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I find a huge disconnect between the main assertion of this article, and the lip-service paid to most workers. In the article, the author states: > While a lot

I find a huge disconnect between the main assertion of this article, and the lip-service paid to most workers. In the article, the author states: > While a lot of ink has been spilled on the future of work, the majority of Americans, and most people around the world, can’t actually do their jobs remotely. Ok, so a majority of workers can't do their jobs remotely. Granted, many of these are not anchored to a city (medical offices are in the suburbs, truckers are mobile etc.) but a huge swath of people will still work in cities, at least part time. So this strikes me as another example of tech's myopia and why the tech world is increasingly disconnected from the majority of the country. Simply put, most people can't work from home. Most people can't afford to buy a house 2 hours away from their office and hope to have the leverage to stay employed. Most people don't make six-figure salaries. Most people are afraid of lay-offs, are afraid of offshoring, are afraid of being antiquated. And as I have said elsewhere, this almost obsessive focus on remote work could very well be very detrimental to those six-figure salaries and signing bonuses. Why pay USA wages when you can hire a Canadian or Mexican at 75% the cost? We are writing our own obituary and everyone seems to be cheering. Finally, this is also a step _backwards_ for the environment. In cities like Boston, NYC, SFO etc. most workers commuted on public transit, at least part of the way or lived in dense neighborhoods not owning a car. Now they live in the exurbs and need a car to do anything. Now when they do go into the city they don't take public transit. People didn't stop living, they just moved out of the density and thus became more reliant on ICE vehicles to move about. Much like the long-term damage of education loss was hard to quantify against the immediate risks of COVID, we will be paying the debt incurred by this almost cultish movement to make remote work the norm.

thow34wqway 4y ago
When companies are losing top talent they are forced to allow work from home ? Company ask people to leave who don't like their in office policy. Sure many people will stay but not the talented ones. They just quit to companies who allows Work From Home. Its just a matter of time company which does not allow WFH is filled with mediocre people.
- PraetorianGourd 4y ago
  I would argue that you are over-estimating the impact of “raw talent” and under-estimating the impact of team cohesion.
  - toomuchtodo 4y ago
    I would argue you’re ignoring tens of billions of dollars in value at remote first orgs. Team cohesion in person has been demonstrated to be overrated, not just at remote first orgs, but economy wide with record productivity during a 2.5 year pandemic. The data is pretty clear on this imho.
    - lazide 4y ago
      Record productivity followed by record burnout, near as I can tell.
      - runlevel1 4y ago
        Perhaps, but it's hard to disentangle the contribution of remote work from the general state of the world on that burnout.
  - lumost 4y ago
    Different people work different ways. While I miss the ability to motivate a sense of urgency while in the office, there were also many tasks that were purely performative. When in the office, I had discussions, meetings, and presentations which were all geared mainly to support the idea of the office culture over it's deliverable results. While I see people slacking more while remote, they also aren't creating busy work. We'll see how it shakes out over the next few years. I suspect that remote teams will have an easier time with recruitment and retention, while being slightly more productive than in-office teams. In-office teams will probably be slightly more innovative by virtue of colocation with non-remote teams and a semi-forced need to do "something" with the time.
    - 4y ago
demouser345 4y ago
I am not ready to spend 1.5-2 hours getting tired in a commute every day. Waiting for an unreliable trainline. I haven't gotten flu or seasonal sickness since I started WFH. I have more time to spend with family. I cook for the family of 4. I have time to do hobbies. I have time to workout. I have time for leisure. I have time for housework. I am not tired all the time. My car is used for errands. Have you tried lugging in a whole truckload of items on the train? A train/public transit works for work commute, but not for when need to get stuff done. Even in the densest city, I had a car for 10 years. Paid for parking and had a monthly active transit pass. Different things for different purposes. Not to mention, that I walked everywhere I can. When you can hire someone on the cheap, it becomes a skills market. You get what you pay for.
- tomjakubowski 4y ago
  > Even in the densest city, I had a car for 10 years. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I live in the dense downtown of a sprawling urban area and own a car, but it's simply only used for going out on nights and weekends. For most everyday trips I walk or take transit. OP's point is not that living in a city means you get to or have to give up your car. It's that in many American suburbs, any other mode of getting around for everyday trips - including walking - is simply untenable. Living in a walkable neighborhood with access to good transit gives you the best thing - the option of either public or private transportation. Most of these places, in the US, aren't in the suburbs.
  - plasticchris 4y ago
    I found this funny, after moving out to the country and working from home I only take my car out on nights and weekends too :)
- PraetorianGourd 4y ago
  > When you can hire someone on the cheap, it becomes a skills market. You get what you pay for. You lost the plot in your defense. If skills are equal, and the Mexican can ask for less salary _and enjoy the same quality of life and purchasing power_ (due to the cost of living in their native country) as a 200k/year American dev it isn’t a skills market. It is very much a cost savings market. And I am sorry but don’t delude yourself, that dev in Mexico or Colombia is just as talented as state-side devs. Couple their talent with the reality that you don’t even need to be a savant to build a SaaS app in JS and you will see that the privilege enjoyed by software engineers in the USA is on life support.
908B64B197 4y ago
> Why pay USA wages when you can hire a Canadian or Mexican at 75% the cost? Where are these mythical cheap Canadians and Mexicans just as good as six-figure American talent? Where can I meet them? We acquired something a while back in Montreal, Canada and it sure wasn't cheap. We actually got most of the team to relocate in the valley on O-1s but still have some guys over there but it's definitely not at 75%! I mean, it might be different for devs who can't pass the stricter bar for US immigrations, but then you aren't hiring for the same positions anyways...
- itisit 4y ago
  > Where are these mythical cheap Canadians and Mexicans just as good as six-figure American talent? Where can I meet them? Well, they're not cheap any longer! You can meet them in America.
daveoc64 4y ago
> Why pay USA wages when you can hire a Canadian or Mexican at 75% the cost? Why hasn't this happened already? If the workers are equivalent, but much cheaper, surely everyone would do it? The reality is that outsourcing is never a 1:1 replacement for in-house staff - regardless of where in the world the workers are based.
- zebraflask 4y ago
  Cogent point. I've worked with outsourced and offshore teams quite a bit. The attempt to arbitrage lower wages based on geography for highly skilled roles has almost invariably, over any meaningful length of time, run up against increased organizational costs and managerial overhead for all kinds of reasons. You name it. My general impression is that it tends to work out as a "Rob Peter to pay Paul" kind of scenario - a wash or a net negative. There are always stories where, when everything went really well for everyone involved, it worked out as an advantage, but those - in my view - are the exception to the rule.
  - xupybd 4y ago
    Yes but if you can base your company in those cheaper countries you can have the best of both worlds.
- matt321 4y ago
  If this is true, then remote workers are also not a 1:1 replacement for in-office staff.
- foxyv 4y ago
  The thing is that they have already done it and it paid off until it didn't. Sure, Microsoft can build an office in Mexico and train, teach, and employ some amazing workers for 25% of the cost. But then HP builds across the street for even less and hires workers from Microsoft for 50% of the cost. Then IBM, Amazon, and Dell do the same. Now Microsoft has run a training program for IBM Amazon and Dell for the first two years and, next thing you know, you are hiring inexperienced workers with different holidays, employment regulation, time zones, and primary languages to work for the same price as the college graduate in the USA. International workers will help keep wage costs in the USA down a little. But the talent pool for developing software is still limited. Mexico and many other countries do have some excellent universities, but companies that try to hire there are going to have to contribute to the tech sector of the host country by training and hosting entry level workers. In addition, there will be demand in those countries for the workers you are training. Finally, if you work in finance, defense, or payments processing you can expect your off-shore, near-shore workers to be limited in what they can do. You may end up having to hire workers specifically for those contracts.
xupybd 4y ago
I'm hoping that offshoreing will lead to better pay and more opportunities in New Zealand. We have some great developers that are all native English speakers and after the exchange rate are cheap to hire.
- commandlinefan 4y ago
  My experience with offshoring is that the language barrier is far less of a problem than the time zone barrier (hell, we have problems coordinating between east coast and west coast developers even within the united states).
jleyank 4y ago
Most people can’t afford to purchase a house in or near San Francisco. This makes for problems re teachers, medical staff, firefighters, …

thow34wqway 4y ago

When companies are losing top talent they are forced to allow work from home ? Company ask people to leave who don't like their in office policy. Sure many people will stay but not the talented ones. They just quit to companies who allows Work From Home. Its just a matter of time company which does not allow WFH is filled with mediocre people.

PraetorianGourd 4y ago
I would argue that you are over-estimating the impact of “raw talent” and under-estimating the impact of team cohesion.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  I would argue you’re ignoring tens of billions of dollars in value at remote first orgs. Team cohesion in person has been demonstrated to be overrated, not just at remote first orgs, but economy wide with record productivity during a 2.5 year pandemic. The data is pretty clear on this imho.
  - lazide 4y ago
    Record productivity followed by record burnout, near as I can tell.
    - runlevel1 4y ago
      Perhaps, but it's hard to disentangle the contribution of remote work from the general state of the world on that burnout.
- lumost 4y ago
  Different people work different ways. While I miss the ability to motivate a sense of urgency while in the office, there were also many tasks that were purely performative. When in the office, I had discussions, meetings, and presentations which were all geared mainly to support the idea of the office culture over it's deliverable results. While I see people slacking more while remote, they also aren't creating busy work. We'll see how it shakes out over the next few years. I suspect that remote teams will have an easier time with recruitment and retention, while being slightly more productive than in-office teams. In-office teams will probably be slightly more innovative by virtue of colocation with non-remote teams and a semi-forced need to do "something" with the time.
  - 4y ago

demouser345 4y ago

I am not ready to spend 1.5-2 hours getting tired in a commute every day. Waiting for an unreliable trainline. I haven't gotten flu or seasonal sickness since I started WFH. I have more time to spend with family. I cook for the family of 4. I have time to do hobbies. I have time to workout. I have time for leisure. I have time for housework. I am not tired all the time. My car is used for errands. Have you tried lugging in a whole truckload of items on the train? A train/public transit works for work commute, but not for when need to get stuff done. Even in the densest city, I had a car for 10 years. Paid for parking and had a monthly active transit pass. Different things for different purposes. Not to mention, that I walked everywhere I can. When you can hire someone on the cheap, it becomes a skills market. You get what you pay for.

tomjakubowski 4y ago
> Even in the densest city, I had a car for 10 years. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I live in the dense downtown of a sprawling urban area and own a car, but it's simply only used for going out on nights and weekends. For most everyday trips I walk or take transit. OP's point is not that living in a city means you get to or have to give up your car. It's that in many American suburbs, any other mode of getting around for everyday trips - including walking - is simply untenable. Living in a walkable neighborhood with access to good transit gives you the best thing - the option of either public or private transportation. Most of these places, in the US, aren't in the suburbs.
- plasticchris 4y ago
  I found this funny, after moving out to the country and working from home I only take my car out on nights and weekends too :)
PraetorianGourd 4y ago
> When you can hire someone on the cheap, it becomes a skills market. You get what you pay for. You lost the plot in your defense. If skills are equal, and the Mexican can ask for less salary _and enjoy the same quality of life and purchasing power_ (due to the cost of living in their native country) as a 200k/year American dev it isn’t a skills market. It is very much a cost savings market. And I am sorry but don’t delude yourself, that dev in Mexico or Colombia is just as talented as state-side devs. Couple their talent with the reality that you don’t even need to be a savant to build a SaaS app in JS and you will see that the privilege enjoyed by software engineers in the USA is on life support.

908B64B197 4y ago

> Why pay USA wages when you can hire a Canadian or Mexican at 75% the cost? Where are these mythical cheap Canadians and Mexicans just as good as six-figure American talent? Where can I meet them? We acquired something a while back in Montreal, Canada and it sure wasn't cheap. We actually got most of the team to relocate in the valley on O-1s but still have some guys over there but it's definitely not at 75%! I mean, it might be different for devs who can't pass the stricter bar for US immigrations, but then you aren't hiring for the same positions anyways...

itisit 4y ago
> Where are these mythical cheap Canadians and Mexicans just as good as six-figure American talent? Where can I meet them? Well, they're not cheap any longer! You can meet them in America.

daveoc64 4y ago

> Why pay USA wages when you can hire a Canadian or Mexican at 75% the cost? Why hasn't this happened already? If the workers are equivalent, but much cheaper, surely everyone would do it? The reality is that outsourcing is never a 1:1 replacement for in-house staff - regardless of where in the world the workers are based.

zebraflask 4y ago
Cogent point. I've worked with outsourced and offshore teams quite a bit. The attempt to arbitrage lower wages based on geography for highly skilled roles has almost invariably, over any meaningful length of time, run up against increased organizational costs and managerial overhead for all kinds of reasons. You name it. My general impression is that it tends to work out as a "Rob Peter to pay Paul" kind of scenario - a wash or a net negative. There are always stories where, when everything went really well for everyone involved, it worked out as an advantage, but those - in my view - are the exception to the rule.
- xupybd 4y ago
  Yes but if you can base your company in those cheaper countries you can have the best of both worlds.
matt321 4y ago
If this is true, then remote workers are also not a 1:1 replacement for in-office staff.
foxyv 4y ago
The thing is that they have already done it and it paid off until it didn't. Sure, Microsoft can build an office in Mexico and train, teach, and employ some amazing workers for 25% of the cost. But then HP builds across the street for even less and hires workers from Microsoft for 50% of the cost. Then IBM, Amazon, and Dell do the same. Now Microsoft has run a training program for IBM Amazon and Dell for the first two years and, next thing you know, you are hiring inexperienced workers with different holidays, employment regulation, time zones, and primary languages to work for the same price as the college graduate in the USA. International workers will help keep wage costs in the USA down a little. But the talent pool for developing software is still limited. Mexico and many other countries do have some excellent universities, but companies that try to hire there are going to have to contribute to the tech sector of the host country by training and hosting entry level workers. In addition, there will be demand in those countries for the workers you are training. Finally, if you work in finance, defense, or payments processing you can expect your off-shore, near-shore workers to be limited in what they can do. You may end up having to hire workers specifically for those contracts.

xupybd 4y ago

I'm hoping that offshoreing will lead to better pay and more opportunities in New Zealand. We have some great developers that are all native English speakers and after the exchange rate are cheap to hire.

commandlinefan 4y ago
My experience with offshoring is that the language barrier is far less of a problem than the time zone barrier (hell, we have problems coordinating between east coast and west coast developers even within the united states).

jleyank 4y ago

Most people can’t afford to purchase a house in or near San Francisco. This makes for problems re teachers, medical staff, firefighters, …