Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?
I used to love going to the office. Discussing our team's latest Python problems over a coffee. Looking over at their screen and then asking them why they look like they want to beat someone over the head with their keyboard repeatedly. Guessing people's emotions in a heated Retro from their body language. Grabbing dinner with a few colleagues after a long workshop meeting in the evening and then realizing that, aside from all the differences we might have about static typing in programming languages, we all like the same exotic progressive metal bands.
Many of these things that made my job much more than slaving at a digital conveyor belt seem to be gone these days. And the worst thing for me is that I feel few people relate. On the contrary, many are screaming in outrage if asked to come to the office even for a single day a week and threaten to quit.
To provide a bit of context, I have been working in the Berlin Tech Startup scene for almost a decade. I remember thinking after the first few weeks on my entry-level job that this couldn't possible be the horrible "working world" I have seen relatives complain about all their lives. It was fun, gratifying and stimulating to learn new things, meet new people and all the while be payed for doing so and building a career.
Now, I am fully aware that there's a low of people for whom the horror of commute doesn't make up for the gains of socializing and others that just abhor having to talk to real-life people. Then there are people who work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary. But are those really the majority? I always saw tech as the field where a disproportionally large amount of people truly love what they do. Mostly, because it takes so much grit and persistence to get good at it that most people wouldn't succeed unless they see something in it beyond putting food on the table.
Have I been under some weird form of Stockholm Syndrom where I actually enjoyed something that was pure torture to most? Have a lot of people realized they don't actually like being among other people, apart from their closest friends and family?
And finally, I feel no one else is realizing that they are happily hacking away at the amazingly well-paid branch they're sitting on. As soon as a company's IT department is practically fully remote, why should they page a German wage for someone who is a face on a screen, when they can pay a fraction for that same face broadcasted from a few hundred kilometers further east or south? German is hardly used in business context here anyway and lower-wage countries within ±3 hours timezones abound.
All in all, there is a gnawing feeling in me that Covid made a significant dent on the once fun (Berlin Startup) tech working culture for good. And worse, I suspect there is gonna be more consequences down the road for the tech job market at large that few people seem to see.
I know that "the office" is a bad place for a lot of people. There may be product managers that ignore the noise-cancelling headphone stop-sign and make you lose your stack of thoughts just to ask if the dev app URL is still the same it was yesterday. There can be bad managers and unpleasant situations all around. But shouldn't we rather work on fixing those things instead of making them bearable by just turning off a camera in a Zoom meeting?
From talking to friends, I feel this is a very controversial opinion to have and I don't really get why. Any help to make me understand would be greatly appreciated! And just to be clear, I absolutely do get that for some people (fresh parents, people living at home to take care of their parents etc.) remote work is a real blessing. I am just wondering if that is really the case for the majority or what it is that I'm missing.
829 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 427 ms ] threadYou like working in an office. Cool. Go work in an office.
I don't like working in an office. Cool. I work from home.
The only thing that's changed is that we have more choice now. Like when I finally landed the first job where I didn't have to wear a tie anymore.
Of course we shouldn't drag you into the office just to appease us, but the experience of working together is effectively not available right now.
Regardless, having a good brainstorming session in person and actually building a strong sense of community and shared responsibility with a team you're on is so much better in real-life than remote for me.
Another thing is that finding an office space was really hard and we got extremely lucky. Try finding a payable office space in a capital city is not an "easy alternative" for the regular Joe I would say.
But you're ignoring your own responses too, if office space in a CapCit was so expensive and impossible for you, what do you think a business is spending per year on it. You could have an office, or 5 more virtual employees.
Software companies having offices in big cities make as much sense as a manufacturing company having a production building downtown. Maybe it made sense in 1850s but doesn't make sense in the 2020s.
There is no solution for the office crowd except an office based org. It's time for us as an industry to acknowledge that, and to have remote orgs and office orgs separate.
Finding the right company culture for you is often overlooked in favor of things like the right tech stack.
But there's still plenty of people WFH, and plenty of people who couldn't come into the office if it was suddenly mandated (which it hasn't been yet, just encouraged), because they live several states away.
I'm almost certainly giving up a better bonus and performance review by not going into the office regularly and playing office politics, but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I shouldn't have to make that sacrifice, but I never really played the office politics game even when I did go into the office every day, so not a big change there.
But 30+ people should be enough to get that "in-office watercooler" experience for those who like to work in the office.
For someone working remotely, a meeting with someone remote or in an office is irrelevant.
For someone working in an office, it makes their “in the office” experience irrelevant and meaningless.
It is not controversial because of the people who like working remotely; it’s controversial because of the people who dont, because they force their choice on other people.
You know how many people have to work remotely before it has to be a zoom meeting to be inclusive?
1.
So, in order for you in office preference to be meaningful, it has to apply to everyone.
No one likes having their choice overridden by someone else’s preference.
Thus; controversial.
When you say “I want that old school in office experience…” what it means is “I want you not to have that flexibility”, “what I want is more important than what you want”.
That might not be the intent, but let’s be blunt and realistic:
The blue sky dream of that in office experience doesn’t exist any more.
It can only exist if everyone is in the office at the same time.
Personally, I think the cat is out of the bag now. What are the chances that everyone will go back into the office full time? Not big.
That means the blue sky dream of the in office experience is probably gone forever.
It’s probably time to start trying to figure out an alternative set of practices and social outlets for people who like in office work.
My point was that the 2019 style office experience is not available (or much harder to find) even if we want it.
>1.
People on site are together in conf room with lap on table so remote person can hear?
For at least 15 years leading up to covid I worked in satellite branches of large corporations and had to spend the day on zoom calls with coworkers in remote offices anyway.
But the upsides, coffee, lunch, dinner random conversations can be achieved if you work out of any co-working space or a park bench.
It works great. If I wanted to work in person I know a dozen companies that want that are willing to offer than. Just like I know a dozen companies that offer a slew of other factors I may or may not care for.
My main point was that work used to be much more than 8 hours of screen time for me before. And since it's a third of my waking time, I feel I lost something significant.
If you're a hotshot, you should honestly consider gathering some like-minded people in your area and launching a startup.
People are too drunk on work from home having experienced it for the first time.
I have done it for years. It has its pros and cons. I agree a huge reckoning is coming for white collar work writ large. (1) It can be more easily outsourced. (2) It's easier to fire someone you don't see every working day.
Working from the office is not a solution to cheaper software talent in the developing world. In fact, I expect what happened to blue collar workers in the West is now coming for Tech employees.
(1) becoming a domain expert who is fine at coding rather than a coding wizard who doesn't know much about the business/ domain.
(2) working at a small company with little process/ few middle managers rather than at a larger corps with many departments and clear role separation between feature requirements and engineering.
Don't want to jinx it, but even if my employer were to move some engineering to eastern Europe, odds are pretty low that I'd be affected. I might code less and spend more time Jira more, though.
They've been trying for at least 25 years now. If they can, they will - and whether I'm sitting in an office or at home when it happens, it won't factor into their decision.
Also English speaking abroad has far improved since the 90s.
They've been trying to do this as hard as possible for years now. If they could, they would have.
This has already happened and has resulted in unification of salaries across region (and is probably why the German salaries stayed relatively low in the past decade). In Berlin, a lot of seniors are still making no more than 70k euros a year. People of similar caliber will easily make 60k euros a year in Poland, while having incomparably lower taxes and costs of living.
I bet that the total cost per employee is pretty close.
There are similar employer taxes (at somewhat lower rates, topping out at ~11% vs ~18%), but the total cost of employment in Dublin is much higher than Berlin.
Also, in Germany you have a lot of holiday (20 minimum, most companies pffer 30), 3 month notice period, 3 years parental leave (per child), pricing these in, I would always expect lower salary in Germany.
Commercial property, services, etc are far cheaper in Berlin. Hence why it's common to move start-up dev teams from Dublin to Berlin to save money. My own experience is that Berlin is significantly cheaper to employ developers in particular.
The cost is not close when you consider US tech employees who earn almost double what EU and UK employees earn. Corporate taxes in the UK have traditionally been lower than the US and UK companies don't pay for medical insurance. It's simpler and cheaper to launch a startup in the UK compared to the US.
I doubt the situation is much different between US and German or German and Irish companies. It's rare in my experience that companies can explain away salary differences by showing cost differences. Which should shock no one. Most companies seek to minimize labor costs and at best pay close to local market rates. Or even hire in foreign markets to reduce labor costs. If instead they were seeking to share profits you might see the result you're describing.
This relies on doing certain finishing work in Ireland so that all the companies IP and operations can be credited there. You need your servers there, or shadow managers to sign off sales and investments made in Germany so that the sale can be credited to Ireland. So you need to hire in Dublin specifically.
e.g. but not the totality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leprechaun_economics
"in 2019, the IMF estimated 60 per cent of Irish foreign direct investment was "phantom"
My main point here is that you can't use it as an example for this discussion as it is a special case.
Ireland is certainly a low-tax haven for companies operating in the EU, but that isn't the sole reason there are 50,000 developer roles in the city. Your sources do not support your claim.
I know a company who agreed to pay €5,000/mo for an aparthotel while they find somewhere. The person came from far edges of Europe, not a specialised or very senior role at all
Personally I’m on around €80k and senior but not in Dublin.
It's for two main reasons:
- Because American companies have a better sense of what the employees are worth (especially FAANG competition)
- Because Dublin COL is crazy
But outside of FAANG those salaries are not that high
1) chose Dublin 2) Flew over multiple well paid engineers and paid for them to live there to train the new Dublin team.
So I think because of some of the tax strategies mentioned by others US companies choose Dublin which strongly influences the salaries paid there.
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/18/612441091/a-look-at-where-tho...
All the fresh parents I work were the first people who wanted to get back to the office, because they have too many distractions at home. Meanwhile, I know many childless folks who have peace and quiet at home and are much more reluctant to go to an office.
Working from the office will not protect you from this. Quite the opoosite, having an office makes Germany much more expensive (and therefore more likely to be outsourced). Have you seen how crazy expensive real estate in large German cities are?
At my company, I can work fully remote if I so desired, but I go to the office most days of the week precisely because I want to interact with other humans. Sitting alone in my room hacking at a keyboard isn't exactly emotionally fulfilling.
That said, I appreciate the flexibility. Today I didn't go because it was raining (and here I am browsing HN, haha), naturally, I feel lonely, because I have a need for that connection with others. I've had more than enough loneliness during college years.
[1] https://www.yourpsychologist.net.au/what-are-your-emotional-...
Hasn't this already been going on for years, even before COVID?
Answering with only my perspectives:
Working from the office is a tilt in favor of the employer because they dictate the location. WFO is the historical norm, so until WFH is equally normalized, calls to WFO feel troubling. Given the two points, any employee support (perhaps rightly) can and has been used by employers to justify returns to office and limitations on WFH.
But ultimately, these conversations are good to have.
Having said that, as someone who really enjoyed the startup scene + offices (in Tel Aviv) I now enjoy a lot more my work being remote. I feel I have enough social circles I need to maintain as of now, and I don't need more people to have deep connections with. I can now be effective at my work, while spending the extra time I have with the existing connections (family, close friends) instead of commuting, going to an office which binds me to new social circles which can be awesome, but it means less time for existing ones.
Sadly my company's office is being renovated, so I don't think I can go until next summer earliest, but I will be there as soon as possible.
Remote workers can go and pretend to work elsewhere.
Meetings took 15 minutes to start because you had to physically look for people around the office and drag them in
Interesting coming from the camp that is both bemoaning the fact that they can’t spend hours of their day socializing at work, as well as the fact that they apparently can’t get work done without others holding their hands.
I suspect that the people claiming more productivity in office aren’t actually all that productive, and what productivity gains they have comes at the expense of the productivity of their coworkers.
But I think it will become increasingly common to divide social life and work in the future. Imagine the following: You have a few good friends in Berlin and each of you work for different companies. But you all work remotely. You could rent a small office space with your friends everyone could work from there, but on different things. You can grab coffee together and talk about metal bands, you can grab lunch together, and you can get a drink after work.
I for one, would prefer this setup, then being force into a location and social life that I don't want to be part of. Sure, you can be lucky and meet great friends at work, but often times this is also temporary - people leave teams, people leave companies etc.
I am pretty sure that is a already the case in most of the world. The exception really is Asian and US work cultures (and perhaps specific worspaces like Academia or Startups).
One anecdote: I've been working fully remote for the last year. I prefer WFO but such is the world today. It is been going okay for the most part. Everyone is pretty good on Zoom and Slack.
Recently we all came in to the remote office to meet each other for the first time and do some planning for future features. It was an absolute disaster. Everyone has forgotten how to have a meeting outside of Zoom. 5 conversations at once, constant interruptions, etc. We also had some people calling in to a Zoom that the in-person people were on. This is also usually a complete disaster. The remote people have almost no ability to break into the in-person conversation.
IMO, this is the thing that needs to get solved. What process/tools can we add to a hybrid Zoom call to make it productive? What process/tools can we use to help WFH people adjust to in-person meetings? What process/tools can we change/use writ large, so that the WFO vs WFH choice can truly be an employee preference and not a mandate BUT still be a productive endeavour?
If you read my comment, that's also what I'm saying in the first sentence. I think the issue is that living that preference within one company is really hard. A remote-first culture is usually very different from an office-first culture. I would never want to work remotely when most of my team is sitting in the same room every day (done that, been there).
So, what will happen is that will be an increasing number of remote-first companies, and people who like to work remotely, will work there. This way, the preferences can be shown.
What will the remote-first companies' share be of total companies? Who knows...
I work as a software engineer. I love my career. I also love to work (100%) from home. It's not an imcompatible setup.
> Then there are people who work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary. But are those really the majority?
I work mainly to get paid. I do read all tech books that land on my desk as well on my free time. I couldn't care less to play office politics. I love writing Go programs on my free time. I couldn't care less about discussing REST vs Graphql, Rust vs Go with office colleagues. Again, it's not incompatible.
If housing in the city was more affordable and people could live a few minutes from the office, maybe they'd be more inclined to go in. Thanks to vampiric landlords who want to suck every penny out of tenants, the young people who do want to go in can only afford to live an uncommutable distance away.
So, it's because of people like you that we cannot have nice things. You see, a decent company will pay the same salary regardless of location. The only thing that matters: skills.
I'm sure they exist, but it would be a rare business that chooses to pay San Francisco, London or even Berlin wages to someone with the same skills in a much cheaper location.
To minimise costs and maximise profits (without exploiting anyone of course) is the raison d'etre for a business, and is in no way unethrical.
To generate more value for a company than you receive in wage is to be exploited, in my book, and is subsequently unethical.
The way out of this situation is unclear but to pretend that this is not the case helps neither man nor beast.
I hope (and work to ensure) that my employer gets an over-unity multiple of value from me and my team’s work. That keeps everyone happy over the long run.
That said, other models of system are available - worker coops and other models of employee-owned business can and do exist. They have their own merits and flaws though - nothing in this world is perfect.
So you've defeated your own point. If most companies are willing to outsource then the majority of jobs will be outsourced. Maybe you'll be fine if you happen to work for a decent company but this still means the majority of people will be screwed.
Having worked for a bunch of decent companies in the past, the only consistent pattern I’ve seen is “A decent company will be put out of business by a similar but more-willing-to-cut-corners company”. Thanks, capitalism ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, the portrayal of hiring workers from cheaper locales as an unqualified negative is quite flawed. Bad for the incumbents, perhaps, but good for the new entrants. Many might say that increasing the role of merit vs. accidents of birth in hiring is a good thing. Who's to say that the "decent" company is the one perpetuating global inequity?
But then again, what do you think the consensus among developers in high-wage countries is? Do you think most people gladly see their salary drop by double percentage points because "someone else is just as good who gets paid that amount"? If you extrapolate from your thinking, what do you think would happen eventually?
If the Aldi apple is so good, then people will buy for 2 euros. If the Aldi apple is not so much better, then Aldi will have to lower the price or find something else to sell.
But no one commiserates with Aldi when they have to do that.
Repeat after me. Corporations do not exist to give you nice things. They exist to enhance shareholder value.
Anything that helps with that is "fair game" from the PoV of a corporation, be it offshoring maintainance work or support, laying off folks, establishing HQs in tax havens.
Such things exist, and do employ people who then enjoy those benefits as well.
I am in the US. Let it drop then, I will adapt by becoming a digital nomad. Maybe I will move to Mexico or Argentina for the better life there. You can buy much more life quality with half the funds.
I already know some Spanish, it's easy to pick up once I live there. If time zone doesn't matter I can also move to Southwestern China or Thailand.
Rise of wages in developing regions will also create much growth that I can invest into.
We cannot have real social democracy if there is still cheap labor on the planet to outsource to. Closing the pay gap will definitely brew global labor movement that will eventually make life better for everyone.
This is the high technology equivalent of what middle class America has been going through for the last couple decades. Imagine telling a machine operator in Ohio, "sure, we're going to lose all the manufacturing jobs to China. You just need to move there and you'll live like a king!" I suppose it sounds great if you're 26 years old and follow #vanlife on Instagram, but for most of us it's a little more complicated than that.
He was a line manager in his late 20s(like a mcdonalds store manager, the bottom level salaried position managing dozens of shift employees) before he went to Philippines. Moved with his wife and kids, and later his parents. His father fought WW2 in Philippines so there is some emotional link.
He ended up making millions(USD) from bonus, investments and sidejobs during 1980-1990s. He said it's impossible to make this much without first hand information of what actually happens in overseas manufacturing.
#vanlife? no, he lived in decent homes and apartments since day 1.
and this is just Philippines, to which China industrialized later but reached much higher levels. I am sure your factory worker relocating to China will have more and better opportunities than him.
Those salaries can afford to come down.
I am sure that the bad economy will drive more back to office, but then we will have to contend with all that a bed economy entails.
I am taking this period as a sabbatical from the industry, but hope it will come back with a better balance when the economy starts to turn upwards.
I have made so many good friends at work because we were meeting everyday. While I have made some good friends in remote setup too, I haven't met them outside work (working hours) ever.
However, there are people, who don't like interruptions, don't want to commute, don't want to get up early to get ready for work and I respect that. There are some valid reasons for some to work from home, it may be more productive and be able to get into the "flow" / "zone".
Future is remote, more transactional work relations and lonely. (I know, people would jump on me for saying this :)
For many of us, we are happy to trade less time spent socializing these forced, thin relationships, for more time with the meaningful relationships we’ve created with friends and family.
How does one make their first set of friends? school, neighbourhood where we live, college? These all social places give us opportunity to meet new people, and only those who we feel more comfortable with, become our friends.
Would we want kids to just learn from home using Zoom and not go to school? I would not, because I want them to learn social skills and make new friends.
For me, workplace is also one of such social places which provides opportunity to meet new people. But that does not mean I'm not meeting my other friends or losing touch with the family.
I don't want to extrapolate my experiences over others' and I am generally very empathetic to those who prefer to work from home and want to maintain transactional relation with people at work.
Granted, even on the internet I enjoy interacting with people, by reading and writing comments like this.
But real time conversations are not always enjoyable. They can be enjoyable in the right place and time, but the company office is often not that place or time.
Also you don't get to choose your office mates, and it's not uncommon to have some sort of overbearingly loud/chatty office mates who just enjoy torturing you with their stories even if you are not interested.
Wanting to be around other people is normal. Wanting to work from home is also normal. Wanting to occasionally flip between the two is normal.
Employers can and should enable both.
Kinda? I think it is the nature of the beast. I don't want to deal with mind-numbing, soul crushing data entry silliness. I want to be challenged if only to see if I am good enough to be there. I recently started a new position and as the lowest guy on the totem pole was given the most manual task they had. I just proposed automating it and, uhh, lets say it didn't go as well as I had hoped.
Send it remote ( even though I will admit, I am mildly concerned about my "price" dropping as a result ). Frankly, it would make more sense financially. I genuinely don't understand why it makes fiscal sense for me to do data entry than just about anything else. I can. And I do what is asked of me, but it can be done better.. and this is where a person like me should fit.
My only way to defend this practice is that the manual process is a weird hazing process and they ( team or manager ) want to keep it there for that purpose.
Sorry for the rambling. I think it is coffee time.
edit:
<<I used to love going to the office.
I begrudgingly obliged for a long time knowing that I currently have no leverage to say 'give me remote or I am walking'. I personally envy people, who love socializing and office life. I do like my team. Frankly, I have more in common with every single one of them than any of my previous teams, but that social circle is just not a priority for me and there are no appropriate words in the English vocabulary to describe the pure, unadulterated anger towards anyone having any kinda hand in making me get up early to commute. Younger me would have chided myself saying that I need to play the corporate game, but something changed in me after kids. And the weirdest thing is that when I tell people for any other reason than remote "no, cuz kids", no one questions that.
I hate the office. I understand it serves a purpose. But that purpose no longer serves me.
And this is why we are at a crossroads. Management can bitch and moan, but that is the new reality ( ours made a show of the recent marketwatch article ). Some of us just said "fuck it".