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> One Google employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, typically commutes to the Seattle office from a nearby county and would likely se

> One Google employee, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, typically commutes to the Seattle office from a nearby county and would likely see their pay cut by about 10% by working from home full-time, according estimates by the company's Work Location Tool launched in June. > The employee was considering remote work but decided to keep going to the office - despite the two-hour commute. This seems like a nice little meditation on the loss aversion heuristic. I doubt many people would accept a 25% increase in the amount of their time that's committed to work in exchange for a paltry 11% pay increase. But if you frame it as a 10% pay decrease in exchange for a 20% reduction in how much of your life is devoted to work, it suddenly becomes a lot less palatable.

WalterBright 5y ago
I'd absolutely take a 10% pay cut to save 4 hours of my life every workday.
gowld 5y ago
Hours and $ are different units with nonlinear impact on happiness, so comparing percentages is fraught. It's not a 25% increase in work time, it's a 50+% reduction in free time.
ashtonkem 5y ago
It’s also awful timing. After what, 18 months of productive WFH now they want to cut salary?
- chitowneats 5y ago
  If Google felt that WFH had no negative effect on productivity, they could go the route of Twitter and others. The C-level clearly disagrees that this arrangement is ideal for the company, and are disincentivizing it with pay cuts.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    I think that the c suite makes these decisions on a much more emotional basis than they let on. Honestly, I think they’re sad seeing their big, expensive office spaces not being fully utilized, and want to be able around and physically see workers working.
    - HumblyTossed 5y ago
      Current management practices are very inefficient. When not actively engaging with subordinates, most of the rest of their time is finger fiddling (meetings and what-not with other managers and such take up the remainder of their time, but those meetings themselves are usually not as productive as they would let on). They need subs in seats or they'll have to admit how inefficient their job is.
  - 52-6F-62 5y ago
    Are you sure it's that simple? Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here at the office we have pingpong and rock climbing". It wasn't about extracting productivity, it was about imposing culture.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      Given what we know about longer hours and productivity, plus Google’s low retention figures, I’m going to go with the latter.
      - arebop 5y ago
        What do we know about Google's retention figures?
        steelframe 5y ago
        I'd like to know that too. Anecdotally, in the past 6 months 7 people I've previously worked with on projects at Google left after having been there about 10 years.
- sdevonoes 5y ago
  Why wouldn't they? Any "sane" company out there will cut your salary as soon as they find a good excuse to do so. Working from home VS working from the office is the perfect excuse. Productivity doesn't matter because if you go below the minimum bar, you are lay off.
  - paulgb 5y ago
    This might be a good heuristic if we were talking about a factory job, but this is a job at a tech company. Competition for talent is pretty fierce, a good enough reason not to cut someone's salary is that it's likely they can go elsewhere and make what they're making now, plus a signing bonus.
    - sdevonoes 5y ago
      I used to believe the tech industry was better than other industries. > Competition for talent is pretty fierce, a good enough reason not to cut someone's salary is that it's likely they can go elsewhere and make what they're making now, plus a signing bonus I really hope that scenario will happen. IT companies tend to repeat what Google, Amazon, and other tech giants do; so I expect most IT companies will follow Google regarding the topic we are discussing here. I hope am wrong.
    - Frost1x 5y ago
      Less the costs of transferring jobs. The industry has done everything in its power to try and retain people through disincentives (interview processes, on boarding process, expectations of often absurd spinup to productivity times, etc.) while not focusing on the incentives (increased pay, more time off, better work life balance, etc.). All of this, acting as sort of collusion agreement proxy to reduce poaching across the industry, makes it less attractive to jump ship and businesses know that. Spending the time to update my resume, market it a bit, deal with a mixture of mostly sweatshops with some reasonable employers mixed in, and a few actual good employers hiring processes (recruiter spam, LC gauntlets, full day technical interviews) and often employers expecting you to clairvoyantly know their idiosyncrasies (internal infrastructure, business processes, pre-existing code bases and dozens of arbitrary dependencies they chose and worked with for years)--all of which businesses pretend aren't costs and externalize on employees, makes it less attractive. Let's add in the mix of normal/traditional job switches: meeting and meshing with new coworkers, changing your commute which may not be insignificant, overhead of switching and moving your benefits packages around, delays for building/taking time off, new uncertainties/risks about stability, etc. and suddenly, that sign-on bonus with the near same package doesn't look so attractive. Anymore, for me to even consider jumping ship I'd need a pretty hefty sign-on bonus just to deal with the rest that will turn into lost personal time and stress. I really need a significant TC bump and hopefully, better work/life balance and/or a combination of my current employer TC degrading due to increased demand, hours, stress, stagnant growth, etc. otherwise, industry has created so many disincentive barriers that I'll stay where I am. Maybe it's not as tiresome/costly for some, but it certainly is for me.
- washadjeffmad 5y ago
  People collectively don't seem to know how to value their labor. If anything, they should argue for a pay increase to offset the costs Google is externalizing in utilities, on-site benefits, need for security, food, space, etc. If Google is progressive, they should buck the trend and do something like build sound-proof office-apartments that employees can hotel in for a few days at a time, and allow children. That would be worth a 10% "pay cut" to at least some of the people they want to remain on site. We're in a new world. There's no reason to make employees suffer because someone did things a certain way a generation or two ago.
  - igetspam 5y ago
    Came here looking for this. Back in my G days, before they were the high paying behemoth they are now, there were regular complaints about compensation. The first corporate response was absolutely tone-deaf. They created a tool for you to see your total compensation that included all-in values like on-site amenities. The natural response was one of unhappiness and people requesting to opt out of eating at work and promising to never use the laundry facilities or the gym or many of the other bits of bait they use to lure new grads. The next response came much later and it was a broad leveling of pay. Obviously the second pass was better. Alphabet will save a lot of money by not having so many warm bodies in the office. They eat less, they poop less, they generate less heat and make the AC work better, they require fewer support staff to be in the buildings, etc. Reducing pay because you're using fewer company paid resources is just as tone-deaf as that first try.
    - steelframe 5y ago
      > they poop less I worked at Google for about 10 years. Never having to hunt for an open bathroom stall while under a certain degree of physiological distress has perhaps been the greatest benefit to WFH for me.
    - chitowneats 5y ago
      Alphabet made the calculation a long time ago that paying for you to poop in the building is a rounding error compared to the extra productivity doing so allows them to squeeze out of you. That hasn't changed and it's unclear to me why the pandemic would change it.
- silicon2401 5y ago
  Companies are finally accepting that covid is here to stay and they're adjusting their game plan accordingly. The laid-back attitude was a PR stunt to look cool and caring. With things still getting worse, it's clear that this isn't going to end soon, so companies are going to drop the nice guy act and revert to the usual expectation of "in-office, heads-down, do what it takes to make that happen"
erinan 5y ago
2-hour commute? I'll take the pay cut anytime, like is too short... (and maybe start looking for another job, easier to do with all that "extra" time)
- Sharlin 5y ago
  Yeah, it would be a total no-brainer. Especially given that we're likely talking about a six-figure salary in the first place…
- sshagent 5y ago
  totally. i did this back in 2009. 20% pay cut, to reclaim 50% of my day (in just travel time). And for that, they've got someone who rarely is off sick, isn't too bothered if work runs over my usual office hours...and I've rejected multiple "in the office" jobs for up to twice my wages.
- krferriter 5y ago
  Yeah no way I'm doing a 2 hr commute just for a 10% higher pay if there's another option available. That's months of life gone just on commuting that can be regained by paying 10% of pre-tax income? Seems like a no-brainer. Time is money.
  - panda888888 5y ago
    It depends a lot on the mode of transportation. The Seattle employee referenced in the article may commute by ferry, which is about as relaxing of a commute as possible. The Seattle ferries are very nice; you can sit in a booth and eat breakfast and read the newspaper. Here's a photo of what it looks like: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/travel/vashon-island-near-seattle-a-rural-throwback.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/travel/vashon-island-near.... I'd totally be willing to do that for an hour every morning and evening.
    - mywittyname 5y ago
      We should probably assume that people commute via car unless noted otherwise, since it is by far the most common method.
mojuba 5y ago
> a 25% increase in the amount of their time that's committed to work I think you mean committed to life rather than work? Remember, people normally commute outside of work hours. Therefore your math doesn't add up. 2hr commute against 8 hours of work is not a 25% increase. But I think your point is still valid. Personally I'd "buy" my extra 2 hours of daily life for a 10% decrease in salary. Given that I'm awake for 17 hours, 2 hours saved is 11% of my waking time. Not a bad deal if you value your free time, or say you work on a side project. Edit: see the correction below. It's still 25%, I was wrong.
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  > Therefore your math doesn't add up. 2hr commute against 8 hours of work is not a 25% increase. What? Going from 8 to 10 hours is absolutely a 25% increase. 10 is 125% of 8
  - throwaway3b03 5y ago
    The situation is a bit more complex than that. First, people don't live in the office, so even if you live closer to the workplace, you still spend a non-negligible amount of time preparing and getting there. It can easily amount to more than 30 minutes a day. And secondly, an office job can be stressful, consuming, in a way that commuting isn't (if done by train or bicycle for instance). So i wouldn't put them all in the same box as time devoted to work.
    - UglyToad 5y ago
      There's a world of difference between going for a nice cycle or taking the train to see a new place or even going for a drive in the country versus cramming onto a standing-room-only train or risking your life in rush hour traffic or crawling along the highway in a tailback. Commuting is absolutely part of work, it's an unpaid part sure, but people aren't choosing it of their own free will.
    - l-lousy 5y ago
      This is mainly discussing WFH, so in this case people actually are living in the office.
bnycum 5y ago
I've worked from home for almost 12 years now, and I have always thought about the reverse. How much of an increase in pay would it take for me to go back into the office? Probably about 20% at least. If I were working in an office with a 2 hour commute I'd definitely take that 10% paycut to live a much better life.
- rwmj 5y ago
  I've been working from home for 18 years and there's no amount of money that would make me commute to a job. I'd take another job or work for myself rather than do it.
  - ryneandal 5y ago
    Kudos for 18 years at home, that's incredible! I've done ~5 years for the majority of time now, and now with four kids that need extensive time with me, I will forever take a WFH position. With discipline, it makes for an exceptional work/life balance.
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      I’ve done ~3 years now - and my work is my life. I do 18+ hour days and frequent 24-36-almost-48 hour stretches because I want to. I hate it - and I love it - and I can’t stop. Part of me is concerned for my health, the other part of me is concerned the other-part is going to end the dream.
      - api 5y ago
        I run a startup at home. We became fully virtual a while back and now have people all over the world. You have to set some boundaries. My big one is that I don’t work on weekends unless something is on fire. I may glance at emails but that’s it. I also don’t live alone. I have a wife and kids and will take breaks to see them. I do work pretty long hours during the week but it’s punctuated with some positive human interaction. My wife stays home with the kids right now, so they are here. I think if I lived alone I’d be prone to do what you do, and I’m not sure it would actually increase my productivity. There’s a point where you hit diminishing returns for any knowledge work. The brain needs rest like any other thing. I think if I lived alone I’d be forced to set weekday time boundaries to keep from going nuts.
misnome 5y ago
I mean, if they were paying him 10% more based on home location and commuting then there is a somewhat reasonable argument to be made. But of course, almost none of these companies are actually paying the people who live further away more, it's just management trying to enforce their will over the "peons". Our company is trying to force everyone back into the office 5 days a week. Their arguments for doing so were "projects have been late" and pointed at projects that were delayed due to unrelated external supplier reasons as justification. They claim the benefit of people paying less to heat their houses, as though people don't have pets/family. My working theory is that the upper management's jobs are more boring, and harder to coast on, when they can't "count heads" and have the illusion of progress. It's really exposed good and bad managers this past 1.5 years. In theory, this is exactly what unions are supposed to be for, I guess we'll see from this if the ones that are there, are worth anything.
- frankfrankfrank 5y ago
  There may be some enterprising startups that could take advantage of this situation where people have experienced the states of working at home (and the lockdown) that has broken employees away from the prevailing rat race system that had them ensnared in making money to squander money and showboat money. The window of opportunity is very small and those high value employees who the big corporates can ensnare with high salaries are surely willing to value or prioritize other criteria for the time being. That window will surely close soon if the choked out economy is throttled back up again and the neo-slaves go back to their bread and circus to keep them distracted. You do point out one main driver, manager anxiety about justifying their existence (I am not saying they should not exist, only that it is a high anxiety position), but there is also a bigger factor that is corporate finance and accounting driven. Massive investments in capital assets in the form of real estate and their overhead costs that are also collateral and backs all kinds of other derivative things like valuations. For example, institutional value investors look to book assets for investment cues. If the justification for office space breaks and is sold or even leases are cancelled, it will skew the numbers and institutional investors (private and public) that divine those numbers who rely on or are even legally compelled by past patterns, are not necessarily adapted to these new or future patterns and changing realities. The system, any system is inherently driven to revert to the mean. This community, over most other communities, should realize that.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
Those choosing to work in the office can still WFH two days a week, so it’s a 10% decrease for a 12% reduction in time spent at or going to work.
hrgames 5y ago
At our office, HR and Finance magically turned into "No Home Office" which means that when salaries are re-adjusted to discount WFH, they dont get paycuts in HR/Finance. Basically they gamed the system to show they were never paid a premium due to a home office (despite working out of the SF office) and hence shouldnt get a paycut now.
toss1 5y ago
Indeed, framing the question can have a big influence on the answer. An online survey found that 65% of American workers who said their jobs could be done entirely remotely were willing to take a pay cut of 5% — which could represent several years of annual raises — to stay at home. [1] There's no question that there's a reasonable bargain to be struck, the question is the terms. When the work is just as productive, both employer and employee can gain time. The employer can reduce their office space expense, which benefits should be shard by the employer, at least to the extent of helping outfit the home offices (e.g., they'd have to buy workstations & chairs anyway). OTOH, the employee gets huge benefits of time avoiding commuting, and reduced automobile expenses... It'll be interesting to see how the new bargain shakes out. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/return-to-work-americans-willing-to-take-pay-cut-to-never-go-back-to-the-office https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/return-to...
tshaddox 5y ago
Or the person just needs their current pay to pay for their current obligations.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>But if you frame it as a 10% pay decrease especially after you have structured your life around having that money and you already know you can handle the commute.
globular-toast 5y ago
It's also a good reason to live below your means. The main reason why people can't take a pay cut is it would mean a lifestyle cut. If you require 100% of your pay for your expected lifestyle then your employer pretty much has you by the balls.
agloeregrets 5y ago
Here is the thing: All of this money as a whole amount makes the choice seem silly. What happens when you factor in cost of living is that the 10% starts growing incredibly fast. If their current spend is 80% of their salary, then the 10% is actually a 50% post-expense difference. Suddenly that drive makes sense.
- tnorthcutt 5y ago
  This is an interesting and thought-provoking way of framing this! I'd never thought of pay increases/decreases in these terms before (or not consciously), so thanks for sharing this.
- hyperpape 5y ago
  Also, it is much easier to not start spending money, than it is to give up expensive habits that you've acquired. This goes double, once you're a family. Negotiating between partners and children about which things to cut back on is unpleasant. My advice (which I've followed imperfectly) is that if you have the income to make this reasonable, leave a cushion where you can handle setbacks without having to make the hard choices.
- omgwtfbbq 5y ago
  If you're making 200K plus and spend 80% of your take home you've got serious issues.
- Rebelgecko 5y ago
  On the other hand, if your marginal tax rate is 38%, a 10% pay cut will only cut your take home pay by around 4%.
maerF0x0 5y ago
it's such a mind game. Google no longer will provide that employee with $10 of thousands of office space, and $1000s in perks when the employee is remote. Having an employee transition from in office to remote is _already_ saving the employer money as the employee now pays for the sq footage (and food, foosball, and gardens) ... But of course this is doublespeak to confuse employees.
omgwtfbbq 5y ago
>But if you frame it as a 10% pay decrease in exchange for a 20% reduction in how much of your life is devoted to work, it suddenly becomes a lot less palatable. If some avg Google Seattle employee was making 250k and that got reduced to 225K I don't think their life materially changes in any way. You aren't going to retire significantly faster, you aren't going to be priced out of your home, you aren't going to have to change your lifestyle really in any way I'd think so what's the possible downside?
drdeadringer 5y ago
> despite the two-hour commute I've lived/worked in the Seattle area. I've also, in a different location, had a similarly long commute. In either case, I would have gladly taken a 10% hit to save all that time, stress, and car wear against myself.
jjav 5y ago
> would likely see their pay cut by about 10% I assume they're not taking RSUs away, so the cut is only to base salary (maybe bonus also?). Since RSUs tend to be over 50% of total comp, that's less than 5% cut in reality. I can't relate to how one wouldn't take a 5% pay cut to eliminate a two hour commute! Heck I'd take a full 10% cut to avoid commuting two hours a day. At a typical goog salary one doesn't even notice 5% or 10%, but two hour commute sure changes life.
Lammy 5y ago
You can do things while you’re in Seattle other than than just go to the office and then straight back home.
spfzero 5y ago
Wow, I read that and thought I hope he's not working in finance! He could easily handle the promotion aspect by framing it this way: "As a promotion, I now don't have to drive 2 hours a day, and I still get the same pay!" That's a nice promotion, two prime hours of waking life 5 times a week. Not to mention the stress and gas/maintenance. Any time you can exchange money for time, do it.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

WalterBright 5y ago

I'd absolutely take a 10% pay cut to save 4 hours of my life every workday.

gowld 5y ago

Hours and $ are different units with nonlinear impact on happiness, so comparing percentages is fraught. It's not a 25% increase in work time, it's a 50+% reduction in free time.

ashtonkem 5y ago

It’s also awful timing. After what, 18 months of productive WFH now they want to cut salary?

chitowneats 5y ago
If Google felt that WFH had no negative effect on productivity, they could go the route of Twitter and others. The C-level clearly disagrees that this arrangement is ideal for the company, and are disincentivizing it with pay cuts.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  I think that the c suite makes these decisions on a much more emotional basis than they let on. Honestly, I think they’re sad seeing their big, expensive office spaces not being fully utilized, and want to be able around and physically see workers working.
  - HumblyTossed 5y ago
    Current management practices are very inefficient. When not actively engaging with subordinates, most of the rest of their time is finger fiddling (meetings and what-not with other managers and such take up the remainder of their time, but those meetings themselves are usually not as productive as they would let on). They need subs in seats or they'll have to admit how inefficient their job is.
- 52-6F-62 5y ago
  Are you sure it's that simple? Google was previously known in the wider world for imposing longer than average work days under the guise of "you love it here at the office we have pingpong and rock climbing". It wasn't about extracting productivity, it was about imposing culture.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Given what we know about longer hours and productivity, plus Google’s low retention figures, I’m going to go with the latter.
    - arebop 5y ago
      What do we know about Google's retention figures?
      - steelframe 5y ago
        I'd like to know that too. Anecdotally, in the past 6 months 7 people I've previously worked with on projects at Google left after having been there about 10 years.
sdevonoes 5y ago
Why wouldn't they? Any "sane" company out there will cut your salary as soon as they find a good excuse to do so. Working from home VS working from the office is the perfect excuse. Productivity doesn't matter because if you go below the minimum bar, you are lay off.
- paulgb 5y ago
  This might be a good heuristic if we were talking about a factory job, but this is a job at a tech company. Competition for talent is pretty fierce, a good enough reason not to cut someone's salary is that it's likely they can go elsewhere and make what they're making now, plus a signing bonus.
  - sdevonoes 5y ago
    I used to believe the tech industry was better than other industries. > Competition for talent is pretty fierce, a good enough reason not to cut someone's salary is that it's likely they can go elsewhere and make what they're making now, plus a signing bonus I really hope that scenario will happen. IT companies tend to repeat what Google, Amazon, and other tech giants do; so I expect most IT companies will follow Google regarding the topic we are discussing here. I hope am wrong.
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    Less the costs of transferring jobs. The industry has done everything in its power to try and retain people through disincentives (interview processes, on boarding process, expectations of often absurd spinup to productivity times, etc.) while not focusing on the incentives (increased pay, more time off, better work life balance, etc.). All of this, acting as sort of collusion agreement proxy to reduce poaching across the industry, makes it less attractive to jump ship and businesses know that. Spending the time to update my resume, market it a bit, deal with a mixture of mostly sweatshops with some reasonable employers mixed in, and a few actual good employers hiring processes (recruiter spam, LC gauntlets, full day technical interviews) and often employers expecting you to clairvoyantly know their idiosyncrasies (internal infrastructure, business processes, pre-existing code bases and dozens of arbitrary dependencies they chose and worked with for years)--all of which businesses pretend aren't costs and externalize on employees, makes it less attractive. Let's add in the mix of normal/traditional job switches: meeting and meshing with new coworkers, changing your commute which may not be insignificant, overhead of switching and moving your benefits packages around, delays for building/taking time off, new uncertainties/risks about stability, etc. and suddenly, that sign-on bonus with the near same package doesn't look so attractive. Anymore, for me to even consider jumping ship I'd need a pretty hefty sign-on bonus just to deal with the rest that will turn into lost personal time and stress. I really need a significant TC bump and hopefully, better work/life balance and/or a combination of my current employer TC degrading due to increased demand, hours, stress, stagnant growth, etc. otherwise, industry has created so many disincentive barriers that I'll stay where I am. Maybe it's not as tiresome/costly for some, but it certainly is for me.
washadjeffmad 5y ago
People collectively don't seem to know how to value their labor. If anything, they should argue for a pay increase to offset the costs Google is externalizing in utilities, on-site benefits, need for security, food, space, etc. If Google is progressive, they should buck the trend and do something like build sound-proof office-apartments that employees can hotel in for a few days at a time, and allow children. That would be worth a 10% "pay cut" to at least some of the people they want to remain on site. We're in a new world. There's no reason to make employees suffer because someone did things a certain way a generation or two ago.
- igetspam 5y ago
  Came here looking for this. Back in my G days, before they were the high paying behemoth they are now, there were regular complaints about compensation. The first corporate response was absolutely tone-deaf. They created a tool for you to see your total compensation that included all-in values like on-site amenities. The natural response was one of unhappiness and people requesting to opt out of eating at work and promising to never use the laundry facilities or the gym or many of the other bits of bait they use to lure new grads. The next response came much later and it was a broad leveling of pay. Obviously the second pass was better. Alphabet will save a lot of money by not having so many warm bodies in the office. They eat less, they poop less, they generate less heat and make the AC work better, they require fewer support staff to be in the buildings, etc. Reducing pay because you're using fewer company paid resources is just as tone-deaf as that first try.
  - steelframe 5y ago
    > they poop less I worked at Google for about 10 years. Never having to hunt for an open bathroom stall while under a certain degree of physiological distress has perhaps been the greatest benefit to WFH for me.
  - chitowneats 5y ago
    Alphabet made the calculation a long time ago that paying for you to poop in the building is a rounding error compared to the extra productivity doing so allows them to squeeze out of you. That hasn't changed and it's unclear to me why the pandemic would change it.
silicon2401 5y ago
Companies are finally accepting that covid is here to stay and they're adjusting their game plan accordingly. The laid-back attitude was a PR stunt to look cool and caring. With things still getting worse, it's clear that this isn't going to end soon, so companies are going to drop the nice guy act and revert to the usual expectation of "in-office, heads-down, do what it takes to make that happen"

erinan 5y ago

2-hour commute? I'll take the pay cut anytime, like is too short... (and maybe start looking for another job, easier to do with all that "extra" time)

Sharlin 5y ago
Yeah, it would be a total no-brainer. Especially given that we're likely talking about a six-figure salary in the first place…
sshagent 5y ago
totally. i did this back in 2009. 20% pay cut, to reclaim 50% of my day (in just travel time). And for that, they've got someone who rarely is off sick, isn't too bothered if work runs over my usual office hours...and I've rejected multiple "in the office" jobs for up to twice my wages.
krferriter 5y ago
Yeah no way I'm doing a 2 hr commute just for a 10% higher pay if there's another option available. That's months of life gone just on commuting that can be regained by paying 10% of pre-tax income? Seems like a no-brainer. Time is money.
- panda888888 5y ago
  It depends a lot on the mode of transportation. The Seattle employee referenced in the article may commute by ferry, which is about as relaxing of a commute as possible. The Seattle ferries are very nice; you can sit in a booth and eat breakfast and read the newspaper. Here's a photo of what it looks like: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/travel/vashon-island-near-seattle-a-rural-throwback.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/travel/vashon-island-near.... I'd totally be willing to do that for an hour every morning and evening.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    We should probably assume that people commute via car unless noted otherwise, since it is by far the most common method.

mojuba 5y ago

> a 25% increase in the amount of their time that's committed to work I think you mean committed to life rather than work? Remember, people normally commute outside of work hours. Therefore your math doesn't add up. 2hr commute against 8 hours of work is not a 25% increase. But I think your point is still valid. Personally I'd "buy" my extra 2 hours of daily life for a 10% decrease in salary. Given that I'm awake for 17 hours, 2 hours saved is 11% of my waking time. Not a bad deal if you value your free time, or say you work on a side project. Edit: see the correction below. It's still 25%, I was wrong.

wutbrodo 5y ago
> Therefore your math doesn't add up. 2hr commute against 8 hours of work is not a 25% increase. What? Going from 8 to 10 hours is absolutely a 25% increase. 10 is 125% of 8
- throwaway3b03 5y ago
  The situation is a bit more complex than that. First, people don't live in the office, so even if you live closer to the workplace, you still spend a non-negligible amount of time preparing and getting there. It can easily amount to more than 30 minutes a day. And secondly, an office job can be stressful, consuming, in a way that commuting isn't (if done by train or bicycle for instance). So i wouldn't put them all in the same box as time devoted to work.
  - UglyToad 5y ago
    There's a world of difference between going for a nice cycle or taking the train to see a new place or even going for a drive in the country versus cramming onto a standing-room-only train or risking your life in rush hour traffic or crawling along the highway in a tailback. Commuting is absolutely part of work, it's an unpaid part sure, but people aren't choosing it of their own free will.
  - l-lousy 5y ago
    This is mainly discussing WFH, so in this case people actually are living in the office.

bnycum 5y ago

I've worked from home for almost 12 years now, and I have always thought about the reverse. How much of an increase in pay would it take for me to go back into the office? Probably about 20% at least. If I were working in an office with a 2 hour commute I'd definitely take that 10% paycut to live a much better life.

rwmj 5y ago
I've been working from home for 18 years and there's no amount of money that would make me commute to a job. I'd take another job or work for myself rather than do it.
- ryneandal 5y ago
  Kudos for 18 years at home, that's incredible! I've done ~5 years for the majority of time now, and now with four kids that need extensive time with me, I will forever take a WFH position. With discipline, it makes for an exceptional work/life balance.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    I’ve done ~3 years now - and my work is my life. I do 18+ hour days and frequent 24-36-almost-48 hour stretches because I want to. I hate it - and I love it - and I can’t stop. Part of me is concerned for my health, the other part of me is concerned the other-part is going to end the dream.
    - api 5y ago
      I run a startup at home. We became fully virtual a while back and now have people all over the world. You have to set some boundaries. My big one is that I don’t work on weekends unless something is on fire. I may glance at emails but that’s it. I also don’t live alone. I have a wife and kids and will take breaks to see them. I do work pretty long hours during the week but it’s punctuated with some positive human interaction. My wife stays home with the kids right now, so they are here. I think if I lived alone I’d be prone to do what you do, and I’m not sure it would actually increase my productivity. There’s a point where you hit diminishing returns for any knowledge work. The brain needs rest like any other thing. I think if I lived alone I’d be forced to set weekday time boundaries to keep from going nuts.

misnome 5y ago

I mean, if they were paying him 10% more based on home location and commuting then there is a somewhat reasonable argument to be made. But of course, almost none of these companies are actually paying the people who live further away more, it's just management trying to enforce their will over the "peons". Our company is trying to force everyone back into the office 5 days a week. Their arguments for doing so were "projects have been late" and pointed at projects that were delayed due to unrelated external supplier reasons as justification. They claim the benefit of people paying less to heat their houses, as though people don't have pets/family. My working theory is that the upper management's jobs are more boring, and harder to coast on, when they can't "count heads" and have the illusion of progress. It's really exposed good and bad managers this past 1.5 years. In theory, this is exactly what unions are supposed to be for, I guess we'll see from this if the ones that are there, are worth anything.

frankfrankfrank 5y ago
There may be some enterprising startups that could take advantage of this situation where people have experienced the states of working at home (and the lockdown) that has broken employees away from the prevailing rat race system that had them ensnared in making money to squander money and showboat money. The window of opportunity is very small and those high value employees who the big corporates can ensnare with high salaries are surely willing to value or prioritize other criteria for the time being. That window will surely close soon if the choked out economy is throttled back up again and the neo-slaves go back to their bread and circus to keep them distracted. You do point out one main driver, manager anxiety about justifying their existence (I am not saying they should not exist, only that it is a high anxiety position), but there is also a bigger factor that is corporate finance and accounting driven. Massive investments in capital assets in the form of real estate and their overhead costs that are also collateral and backs all kinds of other derivative things like valuations. For example, institutional value investors look to book assets for investment cues. If the justification for office space breaks and is sold or even leases are cancelled, it will skew the numbers and institutional investors (private and public) that divine those numbers who rely on or are even legally compelled by past patterns, are not necessarily adapted to these new or future patterns and changing realities. The system, any system is inherently driven to revert to the mean. This community, over most other communities, should realize that.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

Those choosing to work in the office can still WFH two days a week, so it’s a 10% decrease for a 12% reduction in time spent at or going to work.

hrgames 5y ago

At our office, HR and Finance magically turned into "No Home Office" which means that when salaries are re-adjusted to discount WFH, they dont get paycuts in HR/Finance. Basically they gamed the system to show they were never paid a premium due to a home office (despite working out of the SF office) and hence shouldnt get a paycut now.

toss1 5y ago

Indeed, framing the question can have a big influence on the answer. An online survey found that 65% of American workers who said their jobs could be done entirely remotely were willing to take a pay cut of 5% — which could represent several years of annual raises — to stay at home. [1] There's no question that there's a reasonable bargain to be struck, the question is the terms. When the work is just as productive, both employer and employee can gain time. The employer can reduce their office space expense, which benefits should be shard by the employer, at least to the extent of helping outfit the home offices (e.g., they'd have to buy workstations & chairs anyway). OTOH, the employee gets huge benefits of time avoiding commuting, and reduced automobile expenses... It'll be interesting to see how the new bargain shakes out. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/return-to-work-americans-willing-to-take-pay-cut-to-never-go-back-to-the-office https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-03/return-to...

tshaddox 5y ago

Or the person just needs their current pay to pay for their current obligations.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>But if you frame it as a 10% pay decrease especially after you have structured your life around having that money and you already know you can handle the commute.

globular-toast 5y ago

It's also a good reason to live below your means. The main reason why people can't take a pay cut is it would mean a lifestyle cut. If you require 100% of your pay for your expected lifestyle then your employer pretty much has you by the balls.

agloeregrets 5y ago

Here is the thing: All of this money as a whole amount makes the choice seem silly. What happens when you factor in cost of living is that the 10% starts growing incredibly fast. If their current spend is 80% of their salary, then the 10% is actually a 50% post-expense difference. Suddenly that drive makes sense.

tnorthcutt 5y ago
This is an interesting and thought-provoking way of framing this! I'd never thought of pay increases/decreases in these terms before (or not consciously), so thanks for sharing this.
hyperpape 5y ago
Also, it is much easier to not start spending money, than it is to give up expensive habits that you've acquired. This goes double, once you're a family. Negotiating between partners and children about which things to cut back on is unpleasant. My advice (which I've followed imperfectly) is that if you have the income to make this reasonable, leave a cushion where you can handle setbacks without having to make the hard choices.
omgwtfbbq 5y ago
If you're making 200K plus and spend 80% of your take home you've got serious issues.
Rebelgecko 5y ago
On the other hand, if your marginal tax rate is 38%, a 10% pay cut will only cut your take home pay by around 4%.

maerF0x0 5y ago

it's such a mind game. Google no longer will provide that employee with $10 of thousands of office space, and $1000s in perks when the employee is remote. Having an employee transition from in office to remote is _already_ saving the employer money as the employee now pays for the sq footage (and food, foosball, and gardens) ... But of course this is doublespeak to confuse employees.

omgwtfbbq 5y ago

>But if you frame it as a 10% pay decrease in exchange for a 20% reduction in how much of your life is devoted to work, it suddenly becomes a lot less palatable. If some avg Google Seattle employee was making 250k and that got reduced to 225K I don't think their life materially changes in any way. You aren't going to retire significantly faster, you aren't going to be priced out of your home, you aren't going to have to change your lifestyle really in any way I'd think so what's the possible downside?

drdeadringer 5y ago

> despite the two-hour commute I've lived/worked in the Seattle area. I've also, in a different location, had a similarly long commute. In either case, I would have gladly taken a 10% hit to save all that time, stress, and car wear against myself.

jjav 5y ago

> would likely see their pay cut by about 10% I assume they're not taking RSUs away, so the cut is only to base salary (maybe bonus also?). Since RSUs tend to be over 50% of total comp, that's less than 5% cut in reality. I can't relate to how one wouldn't take a 5% pay cut to eliminate a two hour commute! Heck I'd take a full 10% cut to avoid commuting two hours a day. At a typical goog salary one doesn't even notice 5% or 10%, but two hour commute sure changes life.

Lammy 5y ago

You can do things while you’re in Seattle other than than just go to the office and then straight back home.

spfzero 5y ago

Wow, I read that and thought I hope he's not working in finance! He could easily handle the promotion aspect by framing it this way: "As a promotion, I now don't have to drive 2 hours a day, and I still get the same pay!" That's a nice promotion, two prime hours of waking life 5 times a week. Not to mention the stress and gas/maintenance. Any time you can exchange money for time, do it.

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