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we should stop tolerating failure to hire remote workers What are you suggesting?

by crusso 8y ago

rwallace 8y ago
I'm suggesting that we treat discrimination against remote workers the way we treated some other forms of harmful discrimination in hiring: stop doing it, stop accepting or repeating excuses for doing it, stop tolerating companies doing it, and ultimately make it illegal.
- CompelTechnic 8y ago
  Remote workers are not a protected class, and there is no reason to make them a pretected class, considering the reality that lots of jobs require a physical presence. Calling it discrimination implies that there is a permanent population of people who are capable of working, but can only possibly work if they do not have to commute, and that they are being oppressed because of this. It is not discrimination so much as it's a case of society having a different set of preferences than you.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    GP is giving an economic rather than a social justice reason for making it a protected class. I don’t think I agree with him, but that doesn’t make it “not a reason”. Reason I disagree with him is that if workplaces rearrange themselves to not need physical presence, all the jobs suddenly get done by whichever genuinely third world nation can put high bandwidth internet connection into literal shantytown slums the fastest. If this was a gradual and planned-for change, starting with boosting the salary expectations of the poorest in the world up to our level, that’s one thing. Doing it to solve housing cost differences between rural and urban areas in developed nations will just blow up in everyone’s faces with unhandled side-effects.
- tomrod 8y ago
  Sounds like a nice ideal. I'm an economist. The first thing that comes to mind is the technology infrastructure costs required to maintain a potentially all remote workforce. A central location is better for a number of different workstreams. The second thing that comes to mind is unintended consequences. Are all jobs remote? Bakers? Doctors? Nuclear firmware upgrades?
- crusso 8y ago
  Disclosure: I've been a remote worker full-time for the last 5 years. I travel to the office a few days a month. There are many natural reasons why being physically in an office is advantageous. I can have face-to-face meetings with multiple people without conference call issues, I'm available to go visit clients local to the office, interactions with colleagues are just easier due to proximity, I hear the office cross-talk that is unavailable when you're remote, I form closer personal relationships with my colleagues because of countless unplanned interactions, I can perform physical tasks like installing servers, etc. Granted, there are disadvantages to working locally too - but the complex mix of advantages and disadvantages feed into the decisions that everyone makes in how they run their businesses, where they choose to be employed, etc. Does it not concern you that you're advocating overriding all of that decision making with some one-size-fits-all government policy that would criminalize people simply working the way they wish to?

we should stop tolerating failure to hire remote workers What are you suggesting?

by crusso 8y ago

we should stop tolerating failure to hire remote workers What are you suggesting?

I'm suggesting that we treat discrimination against remote workers the way we treated some other forms of harmful discrimination in hiring: stop doing it, stop accepting or repeating excuses for doing it, stop tolerating companies doing it, and ultimately make it illegal.

CompelTechnic 8y ago
Remote workers are not a protected class, and there is no reason to make them a pretected class, considering the reality that lots of jobs require a physical presence. Calling it discrimination implies that there is a permanent population of people who are capable of working, but can only possibly work if they do not have to commute, and that they are being oppressed because of this. It is not discrimination so much as it's a case of society having a different set of preferences than you.
- ben_w 8y ago
  GP is giving an economic rather than a social justice reason for making it a protected class. I don’t think I agree with him, but that doesn’t make it “not a reason”. Reason I disagree with him is that if workplaces rearrange themselves to not need physical presence, all the jobs suddenly get done by whichever genuinely third world nation can put high bandwidth internet connection into literal shantytown slums the fastest. If this was a gradual and planned-for change, starting with boosting the salary expectations of the poorest in the world up to our level, that’s one thing. Doing it to solve housing cost differences between rural and urban areas in developed nations will just blow up in everyone’s faces with unhandled side-effects.
tomrod 8y ago
Sounds like a nice ideal. I'm an economist. The first thing that comes to mind is the technology infrastructure costs required to maintain a potentially all remote workforce. A central location is better for a number of different workstreams. The second thing that comes to mind is unintended consequences. Are all jobs remote? Bakers? Doctors? Nuclear firmware upgrades?
crusso 8y ago
Disclosure: I've been a remote worker full-time for the last 5 years. I travel to the office a few days a month. There are many natural reasons why being physically in an office is advantageous. I can have face-to-face meetings with multiple people without conference call issues, I'm available to go visit clients local to the office, interactions with colleagues are just easier due to proximity, I hear the office cross-talk that is unavailable when you're remote, I form closer personal relationships with my colleagues because of countless unplanned interactions, I can perform physical tasks like installing servers, etc. Granted, there are disadvantages to working locally too - but the complex mix of advantages and disadvantages feed into the decisions that everyone makes in how they run their businesses, where they choose to be employed, etc. Does it not concern you that you're advocating overriding all of that decision making with some one-size-fits-all government policy that would criminalize people simply working the way they wish to?