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I've seen this take a few times about this story. It is despicable to have a blanket policy that excludes remote workers from promotions. Or maybe you don't thi

I've seen this take a few times about this story. It is despicable to have a blanket policy that excludes remote workers from promotions. Or maybe you don't think so! But in both cases, whether the company engages in honest communication is a tangential issue. There is certainly nothing wrong with discussing a related tangential issue, but using the context of that issue exclusively to characterize the news story ("this is a good thing") makes it seem like there is an ulterior motive, or is at the very least confusing.

idiotsecant 3y ago
Why is it despicable? This is a pretty free situation - the company is free to value in-person interaction (which regardless of how heavily you weight it, does have nonzero value) and the worker is free to value the freedom that comes with WFH. If the two have disjoint values, either party can find a better match elsewhere in the big wide world. Its OK to have preferences, even when you might disagree with them.
- happytoexplain 3y ago
  Your framing is over-broad, in that it could be applied to any policy within the bounds of legality. I.e. it sounds like a purely legal opinion. Yes, I think it's despicable, subjectively. That's my opinion. Just because somebody is "free" to engage in a behavior, does not somehow make that behavior immune to a moral description like "despicable". I also think "just switch jobs" is often (and in this case) a fallacious defense except as a purely "free market" idea, which, again, is another narrowing of context. Employers have more power than employees. It is much easier for an employer to find a new employee than vice versa, in general. I don't mean statistically easier - I mean easier in the sense that humans use the word. The disruption to a business of finding a new employee is usually incomparable to the disruption to an employee's life of finding a new employer, on average. Edit: I also am not particularly interested in the "is it despicable" conversation in the first place, hence why I allowed room with the "or maybe you disagree!" qualifier. "Despicable" as a moral judgment of policy is probably not something one is going to casually convince another person to switch sides on. I was primarily interested in critiquing your use of their honesty as the sole factor in arguing that "this is good", not critiquing your personal opinion on whether the policy itself is good.

idiotsecant 3y ago

Why is it despicable? This is a pretty free situation - the company is free to value in-person interaction (which regardless of how heavily you weight it, does have nonzero value) and the worker is free to value the freedom that comes with WFH. If the two have disjoint values, either party can find a better match elsewhere in the big wide world. Its OK to have preferences, even when you might disagree with them.

happytoexplain 3y ago
Your framing is over-broad, in that it could be applied to any policy within the bounds of legality. I.e. it sounds like a purely legal opinion. Yes, I think it's despicable, subjectively. That's my opinion. Just because somebody is "free" to engage in a behavior, does not somehow make that behavior immune to a moral description like "despicable". I also think "just switch jobs" is often (and in this case) a fallacious defense except as a purely "free market" idea, which, again, is another narrowing of context. Employers have more power than employees. It is much easier for an employer to find a new employee than vice versa, in general. I don't mean statistically easier - I mean easier in the sense that humans use the word. The disruption to a business of finding a new employee is usually incomparable to the disruption to an employee's life of finding a new employer, on average. Edit: I also am not particularly interested in the "is it despicable" conversation in the first place, hence why I allowed room with the "or maybe you disagree!" qualifier. "Despicable" as a moral judgment of policy is probably not something one is going to casually convince another person to switch sides on. I was primarily interested in critiquing your use of their honesty as the sole factor in arguing that "this is good", not critiquing your personal opinion on whether the policy itself is good.