[mrweasel]

My pay cut was only around 15%, but I also wasn't working for a large company, and was apparently underpaid by around 20%. This will come of a spoiled and privileged, but I honestly have no idea how we'd make our day to day life work if I didn't work from home, with incredibly flexible hours. Getting children ready for school and pick them up at a reasonable hour, without stress just isn't possible. You have to drop off your children in some kind of care before their even fully awake, and you need to pick them up almost before you get out of the office.

Obviously people make it work, but I have no idea what kind of hours other people work, because doing a pick up at 16:30 would mean that my child would be the last one in the day care. In any case I don't see the point in tolerating the stress of traffic, school/day care, or just regular difficulties getting your daily tasks to fit in with a 8-16 job at an office. I have a family member that works at a hospital, she can't get her car service for four weeks because there's no available time to drop of the car and pick it up afterwards, which also fits with the mechanic. I can normally get appointments for mechanics, doctors, dentists, contractors, everything, with a few days notice because I can be incredibly flexible with my time.

[rachofsunshine]

This is pretty close to the average value engineers place on a remote job.

In our data set, the on-paper gap is about 18% (~37k on ~200k) if you just compare remote to non-remote, but given that the remote candidates often live in lower-COL areas, some of that probably comes from COL and not purely value placed on remote work.

The real driver is that ~half of engineers only want remote work, and the vast majority of the remainder aren't in whatever city you're hiring in.

[mrweasel]

I get that businesses are about profit and not much more, but I do find it interesting that it doesn't really register that people, given that option, choose to live in very diverse locations.

Some companies don't have the choice. If you need people to come in and operate machines, do manufacturing, care for others and similar, then you often need your employees to commute. If you don't need that, why wouldn't you hire the best qualified person, even if that person prefers to live in the Mojave desert?

[rachofsunshine]

Well, I do, that's why my company is remote.

But if I were to play devil's advocate?

- Because you think the apparently qualified person in the Mojave desert might be a fraudulent person who doesn't exist.

- Because you think the apparently qualified person in the Mojave desert might be interviewing for jobs they intend to quietly outsource, possibly to people worse than themselves and definitely in ways that create security risks.

- Because you think the random overheard conversations and water-cooler factor of in-office work has enough benefits to compensate for nominally lower qualifications.

- Because you think you're not perfect at detecting low-quality work and think remote employees might take the opportunity to slack off in ways they wouldn't in an office.

- Because you think it creates additional security risks by removing the implicit air-gapping of having to physically be in an office to handle sensitive information.

- Because you and your current employees actually like being in-office and having that cultural cohesion, and you don't think you can get it remotely.

...or any number of other reasons.

Like, I get that people like remote work. I do too. But the moralizing of RTO is...just incorrect, I think? There are practical arguments against it (I literally wrote a few thousand words to that effect not long ago - see my most recent HN submission), but that's an entirely different class of objection than the idea that it's just about middle managers wanting to breathe down your neck.

[pllbnk]

I get these worries; I have them too when hiring potential future colleagues while being a remote employee.

Most people are not fraudsters. Probably you will find them from time to time but it's something that's been disproportionately blown-up by the RTO crowd. There were many people like that in the office - they were forced to show up to work but their productivity has always been non-existent. Signing flexible contracts and allowing the company to fire more easily should prevent vast majority of such hires.

There's another weird point about not being able to detect low-quality work. I fail to see a difference between low-quality work in the office versus remotely. If the employer fails to detect it and pays salary, it's the employer's problem either way.

[mrweasel]

Just to be clear, I'm in an area of the world where there never was much work from home. During COVID, sure, everyone was home, but most have been back at the office for a long time. The question of trust also isn't as much of an issue, given that I'm in a country where trust is pretty much implicit. So I don't really buy into many of the especially American takes on return to office. It's not about a "return" for me, that is long gone. People returned to the office years ago.

For me it's missed opportunities for business, it's about a better work life balance, reducing stress, improving health, about reducing traffic and the associated pollution and it's about decentralization. As you rightly point out, there will be situations where you absolutely need people to go to an office, or where it will make a difference. These jobs could benefit from less traffic, better service at the edges of working hours, because the work from home people can use the time slots in middle of the day. For those jobs where it makes no difference if you are in an office or would be an improvement not to be, I don't get why more companies aren't just going for it.

[dgfitz]

So, you need control. Your proposing that employees cannot be managed efficiently if they’re not inside your panopticon?

[bwanab]

Only two ways that I know of that can make it work: 1) one parent needs to stay at home, or 2) hire a nanny. Both of those come with considerable costs.

[mrweasel]

While I apparently where underpaid, my boss and I had a pretty good relationship, but he didn't think a 50+% pay raise, so my wife could stay at home, was realistic, but I did ask.

My wife's boss recommended getting an au pair, she pointed out that he's aware of how much she makes, and that it was a stupid suggestion that he know that we wouldn't be able to afford that.

[james_marks]

Also other families that are in the same boat and trade pickup days, etc.

This is also how you build community, so has many benefits beyond cost.

[bwanab]

Good point!

[ghaff]

Historically, you had grandparents or other extended family (which was the case when I was growing up with two working parents). But that's far less common in the US today.

[lorax]

When I was doing this, I went in a bit later and dropped the kids off and my spouse went in a bit earlier and picked them up. They were neither the first ones in nor the last ones out. My commute was worst case 20 minutes, that also helped. It worked fine (except when spouse was traveling), but WFH Is much easier.

[vundercind]

Relatives, or illegal daycares. Or relatives who run illegal daycares.

I think that’s how folks make it work.

[klooney]

There's a huge class divide in affordability. Unlicensed childcare, home remodeling, etc., is wildly cheaper.

[vundercind]

Yeah, you don’t send your preschoolers to the Montessori school with five acres of woods for $300-600/wk, you send them to your cousin’s friend’s row house with a couple Wal-mart play structures in the chain link fenced back yard for like $120/wk. Places folks with software jobs never even hear of.

[klooney]

I watched cartoons on a dirty floor in a random house before school, I basically came out fine.

[insane_dreamer]

Not to mention that you’re putting your corporate boss’ well being above that of your children who have to cope with those circumstances. I’m willing to deal with the commute. I’m not willing to let my kids take the hit.

[nkrisc]

> This will come of a spoiled and privileged, but I honestly have no idea how we'd make our day to day life work if I didn't work from home, with incredibly flexible hours.

I don't think it's spoiled, I think you're spot on. Yeah, it's hard. And yes, you (and me and probably many others reading here) are privileged.

> Obviously people make it work

And yeah, they usually make it work, and it sucks. Or if they can't make it work then maybe a spouse or partner has to quit their job to handle that stuff and take care of the kids and then they have to get by with even less income.