[HN Gopher] Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more ...
___________________________________________________________________
Brian Chesky: Ability to hire from anywhere is more valuable than
in-office work
Author : thunderbong
Score : 136 points
Date : 2023-05-14 07:56 UTC (15 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fortune.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (fortune.com)
| lgsilver wrote:
| He went on to say in a slightly devious tone, "I have no ulterior
| motives here and in no way benefit from this statement or its
| implications."
| gonzo41 wrote:
| I'm surprised Airbnb has't cracked another rental market for the
| corporate world by renting out spare desks in existing offices
| for rando workers.
| lordnacho wrote:
| What about just "come an work in my home office"? Seems like a
| similar thing.
|
| I'd totally do that now and again if it were available in my
| area.
| barefeg wrote:
| That's an interesting combination of WeWork and Airbnb. It
| makes sense; people go to WeWork to not be alone, and remote
| work forces people to use their spare rooms to create home
| offices. So now they can't rent out the spare room in Airbnb
| but they could rent a shared desk for work.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| You could rent 9-6 office and 8-8 sleeping room to
| different people. Worker and sightseer for example
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| I wish someone would do this. A single permanent desk in a
| WeWork is surprisingly expensive.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Why do you think it would be cheaper for any organization to
| do this on the side, vs. a dedicated specialist like WeWork?
| The unit economics with fully loaded costs are not very good,
| and for a company with a little extra capacity it's a huge
| distraction. They couldn't run it like the residential side
| where hosts shift huge costs onto thir surrounding ecosystem,
| or just take big risks with no mitigation.
| sylens wrote:
| This would a nightmare for most organizations who have yet to
| adopt zero trust network policies and controls
| danr4 wrote:
| I've been wondering quite a lot about that while nomading, but
| I think essentially the numbers don't add up while massively
| increasing operational overhead.
|
| It's too big of a risk at the moment, which is why these quotes
| from him keep coming - I think he's trying to create the demand
| side because it's not big enough yet, but if it becomes "the
| norm" they can capitalize on it.
|
| I do think they missed an opportunity during covid to move it
| towards "the norm" by testing a subsidized "airbnb for work"
| but who knows.
| goodenoughx wrote:
| More remote work helps the planet too you know since it reduces
| ones carbon footprint and more time for people to sleep improves
| mental health too
| 35936207 wrote:
| [dead]
| Lacerda69 wrote:
| While I agree I dont think tech execs give a damn about carbon
| footprint or your mental health.
| benjaminwootton wrote:
| A lot of employees not wanting to return to the office have
| suddenly become more environmentally aware too!
| basisword wrote:
| >> it reduces ones carbon footprint
|
| Is this proven (it probably can't be proven given the huge
| variety of commutes, office spaces, heating sources etc.)? It
| would be my default assumption but I feel like heating one
| office with 100 people in it is much more efficient than
| heating 100 homes in winter. And if people are in a location
| where publish transport is the norm then it might be better in
| terms of carbon impact to be in office.
| shakow wrote:
| But people will be heating their home in winter in any case,
| whether they're remote or on-site.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| When I'm on-site, my house is set to a significantly lower
| temperature during the day. Scheduled thermostats have been
| around long enough that I assume that's the norm.
| shakow wrote:
| But then you need a surge in power to put it back from
| lo_temp to hi_temp when you get back home, I honestly
| don't know if it costs more or less than just maintaining
| it at hi_temp, and what are the orders of magnitude
| involved.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The first order approximation is that the heat loss
| between the inside and outside is linear with the
| temperature difference (delta-T) between them. So, if the
| delta-T is 10degC when occupied and allowed to rise to
| 14degC when unoccupied for 8 hours, there is a small
| savings. When the heating system is then commanded to
| recover the temperature, it will generally do a longer,
| single run (which for fossil fuel equipment is more
| efficient than a series of small runs, but for heat pumps
| is not significantly different [unless it engages
| emergency backup, which is far worse])
|
| Overall, it's a small win, partially offset in the
| heating season by the heat gain from human occupancy and
| activity. It's almost surely not enough of a win to sum
| up to pay for the conditioning of an entire office
| building that would otherwise not be heated beyond "don't
| freeze the plumbing".
| ghaff wrote:
| Presumably a 15 degree F or whatever lower temp (and
| reduced use of electricity for other purposes) during the
| day does reduce costs somewhat. However, for most people,
| commuting is almost certainly a significantly larger
| expense.
| basisword wrote:
| Huh? You heat your home when you're not home?
| earthling8118 wrote:
| Yes. I don't like frozen pipes. Heating can't be shut off
| during winter.
| basisword wrote:
| Obviously this is highly dependent on where you
| live...which gets back to my original point that there
| are so many variables it probably isn't possible to
| declare one option better for the environment. Fwiw, in
| the UK I actively turn heat on and off depending on when
| it's needed. It would never, ever, be on when I'm out,
| unless I was going out of town for a while and had to
| consider things like frozen pipes.
| pellucidar wrote:
| It also depends on the type of heating. Heat pumps are
| not responsive enough for big daily setbacks, while
| fossil fuel-burning heating systems are.
| [deleted]
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| People also generate heat.
|
| So in the cold months, it might be an even bigger win by
| relieving their home heating system of some work.
|
| I guess the flip side is when the house needs to be cooled.
| helen___keller wrote:
| In a place like the Bay Area where the weather is pleasant
| and the commutes are primarily by privately owned vehicles I
| think it should be the case.
|
| If you live in NYC, Boston, or Chicago, and used to take the
| train, maybe it's different
|
| However I think the biggest environmental issue with remote
| work is encouraging nationwide suburban and exurban sprawl.
| Still, that can only be the nations failure for not
| incentivizing construction of desirable urban properties so
| Americans feel like they need a big house and tons of land to
| escape their tiny urban apartment
| ghaff wrote:
| There's nothing inherent about dense cities that make them
| more desirable to live in especially absent convenience to
| offices--no matter how carefully planned. There are
| tradeoffs. I could absolutely live in a pretty nice city
| and choose not to do so.
| bippihippi1 wrote:
| 100 businesses are responsible for 70% of fossil fuel use.
| doing what you can is great, but it won't make a difference
| unless businesses change as well.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Those businesses are big because they're the abstraction
| layer over the fact that what they produce is something a
| _lot_ of people want. If they were destroyed overnight an
| awful lot of people would die and then their economic
| function would be reconstituted, probably more carbon
| intensive because it's more robust to supply chain
| disruption.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I have heard that stat before and it turns out those business
| are basically shipping and freight companies, car
| manufacturers etc.
|
| if you somehow told the companies to stop burning oil and
| carbon most world trade would stop, and they would have to
| take peoples cars a away
|
| Yes we could reduce the impact (burn cleaner diesel on ships,
| avoid contrails) but this is not 100 evil companies that need
| to be taught a lesson - this is all of us, billions of humans
| and our default lifestyle
| magnuspaaske wrote:
| The problem with that framing is that those big companies
| aren't just responding to consumer demand but have also
| actively lobbied for policies that create said demand. For
| instance shipping companies pay a much lower corporate tax
| rate than other companies and car companies have lobbied
| against everything from efficiency and clear air regulation
| to creating alternatives to a car-first transportation
| system. Oil companies are in a league of themselves and
| we're only starting to see shenanigans they've done to
| stall dealing with climate change.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I can no more complain about Exxon-Mobil creating emissions
| relating to the fuel that I buy than I can the local farmer
| killing a cow to make the beef that I buy.
| earthling8118 wrote:
| Yes, I can. I never wanted to buy the fuel in the first
| place. It's just that everything was designed in such a way
| that I must burn it to survive. I go out of my way not to
| whenever possible but my economic constraints don't allow
| freedom from it.
|
| Even if I manage to find somewhere that I don't need it, a
| ridiculous amount will be used behind the scenes for
| everything else I need. Or there will be 100 others who
| can't get into that situation.
|
| I'm not living a lavish life where I can just cut back much
| either. I'm living a barebones one and still cutting it
| close financially despite being a developer.
| 55555 wrote:
| For a (weak) counterpoint, there's an interesting article in
| Bloomberg today about how day-time recreational drug habits are
| increasing due to remote work.
|
| https://archive.is/IoY1k
|
| >> Drug recovery firm Sierra Tucson concluded from a November
| 2021 survey that about 20% of US workers admitted to using
| recreational drugs while working remotely, and also to being
| under the influence during virtual meetings.
|
| So it's not all rainbows and daisies.
| fathyb wrote:
| In every office I worked at, more than 20% were drunk at 2
| PM. I would say it was more like 35%.
|
| I don't like being around people on hard drugs, especially at
| work, so not having to deal with that is a huge plus!
| kagakuninja wrote:
| I've worked at companies with beer taps in the lunch room.
| allarm wrote:
| I've seen people using recreational drugs while working in
| the office, so...
| capableweb wrote:
| I once bought a hotdog from a street vendor in Copenhagen
| that was seriously high on some downers in 2:00 in the
| morning, so clearly hotdog vendors are more likely to do
| drugs.
| koheripbal wrote:
| That, but now much more
| user6723 wrote:
| You don't need to go to the building to use their internet to
| code stuff for machines that are on the internet or behind a VPN
| or ZeroTrust gateway that is also on the internet, if you have
| internet.
|
| I worked at an internet-native company a bit over a decade ago,
| they got more done in two sprints than the "enterprise" places
| would get done in 3-6 months.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Unless you have a family back home to spend time with, extended
| work from home is not goof for your mental health.
| rajamaka wrote:
| Maybe not good for yours but it's been great for mine.
| shrimp_emoji wrote:
| Same. And I'd much sooner spend time with coworkers than
| family. ;p
| dymk wrote:
| Get a dog and join a club
| nicbou wrote:
| I had great coworkers but they were not my friends. Saving 1-2
| hour per day of commuting and using my breaks to do chores
| frees up time to see the people I chose to see.
| jasmer wrote:
| Colleagues are not 'friends', they are still good for your
| mental health. Often better than friends since they are
| forced to behave.
| HPMOR wrote:
| I think you may need to re-evaluate your current
| friendships.
| jasmer wrote:
| I have many lifelong friends who are effectively 'kin'
| aka almost extended family and I don't drop friends
| because sometimes they might grind a bit, or as we age we
| see some things (very) differently. Frankly, some of them
| are a bit odd and have very few friends of their own -
| they're not going to be 'ejected' because they are not
| always in support of my sanity.
|
| I don't keep 'fairweather friends' who suit my current
| lifestyle, mood and social status.
|
| I enjoy the company of my work colleagues a lot, it's
| friendly without having to be too intense, and we can
| talk about 'work stuff' which I enjoy.
|
| So you might also want to contemplate a different
| definition of 'friendship'.
| [deleted]
| calciphus wrote:
| More useful == cheaper. Centralize your profits to a major
| metropolitan area (where your executives and maybe board live)
| then use global labor markets to suppress the wages of your
| employees.
| icelancer wrote:
| [flagged]
| alanfranz wrote:
| Define "suppress the wages".
|
| If I live in a lower COL area, I get a significantly higher
| wage than expected in my area, my employer saves money, and I
| get full remote work that I like, I call that a "win-win".
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I think the previous poster meant hiring people from
| countries with lower cost of living.
| welshwelsh wrote:
| Indeed, but people in countries with lower cost of living
| are still workers, right?
|
| It irritates me when people say things like "suppress
| worker wages" when they actually mean "pay less money to
| American workers living in San Francisco"
|
| The people being hired in Bangladesh are not having their
| wages suppressed. On the contrary, they are making more and
| enjoying a higher quality of life than ever before.
| alanfranz wrote:
| My reasoning holds.
| nubinetwork wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35898372
| eeasss wrote:
| Let's not forget that the Airbnb CEO has vested interest in
| expansion of remote work. This means more digital nomads and
| folks who travel to work from anywhere, which benefits the Airbnb
| Network.
| slurpmaker wrote:
| At least they put their money where their mouth is. I for one
| have seen a lot of the productivity hits dissipate with the
| advent of remote work. It's at the expense of basic human
| psychology though. You really can't hire jerks, management
| cannot be "game players", and meetings need to be minimal and
| ad hoc. Remote work companies avoiding those 3 things eat in
| person companies lunch every day of the week as far as hours in
| and product out.
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| Name such a company.
| genericacct wrote:
| Not a company, but as a product linux has eaten a lot of
| lunches that used to belong to companies working in
| person..
| southwesterly wrote:
| I'd be too busy tidying the house to avoid cleaning fees to do
| any nomadic work.
| dymk wrote:
| That's not how cleaning fees work
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| that's right you pay this regardless, it's the quasi-
| discretionary things like not doing the laundry or turning
| on the dishwasher that get dinged for extra, just like a
| hotel.
| user6723 wrote:
| Better to have a new world order than going to someone's
| building to use the internet. We have the internet now so yeah.
| Doing a team meet up every quarter is great. Don't need to do
| it like every Mon-Fri tho that's just not productive.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| This is just code for outsourcing. Americans who are all-in on
| remote work should recognize this.
| [deleted]
| jasmer wrote:
| It's the biggest cognitive dissonance of the generation.
|
| I'm empathetic to rising costs etc. but this remote work thing
| ... means instantly competing with an audience 10x bigger, many
| of whom are in remote place with a fraction of cost of living
| and therefore supply cost, really don't understand how this
| does not sink in for most people.
|
| The next few years are going to be transformative.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| Thar FUD was tired even before the pandemic, let alone when is
| being used as an illogical back-to-the-office prod. My attitude
| towards outsourcing at this point is put up or shut up. Nobody
| would be doing any threatening if there was anything actually
| there. We already have heard all of the tales of disastrous
| failed outsourcing attempts and mediocrity in "success".
| flappyeagle wrote:
| It's very different to outsource to a giant Indian consulting
| firm vs offshoring to a network of people working from home
| across Western Europe.
|
| The former is challenging and not likely to succeed in many
| scenarios. The latter is now the default playbook at places I
| work
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| Yeah except this time we are outsourcing to AI.
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think you probably meant to object to _off-shoring_ (same
| company doing the work with employees in different country)
| rather than _out-sourcing_ (different company doing the work).
| Out-sourcing from other countries has been happening at scale
| for decades.
|
| I agree that remote work pulls all of us (rather quickly)
| towards globalization. Overall, I think this is a good thing,
| even though people (like me) who temporarily benefited from the
| prior inefficiencies will not enjoy those same temporary
| benefits, at least not to the same extent.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Good catch. I wasn't aware of the difference in terminology.
|
| From a neoliberal globalist perspective, I am happy with more
| globalization. I just think it's strange that people tout
| remote work as shifting power toward employees and away from
| management, when in reality it's the opposite.
| charlie0 wrote:
| It may be true, but as of now there's a lot of arbitrage to
| go around for those who earn a hcol wage and move to mcol
| or lcol areas.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Lcol areas like most of Western Europe and South America!
| 35936207 wrote:
| [dead]
| lamontcg wrote:
| I think most of these arguments are going to become moot when we
| really hit the recession and all these CEOs start wanting to
| slash their rents.
| lordnacho wrote:
| It's a balance, isn't it?
|
| - People who work from home have more time, maybe an entire 10
| hours a week for some people, measured from when you are able to
| start work. In high autonomy roles, you feel some ownership over
| your work and you are happy to share some of that 10 hours with
| work.
|
| - If you are set up to work from home, you can finish off bits
| and pieces when you find the time. So you're also happy to share
| some of the other hours with work, eg if something breaks.
|
| - With high autonomy, you can also decide to "share" some of the
| official work hours. What's the big deal if I have my shower
| after dropping off the kids? Most people wouldn't take the piss
| but I guess some people do. These are the ones the bosses are
| scared of having on their team.
|
| - Bosses are also aware if their job is low-autonomy, low
| ownership. It's hard to get someone to just do whatever is needed
| in these roles, so the boss feels he needs to be able to oversee
| everyone in the office. Of course there are ways to skive off
| while sitting in the office too, but the budget is already
| planned according to that kind of loss. This new kind of loss
| from someone skiving off completely at home is not something he
| wants to embarrass him.
|
| - There's a distinction between jobs where the output is linearly
| related to the input and those where it isn't. If you're stacking
| shelves, being there another hour gets another hour's worth of
| shelves stacked. If you're writing a complicated program, hanging
| around an extra hour might do nothing at all to shorten the time
| to finish it. At the same time a good hour spent coding could
| reduce the remaining time by 10 hours, weirdly. If you have a
| linear-output job, your boss wants you on your butt working
| constantly. If you have a fluctuating output job, he wants you to
| work just the productive hours.
|
| To the point about having more choice vs having everyone in one
| place:
|
| - Once you specify a few skills, it becomes quite rare to find a
| person with the skills who is open to being hired. How many
| people in London can do you your average Django stack, with a bit
| of SQL + React, are currently free, have seen your advert, will
| pass your silly test, and want to work for you rather than your
| competitor? Even a pretty broad spec like that does not actually
| give you a huge number of people. Let people work from home and
| you gather up several times the number.
|
| - Having everyone in one place is more important for socializing
| than for working. It's actually easy to discuss technical things
| online. There's a bunch of tools for it, like GitHub, Slack,
| Zoom, and so on. It's not hard to get across a technical point.
| "Code doesn't work in this case, let's debug..."
|
| - What's harder is getting a rapport with people on an emotional
| level. Something about being able to see the whole person's body
| language, being able to eat a meal with them, talk to them about
| non-work stuff, makes you feel more connected. But think about
| it, you are not doing this most of the time in the office. You
| might do drinks once a week, or you might have the occasional
| teambuilding. You might as well rent a smaller office and fly
| people in to do your paintballing or whatever.
| sokoloff wrote:
| We went remote starting in mid-March 2020 for some reason. I
| expected to hate it and while it definitely took some
| adjustment, I absolutely love it now. I don't think my overall
| time spent on work has changed much, but what has changed is
| that I spread it out much more and take advantage of the ebbs
| and flows of motivation to do certain kinds of work. If I have
| some tedious drudgery to take care of (think expense report or
| similar paperwork tedium), I can grind that out in a mindless
| fashion while I also do some laundry and prepare myself a
| lunch. If inspiration or a good idea strikes me early in the
| morning or on a weekend, I can sit down and do 15-60 minutes of
| work and then close it up and immediately be back in my house
| and on to whatever I want to do. If I need to attend a parent-
| teacher conference or my kids' sporting events at the school,
| I'm a 10 minute walk away instead of a 30+ minute drive away.
| That means a parent-teacher conference might take 45 minutes
| out of my day, including 2 nice 10-minute walks instead of
| being something that I have to battle the other parents to get
| the coveted 7:00 or 7:30 AM slot and then drive into the
| office.
|
| I do think there are downsides in terms of building a sense of
| team and belonging and some tasks simply work better in-person,
| but overall it's been a huge win personally to go remote and
| roughly a push for the company.
| Gamemaster1379 wrote:
| My company has been remote even before COVID. They had twice a
| year gatherings that became once a year as they got bigger.
| Everyone spent most of the time socializing. It was cool to get
| to know your online coworkers face to face and you didn't see
| them everyday so you spent a lot of time socializing. You want
| tu make the most of it. IMO it works quite well to strike a
| balance.
| jroseattle wrote:
| These remote-vs-office discussions where nobody discusses the
| actual work involved are fairly pointless. Disregarding the
| obvious scenarios of presence-required in order to work (i.e.
| manufacturing), the question applies: what is most productive for
| "information work"?
|
| In my personal experience, I've found collaboration conducted
| face-to-face far more effective than doing so in a
| distributed/online way. There is a high level of context in these
| situations: the topic of discussion, the interactions among
| attendees, etc.
|
| On the flip side, standard administrative operations that require
| nothing more than a terminal/shell? That's not collaborative,
| don't make those colleagues commute to a remote workstation.
|
| But those employers who "feel their employees aren't so
| productive" when they aren't in-house -- huge signal they don't
| know how to really measure productivity.
|
| What I've heard from other colleagues in management roles: the
| concern with remote work isn't about productivity, it's about
| _dedicated_ productivity coupled with zero trust. In other words,
| how do we (the employer) ensure our employees aren't moonlighting
| on our team and only giving the minimum level of effort with us?
| Cyph0n wrote:
| > In other words, how do we (the employer) ensure our employees
| aren't moonlighting on our team and only giving the minimum
| level of effort with us?
|
| ..by evaluating their performance? Do you not regularly
| evaluate the performance of your employees? Or perhaps your
| performance evaluation process has implicitly relied on the
| sacred ritual of magical hallway conversations?
|
| Anyways, I find this to be a tired, capitalist argument. The
| anti-remote argument often boils down to squeezing every ounce
| of productivity out of "human resources" (PC term for cogs).
| Let's not get into how butts in seats never actually correlated
| with productivity.
| silisili wrote:
| I generally agree, but only to an extent.
|
| When greenfielding something, or doing product research and
| design, I found in person much, much better.
|
| But after that, it feels like you get a bit pigeon holed
| working onto said product for months or years, where the
| distractions of the office are a detriment.
|
| I personally feel the best method is maintain a small office or
| offices for those that want it. Everyone can be remote by
| default, but must be able and available to travel to said
| offices as business needs see fit.
|
| I actually worked that way before COVID and everyone else
| seemed to go remote, and I liked it better than this full
| remote stuff. I usually was onsite for 6 to 8 weeks out of the
| year.
| deet wrote:
| 100% agree that these general statements comparing in-person to
| remote are not helpful.
|
| Even within a single project of a single team, the remote vs
| in-office balance can change as the project evolves.
|
| Early days of a project, where everyone is figuring out what to
| do, white boarding, imagining what is possible ... in-person is
| hard to beat. Later stages where it's implementation,
| iteration, and more deep work (like coding) ... remote is
| probably more productive.
|
| Companies that aren't thinking about this in a more nuanced way
| and designing a more flexible culture are doing themselves a
| disservice
| charrondev wrote:
| > In other words, how do we (the employer) ensure our employees
| aren't moonlighting on our team and only giving the minimum
| level of effort with us?
|
| The tools for properly determining this are no different remote
| vs in an office at least for IT work. Most dev teams work in
| sprints and each sprint comes with a commitment from each
| developer. It is very noticeable even in remote work if a
| developer is either:
|
| - Not making a reasonably sized commitment.
|
| - consistently failing to complete their work.
|
| - frequently turning in terrible code (don't worry the
| reviewers will let you know).
|
| Whether on-site or remote you can end up with the same
| situation of a high skill employee putting in minimal effort
| but still being more valuable than multiple other developers.
| jroseattle wrote:
| > The tools for properly determining this...
|
| This isn't a logically-evaluate-output scenario. It's low-
| trust between employee and employer.
|
| The bullet points listed are highlighting situations where
| someone isn't delivering. What do you do if they ARE
| delivering, but not delivering as much as they could be? The
| "Not making a reasonably sized commitment" is implicitly an
| assessment of trust in someone. (I'm trying to paraphrase
| what I understand others are doing -- I certainly don't
| subscribe to this thought process.)
|
| > a high skill employee putting in minimal effort but still
| being more valuable than multiple other developers
|
| You're correct in evaluating value - "Hey, at least that
| individual is better than the others..." , Unfortunately not
| everyone sees it that way.
|
| If the employer's expectation is that you are DEDICATED to
| your role, then all of your energy goes to that role -- not
| another one. All this gets into nuance and legality about
| what you're working on, if you have more than one W-2, etc.
| In one company I know of, your work agreement stipulates you
| may not hold another full-time position in such-and-such
| capacity.
|
| As always, it depends from place to place.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > What do you do if they ARE delivering, but not delivering
| as much as they could be?
|
| Isn't this the role of line-managers? Employees are happy
| to do more when adequately motivated (money, prestige,
| opportunity or being acknowledged). The problem is that
| employers want to maximize on employee potential without
| giving anything in return.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > What do you do if they ARE delivering, but not delivering
| as much as they could be?
|
| Doesn't matter. What matters is if they are delivering as
| much as they are expected to.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Why accept that expectation in our industry? The ability
| for employers to require it is negotiated, not a natural
| law
| BlackjackCF wrote:
| Why should employers care about whether or not an employee is
| giving their all or their minimum? As long as the work is
| getting done, should it matter?
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| Because not all work is "done" or "not done"?
|
| Also, if an employee is giving their best effort and their
| work is at the level it needs to be, maybe it is time to move
| that employee, or find a better position in the company for
| them? (Hard worker/high morale, but mismatched skillset to
| task)
|
| If an employee is just underperforming because they are
| unmotivated or lazy...same deal...
| charlie0 wrote:
| Does anyone give more than the minimum effort when they find
| themselves with a 2% to 4% raise, if any, in their yearly
| reviews, even if they are in the office?
| jasmer wrote:
| Yes, definitely, for professionals anyone needing to ask the
| question might consider some introspection.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| It seems from your answer that you have a self-image as a
| "professional" and that motivates you to work hard even
| though it may have minimal impact on your compensation.
| Have you considered the economic rationality of that
| stance?
| jasmer wrote:
| 'Nothing good' happens by 'self-oriented individuals
| doing the least', in fact I would go further and say
| 'almost nothing' happens at all.
|
| If you've ever been on a 'decent team' you'll see that
| there are many 'in between' elements of an operating
| situation that have to be accommodated, and it takes a
| bit of extra focus and goodwill by everyone if it's going
| to work out.
|
| This applies not only to tight-knit groups, but large
| teams, and also to contractors, and can be extended to
| the system overall, aka companies working with each
| other, individuals, public servants etc.
|
| We generally have to keep our chins up, and 'try to do
| our jobs as we can' not the 'minimum we can get away
| with', knowing full well that it's not going to work out
| all the time, that some situations are better than
| others, and that there will be a lot of variables for
| which your 'expected bonus of 4%' or whatever is only one
| small part.
|
| This doesn't mean we 'die on a hill for someone else's
| cause' or work ourselves in a grind for no reason, nor
| does it mean accepting negative behaviour on the part of
| employers, and definitely 'some days are better than
| others' - but 'life is long' and 'consistency over time'
| does matter.
|
| It doesn't even mean fake emotional posture (you know
| those people who are _always_ in a good mood!), but
| rather just 'doing it'.
|
| In most corporate situations, the bar for 'minimum' is
| actually fairly low and so pragmatically, if we want to
| be 'trusted' as individuals, there has to be a general
| expectation that we will do 'it' not the 'minimum' or it
| just won't work.
|
| Obviously, things will be uneven in so many ways - some
| people's 'minimum' will be better than other's 'best
| effort', but that's life - that's all part of it.
|
| It's an issue of productivity, but arguably, morality as
| well.
|
| It's actually a bit troubling that people would even need
| to ask the question, I hope this level of selfish
| orientation is a niche mentality and not some kind of
| new, secular social trend.
|
| It's also hard to even grasp that people could be so
| cynical - I feel sorry for people in that posture,
| because either they've literally never 'been on a team'
| and have no internalization of those dynamics, or a are
| just depressed or have a negative life outlook. I'm not
| very athletic myself, but over the years I've gravitated
| towards people who do play sports, especially team
| sports, as having more of an innate sense for those
| things. Even 'toxic' people are more often than not just
| misfits, at least they are interesting.
|
| It's a sad kind of organizational problem as well - the
| people who are overtly bad or toxic are easy to let go
| of, but the pernicious malignancy of 'do the least' is
| worse.
|
| 'Doing the thing' it usually doesn't cost any more
| material time, just focus. If you're going to do it, then
| do it.
| okaram wrote:
| Different people are different; I enjoy my work, and take
| pride in it.
|
| If I'm so demotivated I'm only putting the minimum effort, I
| start looking for the next job
| Draiken wrote:
| Yes, the are many Clueless [1] in the world
|
| [1]: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
| principle-...
| jasmer wrote:
| Anyone who actually believes this should for the good of
| everyone else, leave their careers now. I mean, it's fun to
| read about completely arbitrarily made up characters at
| 'Dunder Mifflin' used as the basis some kind of deep
| metaphor, but then to find that people actually believe
| this stuff? 'Believing' this piece says more about the
| reader, because the piece itself doesn't say anything, it's
| a kind of Rorschach test.
| metadat wrote:
| Great article.
|
| Discussed 6 months ago, 150 points:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33298158
| throwaway1777 wrote:
| Yes, some people like their jobs or see a way to advance
| their career.
| maltalex wrote:
| > huge signal they don't know how to really measure
| productivity
|
| It's genuinely hard to measure productivity in some fields.
| foogazi wrote:
| If it can't be measured does it matter ?
| maltalex wrote:
| Of course.
| foogazi wrote:
| If it matters it must be measured
|
| If you are a high productivity person why stay at a place
| that can't measure it
| ElFitz wrote:
| Perhaps he should put his money where his mouth is:
| https://careers.airbnb.com/positions/
|
| Because "US, except these states" isn't exactly hiring "from
| anywhere".
| yarg wrote:
| Time zones and expected levels of education are still
| significant factors.
|
| You generally don't want to be hiring people from regions with
| a substandard education system - and if they're in another time
| zone they can spend all night ruining your day before you even
| start work.
| mkl wrote:
| It's the employee's education (& skill, experience, etc.)
| that matters, not the region's.
| yarg wrote:
| It's also communication.
|
| You can communicate across distance, you cannot communicate
| across time.
|
| > It's the employee's education (& skill, experience, etc.)
| that matters, not the region's.
|
| The quality of educational systems is regionally defined,
| yes the other aspects are individual, and there's variation
| in what each individual can get out of the given
| educational context - but to claim that there's no degree
| of consistency in the calibre of candidates that come from
| given regions is ridiculous.
|
| There're always exceptions to generalisations - but you
| seldom want to pick up a single regional employee (except
| for the smallest of projects), because timely communication
| is always vital.
|
| If the individual is of such an extraordinary calibre that
| they become a vital hire, it often involves relocation.
| viraptor wrote:
| > they can spend all night ruining your day before you even
| start work.
|
| Or they can be saving your service in emergency while you
| stay in bed. I'm not sure why you'd expect a different time
| zone to mean lower skills than yours.
| ElFitz wrote:
| It's mostly a problem when the main purpose in hiring
| remotely is to aggressively save money.
| viraptor wrote:
| Yes, it's a problem with management rather than with the
| workers or the timezone.
| yarg wrote:
| I'm not - I'm saying that when it's a factor it's a big
| problem.
|
| I've dealt with entire offices of people that were
| problematic - you could tell when they came in, because
| builds broke universally in the next half an hour.
|
| And that was right at the end of the day.
|
| From half four 'till half five I spent my time fucking
| about rolling back commits and sending emails around the
| world to tell people to sort their shit out.
|
| Yes, there're regions where that's not a problem - the guys
| in our Poland office had their shit together, but it's not
| universal.
| detaro wrote:
| The only remote (to me) office I had to work with that
| I'd describe like that was in California. _shrug_
| viraptor wrote:
| That sounds like a management issue. You've got people
| being counterproductive who were hired, given
| tasks/permissions at inappropriate skill level and are
| not being dealt with appropriately. That's really not
| related to time zone in any way.
|
| Sure, it impacts your situation temporarily, but you
| could experience the same thing from local people working
| night shift. Let's keep in mind where the responsibility
| for solving the situation long-term really is.
| bergie wrote:
| Yep. When I was working with a very geographically
| distributed team, I loved being able to file a bug in the
| end of the workday, and have a fix ready for deployment by
| the time I opened my laptop next morning.
| ElFitz wrote:
| Then how about hiring people in Canada? Unless Canada somehow
| has worse education system than the US?
|
| Or, if it's really only about education systems, Finland?
|
| Seriously, if it's only about education, you can do better
| than the US.
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > Then how about hiring people in Canada
|
| They all do. But good luck getting a bargain.
|
| Canada is a smaller California (population-wise) stretched
| over 5 timezones.
|
| Something you have to keep in mind is that there are two
| parallel markets over there: SV caliber developers and the
| rest. The former won't have any issue getting a job in the
| US (takes maybe a week for a talented engineer to get one).
| Therefore, comp has to be priced appropriately. The later
| can't -and likely won't ever be able to- secure a US visa,
| mostly due to skills (there's a reason they immigrated to
| Canada, it's way easier and the quotas are close to 10x per
| capita compared to the US). Some companies leverage this
| and have floors of international devs they park in Canada
| for a fraction of their US counterpart through a
| subsidiary.
|
| > Finland
|
| The country is a little bit smaller, population-wise, than
| Minnesota. Great education system, but only produces so
| many engineers.
| avbanks wrote:
| I don't want to be rude but the United States has some of
| the best Universities in the world.
| zamadatix wrote:
| There is a reasonable difference between anywhere and
| everywhere. Setting up shop in every state can be a big legal
| pain, especially if you don't expect many employees there or
| the particular state has more difficult rules to comply with.
| Doing so is in no way a requirement for what they are talking
| about, which is not hiring for having people come in to the
| office.
|
| On the flipside I've been able to convince companies to add a
| state before. I imagine it gets more difficult the larger the
| company is though, otherwise someone would have already added
| your state by that point.
| ElFitz wrote:
| I would agree with that.
|
| Except the guy touts the merits of hiring from anywhere. He
| seems to think he's somehow better than all the others he
| criticises (I, personally, favour remote work. Just not
| holier-than-thou hypocrites).
|
| All while his very own company hires from anywhere. Except
| outside the US. Except in one state out of ten.
|
| If hiring people "from anywhere" is so great, and if even
| Basecamp can surmount the legal hurdles of hiring people from
| anywhere, what's Airbnb's excuse?
| zamadatix wrote:
| I'm still not sure I follow what said hypocrisy is supposed
| to be. The article is about how they have the ability to
| hire anywhere, which is true regardless if they currently
| hire everywhere or not. Similarly the quotes about
| traveling for the summer are not invalidated, you don't
| change residency if you go to e.g. Alabama for 2 months so
| it's not a problem it's on the list.
|
| While I agree places that allow anywhere without question
| are even better "pssh, this guy is saying they did
| something well and it's just good not even the best
| possible way!" is not really hypocrisy. Maybe there is more
| I missed in the article though
| ElFitz wrote:
| > "Are you more productive having people physically in an
| office together and then constraining who you hire to a
| 30-mile or a 60-mile commuting radius to the office? Or
| by allowing your team to be able to hire people from
| anywhere?" he asked.
|
| From the linked "Airbnb CEO says the pandemic was the
| group's 'most productive' two years ever, so now he's
| making remote work permanent" [^1] (linked under "Airbnb
| made its "work from anywhere" policy permanent in April
| last year."):
|
| > Today, we're announcing that Airbnb employees can live
| and work anywhere.
|
| [1]: https://fortune.com/2022/04/29/airbnb-ceo-remote-
| work-policy...
| sokoloff wrote:
| > Airbnb, Inc. can hire employees in states where we have
| registered entities. Currently, employees cannot be
| located/live in: Alaska, Nebraska, North Dakota, Wisconsin,
| Alabama, Mississippi, and Delaware.
|
| It seems entirely reasonable to create state entities in a
| late-binding fashion, only after you find an employee or other
| reason requiring the creation of an entity and all the
| recurring paperwork/expense associated. (I am sightly surprised
| to see Delaware on the list given that I'm pretty sure they're
| originally registered as a Delaware corp.)
| ElFitz wrote:
| Even though there is, today, half a dozen startups dedicated
| to solving just that (Deel comes to mind), yes, it definitely
| is reasonable.
|
| I just don't appreciate people sanctimoniously dishing out
| lessons all while not applying what they, unprompted, decided
| to preach.
| lamontcg wrote:
| You are manufacturing your own outrage.
| troll555 wrote:
| [dead]
| FeistySkink wrote:
| Yet, most IT work is on-site. At least in EU.
| sofixa wrote:
| The EU is quite vast, and this is untrue at least for France,
| Netherlands, Bulgaria and from what I can tell Spain and Italy.
| Even very old school companies (think flag airlines and banks)
| have at least hybrid with more time remote than not.
| voytec wrote:
| Not my experience in over a decade but I'm looking strictly for
| remote and don't bother with hybrid/onsite.
| FeistySkink wrote:
| Mind sharing how you approach this?
| prmoustache wrote:
| Just responding only to open positions mentionning remote
| work or stating that you want remote only to the thousands
| of head hunters in linkedin is enough.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| What if no headhunters in your area have jobs that offer
| remote work?
| [deleted]
| sokoloff wrote:
| What does "in your area" really mean when looking for
| remote work?
|
| Are you referring to speciality or geographic area? For
| some specialities, if the specialty doesn't have remote
| work (say it's robotics or biotech or something else with
| a heavy lab component), you might be out of luck. If it's
| geographic, well, find headhunters in another geography.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> What does "in your area" really mean when looking for
| remote work?_
|
| Due to employment, tax and labor laws in my country,
| remote work still has to be done for a company that has a
| presence in my country. I can't have an employment
| contract with a company not based here, only B-2-B.
|
| So remote basically limits me to local companies, which
| don't usually offer 100% remote work posibilities.
| taormina wrote:
| Find better headhunters. They do work on commission
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Whenever I ask them about remote companies they all say
| they don't have such customers, they all want people in
| the office.
| voytec wrote:
| Currently I'm happy with what I found on HN's Who's Hiring
| [1] post.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=whoishiring
| housingisaright wrote:
| I know of 0 friends who needs to go to an office currently.
| Most do to meet co-workers occasionally. I work in Sweden
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| There's no wide mandated EU stance on this. Hugely depends on
| your country.
|
| I work in Austria and most companies have mandatory office
| days due to outdated employment and insurance laws that
| discourage WFH, and micromanaging asshole company bosses who
| think that because they can't see you sitting at your desk
| then you must be slacking off at home on their dime, so they
| bullshit you and brainwash youngsters with "WFH destroys team
| spirit and cooperation so we _' choose'_ to spend 2h/day
| commuting to the office to be more efficient, but don't
| worry, because our office has free coffee and fresh fruits,
| ping-pong and foosball tables to de-stress and build team
| bonds" FUD.
|
| 100% WFH is incredibly rare privilege here. One of my friends
| broke his leg skiing and couldn't drive to the office anymore
| so the company instead of letting him WFH, they paid 40 Euros
| per day for taxis to pick him up from home and drive him to
| the office every day for almost 2 months. Absolutely mental.
|
| I assume Sweden is more forward and progressive.
| higeorge13 wrote:
| But you can work in remote companies in different EU
| countries..
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| No, not really. Austrian labor laws says if you work with
| an employment contract, then your employer must have a
| legal presence in Austria to pay Austrian employer taxes
| and conform to Austrian labor laws, and no company wants
| to do that. There are some middle-men companies to
| interface this but they take a deep cut and not everyone
| want to deal with that hassle.
|
| So your other option is a B-2-B contract but then you
| could end up paying higher taxes and now you don't even
| get the included healthcare and pension contributions,
| and don't get any of the perks an employee gets like
| mandatory 25 vacation days, paid sick leave, paid
| parental leave, etc. You're on your own, just you and
| your money having to pay for everything privately even
| after you paid a bunch in taxes.
|
| And fully EU remote companies get huge amounts of
| applications, hundreds per open position, that it's
| nearly impossible to stand out if you're not an
| experienced senior as you're competing with people from
| lower CoL areas with much lower B-2-B taxes, making it
| not worth it for you if you live here and don't cash in
| over six figures to cover your loss.
|
| EU-wide employment is still not a thing, as you're still
| locked-in and tied to the tax and legal system of your
| country of residence and its employment laws.
| namtab00 wrote:
| This pretty much sums up the situation in Italy also.
| higeorge13 wrote:
| But majority of companies use deel, remote.com and so
| many mediators to hire remotely.
|
| B2b in other eu countries has way less taxes than being
| employee.
|
| Point is that there are many options and companies out
| there.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> But majority of companies use deel, remote.com and so
| many mediators to hire remotely._
|
| They do take a seizable cut though. After taxes on top
| you're not left with much than just working for a local
| company that doesn't have 200 applicants for one position
| and a crazy interview process.
|
| _> B2b in other eu countries has way less taxes than
| being employee._
|
| Yeah, emphasis on "other countries", but I don't live in
| one of those "other countries" so it doesn't help me.
|
| Remote work isn't a wild west level playing filed for
| everyone like HN thinks. You're still tied to the tax
| rules of your country of residence. If those are brutal
| in your country then you're at a disadvantage compared to
| the candidates in low CoL, low tax countries. If you live
| in a country with low tax, low CoL where you can play
| fast and loose with the tax authorities, then you're in
| the perfect place to be a remote candidate.
| namtab00 wrote:
| Do you have a ballpark of how large is the cut off
| intermediaries such as those you cited?
|
| Asking as an Italian hoping to find a foreign fullremote
| employer.
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| I figure there must just be a personality difference that
| explains this stuff.
|
| I can't fathom it. I do better in the office not at home, I do
| better in the gym not in my home gym, I do better cycling if I'm
| with others, I push harder doing basically anything if I'm
| competing, if I'm in a team, if someone is watching. Particularly
| if they're attractive, respectable, etc.
|
| There's an effect from the setting. My home gym just isn't the
| same as a proper place with music blazing and guys/girls
| supporting each other. And the physical - the travel and the
| location - reinforce in my mind that this is serious time.
|
| Every now and then I like to do stuff alone sure. But too much of
| it and it feels like playing with toys on your own. Family don't
| understand the work you do in the same way.
|
| To me it's about as obvious as the sun rising. But not everyone
| feels this way, it seems.
| gaza3g wrote:
| It depends on the commuting time though. I used to live 15 mins
| away from my office and I feel the same way as you. But now,
| having to commute an hour each way is detrimental to me so
| working from home is far better.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Fair enough.
|
| For me, if I spend too much time at home, I rapidly lose
| interest in everything.
|
| I've had 1.5 hour commutes and they sucked. Far less than WFH
| does for me, or worse, going into the office to then see
| people doing Zoom calls from their bedrooms.
| ProjectArcturis wrote:
| Yeah, I feel the polar opposite for each of those. I'm guessing
| you're an early riser, too?
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Nope, I bloody hate both waking up and going to sleep.
|
| Amusingly as with the rest of it, having a friend or partner
| to match schedules with helps a lot.
| namtab00 wrote:
| Funny, I thought I was the only one anecdotically correlating
| early birds with opposing full remote employment.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.md/1w5mR
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