5 ms·

I don't think that's fair, not everyone can move easily (family etc).

latch 15y ago
I think in 99% of the cases you are mistaken "can" with "want". That aside, whatever way you pick isn't going to be fair to one of the two groups...at least my way 1 group gets an advantage out of it (and the other group doesn't, out of choice (the vaste majority of the time)). If an employee was to get rid of his/her car, would you reduce his/her salary by $~1200/month because it isn't fair that he/she nets more money than the people who can't live without 2 cars?
corin_ 15y ago
If the job requires that they be in a particular location, paying them based on that is fair, and very common. For example national services in the UK do that (such as post office), because if you're a postman/nurse/whatever in one place, you can't chose to live anywhere. However if you don't care where they live, they should all be paid equally - a person living in Thailand doesn't deserve less money than a person living in NYC, and just because they don't need as much money, doesn't mean they don't deserve it.
buff-a 15y ago
How do you deal with someone who says they live in Manhattan, but actually lives in Mumbai?
- JonWood 15y ago
  Fire them for lying when they provided an address in their employment contract. Do you really want to employ someone who does that at all?
  - leon_ 15y ago
    So I'm about signing the contract. And I somehow know that when I write down Mumbai I will get $20k/yr and when I write down NYC I will get $100k/yr. Guess what I am going to do ... > Do you really want to employ someone who does that at all? Do you really want to work for someone discriminating based on location and not performance?
    - latch 15y ago
      No, you shouldn't go work for them, and people shouldn't hire you. The situation works to everyone's advantage.
  - buff-a 15y ago
    Sorry. I meant someone who has a legal residence in Manhattan, pays US taxes, US social, but actually spends 350 days of the year "vacationing" in Mumbai, Buenos Aires, etc? And by "legal residence" I mean paying $100 a month to a mate to collect my mail and occasionally crash on his couch. Believe me, the IRS will back me up when I claim to be a US resident, as will New York State, and they would penalize balsamiq if balsamiq tried to claim otherwise. So what matters? Is it the law? Or is it the spirit? Is it the quality of work or the location where the person was at the time they did the work? What if the Mumbai resident comes to a conference in SF. Do you pay them SF rates for that week? What if they come for a month? Six months? This may seem like I'm looking for (what we call in video games) an exploit. I am of course. But so is balsamiq. It wants to have lower salary costs. It could pay everyone the same, no matter where they live. But it knows that Mumbai residents can't up and move to SF. So it claims to be fair (if they moved we would pay them more!) but the reality is that it knows they cant. I'm not saying I have a better idea. But I'm not the one blogging about it.
cageface 15y ago
It seems unfair to me that I might be paid less because I've opted to live in a cheaper area. Why should I have to subsidize my teammate's expensive, hip, urban NYC lifestyle if I've decided to live somewhere cheap and save money for early retirement, starting my own business, supporting a larger family etc?
- toyg 15y ago
  Sorry, am I reading correctly? Peldi should subsidize you starting your own business? That seems unfair to me :) Aside from the clear moral judgement you're making here, which doesn't belong in any salary policy, the problem with your argument is that chances are that you made that choice while maintaining a "urban" salary... i.e. you are fundamentally exploiting a loophole in "classic" remuneration systems thanks to telecommuting, and you're now complaining that those systems might be catching up.
  - cageface 15y ago
    If I'm providing exactly the same quality and volume of work, why should my zip code matter? You're reading a moral argument in my comment that I'm not making. If anything this sets up a reverse incentive to live in NYC like a college student and pocket the difference. What you're calling a loophole is the new reality of information-based labor. Companies that penalize their employees for taking advantage of this flexibility to set their own lifestyle priorities are going to suffer in the market for top talent.
    - toyg 15y ago
      "If anything this sets up a reverse incentive to live in NYC like a college student and pocket the difference." It's a choice; everyone makes lifestyle choices, like you say, as an employer there's nothing you can do about that. Peldi's policy gives you a chance to make enough money to live comfortably wherever you want to live; I think that's quite a perk, for most people. If your lifestyle choices completely trump your professional interest in joining the company, you'd probably not be a good match anyway. Besides, the policy is weighted by bonuses, and sounds more like the starting point for a conversation rather than a straight-jacket. Knowing the man a little -- we went to the same highschool, although he already was a celebrity and I wasn't ;) -- I'm quite confident he'd do his damnedest to find a satisfying and realistic agreement for anyone interested in joining.

latch 15y ago

I think in 99% of the cases you are mistaken "can" with "want". That aside, whatever way you pick isn't going to be fair to one of the two groups...at least my way 1 group gets an advantage out of it (and the other group doesn't, out of choice (the vaste majority of the time)). If an employee was to get rid of his/her car, would you reduce his/her salary by $~1200/month because it isn't fair that he/she nets more money than the people who can't live without 2 cars?

corin_ 15y ago

If the job requires that they be in a particular location, paying them based on that is fair, and very common. For example national services in the UK do that (such as post office), because if you're a postman/nurse/whatever in one place, you can't chose to live anywhere. However if you don't care where they live, they should all be paid equally - a person living in Thailand doesn't deserve less money than a person living in NYC, and just because they don't need as much money, doesn't mean they don't deserve it.

buff-a 15y ago

How do you deal with someone who says they live in Manhattan, but actually lives in Mumbai?

JonWood 15y ago
Fire them for lying when they provided an address in their employment contract. Do you really want to employ someone who does that at all?
- leon_ 15y ago
  So I'm about signing the contract. And I somehow know that when I write down Mumbai I will get $20k/yr and when I write down NYC I will get $100k/yr. Guess what I am going to do ... > Do you really want to employ someone who does that at all? Do you really want to work for someone discriminating based on location and not performance?
  - latch 15y ago
    No, you shouldn't go work for them, and people shouldn't hire you. The situation works to everyone's advantage.
- buff-a 15y ago
  Sorry. I meant someone who has a legal residence in Manhattan, pays US taxes, US social, but actually spends 350 days of the year "vacationing" in Mumbai, Buenos Aires, etc? And by "legal residence" I mean paying $100 a month to a mate to collect my mail and occasionally crash on his couch. Believe me, the IRS will back me up when I claim to be a US resident, as will New York State, and they would penalize balsamiq if balsamiq tried to claim otherwise. So what matters? Is it the law? Or is it the spirit? Is it the quality of work or the location where the person was at the time they did the work? What if the Mumbai resident comes to a conference in SF. Do you pay them SF rates for that week? What if they come for a month? Six months? This may seem like I'm looking for (what we call in video games) an exploit. I am of course. But so is balsamiq. It wants to have lower salary costs. It could pay everyone the same, no matter where they live. But it knows that Mumbai residents can't up and move to SF. So it claims to be fair (if they moved we would pay them more!) but the reality is that it knows they cant. I'm not saying I have a better idea. But I'm not the one blogging about it.

cageface 15y ago

It seems unfair to me that I might be paid less because I've opted to live in a cheaper area. Why should I have to subsidize my teammate's expensive, hip, urban NYC lifestyle if I've decided to live somewhere cheap and save money for early retirement, starting my own business, supporting a larger family etc?

toyg 15y ago
Sorry, am I reading correctly? Peldi should subsidize you starting your own business? That seems unfair to me :) Aside from the clear moral judgement you're making here, which doesn't belong in any salary policy, the problem with your argument is that chances are that you made that choice while maintaining a "urban" salary... i.e. you are fundamentally exploiting a loophole in "classic" remuneration systems thanks to telecommuting, and you're now complaining that those systems might be catching up.
- cageface 15y ago
  If I'm providing exactly the same quality and volume of work, why should my zip code matter? You're reading a moral argument in my comment that I'm not making. If anything this sets up a reverse incentive to live in NYC like a college student and pocket the difference. What you're calling a loophole is the new reality of information-based labor. Companies that penalize their employees for taking advantage of this flexibility to set their own lifestyle priorities are going to suffer in the market for top talent.
  - toyg 15y ago
    "If anything this sets up a reverse incentive to live in NYC like a college student and pocket the difference." It's a choice; everyone makes lifestyle choices, like you say, as an employer there's nothing you can do about that. Peldi's policy gives you a chance to make enough money to live comfortably wherever you want to live; I think that's quite a perk, for most people. If your lifestyle choices completely trump your professional interest in joining the company, you'd probably not be a good match anyway. Besides, the policy is weighted by bonuses, and sounds more like the starting point for a conversation rather than a straight-jacket. Knowing the man a little -- we went to the same highschool, although he already was a celebrity and I wasn't ;) -- I'm quite confident he'd do his damnedest to find a satisfying and realistic agreement for anyone interested in joining.