is tied to a specific location (like where exchanges are, or where key business partners are that like to meet in person), there's no reason for it. Let the worker decide what their cost of living/locale/salary balance is as opposed to declaring specific schedules. It also eliminates ANOTHER layer of expense as you no longer need to constantly study the markets and approve outsize promotions because your COL schedules don't quite keep up with hyperlocal trends in parts of those areas.
    There's nothing magic about any of these places, and while they have higher concentrations of specific types of worker (NY for fashion, finance, SF for tech, LA for production, Detroit for auto stuff), most companies don't actually need the magical unicorn workers. Not to mention - lots of those magical unicorn workers don't actually want to live there.
    When general remote stuff was allowed during/immediately post pandemic, TONS of our top performers moved to where they wanted to live and continued to do their job remotely as they could get the life they wanted and enable a spouse to stay home or be closer to family or key hobbies. As a company, that's great as honestly now the employee cares less about outsize comp as they aren't playing the "hit the number" game.

  • This content has been removed.

  • HydropoloHydropolo Registered User regular
    I'm a LOT more mixed on location based pay, and it's not all about the company. As noted before, the company absolutely needs to know where you live for legal/tax reasons (though there is a pretty strong argument that tax law needs to be updated for the reality of WFH (and how do you even begin to factor in people who decide to live and work from another country??)).

    I'm generally of the opinion that there should be a base value for a unit of work for each job/etc, and employees who are required to live/work in higher COL places for work reasons should get an adjustment, but a lot of people have become effectively stuck to higher COL areas due to where they were working pre-pandemic and have not had the ability/wherewithall to move. I don't think companies should have to subsidize people's living choices anymore than people should have to live crappy places for a job, but I don't know what the best middle ground is. I think though that ignoring the realities in play is dangerous and privileged. There is societal level benefit from not having all the high end tech earners lock themselves away on compounds in Montana where they can own 1000 acres for the price of that Seattle studio but again, I don't have a great solution that isn't inherently massively unfair to SOMEONE.

  • zagdrobzagdrob Registered User regular
    mcdermott wrote: »
    Speaking of WFH in lieu of sick time, I’m actually a big fan of the “half sick day.” Some offices don’t allow it, which is dumb, but I can take four hours of sick leave and four hours of telework…which allows me to sleep in, take breaks, and often I’ll just set my OOO for the whole day and spent the time online clearing up minor nonsense that then I don’t have to deal with when I’m back in.

    It’s a great way to conserve a little sick leave (not that I ever run low) and get *some* productivity in, so that a day home sick doesn’t have me scrambling when I get back in. Since my job isn’t one that’s easily covered.

    Like sure, I’ll take the whole day and watch Netflix if you force me to. But man, I’m well enough to do *some* work and I’d actually like to.

    You definitely should always feel like if you're actually sick you shouldn't be obligated to work, and can rest and recover.

    But there are plenty of times when I'm WfH where I'll work part or all of the day, but if I had to go into the office I probably would have called off. Something like coming down with a cold but not really at the 'sick' point, but I also wouldn't want to be in the office getting other people sick. Or maybe some tummy trubs in the morning where I wouldn't want to be uncomfortable or having to run from my cube to the shitter in the office, but being a few steps from my own home bathroom is fine.

    It's not as big a deal with me having a separate sick and vacation bank (and never coming close to using my whole sick bank), but for someone on PTO who is 'fine' to work being able to work a half or whole day (or maybe lay down and rest for an hour or so if they have a headache or something going on) instead of burning a whole day is good for both the employee and the company.

  • KamiroKamiro Registered User regular
    The Federal Government does locality based pay already, in the US and abroad.

    Just think of it like your salary is a combination of different factors Skills Required for Job + Cost of Living + Hardship, etc. Some of these go up/down depending on where you are in the world.

  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Why, exactly, "doesn't it make sense" - especially if they're doing the same work? Sleep's whole point is that the argument that there should be pay differentials is built on some rather questionable priors.

    Because they don't have to. Someone in Minnesota will be willing to accept lower pay because their expenses are lower.

    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    edited October 2023
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Why, exactly, "doesn't it make sense" - especially if they're doing the same work? Sleep's whole point is that the argument that there should be pay differentials is built on some rather questionable priors.

    Because they don't have to. Someone in Minnesota will be willing to accept lower pay because their expenses are lower.

    (Laughs in Montana home owner)

    Oh, you sweet summer child - you'd be surprised how expensive it gets out here.

    Edit: Not to mention that places like Bozeman are seeing prices skyrocket as people from the West Coast have relocated. There's a reason I cried when I saw my home assessment earlier this year.

    AngelHedgie on
    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Why, exactly, "doesn't it make sense" - especially if they're doing the same work? Sleep's whole point is that the argument that there should be pay differentials is built on some rather questionable priors.

    Because they don't have to. Someone in Minnesota will be willing to accept lower pay because their expenses are lower.

    (Laughs in Montana home owner)

    Oh, you sweet summer child - you'd be surprised how expensive it gets out here.

    Edit: Not to mention that places like Bozeman are seeing prices skyrocket as people from the West Coast have relocated. There's a reason I cried when I saw my home assessment earlier this year.

    So is your argument that cost of living is not actually different or that cost of living should not affect salary amounts? Because those are two different arguments.

    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    mcdermott wrote: »
    Speaking of WFH in lieu of sick time, I’m actually a big fan of the “half sick day.” Some offices don’t allow it, which is dumb, but I can take four hours of sick leave and four hours of telework…which allows me to sleep in, take breaks, and often I’ll just set my OOO for the whole day and spent the time online clearing up minor nonsense that then I don’t have to deal with when I’m back in.

    It’s a great way to conserve a little sick leave (not that I ever run low) and get *some* productivity in, so that a day home sick doesn’t have me scrambling when I get back in. Since my job isn’t one that’s easily covered.

    Like sure, I’ll take the whole day and watch Netflix if you force me to. But man, I’m well enough to do *some* work and I’d actually like to.

    It's a great way to get your annual compliance tests done!

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Why, exactly, "doesn't it make sense" - especially if they're doing the same work? Sleep's whole point is that the argument that there should be pay differentials is built on some rather questionable priors.

    Because they don't have to. Someone in Minnesota will be willing to accept lower pay because their expenses are lower.

    (Laughs in Montana home owner)

    Oh, you sweet summer child - you'd be surprised how expensive it gets out here.

    Edit: Not to mention that places like Bozeman are seeing prices skyrocket as people from the West Coast have relocated. There's a reason I cried when I saw my home assessment earlier this year.

    So is your argument that cost of living is not actually different or that cost of living should not affect salary amounts? Because those are two different arguments.

    Both, because COL is growing more normalized and in the end the company is paying for the employee's experience and knowledge.

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    I also think government jobs are different in this regard because they aren’t necessarily part of a profit seeking venture.

    But in a profit seeking venture you can measure how much value an employee should bring to the team. Whatever widget they will be working on or tasks they will complete brings in a value to the company. What we’re quibbling over is how much of a cut of that value add the company gets to take. I don’t think “Well you live in the middle of nowhere, so I should get a bigger cut” is a super solid argument,

  • SleepSleep Registered User regular
    Like I’ll even allow that direct compensation for a position might fluctuate based on the taxes and regulatory capture of localities. Like taxes are taxes, and American workers have to have insurance paid for so they could see less dollars and cents in their pay checks than someone with socialized medicine. Like the nickles and dimes that go into legal hurdles is fine and somewhat outside the control of the company and the worker potentially.

    However that’s not really what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about, “houses cost less where you live, so we’re just gonna extract some more wealth from this employment agreement”.

  • JokermanJokerman Registered User regular
    edited October 2023
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Which is all well and good until you're a person doing something that can't be work from home in that area and now your COL is tripled over the course of two years because every house on your block was bought up by someone from the west coast and now your landlord is selling the house you've lived in for the past five years.

    All of a sudden the Cuban restaraunt closed because the immigrants running it got evicted too. Now it's replaced by a restaraunt group out of NYC.

    then before you know it, you're priced out of the walkable city you've lived in for the past 8 years, you go from doing ok to living from paycheck to paycheck, and all the beautiful charming touches have become displaced by capital from WFH jobs from high COL places.

    Jokerman on
  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Why, exactly, "doesn't it make sense" - especially if they're doing the same work? Sleep's whole point is that the argument that there should be pay differentials is built on some rather questionable priors.

    Because they don't have to. Someone in Minnesota will be willing to accept lower pay because their expenses are lower.

    (Laughs in Montana home owner)

    Oh, you sweet summer child - you'd be surprised how expensive it gets out here.

    Edit: Not to mention that places like Bozeman are seeing prices skyrocket as people from the West Coast have relocated. There's a reason I cried when I saw my home assessment earlier this year.

    So is your argument that cost of living is not actually different or that cost of living should not affect salary amounts? Because those are two different arguments.

    Both, because COL is growing more normalized and in the end the company is paying for the employee's experience and knowledge.

    Okay well I have no interest in debating the former, if it is happening than salaries will come to reflect it. For the latter, the company is idealing paying only as much as they need to for the employee's experience and knowledge. If you can find someone out in the sticks and offer them 150% of their current salary but that is half what you would need to offer someone local, that makes sense.

    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • Phoenix-DPhoenix-D Registered User regular
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Why, exactly, "doesn't it make sense" - especially if they're doing the same work? Sleep's whole point is that the argument that there should be pay differentials is built on some rather questionable priors.

    Because they don't have to. Someone in Minnesota will be willing to accept lower pay because their expenses are lower.

    (Laughs in Montana home owner)

    Oh, you sweet summer child - you'd be surprised how expensive it gets out here.

    Edit: Not to mention that places like Bozeman are seeing prices skyrocket as people from the West Coast have relocated. There's a reason I cried when I saw my home assessment earlier this year.

    So is your argument that cost of living is not actually different or that cost of living should not affect salary amounts? Because those are two different arguments.

    Both, because COL is growing more normalized and in the end the company is paying for the employee's experience and knowledge.

    Okay well I have no interest in debating the former, if it is happening than salaries will come to reflect it. For the latter, the company is idealing paying only as much as they need to for the employee's experience and knowledge. If you can find someone out in the sticks and offer them 150% of their current salary but that is half what you would need to offer someone local, that makes sense.

    Likewise it makes sense for the worker to extract maximum value from the company.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Phoenix-D wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Why, exactly, "doesn't it make sense" - especially if they're doing the same work? Sleep's whole point is that the argument that there should be pay differentials is built on some rather questionable priors.

    Because they don't have to. Someone in Minnesota will be willing to accept lower pay because their expenses are lower.

    (Laughs in Montana home owner)

    Oh, you sweet summer child - you'd be surprised how expensive it gets out here.

    Edit: Not to mention that places like Bozeman are seeing prices skyrocket as people from the West Coast have relocated. There's a reason I cried when I saw my home assessment earlier this year.

    So is your argument that cost of living is not actually different or that cost of living should not affect salary amounts? Because those are two different arguments.

    Both, because COL is growing more normalized and in the end the company is paying for the employee's experience and knowledge.

    Okay well I have no interest in debating the former, if it is happening than salaries will come to reflect it. For the latter, the company is idealing paying only as much as they need to for the employee's experience and knowledge. If you can find someone out in the sticks and offer them 150% of their current salary but that is half what you would need to offer someone local, that makes sense.

    Likewise it makes sense for the worker to extract maximum value from the company.

    That's subversive talk!

  • HamHamJHamHamJ Registered User regular
    Phoenix-D wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    HamHamJ wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Kind of is the company's business; for one, you have to file taxes where you work and where you live. They do too. Many businesses get tax incentives for hiring people in the city/county/state, and that may have factored in to why they hired you and what salary they are going to offer.

    Like, the are not going to pay a manhattan salary to a minnesota worker because it doesn't make sense to.

    Why, exactly, "doesn't it make sense" - especially if they're doing the same work? Sleep's whole point is that the argument that there should be pay differentials is built on some rather questionable priors.

    Because they don't have to. Someone in Minnesota will be willing to accept lower pay because their expenses are lower.

    (Laughs in Montana home owner)

    Oh, you sweet summer child - you'd be surprised how expensive it gets out here.

    Edit: Not to mention that places like Bozeman are seeing prices skyrocket as people from the West Coast have relocated. There's a reason I cried when I saw my home assessment earlier this year.

    So is your argument that cost of living is not actually different or that cost of living should not affect salary amounts? Because those are two different arguments.

    Both, because COL is growing more normalized and in the end the company is paying for the employee's experience and knowledge.

    Okay well I have no interest in debating the former, if it is happening than salaries will come to reflect it. For the latter, the company is idealing paying only as much as they need to for the employee's experience and knowledge. If you can find someone out in the sticks and offer them 150% of their current salary but that is half what you would need to offer someone local, that makes sense.

    Likewise it makes sense for the worker to extract maximum value from the company.

    Sure but you're already being offered a lot more than you would be making otherwise so you probably won't just not accept anything less than 1 cent less than the local salary would be.

    While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
  • HefflingHeffling No Pic EverRegistered User regular
    Jokerman wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Which is all well and good until you're a person doing something that can't be work from home in that area and now your COL is tripled over the course of two years because every house on your block was bought up by someone from the west coast and now your landlord is selling the house you've lived in for the past five years.

    All of a sudden the Cuban restaraunt closed because the immigrants running it got evicted too. Now it's replaced by a restaraunt group out of NYC.

    then before you know it, you're priced out of the walkable city you've lived in for the past 8 years, you go from doing ok to living from paycheck to paycheck, and all the beautiful charming touches have become displaced by capital from WFH jobs from high COL places.

    The massive increase in housing costs in the past decade isn't due to high CoL folks moving to low CoL locations due to WFH, it's because we've had a shortage in home building since 2008, and demand has vastly outstripped supply.

    FRED for San Francisco:

    xvuz9219fk3h.png

    Texas:

    lcb27wkrswyw.png

    Minnesota:

    npivu4h2ntbc.png

  • schussschuss Registered User regular
    I will say some areas got a massive influx in a short period of time, far outstripping normal trends. That said, this why we get to phrases like "new normal", as desirable places to live are desirable places to live, and if untethered from local job stuff (which people like management consultants, regional sales folks and others already were), some areas with limited local employment but great benefits were a "great deal" for remote workers to start in a new place.
    I also get it, as between when we bought our place in 2014 and today, prices have effectively doubled in our town. We also just did a survey and roughly 75% of people that responded engage in some level of working from home. I can't blame them, it's an awesome location with easy access to lots of different things while keeping the woods and nature at your doorstep. As I'm on town boards, now we have to figure out how to make things at least somewhat sustainable for folks like town workers, as it's not like a teacher can afford to live here right now.

  • JokermanJokerman Registered User regular
    edited October 2023
    Heffling wrote: »
    Jokerman wrote: »
    Sleep wrote: »
    syndalis wrote: »
    Tumin wrote: »
    As a mediocre middle-manager in software who knows that both myself and my team is likely less productive in some ways (and more in some others), and who struggles to measure my team sometimes WFH is still the fucking way and the light.

    Our owner tried to talk our leadership group into pushing for return to office and each of said "I guess but you know that shit is going to lose you your team" and they backed off.

    That shit ain't going back in the bottle, at least not yet.

    I mean it kind of already has gone back in the bottle in a large way, it's also the de-facto method of laying people off, ending WFH will cause lots of resignations, no unemployment or severance required

    only extremely in demand high specialization jobs routinely still have WFH

    Even looking for like, cloud engineer jobs, most of the require at least hybrid, and the fully WFH ones pay 30% less

    The pay differential stuff was the big motivator to not bite for me, even when it was somewhat supported. They rolled it out with 1:1 parity (i.e. no pay cuts basically) but it's been dropping ever since, depending on the area. Think it's a 20% cut now? Id hope the best people arent just being told to leave, some of them will never come back.

    HR cant give up on tying pay to local COL in their heads though.

    I mean, should they though?

    I think it is unreasonable for someone to get Palo Alto pay while living in Iowa, both for the folks in Palo Alto who are functionally getting paid way less due to CoL, and the person getting an outsized paycheck in Iowa.

    Not everyone should get Palo Alto pay either, because it is unreasonably high to account for the unreasonably inflated economy there.

    Them doing it during a lockdown was a dick move, the few who chased that... but right now, when hiring, pay should be in line with both your capabilities, and where you live.

    Nah I do a thing it has a value, what I do with that money afterwards, such as where I spend it for shelter is none of your business.

    Which is all well and good until you're a person doing something that can't be work from home in that area and now your COL is tripled over the course of two years because every house on your block was bought up by someone from the west coast and now your landlord is selling the house you've lived in for the past five years.

    All of a sudden the Cuban restaraunt closed because the immigrants running it got evicted too. Now it's replaced by a restaraunt group out of NYC.

    then before you know it, you're priced out of the walkable city you've lived in for the past 8 years, you go from doing ok to living from paycheck to paycheck, and all the beautiful charming touches have become displaced by capital from WFH jobs from high COL places.

    The massive increase in housing costs in the past decade isn't due to high CoL folks moving to low CoL locations due to WFH, it's because we've had a shortage in home building since 2008, and demand has vastly outstripped supply.

    FRED for San Francisco:

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    Texas:

    lcb27wkrswyw.png

    Minnesota:

    npivu4h2ntbc.png

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics seems to disagree with this assesment.
    The shift to remote work during the pandemic led workers to search for cheaper housing and more desirable amenities. Consequently, as workers left relatively expensive areas looking for cheaper housing in less expensive cities, the overall price of homes increased. Workers’ desire for homes in warmer climates with more space also affected advancing home prices.

    For their analysis, Kmetz and coauthors researched the relationship between the share of remote jobs in 2020 compared with the share of prepandemic remote work. They looked at core-based statistical areas (CBSAs)—geographic areas that consist of one or more counties associated with at least one urbanized area of at least 10,000 people connected by commuting.

    To show that they had an accurate measure of migration across CBSAs, the researchers isolated the effect of remote work on housing demand, separate from the effect of prepandemic migration. Even after adjusting for this migration, the authors estimated that an additional percentage-point increase of remote work caused a 1.5-percent rise in home prices. By tracking migration and its effect on housing demand, the researchers found that from November 2019 to November 2021, the surge in remote work alone increased home prices by approximately 15 percent.


    I'm not alone in this, the same thing happened to Juggernut in South Carolina and there were even people talking about moving from NYC to Charolette because 100k in Charolette buys a lot and 8 acres whereas in NYC it might buy an apartment.

    if it was just because of a shortage of supply (Which is part of the problem) then why the timing?

    Jokerman on
  • Stabbity StyleStabbity Style He/Him | Warning: Mothership Reporting Kennewick, WARegistered User regular
    Yeah, it makes sense. If you're making enough to afford an apartment in a big city, you can probably afford to buy a house in a smaller one, so if that suddenly becomes an option, that's gonna eat up the housing market.

    Stabbity_Style.png
  • SiliconStewSiliconStew Registered User regular
    You had the pandemic driving a massive increase in remote work as well as people moving away from cities simply out of fear. Combined with a historically low housing supply and historically low interest rates nationwide that occurred at the same time. So you had all these high CoL people with excess cash buying up land and housing in low CoL areas and everyone else with access to cheap loans leading to people just throwing all this excess money at any property that became available regardless of condition, driving up housing prices significantly across the board.

    Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
  • JokermanJokerman Registered User regular
    edited October 2023
    And let me be clear, I feel that WFH is a GREAT thing and is going to reduce traffic, increase productivity, and do wonders for work life balance of people.

    I also feel that there is going to be great changes required by the freedom it offers, and we should be concerned with a lot of people who are being impacted by it.

    Jokerman on
  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    The thing is like gentrification has been happening regardless of work from home. Work from home just lets it happen faster because the previous limitation of driving distance to work leaves.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • This content has been removed.

  • PreacherPreacher Registered User regular
    mcdermott wrote: »
    Preacher wrote: »
    The thing is like gentrification has been happening regardless of work from home. Work from home just lets it happen faster because the previous limitation of driving distance to work leaves.

    I’d say it lets it happen farther not faster. Gentrification could already happen plenty fast in urban neighborhoods, been that way for decades.

    Now they’re coming for small towns in flyover country, instead of former ghettos in urban cores. I was shocked when I saw just how ridiculous shit had gotten in Bozeman.

    Right further, which in a way makes it faster because previously they'd get to these regions eventually with how white flight works, but now they don't have to wait for like an office relocation to a remote area.

    It absolutely sucks to a place getting gentrified, I live in an area that's having that happen (my condo was worth 180k, new condos being built start at the 800k range for a similar size. And what will happen is I sell and leave because I can't afford here I move to a cheaper place and force them out of where they live.

    I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.

    pleasepaypreacher.net
  • daveNYCdaveNYC Why universe hate Waspinator? Registered User regular
    Preacher wrote: »
    mcdermott wrote: »
    Preacher wrote: »
    The thing is like gentrification has been happening regardless of work from home. Work from home just lets it happen faster because the previous limitation of driving distance to work leaves.

    I’d say it lets it happen farther not faster. Gentrification could already happen plenty fast in urban neighborhoods, been that way for decades.

    Now they’re coming for small towns in flyover country, instead of former ghettos in urban cores. I was shocked when I saw just how ridiculous shit had gotten in Bozeman.

    Right further, which in a way makes it faster because previously they'd get to these regions eventually with how white flight works, but now they don't have to wait for like an office relocation to a remote area.

    It absolutely sucks to a place getting gentrified, I live in an area that's having that happen (my condo was worth 180k, new condos being built start at the 800k range for a similar size. And what will happen is I sell and leave because I can't afford here I move to a cheaper place and force them out of where they live.

    I think there's a major difference between people moving farther and farther out from whatever urban core or office park place where they work and WFH decouples people from the office so now they're able to move to places that wouldn't have ever been an option and drive up demand there. Plus, didn't all the white pretty much already flight at least three or more decades ago?

    And WFH driving up prices nationwide makes sense. Housing prices are very sticky, and people are leaving places where the demand for housing is off the charts; so you're going to have prices going up where the WFHers are going with not nearly as much decrease (if any) in prices where they're leaving.

    Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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