3 ms·

> and not on the market value of your work. The market value of your work depends, in no small part, on whether or not that work includes showing your face X d

> and not on the market value of your work. The market value of your work depends, in no small part, on whether or not that work includes showing your face X days a week at an office in San Francisco.

RA_Fisher 6y ago
Sure, for inefficient businesses likely to have their lunch eaten by wiser competition.
- bradleyjg 6y ago
  That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? Because right now the scoreboard is looking pretty good for companies with lots of office space in the Bay Area.
  - mrybczyn 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_analysis
dmitryminkovsky 6y ago
For sure I see the argument there: it is way more of a pain in the ass to show up to an office on Market Street than chilling wherever you want. And if that was their stated argument, I'd have no problem with it. However, that this not the argument these people are making. The argument I see time and again is that your compensation should be location-adjusted based on cost of living. And by making that argument, they are clearly saying you are—or are not—entitled to a certain degree of living, which is where it gets creepy, inappropriate and inevitably abusive. And why do I say creepy? Because saying that a person does or does not deserve a certain lifestyle, and saying that they will or will not facilitate that lifestyle for you, crosses a boundary into your personal life that degrades you as an independent individual who is entitled to decide whether or not you do basic things like saving money. Instead of treating you like a person, they treat you and force you to conceive of yourself some sort of "lifestyle consumer." Sure, some people just have no leverage. But normalizing this way if thinking is going to lead us down an even worse labor path than we are on right now. Your employer is not your legal guardian.
- bradleyjg 6y ago
  I think there’s poor reasoning on all sides. Plenty of employees that want to make SF market salaries while living in Thailand talk about the value of their work. Whether or not those claims are accurate they are irrelevant. Employees have no more reason to be concerned about the value of their work to employers than employers have to be concerned about the value of their pay to employees. If you want to be logical about it the only thing that matters is the market. But both sides try to bring in irrelevant arguments in hopes of getting leverage in negotiations. Sometimes it even works!
  - vinger 6y ago
    Employees are a marketing asset and powered by a SV dev team is more marketable compared to a dev team. Many companies are funded / sold by the value of their employees. There isn't one market. A remote SV developer should be able to command more if they can sell a connection to SV. Same for a FAANG company.. you can get paided more for being associated with a faang
tomrod 6y ago
Actually, COVID-19 has shown that this is a small part of the work. Non-trivial, but mostly meaningless. Pay market rates. If you want people on location in SF, pay SF market rates. If you want people occasionally on location in SF, pay SF market rates. If you want people to travel rarely to SF pay local area rates to the nearest office the person lives by. SF is neither the center of the universe nor where all the interesting problems/projects reside.
- tzs 6y ago
  > Pay market rates. If you want people on location in SF, pay SF market rates. If you want people occasionally on location in SF, pay SF market rates. If you want people to travel rarely to SF pay local area rates to the nearest office the person lives by. One change. For those you only rarely require to travel to any of your offices, pay the same regardless of where they live. All remote locations are the same as far as the company is concerned [1]. For a company with N offices, there are only N+1 locations as far as pay should go: the local rate in each of the N office's local area, paid to people who are required to be on location there more than rarely, and the rate for everyone else. On those rare occasions when someone in the everyone else group is required to come to one of the offices, treat it like any other required business trip and the company pays for travel and lodging and food. [1] to a first approximation. If the company needs a job to be done on a particular daily schedule, then there are two remote locations as far as the company is concerned: time zones where that schedule is reasonable, and everywhere else.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    So which office are we using for the remote rate? It's probably not going to be SF. Tampa? Austin? Buffalo? Memphis?
    - znpy 6y ago
      Mumbay, probably. (i'm being ironic here, btw)
      - 6y ago
TLightful 6y ago
If you exist in the 20th century. Say hi to Doc Brown for me, thanks.

RA_Fisher 6y ago

Sure, for inefficient businesses likely to have their lunch eaten by wiser competition.

bradleyjg 6y ago
That remains to be seen, doesn’t it? Because right now the scoreboard is looking pretty good for companies with lots of office space in the Bay Area.
- mrybczyn 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causal_analysis

dmitryminkovsky 6y ago

For sure I see the argument there: it is way more of a pain in the ass to show up to an office on Market Street than chilling wherever you want. And if that was their stated argument, I'd have no problem with it. However, that this not the argument these people are making. The argument I see time and again is that your compensation should be location-adjusted based on cost of living. And by making that argument, they are clearly saying you are—or are not—entitled to a certain degree of living, which is where it gets creepy, inappropriate and inevitably abusive. And why do I say creepy? Because saying that a person does or does not deserve a certain lifestyle, and saying that they will or will not facilitate that lifestyle for you, crosses a boundary into your personal life that degrades you as an independent individual who is entitled to decide whether or not you do basic things like saving money. Instead of treating you like a person, they treat you and force you to conceive of yourself some sort of "lifestyle consumer." Sure, some people just have no leverage. But normalizing this way if thinking is going to lead us down an even worse labor path than we are on right now. Your employer is not your legal guardian.

bradleyjg 6y ago
I think there’s poor reasoning on all sides. Plenty of employees that want to make SF market salaries while living in Thailand talk about the value of their work. Whether or not those claims are accurate they are irrelevant. Employees have no more reason to be concerned about the value of their work to employers than employers have to be concerned about the value of their pay to employees. If you want to be logical about it the only thing that matters is the market. But both sides try to bring in irrelevant arguments in hopes of getting leverage in negotiations. Sometimes it even works!
- vinger 6y ago
  Employees are a marketing asset and powered by a SV dev team is more marketable compared to a dev team. Many companies are funded / sold by the value of their employees. There isn't one market. A remote SV developer should be able to command more if they can sell a connection to SV. Same for a FAANG company.. you can get paided more for being associated with a faang

tomrod 6y ago

Actually, COVID-19 has shown that this is a small part of the work. Non-trivial, but mostly meaningless. Pay market rates. If you want people on location in SF, pay SF market rates. If you want people occasionally on location in SF, pay SF market rates. If you want people to travel rarely to SF pay local area rates to the nearest office the person lives by. SF is neither the center of the universe nor where all the interesting problems/projects reside.

tzs 6y ago
> Pay market rates. If you want people on location in SF, pay SF market rates. If you want people occasionally on location in SF, pay SF market rates. If you want people to travel rarely to SF pay local area rates to the nearest office the person lives by. One change. For those you only rarely require to travel to any of your offices, pay the same regardless of where they live. All remote locations are the same as far as the company is concerned [1]. For a company with N offices, there are only N+1 locations as far as pay should go: the local rate in each of the N office's local area, paid to people who are required to be on location there more than rarely, and the rate for everyone else. On those rare occasions when someone in the everyone else group is required to come to one of the offices, treat it like any other required business trip and the company pays for travel and lodging and food. [1] to a first approximation. If the company needs a job to be done on a particular daily schedule, then there are two remote locations as far as the company is concerned: time zones where that schedule is reasonable, and everywhere else.
- ghaff 6y ago
  So which office are we using for the remote rate? It's probably not going to be SF. Tampa? Austin? Buffalo? Memphis?
  - znpy 6y ago
    Mumbay, probably. (i'm being ironic here, btw)
    - 6y ago

TLightful 6y ago

If you exist in the 20th century. Say hi to Doc Brown for me, thanks.