4 ms·

Well I am probably not your normal worker, but for me WFH is soooooooo far down on the list of "must haves" for an employer that it may as well not be on the li

Well I am probably not your normal worker, but for me WFH is soooooooo far down on the list of "must haves" for an employer that it may as well not be on the list my Top 10 for a new employer 1. Pay 2. Hours / On Call 3. Vacation / PTO 4. Health Insurance quality / cost 5. Team Fit / Corporate Culture 6. Total Work Load / Back Log 7. Tech Debt of the Organization 8. Financial Debt of the Organization 9. How many Layoffs have you had in the last 12 months t0 2 years 10. How many open positions do you currently have organization wide WFH does not even make the top 10 factors

ElevenLathe 4y ago
I would put WFH at the top of my list but only because it is the only reasonable way to have 1,2 and 3 above. If I have to live in SFO or ATX, the pay would have to be so absurdly better than remoting in from small-town Michigan, that likely no one will pay it. Same for hours -- I'm not commuting 1.5 hours each way to the affordable housing in these areas. Same for PTO: I effectively have tons more living near family since I don't have to hoard it to use for family reunions, Thanksgiving, etc. I can do all these things without using PTO, and therefore am able to go on real vacations instead. Sure, I'll come into your office every day if you 1) let me work 5 hours a day instead of 8 (to account for the commute) 2) give me double the vacation so I can spend Thanksgiving/Christmas/4th of July/Super Bowl Sunday/Labor Day/etc with family, never miss a wedding, and also have enough left for a week on Lake Huron in the summer and a winter-time jaunt somewhere warm 3) increase my pay to account for the housing cost difference in whatever post-industrial NIMBY hellscape your office is in and my current home. There's also corporate culture. I find that I don't want to work with a team that has difficulty connecting via email/chat/videocon and feel they require constant meatspace contact. Usually this means a lot of "alpha" type personalities that need to press the flesh to get their half-baked agendas pushed through on others' backs. On the other hand, if you are disciplined enough to be able to collaborate via email and the occasional quick call, then you probably aren't a ripoff artist.
- deleted 4y ago
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- phpisthebest 4y ago
  >>I'm not commuting 1.5 hours each this brings in the regional differences, I am life long Midwestern and even in some for the larger cities a 1.5hr commute is just not a thing I can transverse my city (3rd largest in the state) in about 30 mins even at rush hour. My entire adult life the longest commute I ever had was 40mins, and that we because I lived 40miles outside of the city in surrounded by Farms. From my current home, I could reach every employer in the city in about 20mins max.
  - jehb 4y ago
    I envy a good grid. Here on the east coast, in many cities only the very center core is gridded, with the rest being most of a hub-and-sprawly-spoke model. The only corridor through my 40-mile wide, 2M+ person metro area is a single Interstate that's basically a parking lot at rush hour, and also carries our bus-only transit system.
  - ElevenLathe 4y ago
    You'd be surprised how far people push commutes in the Midwest. I know at least one person that lives near Saginaw and works in Detroit. I have a relative that commutes nearly two hours each way in northern Wisconsin -- and they bought this house /because/ of the location of the job, so this wasn't an accident of history.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      while that is true, long commutes in the mid west is not the same as long commutes in the city. For some in the midwest, the Long Commute is a way to unwind at the end of the day, Open Road, jamming to music, or catching up on PodCasts, etc. For some it is relaxing. City Commuting is just stress.
      - ElevenLathe 4y ago
        I can maybe see this, but I have had several kinds of long commutes in my life: long distances by country road, by interstate, by train, by bus. Rush hour driving in Austin is hellish compared to the same length of commute by country road in Michigan (at least when there isn't a blizzard) but they are still driving. It's not downtime. Commuting by coach-style (think Greyhound) bus in central Europe is probably the easiest hour+ commute I've had, but you are still trapped in a metal box: you might be able to answer some email or listen to an audiobook but it's not downtime.
- 71a54xd 4y ago
  Yeah, as a native who recently returned because of remote work - it's insane that people think austin is worth what it costs to live here now. Even if austin was 50% cheaper than NYC its by no means 50% as interesting / provides 50% as much opportunity as NYC. I flat out don't get it.
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rebeccaskinner 4y ago
I'm the opposite. For me, WFH is table-stakes. There isn't a realistic amount of pay, PTO, benefits, or anything else that would make me work on-site right now. We're still in a pandemic, and the risk of contracting long-covid and no longer being able to do knowledge work due to impaired cognition are far too high for me to consider working in an office these days.
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- DiggyJohnson 4y ago
  When do you think the pandemic will be “over”, for you?
  - rebeccaskinner 4y ago
    There are too many unknowns to say for sure. If we put aside technical definitions of pandemic vs endemic and focus on the practical matters of daily life, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to life as it was in 2019. Covid is here to stay and that means adapting to that. The types of adaption will probably change over time. I have two goals: avoid any long term effects from getting Covid myself, and avoiding giving Covid to my immune compromised spouse. At the moment, the only way to achieve either of those things is to avoid getting Covid at all. With better treatments to either prevent contracting Covid after an exposure, or better treatments to reduce the risk of long Covid, I’d start to consider my risk budget. For now it’s “as close to no risk of contracting Covid as possible”. With better prevention and treatment strategies I’ll probably consider some things that I won’t do now, but I don’t see a realistic scenario where I ever return to conferences, and I imagine I’ll probably continue masking in public essentially forever. In a lot of ways, the situation today is harder than it was a couple of years ago. Vaccines help prevent infection but not to a degree where you can really rely on that as a first line of defense, and they barely reduce the risk of long Covid, if at all. On top of that, masking is rare, people no longer test, and if they do they no longer avoid going out into public with an active infection. In any reasonably sized office there’s basically no chance you won’t be exposed to Covid at least several times per year now.
emmp 4y ago
I could not even get paid half of what I am paid if I were limited to my local small-town market. I don't want to move. So WFH is a requirement for me to hit your #1.
Quarrelsome 4y ago
I think WFH is important as it shows deference to families bringing up children where WFH may be a vital part of being able to dedicate enough time to their children. As someone without children myself, I judge an organisation by how they treat employees with divergent goals (such as wanting to spend time with their children) because it shows me how the organisation will treat me if/when I fall outside complete alignment with corporate goals (perhaps due to politics, age or health).
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  hmm I wonder if that is why I have a somewhat negative view of WFH, I dont have kids, and often times I seem people with children for go their work responsibilities or worse say something like "well phpisthebest does not have kids so they can be on call or work holidays" to me your personal situation should have ZERO bearing on your job, I should not even know if you have kids or not. >>I judge an organisation by how they treat employees with divergent goals I judge organizations on their equality, and by that I mean they treat all employees the same regardless of their marital or child status.
  - PKop 4y ago
    You could say the same about being in the office, or not. If the work can get done remotely who cares about coming into the office. Companies that are capable of succeeding with remote workers are going to have an advantage as they will have less real estate costs, and they can get value out of paying for both a wider geographic worker pool, and they won't necessarily have to pay them big-city rates if those workers will accept slightly less nominal (which translates to more real if they have lower cost of living). Not possible in all circumstances but those that do it will benefit.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      >>Companies that are capable of succeeding with remote workers are going to have an advantage as they will have less real estate costs, COVID did not change the economic metrics on that, so I am not sure why this is a continual talking about for justification of WFH in these "new times" There have always been full time WFH organizations, and there have always been non-WFH organizations. I dont see this having a huge impact on if an organization stays WFH post covid or not. >>and they can get value out of paying for both a wider geographic worker pool Yea... no. Companies tried that and found out real fast the problems with legal liability, and tax jurisdictions this is why you are seeing even companies that stayed Full time WFH post-covid have started to limit where they can hire from to only states / nations where they have business in already, already have Tax ID's already know and comply with the local employment laws.
turdprincess 4y ago
The "work from home" part of WFH isn't the most important thing. Its actually a downside - I would love to have a nice office to go into a few times a week where I could chat to coworkers. The real benefit is that your market for possible jobs expands nationally or even globally. For my current job, there simply isn't a job like it in my home town, and if it wasn't for WFH, I would have to move to California. I think there is something to be said for including folks from other locations into the cutting edge of tech.
wonderwonder 4y ago
I think it very much depends on where you live. I live in a suburb of a medium sized city that is not a tech hub so WFH is a top priority for me. I don't want to have to uproot my family and move for a job. If I already lived in a NYC or SF I could completely understand. With WFH though I am able to pay mid city suburb housing prices while working for a company in Manhattan and getting NYC pay. Most of the tech jobs are in an area of town that is an hour commute each way so no way I am going to do that. End up leaving for work at 8 and not getting home until 6 or 6:30. With WFH I can actually dedicate exactly 40 hours a week to work and no more. Plus get away with it. So for my WFH is the number 1 item. Pay is top as well but if I cant WFH or have to move then the pay doesn't really matter. Although I would absolutely love to have a local office I could go into once or twice a week.
porknubbins 4y ago
Work from home is an extremely idiosyncratic benefit though. How you feel about it will be dominated by 1) your commute time, cost and unpleasantness, 2) your home office situation (ranging from empty mansion to tiny noisy apartment crammed with family), and further down the list your age, marital status and whether you like your coworkers etc. However you feel about it, clearly many people do like it.
datavirtue 4y ago
WFH is a sub-bullet of one through five.
mzincali 4y ago
Does it matter if your commute is 2 miles, 30 miles, 50 miles? 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 75 minutes? For many people, that is what makes WFH a big part of the decision. When they have kids, or for any other reason want a nicer home, in a nice area, that can be bought for half the price near offices that are typically metropolitan with high demand and low supply, then a commute becomes part of the equation. Do you want to spend 2 hours a day on top of your 8 hours of working, sitting in traffic? Or would you rather have 2 hours more at home, with family -- or even working for your employer because you feel like it? Funny story: woman kept complaining that she comes to work everyday and she doesn't understand the big deal for those who don't want to and want WFH. Months later, the company moved offices from SF to the South Bay. She was very vocal about how her 10 min commute was now going to be 45 minutes or more. Don't you love it when people suddenly realize why other people had been fighting for something-not-that-unreasonable?

ElevenLathe 4y ago

I would put WFH at the top of my list but only because it is the only reasonable way to have 1,2 and 3 above. If I have to live in SFO or ATX, the pay would have to be so absurdly better than remoting in from small-town Michigan, that likely no one will pay it. Same for hours -- I'm not commuting 1.5 hours each way to the affordable housing in these areas. Same for PTO: I effectively have tons more living near family since I don't have to hoard it to use for family reunions, Thanksgiving, etc. I can do all these things without using PTO, and therefore am able to go on real vacations instead. Sure, I'll come into your office every day if you 1) let me work 5 hours a day instead of 8 (to account for the commute) 2) give me double the vacation so I can spend Thanksgiving/Christmas/4th of July/Super Bowl Sunday/Labor Day/etc with family, never miss a wedding, and also have enough left for a week on Lake Huron in the summer and a winter-time jaunt somewhere warm 3) increase my pay to account for the housing cost difference in whatever post-industrial NIMBY hellscape your office is in and my current home. There's also corporate culture. I find that I don't want to work with a team that has difficulty connecting via email/chat/videocon and feel they require constant meatspace contact. Usually this means a lot of "alpha" type personalities that need to press the flesh to get their half-baked agendas pushed through on others' backs. On the other hand, if you are disciplined enough to be able to collaborate via email and the occasional quick call, then you probably aren't a ripoff artist.

deleted 4y ago
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phpisthebest 4y ago
>>I'm not commuting 1.5 hours each this brings in the regional differences, I am life long Midwestern and even in some for the larger cities a 1.5hr commute is just not a thing I can transverse my city (3rd largest in the state) in about 30 mins even at rush hour. My entire adult life the longest commute I ever had was 40mins, and that we because I lived 40miles outside of the city in surrounded by Farms. From my current home, I could reach every employer in the city in about 20mins max.
- jehb 4y ago
  I envy a good grid. Here on the east coast, in many cities only the very center core is gridded, with the rest being most of a hub-and-sprawly-spoke model. The only corridor through my 40-mile wide, 2M+ person metro area is a single Interstate that's basically a parking lot at rush hour, and also carries our bus-only transit system.
- ElevenLathe 4y ago
  You'd be surprised how far people push commutes in the Midwest. I know at least one person that lives near Saginaw and works in Detroit. I have a relative that commutes nearly two hours each way in northern Wisconsin -- and they bought this house /because/ of the location of the job, so this wasn't an accident of history.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    while that is true, long commutes in the mid west is not the same as long commutes in the city. For some in the midwest, the Long Commute is a way to unwind at the end of the day, Open Road, jamming to music, or catching up on PodCasts, etc. For some it is relaxing. City Commuting is just stress.
    - ElevenLathe 4y ago
      I can maybe see this, but I have had several kinds of long commutes in my life: long distances by country road, by interstate, by train, by bus. Rush hour driving in Austin is hellish compared to the same length of commute by country road in Michigan (at least when there isn't a blizzard) but they are still driving. It's not downtime. Commuting by coach-style (think Greyhound) bus in central Europe is probably the easiest hour+ commute I've had, but you are still trapped in a metal box: you might be able to answer some email or listen to an audiobook but it's not downtime.
71a54xd 4y ago
Yeah, as a native who recently returned because of remote work - it's insane that people think austin is worth what it costs to live here now. Even if austin was 50% cheaper than NYC its by no means 50% as interesting / provides 50% as much opportunity as NYC. I flat out don't get it.
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rebeccaskinner 4y ago

I'm the opposite. For me, WFH is table-stakes. There isn't a realistic amount of pay, PTO, benefits, or anything else that would make me work on-site right now. We're still in a pandemic, and the risk of contracting long-covid and no longer being able to do knowledge work due to impaired cognition are far too high for me to consider working in an office these days.

deleted 4y ago
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deleted 4y ago
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DiggyJohnson 4y ago
When do you think the pandemic will be “over”, for you?
- rebeccaskinner 4y ago
  There are too many unknowns to say for sure. If we put aside technical definitions of pandemic vs endemic and focus on the practical matters of daily life, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to life as it was in 2019. Covid is here to stay and that means adapting to that. The types of adaption will probably change over time. I have two goals: avoid any long term effects from getting Covid myself, and avoiding giving Covid to my immune compromised spouse. At the moment, the only way to achieve either of those things is to avoid getting Covid at all. With better treatments to either prevent contracting Covid after an exposure, or better treatments to reduce the risk of long Covid, I’d start to consider my risk budget. For now it’s “as close to no risk of contracting Covid as possible”. With better prevention and treatment strategies I’ll probably consider some things that I won’t do now, but I don’t see a realistic scenario where I ever return to conferences, and I imagine I’ll probably continue masking in public essentially forever. In a lot of ways, the situation today is harder than it was a couple of years ago. Vaccines help prevent infection but not to a degree where you can really rely on that as a first line of defense, and they barely reduce the risk of long Covid, if at all. On top of that, masking is rare, people no longer test, and if they do they no longer avoid going out into public with an active infection. In any reasonably sized office there’s basically no chance you won’t be exposed to Covid at least several times per year now.

emmp 4y ago

I could not even get paid half of what I am paid if I were limited to my local small-town market. I don't want to move. So WFH is a requirement for me to hit your #1.

Quarrelsome 4y ago

I think WFH is important as it shows deference to families bringing up children where WFH may be a vital part of being able to dedicate enough time to their children. As someone without children myself, I judge an organisation by how they treat employees with divergent goals (such as wanting to spend time with their children) because it shows me how the organisation will treat me if/when I fall outside complete alignment with corporate goals (perhaps due to politics, age or health).

phpisthebest 4y ago
hmm I wonder if that is why I have a somewhat negative view of WFH, I dont have kids, and often times I seem people with children for go their work responsibilities or worse say something like "well phpisthebest does not have kids so they can be on call or work holidays" to me your personal situation should have ZERO bearing on your job, I should not even know if you have kids or not. >>I judge an organisation by how they treat employees with divergent goals I judge organizations on their equality, and by that I mean they treat all employees the same regardless of their marital or child status.
- PKop 4y ago
  You could say the same about being in the office, or not. If the work can get done remotely who cares about coming into the office. Companies that are capable of succeeding with remote workers are going to have an advantage as they will have less real estate costs, and they can get value out of paying for both a wider geographic worker pool, and they won't necessarily have to pay them big-city rates if those workers will accept slightly less nominal (which translates to more real if they have lower cost of living). Not possible in all circumstances but those that do it will benefit.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    >>Companies that are capable of succeeding with remote workers are going to have an advantage as they will have less real estate costs, COVID did not change the economic metrics on that, so I am not sure why this is a continual talking about for justification of WFH in these "new times" There have always been full time WFH organizations, and there have always been non-WFH organizations. I dont see this having a huge impact on if an organization stays WFH post covid or not. >>and they can get value out of paying for both a wider geographic worker pool Yea... no. Companies tried that and found out real fast the problems with legal liability, and tax jurisdictions this is why you are seeing even companies that stayed Full time WFH post-covid have started to limit where they can hire from to only states / nations where they have business in already, already have Tax ID's already know and comply with the local employment laws.

turdprincess 4y ago

The "work from home" part of WFH isn't the most important thing. Its actually a downside - I would love to have a nice office to go into a few times a week where I could chat to coworkers. The real benefit is that your market for possible jobs expands nationally or even globally. For my current job, there simply isn't a job like it in my home town, and if it wasn't for WFH, I would have to move to California. I think there is something to be said for including folks from other locations into the cutting edge of tech.

wonderwonder 4y ago

I think it very much depends on where you live. I live in a suburb of a medium sized city that is not a tech hub so WFH is a top priority for me. I don't want to have to uproot my family and move for a job. If I already lived in a NYC or SF I could completely understand. With WFH though I am able to pay mid city suburb housing prices while working for a company in Manhattan and getting NYC pay. Most of the tech jobs are in an area of town that is an hour commute each way so no way I am going to do that. End up leaving for work at 8 and not getting home until 6 or 6:30. With WFH I can actually dedicate exactly 40 hours a week to work and no more. Plus get away with it. So for my WFH is the number 1 item. Pay is top as well but if I cant WFH or have to move then the pay doesn't really matter. Although I would absolutely love to have a local office I could go into once or twice a week.

porknubbins 4y ago

Work from home is an extremely idiosyncratic benefit though. How you feel about it will be dominated by 1) your commute time, cost and unpleasantness, 2) your home office situation (ranging from empty mansion to tiny noisy apartment crammed with family), and further down the list your age, marital status and whether you like your coworkers etc. However you feel about it, clearly many people do like it.

datavirtue 4y ago

WFH is a sub-bullet of one through five.

mzincali 4y ago

Does it matter if your commute is 2 miles, 30 miles, 50 miles? 10 minutes, 30 minutes, 75 minutes? For many people, that is what makes WFH a big part of the decision. When they have kids, or for any other reason want a nicer home, in a nice area, that can be bought for half the price near offices that are typically metropolitan with high demand and low supply, then a commute becomes part of the equation. Do you want to spend 2 hours a day on top of your 8 hours of working, sitting in traffic? Or would you rather have 2 hours more at home, with family -- or even working for your employer because you feel like it? Funny story: woman kept complaining that she comes to work everyday and she doesn't understand the big deal for those who don't want to and want WFH. Months later, the company moved offices from SF to the South Bay. She was very vocal about how her 10 min commute was now going to be 45 minutes or more. Don't you love it when people suddenly realize why other people had been fighting for something-not-that-unreasonable?