Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
IT

How Remote Work Changes Lives - For Better and Worse (msn.com) 84

The Washington Post spotlights millions of workers newly allowed to work remotely since the pandemic — including the head of Block's global policy partnerships who moved to a tiny town in Michigan to be closer to her grandfather. And on the plus side, there's a 34-year-old who "has spent the last two years jet-setting across Spain, Italy, Greece and her motherland of Romania. She's also thrown herself into road cycling..."

Remote workers say they enjoy connecting with nature, exploring the world and spending more time with family, noting that their outlook on work has changed forever. But it's not rosy all the time: Some say their new lifestyles have introduced complications like time-zone coordination, a different approach to connecting with colleagues, slow internet connectivity, the fear of missing out in-person, and sorting out international health care and travel restrictions....

Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and co-CEO of Australian software company Atlassian, moved to a farm two hours south of the company's Sydney headquarters.... "We decided that ... nobody had to come back to an office," he said. "That reduced pressure." For Cannon-Brookes, allowing his employees to work from anywhere seemed to make the most sense. But he admits Atlassian had to do a lot of retooling to make the policy functional. It had to adjust salaries based on location, coordinate time zones so that teams could work together, create moments for in-person interactions and recruit in areas it hadn't explored. While it's still working social connection, Atlassian now has a larger hiring pool and happier employees, he says. And many got to be with family. "There's a number of people who've sent beautiful, tearful messages, especially older employees who have worked awhile and realized how unusual this is," he said.

Atlassian software developer Christina Bell, 27, says the change allowed her to keep her job to spend time with her grandmother, who was diagnosed with cancer, in her homeland of New Zealand. "We went to the beach, did puzzles together, had quality time," she said of her grandmother who was an early supporter of her engineering interests. "In a good twist of events, my nana is in remission, and she's still with us a year and a half later. I'm making the most of our time." Quality time with family is a common thread among several workers who moved thanks to new work policies....

Some workers found relief leaving their cities for nature. That was the case for Naomi Barnett of Spotify and Helen Prowse of Block.... Tempe, Ariz., resident Devin Miller, who works in Yelp's people operations department, says the permanent shift to remote work made room for a new ritual: occasionally working from a cabin in the mountainous town of Pinetop-Lakeside, Ariz. There, he can watch a herd of elk parade across the front yard and take a conference call from a swinging hammock — assuming his internet signal isn't weak. "It's a total refresh for both of us," he said, referring to his partner.

"Being stuck in our house put a lot of pressure on our relationship."

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

How Remote Work Changes Lives - For Better and Worse

Comments Filter:
  • by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @02:41PM (#62988593)
    Although Europe is supposedly a union, there are restrictions on cross border work. Covid helped me secure a job in the next country over by founding a consulting company and working from home.
  • "or worse" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @02:48PM (#62988607)

    I'm not really seeing the "or worse" part anywhere in the summary. Unless it's the guy who apparently can't stand actually being around his purported "partner" - in which case, he was going to eventually be running into those issues regardless.

    • Re:"or worse" (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @03:20PM (#62988655)
      So is you age it gets harder and harder to find friends and your friends start either dying or growing distance because they're too busy working.

      So a lot of older workers only get to socialize at work. That's why there's such a strong divide between younger workers who want to work from home and older workers who want to go into the office. It's not that it increases productivity or anything of the sort it's really just that they're looking for somebody to hang out with.

      This is especially true of workers pushing 50 or 60 because they don't have the breath and depths of hobbies that young folks do because of the Young folks reliance on the internet and social media networking.
      • This is especially true of workers pushing 50 or 60 because they don't have the breath and depths of hobbies that young folks do...

        #notAllGenXers

        I don't necessarily disagree with you but people's social lives -- or lack thereof -- should not be a sufficient reason to mandate schlepping into an office. Likewise escaping children and spouses. My co-workers' questionable life choices are not my problem.

        • It's a pretty well known phenomenon. [globalnews.ca]

          And your coworker's questionable life choices *are* your problem. One of the major problems in America (and countries that increasingly model themselves after America, which is most of them) is that everyone sees themselves as an Island onto themselves.

          You're not. You live in a society and the choices of other people drastically effect how you live your life.
          • I'm not sure how we got from drawing what seem like professional boundaries at work to this no man is an island talk. Many of us -- including those in TFA -- are happily engaged with our chosen communities and opt not to socialize with co-workers. Yes, loneliness is a problem with some of my co-workers; feigning friendship with them isn't going to solve that issue and I'm not a therapist.

            On the other hand, the *consequences* of my co-workers' life choices often are my problems. And I, like most, am more

          • by MrKaos ( 858439 )

            You're not. You live in a society and the choices of other people drastically effect how you live your life.

            X Gen. I have made some good friends at work, however it is the exception, certainly not the rule. It's simply more likely you're going to find someone with similar interests in that setting.

            If you want to kick your social skills up a notch, take up a a team sport or martial arts training and start building a social circle. Also music I find is good for meeting people.

            IT, Music and martial arts are my preferred pillars of building a social circle specifically so I have options outside of work and also

      • by GFS666 ( 6452674 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @04:39PM (#62988825)

        So is you age it gets harder and harder to find friends and your friends start either dying or growing distance because they're too busy working. So a lot of older workers only get to socialize at work. That's why there's such a strong divide between younger workers who want to work from home and older workers who want to go into the office. It's not that it increases productivity or anything of the sort it's really just that they're looking for somebody to hang out with. This is especially true of workers pushing 50 or 60 because they don't have the breath and depths of hobbies that young folks do because of the Young folks reliance on the internet and social media networking.

        Yep, this. And lack of socialization and human interactions for human beings kills. I forget where I read it, but many people don't really start massively aging until they retire and and the work socialization's stops. I will disagree with the "breath and depths of Hobbies" comments. Most older people today actually have, to me, better and more fulfilling hobbies than the younger set because we grew up in a time when one could actually concentrate on hobbies, vs. today where all the technology is designed to interrupt your train of thought and not allow one to concentrate. YMMV.

        • Re:"or worse" (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @05:23PM (#62988909)

          FFS, who socializes at work? Seriously. I go to work to work. It's not that I don't enjoy working with my coworkers, they're great, but I'm not here to socialize, I'm here to get shit done. And I'm effin' glad my coworkers think the same way.

          • FFS, who socializes at work?

            Most people. Like not gossiping around the water cooler all day, but a bit of chit-chat, lunch, beers after work, that sort of thing. Most people form friendships with people they spend a lot of time around, at least some of them.

            I'm here to get shit done.

            Cool. If you're yanking bugs of the top of the list in jira and fixing them one at a time, that's great, you can probably do it without talking to anyone. Engineering, actual engineering is a team sport and relies a lot on human

      • Then I guess the people who feel that way may go to the office and socialize there.

        Because, let's be honest, who wants to socialize with old geezers when they're young?

      • by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @06:05PM (#62989001)

        So is you age it gets harder and harder to find friends and your friends start either dying or growing distance because they're too busy working. So a lot of older workers only get to socialize at work. That's why there's such a strong divide between younger workers who want to work from home and older workers who want to go into the office. It's not that it increases productivity or anything of the sort it's really just that they're looking for somebody to hang out with. This is especially true of workers pushing 50 or 60 because they don't have the breath and depths of hobbies that young folks do because of the Young folks reliance on the internet and social media networking.

        For our company, it's the ones in the late and middle stages who never go into the office. The young and childless want to be in the office. My current theory: people who have been working longer have nicer home setups and even summer homes and such. The 24yo with a shitty apt and a roommate they've been living with since college doesn't want to be in their 1000sqft apt 24h a day.

        Those of us with domestic responsibilities tend to stay home. I actually WANT to be in the office if they were to get full meal/coffee service back. However, my family likes having me around...often to do stupid things I shouldn't be doing or help out with stuff around the house...for better or worse.

        When I do go into the office, the young people are all there. The parents straggle in late. The ones close to retirement remote in from their beach house or cabin in the woods or a surprisingly nice nook in their nice house.

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          I think it's really a mix of what's going on.

          If you're older and still working the cube farm - working from home is better. If you're younger or just starting out, working is a new experience so the open plan office seems to be a continuation of how things were at school. That's probably a huge factor - it's why bosses and managers with private offices want people returning to the office - they don't see a problem with things - working from home versus working from the office is basically the same. Need to

        • The reason the young come in is to be seen and promoted. Out of sight out of mind is a bad thing if you're broke and have a mind numbing entry level job you hate.

          I wish it were true but politics favors the seat warmers when bonuses come around everytime

      • It's not that it increases productivity or anything of the sort it's really just that they're looking for somebody to hang out with.

        As one of those people "pushing 50 or 60", I had a harder time pulling my jaw off the floor than when I was younger. Every word of what you just said was wrong.

        • Every word of what you just said was wrong.

          Dammit! In my rush to be snarky, I overlooked the one thing you said that was right: working in the office does not increase productivity. Working in the office decreases productivity by a fairly large margin.

          • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Seems pretty reasonable if the office is actually a geriatric social club, as the OP seems to think.

            To be fair, I have been in offices like that. They're definitely not productive.

      • by khchung ( 462899 )

        So is you age it gets harder and harder to find friends and your friends start either dying or growing distance because they're too busy working.

        "Too busy working" actually meant "too busy stuck in office".

        When you work 100% remotely, what's stopping you from going to bars, clubs, parks, beaches, etc, after work/on weekends to make new friends? Nothing!

        Only workaholics who spend 100% time in offices think work is the only place one can socialize. Most people go to workplace to work, not to make friends.

      • So is you age it gets harder and harder to find friends and your friends start either dying or growing distance because they're too busy working.

        Sad but true. Out of ~50 people I used to hang with or count as friends 10 years ago, that number has dropped to under a half-dozen... in just the last 10 years.

        The reasons vary, but due to illnesses, accidents, covid, drunk driving, heart attacks, misadventure...most of them are gone now.

        So yes, as you age your social circle tends to shrink unless you actively try to expand it, but that also gets harder to do as you age.

        Pretty soon I'll be the last one standing (I hope!) and then I'll know it's all over.

      • by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

        >So a lot of older workers only get to socialize at work.

        So find something to do outside of work.

        And if you are working too much to do that, you are working too much.

        There are plenty of activities where you can find people to meet.

        >This is especially true of workers pushing 50 or 60 because they don't have the breath and depths of hobbies that young folks do because of the Young folks reliance on the internet and social media networking.

        You do realize that people "pushing 50" were on the forefront of

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 )

      The challenges are social and mentoring. I have worked remotely off and on for 20 years, and while functionally I can do my job just fine my ability to train entry level people has dropped by about 90%. We had a social event recently that I attended (I am 100% remote, but the company is only 40% remote), and it was quite clear that for our people we need the face time in order to work together effectively.

  • And WTF is "Block" ?
  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @03:02PM (#62988633)
    Old car and you have to put a lot of miles on it. It was still cheaper to keep the old car maintained but not by all that much. Still a hundred bucks a month is a hundred bucks a month.

    Working from home I realized I hadn't had my car in the shop in a while. I put a fraction of the miles on it. It doesn't just save me money it's a huge weight off my chest
    • Why are you so pathetic? Each one of your posts just reveals how pathetic you are, I would call ot pitiful bit I don't believe in pity. What is even more pathetic is that because of your circumstances you are holding despicable views on society, you promote big government, theft through taxation and redistribution to the pathetic, like you. What the hell happen to you, were you abducted by porcupines and did you spend most of your life in a swamp?

  • "Being stuck in our house put a lot of pressure on our relationship."

    Sounds like these two partners were *required* to work home home. It seems a pretty rare thing for employers to require working from home, and for those that do there's a simple solution - make it optional. Then everyone can choose what works best for them.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward

      there's a simple solution - make it optional

      Maybe... maybe not.

      Before COVID, I worked for an IT department that had a "hybrid" environment. We were expected to show up at least once a week, allegedly so we could have "quality" face-to-face time.

      Unfortunately, they handled it incompetently. They had "shared" workstations with docking stations, monitors, keyboards and mice. Supposedly, they were first-come-first served. However, the senior people staked out "their" spots, and they would kick out any

  • Say what? Did the value of someone's labor drop, because they moved to a cheaper location. Because they sure won't pay you more, just because you decide to move to the middle of Tokyo.
    • Yes actually. When in person work is required, the company has a smaller pool of qualified candidates and that drives up the salary demand. Once you open the pool to a much wider scale, you have to compete with more candidates that may have a lower cost of living. Making full time remote work an option has trade offs if you were benefitting from this effect. Possibly even if you don't relocate.
      • Go for it. Fire me and hire someone else with 20 years of IT security experience with a background in banking finance and auditing and law for less than 100k a year. I'm pretty sure they're easy to find.

        • I have a team of 25 year olds in Bangalore who have 20 years of IT experience in law, auditing, and finance

          • And if you believe that, I have a cheap bridge with a great view of San Francisco for sale.

            • ... sarcasm sir lol

              Unfortunately some phb do fall for these outsourcing scams but that is lower now compared to to the 2000s when all MBAs believe some kid in Bangalore at age 23 could do as good as a job as senior developer or senior admin for $5/hr. We know how that worked out.

              But as we head to our next recession we may see desperate cost accountants foretell the virtues of Tata again. Good news is India has grown tremendously and eastern Europe as well where the workers while still cheaper than you or I

              • In security, the urge to outsource to some country with questionable loyalty and even more questionable quality is not as strong as in development. Twice so in fields where the people who could decide it are personally (i.e. with their private cash) responsible if a breach can be traced to neglect.

    • I have such mixed feelings on this one.

      On the one hand, a job done remotely should have a value irrespective of the location the worker works from (assuming they perform to spec).

      BUT I worked for one company that after a year of employment decided they wanted me to switch to an office that required an hour commute by car each way instead of the office a 15 minute walk from my home. A condition of my changing work locations was a substantial increase in pay.

      If a company has to pay me more to go somewhere pa

      • I'm calling bullocks (not on you, on the Atlassian guy). I'd bet $100 he did not cut his own total compensation by any significant percentage after moving from downtown Sydney to a rural farm. I wouldn't be surprised if he did take a token salary cut for show, but his total compensation did not change significantly.

        But anyway, just speaking for myself... assuming the starting point is an inarguably fair salary for the work required - I'd happily trade some amount of that salary for extra work-from-home days

    • 1) What is the guy contributing
      2) What do I need to pay him

      Simple economic theory suggests that firms will go on recruiting until the latest employee needs to be paid what they actually contribute. This is, of course, far too simplistic, but starts the discussion.

      Any rational company will consider whether it can get away with offering remote workers less - especially if they're resident in areas of low wages. At the very least, in a time of high inflation, such people may get smaller pay rises. However give

    • by raynet ( 51803 )

      Why would the company even know where I live? It is not something they need to know, unless they are willing to pay my traveling costs.

  • by enriquevagu ( 1026480 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @03:31PM (#62988685)

    Seriously, I'm surprised that the "little" detail of having small children at home is never discussed when talking about work from home. In my case, it's completely impossible to work from home out of school hours.

    • You need a Toddler Taser (tm)
    • My kid is in HS - gets on the bus at 6:45 am and gets home at 2:30 pm. If I work 7:00 to 3:30 - I'm only dealing with her for an hour.

      Grade school kids are a little different. Bus at 8:30 and home at 3:30. If I work 8:00 to 4:30 - I'm only dealing with him for 90 minutes.

      Summer and winter break hours - yeah, but you're most likely taking paid time off during those times... and/or sending the kid off to camp or wherever.

  • IME are usually the antisocial aspie types typical in IT who are far happier conversing with a machine than with their colleagues. I realise I'll get modded to hell for this because a lot of the people on /. Tit this mold and dont like being told they're abnormal. Well sorry, but you are. Most humans enjoy face to face social contact and sometimes being able to have a spontanious chat/grumble with colleagues alleviates the stress of the job. You cant really do that on Slack.

    Yeah, sure, "I work from home bec

    • You know what I'm going to say. There's no "normal" or "abormal" personalities out there. The only reason why you see anti-social types as abonmal is because you're judging them through the lens of your own social personality so to you they may appear as much abnormal as you appear abnormal to them.

      • Sorry, there is a normal. It's the default behaviour of the majority. You might not like that but that's the way it is.

        • Perhaps you should then start calling it "statistically normal", and we all know that statistics are the pinnacle of lying. For example, let's assume that the peak of the bell curve of sociability spectrum spreads across 50% of the population. It's a completely made-up number of course but let's assume that's the case. You'd be calling the other half of the population abnormal because they don't fit the peak. Same applies to everything, really. Take politics for example. Say the winning party in election wi

        • by Jhon ( 241832 )

          You are using "normal" as if it is synonymous with "typical" or even "average".

          It's not. At least not "literally" -- which is how you seem to be using it.

          Example: Being "asocial" would mostly be seen as a "normal" (i.e., not ABNORMAL) behavior type -- one that would be encountered on any given day. Only when any given "type" is an extreme (say, Schizophrenia, AvPD, Autism, etc -- all which include asociality) would it be considered abnormal.

          devslash0 makes a valid point.

    • Huh. Some of us actually have these folks we call "friends" with whom we chat and grumble. I can't speak for you but I'd rather choose the people I spend my social energy on (and very few co-workers over 30 years fall into that category). From where I sit, it's folks like you attempting to force people into the office to listen to your inane stories (well, maybe yours aren't inane but that'd be an outlier) who have the social inability to meet new people.

    • Yes, you're probably right to an extent: some of us prefer dealing with machines rather than people. Some of us are pretty good at it. Guess what: we think *you* are the weird one.

      Everyone is someone else's weirdo.

    • In my free time I like to socialise in bars or play team sports or do other stuff with peoples.
      But when I am working I like to sit down and program and not have to context-switch to deal with peoples.
      And at lunchtime, I would prefer to mix with people I choose, not those my company chose.
      I am both an "antisocial aspie" type and a "life-and-soul-of-the-party" ( after a couple of beers ) type and everything in between.
      I think many people are.

      The growing tendency to explain life using pseudo-scientific psychol
    • I'm 63 and would rather work from home because I don't require more than the paycheck. I socialize based on my hobbies and interests not my jobs or career though I quite enjoyed those before retiring.I'm quite social but the people at my jobs didn't interest me enough to waste thousands of hours and dollars commuting.

      WFH lets workers curate their company. It's not "anti-social" to avoid people who aren't interesting. The goal of compensated work is the most money for the least effort to be enjoyed at leisu

      • Bingo.

        I'm also 63 and I have no need to be in any office anywhere, ever.

        I only need one paycheck (although my wife works and makes a pretty good income, we could get by just fine on mine alone).

        I'm never going into an office again, regardless of what cool junk they fill it with.

        (Also, the fact is that no company in its right mind would pay me what I'd require to physically go back into an office.)

        I like the new WFH paradigm, I only wish it had hit 20 years ago.

    • Wrong. I'm not in IT but I prefer to work in isolation to be able to focus better. And sure, the occasional in person meeting is nice too.
    • Guilty as charged.

      Yes, I enjoy the company of my computer more than any human being. I know I'm an autist. Yes, before anyone asks, I have it in writing. And hence I want to ask you why I should be subjected to having to pretend to be human all day long and add to my stress level if it's not required for my work.

      To me, having to interact with humans face to face does not alleviate stress, it adds to the stress. So why the hell would you want to subject me to it for no good reason whatsoever?

      • by Viol8 ( 599362 )

        I wouldn't want to subject you to it. But OTOH I get fed up with people like yourself who extoll working from home as the best thing ever and we should all do it when some of us can't stand the isolation.

        • Nah, go to the office if you so please, I'm the last to force you into working from home. I know very well what it's like to be forced to work in an environment that is stressful to you and I wouldn't want to subject anyone to it. If you relax in the vicinity of humans, please surround yourself with them. As long as I don't have to participate, anyone can do anything they want, no matter whether I understand why the hell they'd want to do that.

        • Wah he gets to work form home and I don't..unfair?! Brother

  • Walk vs Talk (Score:5, Insightful)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Saturday October 22, 2022 @04:05PM (#62988751)

    In my experience, office-based roles only benefit those whose role involves a lot of talking and pointless office politics. Meanwhile, those who actually create value, those who walk the walk, benefit from being left alone to do their job, away from the office popularity contest.

    • by raynet ( 51803 )

      Yep, office politics is more difficult when company begins to value produced work, not meetings etc.

    • If your work doesn't require talking to people your value is limited to your individual contribution to assignments chosen by someone else and handed to you.

      No one needs to talk to a cog.

  • "Mike Cannon-Brookes, co-founder and co-CEO of Australian software company Atlassian, moved to a farm two hours south of the company's Sydney headquarters" because after visiting the area, he was unable to locate his Sydney headquarters (or his own hindquarters) using Confluence search.
    • he was unable to locate his Sydney headquarters (or his own hindquarters) using Confluence search.

      Yep. Confluence search is worthless as shit on toast.

      Confluence itself is a cobbled-together batch of shit with a doofus-grade interface and more bugs and built-in shortcomings than I can shake a stick at.

      15 years later and you STILL don't have highlighting function. Because no one EVER needs to highlight some text, right?

      Other 'features' of Confluence:

      Bulleted lists- somewhat broken.
      Numbered lists- totally broken.
      Fonts? You get one (1) font for use in a paragraph.
      Want to change the size of a header? No.
      Wan

      • I spend sometimes an hour and a half a day trying to find something rather than working. I keep getting results from some meeting in 2018 related to a topic than actual documentation. I tried to get the office to switch to OneNote to no avail

  • Bullshit. They "had" to do no such thing. If the work the person did was worth X salary where they were at, it's still worth that much when they move somewhere else. The company continues to make the same, so this whole "salary adjustment" crap is just that: crap.

    • "It had to adjust salaries based on location" That's a funny way of saying passive aggressive paycuts to make sure the roving peasants can't enjoy their new mobility
      • by hjf ( 703092 )

        I'm an advocate for remote work, and I don't want to be at an office ever again, but some of those people cannot handle their "new mobility".

        I work for a startup since the beginning. I work from HOME, every day, the hours i have to work. There is a coworker that's mostly there, and two that work strange hours, but are there regardless.

        Then there is the "head of engineering". We had "async dailies", when this guy joined, he said "no, we need to have a daily call".

        Surprise, 4 out of 5 days he "skips the daily

        • My brother is a junior VP at a major logistics company. His IT department is about to have a massive rebellion on his hands over forcing people to come in for collaboration and productivity purposes.

          It was a director in another department who got caught goofing off and another manager was caught moonlighting for another job on company time and moved to a different state without telling anyone. Now this company has to pay taxes in a different state!

          The CEO mandated work at home is gone and come into the offi

          • So irritating and infuriating a few bad apples ruin it for everyone. Sigh

            Hope you're referring to the idiot CEO who took away WfH lazily, in response to upper management misdeeds.

  • Tech remote worker here.

    They missed two.

    1. Hundreds of thousands are fleeing California and New Yorkâ(TM)s high taxes, relentless wokeness, classism, and racism. I live in a small town in Wyoming and down the road from my 122 acres is an Amazon Director and a Google tech lead. We are all closet right wingers who left CA the instant we could.

    2. Internet in rural places is often better. I get symmetric 1G fiber here which is better than I ever got in CA.

    • by hjf ( 703092 )

      That last statement is purely anecdotical. Most "rural areas" are underserved. You're lucky to get wireless internet from a Ubiquiti antena on your roof.

      That said, internet in smaller cities IS often better as there as there's less saturation, wires (or fiber) are newer (because bigger cities got service way before), and often the whole infrastructure is in a better shape.

      A lot of phone wires in New York are over 100 years old. Perfectly adequate for voice, somewhat adequate for ADSL or VDSL, but that's it.

    • Those days are soon to be over. My employer and my brothers employer got sued by state revenue departments for not reporting they operate a business in said state and time to pay up!

      If you move to Wyoming and not tell your employer it means they operate a remote office and therefore under regulation by the state and is taxable for revenue in that state.

      If your employer is getting hit by these do not be surprised if you are fired for not being approved and having work at home revoked to avoid this problem.

  • Right now the pendulum that has swung to the employee is starting to switch back to the employer.

    Also states are suing employers whose employees move to a cheaper location for operating a remote office without paying taxes or filing a charter in said state. My employer is one and Ohio went after my brother's company over this and HR had no clue.

    As the layoffs start and tech money dries up we will see IT applicants boom and someone desperate for a job will happily come into the office and work for less if it

    • by hab136 ( 30884 )

      >Remote work is coming to an end

      Of the companies that were forced to have remote work the past two years, some will revert to in-office work only, sure. Other companies have realized that the larger candidate pool and the cost savings from smaller offices are good things, and will keep remote as an option. The companies and industries that had remote work before will continue to do so. Remote work has been a thing for decades, even if most people only discovered it the last two years.

      While there may b

  • I'm in IT and we're spread out over a good chunk of the US - and COVID pretty much pushed working from home as a privilege that you used judiciously to the new reality. I'm not responsible for a single site - but dozens of sites. There's no need for me to report to an office to work problems remotely and there's really no fear of missing out.

    Downsides to the office: commute, gas, car repairs, traffic, parking, office politics, workplace bullies, cubicles, no control over lighting/heat/AC, chatty co-worker

Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel

Working...