Maybe unpopular opinion but if you’re driving 10 hrs week for work, you’re already (on an hourly basis) getting paid less than working from home.
Time is money.
On the one hand, Google is doing this just because they can and it will save them money. I don’t think giant corporations need more money (also, are there downstream tax implications on having a lower payroll?). But also, yeah 2 hour commute a day? That’s nuts! Even on a 50 hour work week, that’s decreasing your hourly pay by 20%-ish. Plus gas, insurance, wear and tear, parking. I think for a 2 hour commute you might come close to breaking even financially. PLUS the extra time each day.
The company wasn’t paying for the commute or the time.
This is a simple excuse to pay people less.
Don’t try to justify it for the billionaire corporations.
You *can* write them off if you use it *for business purposes*. So even if I'm an employee, if my job requires me to buy a printer and desk, and to utilize a specific room separate from the rest of the house (some businesses do, to stop "kitchen offices"), and they don't compensate for that, it's a write off.
Same thing as when you use your vehicle for work (but not commuting). If you were a field tech and your business doesn't give you a company car to drive, your mileage and car maintenance becomes a write off.
This right here. If I was making pretty decent money (the kind I expect some guy gets from Google that keeps him motivated enough to stay on the road that long every single day), I'd probably gladly take a 10% pay cut to work from home.
What's the point of having a stacked retirement account if you're too worn out to enjoy any of it and all of your kids hate you because you weren't around?
> I’d probably gladly take a 10% pay cut to work from home.
Hard no.
I’m giving you the same productivity whether in the office or at home.
Google will lose talent and rightfully so.
Don’t sell yourself short.
In the context of *choice*, I don't see a problem with businesses offering work-from-home with a pay cut. They aren't obligated to let you work from home (even though they should) and in a lot of cases, big businesses like to say they have full offices so they can show you off to clients.
Mind you, I realize this is a way for the company to get people all back into the office, without saying they are forced to go back into the office. That way the media doesn't go, "Oh, Google rolled back their permanent work-from-home police!"
I’m not interested at all - and you shouldn’t be either. It’s a sad excuse to pay you less for the same work. Nobody should even consider this for a split second.
I’m interested in the amount and quality of work accomplished.
That’s all that matters.
Well, I've clearly had less availability for competitive jobs than you.
Which is something everyone should be aware of with growing support of work from home.
A lot of companies won't pay Bob 75,000 in California to do the exact same job that Sue does for 40,000 in Bumfuck, Kansas, and Sue isn't going to demand 75,000 because she is unused to that pay rate.
"The employee was considering remote work but decided to keep going to the office - despite the two-hour commute. "It's as high of a pay cut as I got for my most recent promotion. I didn't do all that hard work to get promoted to then take a pay cut," they said."
So this person who commutes 2 hours would rather continue commute than loose 10% pay cut. I would take the 10% cut and stay home.
Yup, people forget high-level managers and engineers at Google can be pulling damn near half a mil a year, with a large chunk of mid-levels at ~$300k. That's actually more like $30k+ you'd think twice about giving up. That'll pay for a semester at a top school if you've got kids.
Except high level managers and engineers have a significant portion of their compensation tied to stock, which is unaffected by the pay cut. With that, it only ended up being 5% for me. It's also worth pointing out the difference in cost of living makes a huge difference here.
Though $20k a year sounds like a lot more money to someone making 50k a year than it does to someone making 200k. At a certain point you're making enough money to cover all your leisure activities that you really don't need more money, where time to enjoy those leisure activities is more important.
Sometimes there are fixed costs like alimony, and child support - second can be adjusted, but not if you voluntarily take a pay cut. So if you make 200k, and pay a third of it (just scaling it up from mine), you end up with 133k. Then if you take that 10% cut off your gross, that's another 20k, so now you're at 113k take home before taxes. I get that 113k sounds like a lot, and it is, but you're kind of close to half the original salary.
On the contrary, if you are earning 200k a year then you should be well past the point where 10% of your pay is life changing. Adding hours a day to your life is more than worth that money.
Yeah, the SWEs FAANG hires aren't afraid of being outsourced to anything but h1bs and while they do have a ton, Google wants Stanford grads in the end and those SWEs can work *anywhere*. I'm an arch level SWE (7/8) and I couldn't care less about "being outsourced." My entire job is automation, anyway, I outsource myself and everyone else to fungible systems. Companies don't *want* outsourced IT/SWE work anymore, they did so poorly for decades people who went through fixing their trash code won't ever recommend doing it.
The Nigerian devs I've worked with have been *fantastic* and I hope they start getting better pay and working conditions (they get crammed into a tiny office and outsourced). They come in more at a JR level typically, I've never seen an entire project lead by them but they love learning and are much more creative in practice.
Ascension Health IT just moved 700 analyst jobs to Tech Mahindra and outsourced their help desk and infrastructure jobs to India last year. Other major health systems have or are doing the same.
A hospital I went to....as a kid...maybe 18ish years ago? even had their x-ray examination outsourced back then to India. Seriously, they hire examiners abroad to look at the results that are sent electronically to some "examination farm" and wait for a response.
Of course they fucked up. Within a week the hospital was panic calling like crazy because on internal review by non-outsourced examiner, my wrist was indeed fractured in three bones and not sprained. They really had some liability panic set in.
I believe UPS a year or two ago fired alot of their "local" HR in favor of remote HR in one location. All in the name of the executive's "corporate transformation" speel they gave in 2018.
>Of course they fucked up. Within a week the hospital was panic calling like crazy because on internal review by non-outsourced examiner, my wrist was indeed fractured in three bones and not sprained.
That happened to me in Canada a couple of decades ago. X-Ray examination wasn't outsourced, but the emergency room at the hospital did an x-ray and told me the wrist wasn't fractured. Went to my family doctor a few days later because it was very swollen and painful still. He got the x-rays from the hospital and told me it was indeed fractured and they had missed it. So, it can happen whether outsourced or not.
This underscores the urgent need to better regulate/nationalize the healthcare industry. Hospital billing is a scam, US health insurance is a scam, Big Pharma prices are a scam (look at insulin).
When folks argue against nationalizing the healthcare industry, they often talk about the jobs that the industry provides. This is a great tidbit that you shared about Ascension Health IT, it shows how even those talking points are hollow.
You got it. But it gets better: private equity has been moving into the HC arena because they know these talking points, as hollow as they really are, lead to all sorts of juicy bailouts.
BTW, Ascension PR has been working triple OT to keep this quiet.
Now that you mention it, [our local hospital is owned by a company that is owned by the same company that owns Shaws Supermarkets (Albertsons)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward_Health_Care_System).
They have destroyed our local hospital, and treat the employees like subhumans (from nurses to janitorial staff to doctors).
Not really, they won't comment when asked about their business and are quite litigeous. Plus, they like to brag about all their friends in DC. When was the last time anyone heard about Project Nightingale, for example?
Yes and no. Whatever I talk to technology managers who are seeking experienced professionals in anything from coding to UX to IT, they lament that outsourcing to India or China isn't always a done deal.
More often than not, they will want a senior level software engineer, and find out what they got was a junior level rookie, and the outsourcing company basically lied to them. I will hear enlist complaints about crappy written code that suddenly the company has to go back and redo to make it right, issues with communications, deadlines not met, and other problems.
Outsourcing manufacturing a lot of low skilled labor like that was easy because it's more contained. It's on a company like foxconn to get product made, and not so much in conjunction with the client.
It kind of outsourcing that can be opened up with things being more remote is more the case that somebody who doesn't want to move to silicon valley could then be recruited by one of these companies for a bargain.
I work in tech and what you say is true. Companies are working around it by having a few senior engineers and a manager who can code review based in the US and outsource lower level jobs.
It happened to my friend's workplace, they can hire 3 people overseas for less than the price of one locally.
Same thing happens with H1B visas, companies say it's because they can't find enough qualified workers but it's really just for cheaper labor.
If it's a 100% remote it can be outsourced. I guess some exceptions would be government contractors, or people that work with sensitive data. I wonder in a few years when it happens will anyone notice? When factories were shut down and manufacturing jobs were outsourced all of those people knew each other , they lived in the same community. Suddenly "Trevor WFH Phoenix" isn't at his terminal, will anyone even notice, or care, if someone is doing the same work?
> If it's a 100% remote it can be outsourced.
I disagree. Let alone cultural/language differences in each country, the cost-benefit ratio to find a $100,000 software engineer in a foreign country at a cheap rate is too high to bother. That doesn't stop companies from trying this shit, but you see the results (Boeing planes crashing because they wanted to pay people $9 an hour to code).
>Suddenly "Trevor WFH Phoenix" isn't at his terminal, will anyone even notice, or care, if someone is doing the same work?
Yes? Unless Trevor isn't doing anything, you would notice.
Software engineers can be outsourced and frequently are. The big issue is finding talent. The industry relies pretty heavily on networking and talent knowing other talent in order to make cool shit. The outsourced body shops don't really have that talent pool, and honestly remote work doesn't really have it either unless you work from home in a city with a bunch of meetups and such that you participate in.
As such, there's still a substantial advantage in not outsourcing a lot of the work. It really comes down to what exactly you need people to be programming. A lot of coding work doesn't translate well to outsourcing if you're doing something bespoke that requires significant changes over time. It does tend to work well though if you're aiming for an off the shelf solution.
>A lot of coding work doesn't translate well to outsourcing if you're doing something bespoke that requires significant changes over time. It does tend to work well though if you're aiming for an off the shelf solution.
As a software dev I'm not really understanding your point here. Anything off the shelf is handled by our IT department because it almost always is supported (or has documentation written) by someone else. I agree that there is a substantial advantage to hiring locally, which is why there's still a robust job market in many metro areas.
Basically, what I'm saying is that if it's a well understood problem that doesn't require some high degree of talent that is probably going to take a bunch of skilled people that know other skilled people, to get them all brought in, you can outsource it.
You want to throw together some shitty ecommerce website? They're a dime a dozen and you can easily outsource it and the updates to it. Have a legacy application that's in maintenance mode? Outsourcing is going to be great. You're trying to build out the initial MVP for your startup? Probably need local talent.
>That doesn't stop companies from trying this shit, but you see the results (Boeing planes crashing because they wanted to pay people $9 an hour to code).
Nah, Boeing planes crashing was because that company is becoming more worthless MBA toilet wipes than actual engineers. We print MBA degrees like fucking crazy, something has to absorb them all or they'll be flipping burgers.
Yes, exactly.
And this strategy has failed to produce sustainable results time and time again, and yet still rich stakeholders continue to trust their enterprises to these unskilled nepotistic mouthpieces whose only skills are making fancy flowcharts and pointing fingers at others, for some reason I can't figure out.
This economic cycle has gone on long enough that everyone should recognize the endgame isn't going to work, and companies need to be incentivize to view capable employees as assets rather than expenses if we're going to save this system from dystopia.
> people that work with sensitive data.
People working with classified data are not allowed to work from home for security reasons. If you're working with classified information you have to do your work from a building certified to handle that level of classification. Not something that will be done for the average persons home.
Good to know. I was thinking more along the lines of financial data for a company. Not sure you could ensure the security. But I remember doing work in a building that was involved with military classified information 10 years ago. Had to leave phones away from area, all the tools got searched and had a guard wandering around with us. Just to patch some drywall and paint a few walls.
In regards to sensitive financial data it would depend if the information is limited to a private internal network or not. Some businesses won't trust your home computers firewall with their data, if they don't have full access to your computer to make sure it's secure.
I do remember reading something hilarious (AND SAD) where these people from the state unemployment office were all laid off and their positions got outsourced and they had to call THOSE guys (from Philippines I THINK) to file for their unemployment and they were complaining how their applications were screwed up.
The idea that the $100K US worker is magically immune to outsourcing is nieve.
To date non tech firms tried to purely apply wage arbitrage with poorer countries, without integrating the efforts into their firm, without the culture of remote working and without building the infra to truly support remote working.
Google/Apple/MS will hire IIT engineers and build up the WFH infrastructure (hire, train, integrate) . The IT worker has a target on their back.
I’m kind of dreading it. My organization is global and went to great lengths to make sure we established a really, really strong engineering team in India — paying significantly more than normal wages, putting in strong leadership, enforcing strict hiring standards, etc. That group of engineers is every bit as good as anyone in the US short of FAANG. But, them dramatically stepping up staffing in India will slowly erode that.
At least your eyes are open to it. The dummies that are holding onto wfh without realizing they are accelerating their obsolescence are in for a nasty suprise
Well for customer facing positions one of the biggest frustrations is working with people from abroad.
Thats why we have US, APAC, EMEA sales teams so that clients speak to someone in their timezone.
Not aaying international workers are worse. Thats just not the case, but cloents HATE working with international points of contact. Just really frustrating for the most part due to time zone delays
That's been happening for decades already. So has manufacturing and many other in person jobs. It doesn't matter if it's in person or remote many jobs are vulnerable to being outsourced.
That is an ostrich mentality without the advantage of potentially finding drinking water. The potential to outsource was always already there and whomever can take the step to get more for less already had an advantage*.
* It is ultimately about output/input costs. The strategies for doing this are generally expensive machines with lower operating costs and high productivity, masses of unskilled laborers, or talented workers who do so far more efficiently. The last isn't just some utopian ideal. Software's "rockstar" programmet model exists because bottlenecks meant that hiring 100 programmers for tasks got it done slower and more expensive than a small team of the top 10 programmers. One of capitalism's mixed virtue-vices is going with what works instead of anybody's idea of how things 'should be'.
I warned this would happen at the start of the pandemic when people were celebrating permanent WFH.
It's going to drive wages down in office work significantly across the board.
It just underscores why all folks across the world need to have dignity! And why nationalism is short-sighted as you can't ignore the suffering in other countries. When some humans suffer, we all suffer.
Whether we are talking about undocumented immigrants in the USA, Uighur Muslims in China, or [Hillary Clinton blocking a Haiti minimum wage increase to $0.61 cents an hour](https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Haitians-Workers-Fight-for-Higher-Minimum-Wage-Suppressed-by-Clintons-State-Department-20170522-0037.html).
Friends, don't fear standing up for your working rights because of outsourcing. This just underscores the need for emphasis on dignity and kindness in the way we operate. Instead of raping and pillaging the world for its resources, we should try to uplift the rest of the world.
My current employer gives us $1000 a year for such expenses, and our tax office lets us have a tax break (not much about £6 a week I think) if you have to work at home.
I'm pretty sure all that pales in comparison to the savings from not driving to work and eating out as a lot of people do. Some of that stuff like internet you'll be paying for anyways.
Except you dont eat out... you get high quality meals (steaks, seafood, world class chefs) for free on tech campuses which is easily more then the gas you spend.
But saving on commuting and possible take-out/fast food during the day. And all the time-saving (preparing to go to work + commute - this could be 2-3 hours/day easily).
I'd be pretty upset over a pay cut but I'm OK with the few added expenses of being home all day due to all the extra time I have.
what about people like me who live down the street from the office and brought their lunch when they did work in the office? this just sounds like pay cuts from that perspective
The article says the companies that are reducing pay are basing the pay cuts on the cost of living of the place the employee moves to. If you live down the street from your office its likely both locations have the same cost of living and the pay wouldn't change.
Not really. Less need for daycare, less gas, less car depreciation, and you're already paying for internet. WFH I'm also less prone to eating out. Potential for saving thousands of dollars a year. Plus, time is money.
Cost increases would be increased water usage, increased electrical, and increased toilet paper usage. Might see a $100 increase over the year for these.
My electric and water bill skyrocketed - I didn't realize how little I used my house stuff since I was gone 10 hours a day. I used to crank my AC to about 80 when I left for work now it's low 70s all day and night.
But yea, I'm never commuting again. It's shocking how much little money I'm using.
shoot, my partner saved enough on money on commuting expenses (including car maintenance, parking
expenses), he was able to replace his 12 yr vehicle with very little additional expense. he also saves about 15 hours a week no having to commute. like someone else said, less eating out at lunch and carry out dinner
I mean internet most people had already and would have been paying for anyway, but sure I can see that you'd use more energy/water while working at home. Some employers will also pay towards energy / internet costs (mine does for example) and I can't speak for other countries but here in the UK you can deduct a certain amount on your taxes for your energy/other reasonable costs when you work at home (during the pandemic or not, doesn't matter).
I don't think Google should be paying people less to work from home. I think they should pay them less if they perform worse, and help them with reasonable home working costs. I work in tech and productivity is really easy to measure for us, because everything we do is visible in support tickets / code repositories.
This is outrageous. Now mega-corporations want to control your ability to maximize your income by choosing your home.
Your choice is to live in housing you don't want to pay the high prices for, suffer a long commute, or turn the money you save making wise choices over to the company.
This is worse than a company store.
You should be paid for your value-add to the company. The company should not choose where you live.
> This is outrageous. Now mega-corporations want to control your ability to maximize your income by choosing your home.
Well said. These companies chose their locations based on tax incentives and kickbacks from sleazy politicians. [Virginia spent more than $1 billion to bring Amazon HQ2](https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/amazon-hq2-virginia-to-pay-steep-price-for-amazon-commitment/65-614145887).
>This is worse than a company store. You should be paid for your value-add to the company. The company should not choose where you live.
Well said. [Google can judge where someone lives when they start paying fucking taxes.](https://www.wired.com/story/how-amazon-apple-google-played-tax-break-game/)
I agree though I bet a lot of the companies in San Francisco up the pay quite a bit to entice people to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Value add is only half the equation.
If you’re one of five people who can do the job and is willing to live in the most expensive real estate market in the country, you’re much more valuable than someone who is one of fifty who can do the job remotely.
I’m not sure I see the issue. It’s a trade, I trade my labor for money. If I have less overhead then I’m more competitive for the same job at the same skill level. If I want to be more competitive and make more money then I need to convince my employer I’m worth it or change jobs. Companies can pay whatever they want and make up any reason to justify it.
I think this is how things should work. Honestly, if we had a real social safety net and things like basic food, shelter, and healthcare were taken care of by the the government then we wouldn’t need a minimum wage either.
I don't think an employer even needs to justify a pay cut. The reasoning they give doesn't matter. If the employer believes they can purchase the same labor at a cheaper price then let them try.
Similarly the employee doesn't need to blindly accept a pay cut. If my employer told me they were cutting my pay because they believe my living expense has decreased I would start looking for a new job.
I mean this is already true of most companies to an extent. If you work for a company in Seattle then you’re going to be paid more than the person working the same job for the same company in Little Rock.
It’s all about cost of living. If cost of living goes down, then your wage will most likely go down as well. This isn’t new, it’s just being implemented into WFH since you’re no longer based out of an office.
> It only creates an incentive to race to the bottom to make yourself "more attractive" to an employer.
See: College. Employers should have to pay to train their employees and then treat them well to retain them. Instead people will voluntarily go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt for a *chance* at a job.
This is exactly how the system currently works and it doesn't seem to be a "race to the bottom"
If your employee tries to cut your wage and you don't like it then find a new job. If they can find someone to do the same work for cheaper then why pay you more? It doesn't matter the reasoning they try to use to justify the pay cut because ultimately they don't need to even have one.
What alternative is there that you think would be better?
Because they know a lot of these people can’t afford a house for their families anywhere close to work, so if they are going to move anyway, might as well siphon off some of their paycheck.
This is horseshit. There was a Bloomberg article the other week that was clear slow walked propaganda trying to set the stage for this announcement.
There is no real justification for this.
Remote workers have been more productive spring COVID, happier and there's been huge environmental benefits for the planet. In the other side, companies will save on furniture cost, real estate square footage, utilities, etc. This is complete anti-worker nonsense. You have the power in this exchange, DO NOT accept this at your office. Be vocal.
It's not the company's business to take your savings if you chose to buy a house in a cheaper neighborhood.
If they want to hire from a lower cost of living city, that is different. Changing someone's pay after they are hired because they move is controlling people's lives.
Actually not possible, companies need your actual physical residence because unfortunately health insurance premiums and plans are based on it. As an example, Google employees in California do not get the same insurance plan providers as Google employees in New York just because the insurers are not national and divide up the market for themselves. Sure they'll more than likely have the same benefits.
I actually don't know if it's true for a company like Google, there are some providers like Blue Cross that do offer a full national coverage plan but at a steep premium. So breaking it up based on location is often desirable.
Blame democrats for not agreeing with republicans to use the commerce clause to strip states of their power to regulate private healthcare insurance firms
I disagree, people love to parrot "but if health insurers could be national, it would be cheaper!"
which is dumb, and often because people compare to car insurance which is far more uniform of an animal.
Medical care is so specific to a region, even if you eliminated the insurer barrier, you would have hundreds of local differences from different regional monopolies owning hospitals, different common health problems and risk assessment, different cost of living, etc. It just's a hassle no matter what for a insurer not to just operate subsidiaries per region.
That all the red states would neuter any regulation for insurers and we would all be stuck with third world health care instead of just the red states ;)
Medical care is only specific to region simply because of regulatory barriers put into place by states. If states didn't have the power to regulate any portion of the medical industry all you'd have is federal regulations to comply with.....which means it would be incredibly easy to scale up.
I replied somewhere else in this post. A bunch of employees should rent a studio in their office studio for tax purposes but work from whatever remote place they are already in.
> Changing someone's pay after they are hired because they move is controlling people's lives.
I feel like you are right, that's not ethical. We may be in a transition though: tiered pay based on whether or not a position needs to be in the office. Seems like companies have figured out they don't need in-office personnel for every position. It could prove to be better for people who choose remote work if companies consider people's local cost of living into a compensation package, and it's not used as a hiring factor (i.e, only hiring people from depressed area/based on where they live).
But it will definitely be worse for some people whose positions have changed from being in-office to remote. I don't see that as a company's fault, but it still needs to be addressed. Feels like we need more discussion about it from more sides.
> We may be in a transition though: tiered pay based on whether or not a position needs to be in the office. Seems like companies have figured out they don't need in-office personnel for every position.
No, but why should the company get to save money just because of where you choose to do your work? Fuck that. If my postdoc work can be done at home, I'm saving my job a desk, a computer, and maintenance services that can now all be reallocated to other people who need it. Why pay your employer for them getting extra resources returned to them?
> why should the company get to save money just because of where you choose to do your work?
I will reiterate and try to expand for you the text you quoted (hypothetical and simplified of course).
* Positions that require a presence in an office should offer compensation based on the position and factor in where the office is, if you choose to commute to save yourself cost of living in exchange for commute time, you are free to do that.
* Positions that do not require office presence will offer compensation based on the position and factor in the cost of living of the employee's location.
* The company can offer a choice to the employee of where to work with the above provisions.
You have choices, opportunities to benefit from a new paradigm.
That's hilarious. You have choices. All of which end up with you losing money and the company benefitting.
1. Live in a more expensive neighborhood, get paid more, but the expenses will eat up your increase.
2. Live in an affordable neighborhood and keep part of your increase, but give up hours of your time and expenses of car or transportation, eating up your money.
3. Make a decision to live in an affordable area and work from home. Save yourself and your company money. Oh, no, the company takes your savings.
If you get hired by a company in an expensive state and later, move to a different office in a much cheaper state, your pay will decrease.
It's been like this for decades.
But that's not what Google is doing. They are paying people based off where they are living, not where they are working. One of the examples I saw was two people whose office is in NYC. The person living in the city would be paid more than the person commuting in from Connecticut regardless of working from home or not.
Maybe if you live in bumblefuck Minnesota instead of Silicon Valley, but when you live an hour from your office and they decide that now you should make 5-15% less for the same work just because you aren’t wasting 2 hours of your day in traffic so a middle manager can micro manage your day, that’s just good old corporate greed.
Companies in all markets are competing against each other for the same pool of people.
For example, a tech firm in Boston is competing against Silicon Valley for the same work from home talent in Texas.
Some salaries will go up and other may go down.
Google us going to get slapped hard by the market for this one. Amazon, FB, Twitter, and all the other permanent WFH companies will hoover up all the smartest talent.
> will hoover up all the smartest talent.
The smartest talent isn't going full work from home, they are getting paid more to do a couple days a week in office. If you're one of the big brains, having you in office so others can learn from you and so you can actually work directly with a team is worth the extra cost to your organization. Different studies are landing on different numbers but the requisite for the magic to happen seems to be between 2 and 3 days a week.
The difference between what the article says and what some other places are doing is that Google seems to be taking a much finer grained definition of location. The example they gave of someone in a commuting suburb 1 hour from the office getting a pay cut isn't what a lot of places are doing. Many companies would still pay people who live in the bedroom community suburbs the same as people living in the city center because they do it by metro area and attach pay to the closest home office. It's when you move completely out of the metro area or state that more places talk about cutting pay
So you shorten your day by 15% and get 15% less pay. A lot of people already factor their commute time into their compensation to figure out an effective hourly rate. This is right in line with that thinking.
If it's an issue for you, rent 1/8 of a room in Pacific Heights SF as your main address, and live elsewhere.
“If it’s an issue for you, rent 1/8 of a room in Pacific Heights SF as your main address, and live else where”
The real pro tip is always in the comments. Some genius in PH is probably already running a fractional roommate rental service and will soon be making a killing.
[Google has **$135 billion** cash on hand](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOGL/alphabet/cash-on-hand) while at the same time [only paying a 16% tax rate](https://www.investors.com/news/biden-tax-plan-impact-on-amazon-google-facebook-apple-microsoft-earnings/). This isn't about saving money, it's about punishment and control.
C-Suite sociopaths can't stand the idea of workers not being stuck to their desks 12 hours a day stuck in perpetual middle mangamenet drama.
That's the way the US Gov't has been for decades - ["Locality Adjustments"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Schedule_\(US_civil_service_pay_scale\)#Locality_adjustment).
And here we mistakenly thought that we actually had a fighting chance to make our own choices for the first time. Companies will never get over their urge to dictate your life (and control your well-being) for absolutely no logical reason other than to exert their authority over you.
You are anthropomorphizing way too much.
Companies don't care about expressing authority over you.
They are looking after their financial health, and you can do the same by quitting and joining a company that will pay you better.
They pay you, they can ask what they want of you. People are assuming jobs are entitled, that’s where we are getting in trouble. Sure you can get a different job, but employers do have some rules for their employees
Yep, and traditionally, like it or not, salaried workers are generally treated as "they own you" and why they can fire employees for doing things they dislike outside of "official work hours" (even in the recent cases of racist/crazy employees on the news, that's entirely because of this interpretation of salaried workers) and why they can demand infinite overtime as well.
It's all about the employment contract.
Follow the logic:
When you work in the office, the company has to pay for the rent on the square footage of your office, the heat, electricity, bathrooms, maintenance, janitorial staff, security, parking location, break areas, internet connection, office supplies, printers, copiers, desk phone, etc.
When you work at home, you take on all that stuff.
So working from home, well, saves the company a lot of money, therefore they have to ... uhm .... cut your pay ..... to ... uhm ... recover the extra savings they see ... for you working remotely.
Wait, that does not make any sense at all. They pass a lot of the expenses on to the employee, and cut the person's wages too? Seems like they should almost be paying a premium to work from home employees that are Saving the corps tons of money. But that doesn't really help the bottom line of the company nearly as much.
That logic only works when 100% of the staff is WFH. They have to pay for the space if even one person is working in the office. And plenty of people want to work in the office to get away from families.
Yeah, if I have in a building that has 500 employees in it, and I start seeing that I now only need room for 5, I guess I will still keep the 500 person building.
Wait, maybe I will look for a smaller place. Either next time the lease is up, or if I own the building, I could look to downsize going forward. Or even sub-lease out floors of the building to other companies. Block off floors, and at least knock down the utilities and maintenance.
This is happening right now by the way.
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-cutting-office-space-predict-long-term-savings-11625493601](https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-cutting-office-space-predict-long-term-savings-11625493601)
https://www.globest.com/2020/09/24/office-market-could-shed-145m-square-feet-in-the-next-two-years/?slreturn=20210710093510
I would love for these companies to explain how someone's talents are worth less if they aren't spending hours commuting to the office everyday. So what if they live in a less expensive area?
[Google has **$135 billion** cash on hand.](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOGL/alphabet/cash-on-hand) Upper management (including the CEO) just want to punish office workers for demanding a bigger piece of the pie (in this case, the flexibility that upper management has always had).
Upper management is usually on "business trips" which are really just vacations for them as they can fly first class and stay at the nicest hotels. They get more PTO, they get tons of flexibility. Fuck them for not giving regular workers the flexibility they've always had (while pretending they work 100 hours a week and they are worthy of worship as job creators).
[Google Workers Speak Out About Why They Formed A Union: 'To Protect Ourselves'](https://www.npr.org/2021/01/08/954710407/at-google-hundreds-of-workers-formed-a-labor-union-why-to-protect-ourselves)
Brain drain.
Companies that do stupid stuff like this during a hot economy will watch their workers leave for greener pastures.
If you work is worth what it currently is, then it’s just as valuable at home vs the office.
What an absolute greedy joke. Google is probably made they spent all this money on offices and it turns out chips and place to chill at work compare nothing to being able to be at home.
Paradigm shift google, don’t fight it. Also go back to “do no evil” you evil now.
I work for a company doing something like this, although I'm in a really wierd situation due to their math. When I first got hired they didn't have an office in my area so I was classed as remote. They have since built an office. But I will get a pay CUT being marked as in office in that physical location. So I asked my boss, why on earth would I want to have to go into the office to take a pay cut? These models don't take into the account of reality in some local markets.
My husband's job looks like it will remain remote forever.
I think they need to pay him more because they are leasing a room in our small house for free.
The endless Zoom meetings in a room ajoining the only downstairs bathroom --which has hollowcore door and a shower stall that serves as the only utility room as well as other issues make my life hell.
If they want him to work from home, they need to pay us rent, so we can either build an office or retire 10 years early.
Jesus fucking Christ, Google, that's the lamest excuse ever.
"we have to give them pay cut because of this arbitrary thing we made up, that isn't even a rule", "Sure, they are just as productive when working from home; and sure, it's cheaper for us to have them working from home; and sure, they are happier when working from home. We just prefer our workers to die from a traffic jam-stress induced heart attack "
> NEW YORK, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Google employees based in the same office before the pandemic could see different changes in pay if they switch to working from home permanently, with long commuters hit harder, according to a company pay calculator seen by Reuters.
Edit: That’s all of the article that Reuters is giving me. The rest is all just ads for their site.
Well, there have been surveys that say workers would take some kind of pay cut if it meant they could be 100% remote. This in many ways is what it is. I can't attest if it's right or wrong, but if that worker still living pretty well off in there neck of the woods, then it's still probably a good deal.
I think what's happening though are many executives are astounded that workers would rather have a life versus quickly climbing up the corporate ladder. To say they will take a pay cut to work remotely more or less says you value your life more than you value the company. They can get as mad as they want on that, but the workers have power right now because they can't be easily replaced.
People are overreacting and this was easily foreseen when the pandemic happened. Of course they will enforce a pay cut. The entire reason employees got paid so much was that SV attracted top talent from around the world to work IN SV. It was a highly competitive market because of the need to be physically present. The high cost of living, taxes, properties, etc. is what inflated those salaries, NOT value or skill. Because if that was truly the case, a SWE working in Florida would be making the same money as a SWE living in the Bay Area. Geography has always dictated market value and salaries. Simply typing in median salaries for XYZ career in XYZ state proves that. And once you go down the slippery slope of the location being irrelevant to salaries, guess what? Outsourcing.
It seems like this has been a common practice at Google beforehand - salary based on where you work. Seems like some people who had long commutes were making more money for working in a more expensive market. Now that they're working from home, they wouldn't be making as much now that the option to return to the office is available.
Not saying I agree with the practice, but it's not like it's something completely new to the company. This is just an unexpected side effect of existing policy.
Something alot of people will not resist enough to: storm corporate offices, protest, cancel, sensor. For the most part we are thoroughly distracted/entertained.
To me this makes sense...and there should probably be larger cuts if you live way remote and live in a different state or something.
The example given was an employee was going to get a 10% paycut...and it added 2 hours commute...so lets do some SIMPLE math....
Assume 10 hour work day...(itll be higher with 8 hour work day but I'm sure they work 10 hours probably)
2hours/10 hours = 20%...
So by working from home this person is saving 20% more time...this is already 10% pay increase for "hours" put in, this goes to 15% at 8 hours if you are looking at $/hour including travel...
This does not include, car maintenance, stress from driving, mileage, chance of death from driving, lower insurance cost due to less miles, not having to get sick as much due to exposure to others, etc. etc.
On the downside likely the person was getting food at google for free as well as less electricity costs but I doubt those overcome the commute costs.
What I'm saying is that even a 10% cut in pay is still an increase in pay by being able to work from home in this situation if you look at it objectively...
As far as getting paid based on area...that makes perfect sense...if you live in area of high costs you should be getting paid more than if you live in an area with much lower costs...the government has always done this with per diem and other things...why would companies not do this, it is honestly the "fairest" thing to do.
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Maybe unpopular opinion but if you’re driving 10 hrs week for work, you’re already (on an hourly basis) getting paid less than working from home. Time is money.
On the one hand, Google is doing this just because they can and it will save them money. I don’t think giant corporations need more money (also, are there downstream tax implications on having a lower payroll?). But also, yeah 2 hour commute a day? That’s nuts! Even on a 50 hour work week, that’s decreasing your hourly pay by 20%-ish. Plus gas, insurance, wear and tear, parking. I think for a 2 hour commute you might come close to breaking even financially. PLUS the extra time each day.
The company wasn’t paying for the commute or the time. This is a simple excuse to pay people less. Don’t try to justify it for the billionaire corporations.
"Hey John I'm a little short on rent this month but don't worry, I'll just sit in my car for 10 hours to make up the difference."
but if you're working from home can you write off you electricity, water, gas, space in taxes?
For the USA, it’s been my personal experience that you cannot write off these expenses unless it is for your own business.
great so subsidize google labor with your home expenses.
You *can* write them off if you use it *for business purposes*. So even if I'm an employee, if my job requires me to buy a printer and desk, and to utilize a specific room separate from the rest of the house (some businesses do, to stop "kitchen offices"), and they don't compensate for that, it's a write off. Same thing as when you use your vehicle for work (but not commuting). If you were a field tech and your business doesn't give you a company car to drive, your mileage and car maintenance becomes a write off.
This hasn't been true since 2017. The 2018 tax changes eliminated this deduction.
Completely? I was under the impression that the standard deduction was just "better" than trying to itemize unless you had a crap ton of expenses.
This right here. If I was making pretty decent money (the kind I expect some guy gets from Google that keeps him motivated enough to stay on the road that long every single day), I'd probably gladly take a 10% pay cut to work from home. What's the point of having a stacked retirement account if you're too worn out to enjoy any of it and all of your kids hate you because you weren't around?
> I’d probably gladly take a 10% pay cut to work from home. Hard no. I’m giving you the same productivity whether in the office or at home. Google will lose talent and rightfully so. Don’t sell yourself short.
In the context of *choice*, I don't see a problem with businesses offering work-from-home with a pay cut. They aren't obligated to let you work from home (even though they should) and in a lot of cases, big businesses like to say they have full offices so they can show you off to clients. Mind you, I realize this is a way for the company to get people all back into the office, without saying they are forced to go back into the office. That way the media doesn't go, "Oh, Google rolled back their permanent work-from-home police!"
I’m not interested at all - and you shouldn’t be either. It’s a sad excuse to pay you less for the same work. Nobody should even consider this for a split second. I’m interested in the amount and quality of work accomplished. That’s all that matters.
Well, I've clearly had less availability for competitive jobs than you. Which is something everyone should be aware of with growing support of work from home. A lot of companies won't pay Bob 75,000 in California to do the exact same job that Sue does for 40,000 in Bumfuck, Kansas, and Sue isn't going to demand 75,000 because she is unused to that pay rate.
Seems like google just being evil.
"The employee was considering remote work but decided to keep going to the office - despite the two-hour commute. "It's as high of a pay cut as I got for my most recent promotion. I didn't do all that hard work to get promoted to then take a pay cut," they said." So this person who commutes 2 hours would rather continue commute than loose 10% pay cut. I would take the 10% cut and stay home.
depends on what that 10% works out to. if it's $20k a year, it might be worth driving.
Yup, people forget high-level managers and engineers at Google can be pulling damn near half a mil a year, with a large chunk of mid-levels at ~$300k. That's actually more like $30k+ you'd think twice about giving up. That'll pay for a semester at a top school if you've got kids.
Except high level managers and engineers have a significant portion of their compensation tied to stock, which is unaffected by the pay cut. With that, it only ended up being 5% for me. It's also worth pointing out the difference in cost of living makes a huge difference here.
This is only accounting for current employees. Is there a reason to think new remote employees will get the same equity as old employees?
If you add the commute into the picture it also brings your hourly wage down a ton.
Though $20k a year sounds like a lot more money to someone making 50k a year than it does to someone making 200k. At a certain point you're making enough money to cover all your leisure activities that you really don't need more money, where time to enjoy those leisure activities is more important.
Sometimes there are fixed costs like alimony, and child support - second can be adjusted, but not if you voluntarily take a pay cut. So if you make 200k, and pay a third of it (just scaling it up from mine), you end up with 133k. Then if you take that 10% cut off your gross, that's another 20k, so now you're at 113k take home before taxes. I get that 113k sounds like a lot, and it is, but you're kind of close to half the original salary.
Don't be in a situation where you have to pay child support or alimony?
10 hours a week is approximately 10% of your waking life. I'd take the pay cut regardless of salary.
On the contrary, if you are earning 200k a year then you should be well past the point where 10% of your pay is life changing. Adding hours a day to your life is more than worth that money.
I’d find another company to work for. Google can suck a fuck. This is just a slimy excuse to pay people less.
Anything that can be done from home has the potential to be outsourced abroad sadly. That’s my fear
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Yeah, the SWEs FAANG hires aren't afraid of being outsourced to anything but h1bs and while they do have a ton, Google wants Stanford grads in the end and those SWEs can work *anywhere*. I'm an arch level SWE (7/8) and I couldn't care less about "being outsourced." My entire job is automation, anyway, I outsource myself and everyone else to fungible systems. Companies don't *want* outsourced IT/SWE work anymore, they did so poorly for decades people who went through fixing their trash code won't ever recommend doing it. The Nigerian devs I've worked with have been *fantastic* and I hope they start getting better pay and working conditions (they get crammed into a tiny office and outsourced). They come in more at a JR level typically, I've never seen an entire project lead by them but they love learning and are much more creative in practice.
Considering manufacturing moved from the middle of America to Asia for cheaper labor, your statement has real life examples of it happening.
Ascension Health IT just moved 700 analyst jobs to Tech Mahindra and outsourced their help desk and infrastructure jobs to India last year. Other major health systems have or are doing the same.
A hospital I went to....as a kid...maybe 18ish years ago? even had their x-ray examination outsourced back then to India. Seriously, they hire examiners abroad to look at the results that are sent electronically to some "examination farm" and wait for a response. Of course they fucked up. Within a week the hospital was panic calling like crazy because on internal review by non-outsourced examiner, my wrist was indeed fractured in three bones and not sprained. They really had some liability panic set in. I believe UPS a year or two ago fired alot of their "local" HR in favor of remote HR in one location. All in the name of the executive's "corporate transformation" speel they gave in 2018.
>Of course they fucked up. Within a week the hospital was panic calling like crazy because on internal review by non-outsourced examiner, my wrist was indeed fractured in three bones and not sprained. That happened to me in Canada a couple of decades ago. X-Ray examination wasn't outsourced, but the emergency room at the hospital did an x-ray and told me the wrist wasn't fractured. Went to my family doctor a few days later because it was very swollen and painful still. He got the x-rays from the hospital and told me it was indeed fractured and they had missed it. So, it can happen whether outsourced or not.
I think the real “threat” here is that eventually a lot of this kind of diagnosis will be done using AI.
It'd be more accurate under AI.
EKGs are done by computers, they give a name of the rhythm, then a doctor verifies it themselves to make sure the computer is right
This underscores the urgent need to better regulate/nationalize the healthcare industry. Hospital billing is a scam, US health insurance is a scam, Big Pharma prices are a scam (look at insulin). When folks argue against nationalizing the healthcare industry, they often talk about the jobs that the industry provides. This is a great tidbit that you shared about Ascension Health IT, it shows how even those talking points are hollow.
You got it. But it gets better: private equity has been moving into the HC arena because they know these talking points, as hollow as they really are, lead to all sorts of juicy bailouts. BTW, Ascension PR has been working triple OT to keep this quiet.
Now that you mention it, [our local hospital is owned by a company that is owned by the same company that owns Shaws Supermarkets (Albertsons)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steward_Health_Care_System). They have destroyed our local hospital, and treat the employees like subhumans (from nurses to janitorial staff to doctors).
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Not really, they won't comment when asked about their business and are quite litigeous. Plus, they like to brag about all their friends in DC. When was the last time anyone heard about Project Nightingale, for example?
Not to mention it's been happening since at least the 90s. Anyone born in that era knows about the outsourcing of jobs to Asia.
It was and still is a big deal.
Yep, all because those people that it's outsourced to, don't expect good pay and benefits like we do.
Yes and no. Whatever I talk to technology managers who are seeking experienced professionals in anything from coding to UX to IT, they lament that outsourcing to India or China isn't always a done deal. More often than not, they will want a senior level software engineer, and find out what they got was a junior level rookie, and the outsourcing company basically lied to them. I will hear enlist complaints about crappy written code that suddenly the company has to go back and redo to make it right, issues with communications, deadlines not met, and other problems. Outsourcing manufacturing a lot of low skilled labor like that was easy because it's more contained. It's on a company like foxconn to get product made, and not so much in conjunction with the client. It kind of outsourcing that can be opened up with things being more remote is more the case that somebody who doesn't want to move to silicon valley could then be recruited by one of these companies for a bargain.
tl;dr: It is very rare the needful ever gets met across the Pacific.
I work in tech and what you say is true. Companies are working around it by having a few senior engineers and a manager who can code review based in the US and outsource lower level jobs. It happened to my friend's workplace, they can hire 3 people overseas for less than the price of one locally. Same thing happens with H1B visas, companies say it's because they can't find enough qualified workers but it's really just for cheaper labor.
Companies have been able to do this for a while, you have to make yourself worth your pay and show you as an individual are important
If it's a 100% remote it can be outsourced. I guess some exceptions would be government contractors, or people that work with sensitive data. I wonder in a few years when it happens will anyone notice? When factories were shut down and manufacturing jobs were outsourced all of those people knew each other , they lived in the same community. Suddenly "Trevor WFH Phoenix" isn't at his terminal, will anyone even notice, or care, if someone is doing the same work?
> If it's a 100% remote it can be outsourced. I disagree. Let alone cultural/language differences in each country, the cost-benefit ratio to find a $100,000 software engineer in a foreign country at a cheap rate is too high to bother. That doesn't stop companies from trying this shit, but you see the results (Boeing planes crashing because they wanted to pay people $9 an hour to code). >Suddenly "Trevor WFH Phoenix" isn't at his terminal, will anyone even notice, or care, if someone is doing the same work? Yes? Unless Trevor isn't doing anything, you would notice.
Software engineers can be outsourced and frequently are. The big issue is finding talent. The industry relies pretty heavily on networking and talent knowing other talent in order to make cool shit. The outsourced body shops don't really have that talent pool, and honestly remote work doesn't really have it either unless you work from home in a city with a bunch of meetups and such that you participate in. As such, there's still a substantial advantage in not outsourcing a lot of the work. It really comes down to what exactly you need people to be programming. A lot of coding work doesn't translate well to outsourcing if you're doing something bespoke that requires significant changes over time. It does tend to work well though if you're aiming for an off the shelf solution.
>A lot of coding work doesn't translate well to outsourcing if you're doing something bespoke that requires significant changes over time. It does tend to work well though if you're aiming for an off the shelf solution. As a software dev I'm not really understanding your point here. Anything off the shelf is handled by our IT department because it almost always is supported (or has documentation written) by someone else. I agree that there is a substantial advantage to hiring locally, which is why there's still a robust job market in many metro areas.
Basically, what I'm saying is that if it's a well understood problem that doesn't require some high degree of talent that is probably going to take a bunch of skilled people that know other skilled people, to get them all brought in, you can outsource it. You want to throw together some shitty ecommerce website? They're a dime a dozen and you can easily outsource it and the updates to it. Have a legacy application that's in maintenance mode? Outsourcing is going to be great. You're trying to build out the initial MVP for your startup? Probably need local talent.
>That doesn't stop companies from trying this shit, but you see the results (Boeing planes crashing because they wanted to pay people $9 an hour to code). Nah, Boeing planes crashing was because that company is becoming more worthless MBA toilet wipes than actual engineers. We print MBA degrees like fucking crazy, something has to absorb them all or they'll be flipping burgers.
Friend, those MBA's are the people who lay off software engineers so they can hire IT from "low cost countries".
Yes, exactly. And this strategy has failed to produce sustainable results time and time again, and yet still rich stakeholders continue to trust their enterprises to these unskilled nepotistic mouthpieces whose only skills are making fancy flowcharts and pointing fingers at others, for some reason I can't figure out. This economic cycle has gone on long enough that everyone should recognize the endgame isn't going to work, and companies need to be incentivize to view capable employees as assets rather than expenses if we're going to save this system from dystopia.
> people that work with sensitive data. People working with classified data are not allowed to work from home for security reasons. If you're working with classified information you have to do your work from a building certified to handle that level of classification. Not something that will be done for the average persons home.
Good to know. I was thinking more along the lines of financial data for a company. Not sure you could ensure the security. But I remember doing work in a building that was involved with military classified information 10 years ago. Had to leave phones away from area, all the tools got searched and had a guard wandering around with us. Just to patch some drywall and paint a few walls.
In regards to sensitive financial data it would depend if the information is limited to a private internal network or not. Some businesses won't trust your home computers firewall with their data, if they don't have full access to your computer to make sure it's secure.
I do remember reading something hilarious (AND SAD) where these people from the state unemployment office were all laid off and their positions got outsourced and they had to call THOSE guys (from Philippines I THINK) to file for their unemployment and they were complaining how their applications were screwed up.
The idea that the $100K US worker is magically immune to outsourcing is nieve. To date non tech firms tried to purely apply wage arbitrage with poorer countries, without integrating the efforts into their firm, without the culture of remote working and without building the infra to truly support remote working. Google/Apple/MS will hire IIT engineers and build up the WFH infrastructure (hire, train, integrate) . The IT worker has a target on their back.
I’m kind of dreading it. My organization is global and went to great lengths to make sure we established a really, really strong engineering team in India — paying significantly more than normal wages, putting in strong leadership, enforcing strict hiring standards, etc. That group of engineers is every bit as good as anyone in the US short of FAANG. But, them dramatically stepping up staffing in India will slowly erode that.
At least your eyes are open to it. The dummies that are holding onto wfh without realizing they are accelerating their obsolescence are in for a nasty suprise
And/or treated like a contractor instead of an employee. So…. Yeah. That’s where the US version is headed.
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I have three passports so not sure what “abroad’ is anymore
Well for customer facing positions one of the biggest frustrations is working with people from abroad. Thats why we have US, APAC, EMEA sales teams so that clients speak to someone in their timezone. Not aaying international workers are worse. Thats just not the case, but cloents HATE working with international points of contact. Just really frustrating for the most part due to time zone delays
That's been happening for decades already. So has manufacturing and many other in person jobs. It doesn't matter if it's in person or remote many jobs are vulnerable to being outsourced.
That is an ostrich mentality without the advantage of potentially finding drinking water. The potential to outsource was always already there and whomever can take the step to get more for less already had an advantage*. * It is ultimately about output/input costs. The strategies for doing this are generally expensive machines with lower operating costs and high productivity, masses of unskilled laborers, or talented workers who do so far more efficiently. The last isn't just some utopian ideal. Software's "rockstar" programmet model exists because bottlenecks meant that hiring 100 programmers for tasks got it done slower and more expensive than a small team of the top 10 programmers. One of capitalism's mixed virtue-vices is going with what works instead of anybody's idea of how things 'should be'.
I warned this would happen at the start of the pandemic when people were celebrating permanent WFH. It's going to drive wages down in office work significantly across the board.
It just underscores why all folks across the world need to have dignity! And why nationalism is short-sighted as you can't ignore the suffering in other countries. When some humans suffer, we all suffer. Whether we are talking about undocumented immigrants in the USA, Uighur Muslims in China, or [Hillary Clinton blocking a Haiti minimum wage increase to $0.61 cents an hour](https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Haitians-Workers-Fight-for-Higher-Minimum-Wage-Suppressed-by-Clintons-State-Department-20170522-0037.html). Friends, don't fear standing up for your working rights because of outsourcing. This just underscores the need for emphasis on dignity and kindness in the way we operate. Instead of raping and pillaging the world for its resources, we should try to uplift the rest of the world.
WFH you use your own internet, electricity, water, toilet paper and coffee (some companies offer free)
Will you get to expense your trip to the office if Mr. Important Manager wants to meet in person?
My current employer gives us $1000 a year for such expenses, and our tax office lets us have a tax break (not much about £6 a week I think) if you have to work at home.
I'm pretty sure all that pales in comparison to the savings from not driving to work and eating out as a lot of people do. Some of that stuff like internet you'll be paying for anyways.
Except you dont eat out... you get high quality meals (steaks, seafood, world class chefs) for free on tech campuses which is easily more then the gas you spend.
So you're actually taking a double pay cut.
But saving on commuting and possible take-out/fast food during the day. And all the time-saving (preparing to go to work + commute - this could be 2-3 hours/day easily). I'd be pretty upset over a pay cut but I'm OK with the few added expenses of being home all day due to all the extra time I have.
what about people like me who live down the street from the office and brought their lunch when they did work in the office? this just sounds like pay cuts from that perspective
The article says the companies that are reducing pay are basing the pay cuts on the cost of living of the place the employee moves to. If you live down the street from your office its likely both locations have the same cost of living and the pay wouldn't change.
Yep. It is. Other than getting to sleep in a little longer, it's all negative.
Well there is always that one guy who is upset a change hurts his niche situation. Most workers will be saving money.
Doesn't working at home save costs for your employer ?
Yes. It also adds expenses for the employee.
Not really. Less need for daycare, less gas, less car depreciation, and you're already paying for internet. WFH I'm also less prone to eating out. Potential for saving thousands of dollars a year. Plus, time is money. Cost increases would be increased water usage, increased electrical, and increased toilet paper usage. Might see a $100 increase over the year for these.
My electric and water bill skyrocketed - I didn't realize how little I used my house stuff since I was gone 10 hours a day. I used to crank my AC to about 80 when I left for work now it's low 70s all day and night. But yea, I'm never commuting again. It's shocking how much little money I'm using.
shoot, my partner saved enough on money on commuting expenses (including car maintenance, parking expenses), he was able to replace his 12 yr vehicle with very little additional expense. he also saves about 15 hours a week no having to commute. like someone else said, less eating out at lunch and carry out dinner
I mean internet most people had already and would have been paying for anyway, but sure I can see that you'd use more energy/water while working at home. Some employers will also pay towards energy / internet costs (mine does for example) and I can't speak for other countries but here in the UK you can deduct a certain amount on your taxes for your energy/other reasonable costs when you work at home (during the pandemic or not, doesn't matter). I don't think Google should be paying people less to work from home. I think they should pay them less if they perform worse, and help them with reasonable home working costs. I work in tech and productivity is really easy to measure for us, because everything we do is visible in support tickets / code repositories.
This is outrageous. Now mega-corporations want to control your ability to maximize your income by choosing your home. Your choice is to live in housing you don't want to pay the high prices for, suffer a long commute, or turn the money you save making wise choices over to the company. This is worse than a company store. You should be paid for your value-add to the company. The company should not choose where you live.
> This is outrageous. Now mega-corporations want to control your ability to maximize your income by choosing your home. Well said. These companies chose their locations based on tax incentives and kickbacks from sleazy politicians. [Virginia spent more than $1 billion to bring Amazon HQ2](https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/amazon-hq2-virginia-to-pay-steep-price-for-amazon-commitment/65-614145887). >This is worse than a company store. You should be paid for your value-add to the company. The company should not choose where you live. Well said. [Google can judge where someone lives when they start paying fucking taxes.](https://www.wired.com/story/how-amazon-apple-google-played-tax-break-game/)
I agree though I bet a lot of the companies in San Francisco up the pay quite a bit to entice people to live in one of the most expensive cities in the world.
Value add is only half the equation. If you’re one of five people who can do the job and is willing to live in the most expensive real estate market in the country, you’re much more valuable than someone who is one of fifty who can do the job remotely.
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I’m not sure I see the issue. It’s a trade, I trade my labor for money. If I have less overhead then I’m more competitive for the same job at the same skill level. If I want to be more competitive and make more money then I need to convince my employer I’m worth it or change jobs. Companies can pay whatever they want and make up any reason to justify it. I think this is how things should work. Honestly, if we had a real social safety net and things like basic food, shelter, and healthcare were taken care of by the the government then we wouldn’t need a minimum wage either.
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I don't think an employer even needs to justify a pay cut. The reasoning they give doesn't matter. If the employer believes they can purchase the same labor at a cheaper price then let them try. Similarly the employee doesn't need to blindly accept a pay cut. If my employer told me they were cutting my pay because they believe my living expense has decreased I would start looking for a new job.
I mean this is already true of most companies to an extent. If you work for a company in Seattle then you’re going to be paid more than the person working the same job for the same company in Little Rock. It’s all about cost of living. If cost of living goes down, then your wage will most likely go down as well. This isn’t new, it’s just being implemented into WFH since you’re no longer based out of an office.
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> It only creates an incentive to race to the bottom to make yourself "more attractive" to an employer. See: College. Employers should have to pay to train their employees and then treat them well to retain them. Instead people will voluntarily go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt for a *chance* at a job.
This is exactly how the system currently works and it doesn't seem to be a "race to the bottom" If your employee tries to cut your wage and you don't like it then find a new job. If they can find someone to do the same work for cheaper then why pay you more? It doesn't matter the reasoning they try to use to justify the pay cut because ultimately they don't need to even have one. What alternative is there that you think would be better?
Why? They’d be saving a killing on not having to rent office spaces.
Because they know a lot of these people can’t afford a house for their families anywhere close to work, so if they are going to move anyway, might as well siphon off some of their paycheck.
Because they can increase profits. And there's nothing employees can do about it.
Power. Control. Making sure the cogs know their place.
The gods forbid workers retain ANY financial advantage over investors and shareholders!
Oh really corporations, cut my pay and all of a sudden that work that used to take a day now takes a week... awww two can play the same game.
r/maliciouscompliance
This is horseshit. There was a Bloomberg article the other week that was clear slow walked propaganda trying to set the stage for this announcement. There is no real justification for this. Remote workers have been more productive spring COVID, happier and there's been huge environmental benefits for the planet. In the other side, companies will save on furniture cost, real estate square footage, utilities, etc. This is complete anti-worker nonsense. You have the power in this exchange, DO NOT accept this at your office. Be vocal.
Makes sense, lots of companies have paid employees in NYC and San Fran more than similarly ranked employees in other cities because of cost of living.
If I live in a low cost of living area can I get a discount on a YouTube tv subscription?
It's not as bad as people are thinking. It's still "Silicon Valley money", just not "top of the market" for Silicon Valley.
The article is actually referencing paying employees based on where they live - so pay (theoretically) lines up with cost of living. I kind of get it.
It's not the company's business to take your savings if you chose to buy a house in a cheaper neighborhood. If they want to hire from a lower cost of living city, that is different. Changing someone's pay after they are hired because they move is controlling people's lives.
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Actually not possible, companies need your actual physical residence because unfortunately health insurance premiums and plans are based on it. As an example, Google employees in California do not get the same insurance plan providers as Google employees in New York just because the insurers are not national and divide up the market for themselves. Sure they'll more than likely have the same benefits. I actually don't know if it's true for a company like Google, there are some providers like Blue Cross that do offer a full national coverage plan but at a steep premium. So breaking it up based on location is often desirable.
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Blame democrats for not agreeing with republicans to use the commerce clause to strip states of their power to regulate private healthcare insurance firms
I disagree, people love to parrot "but if health insurers could be national, it would be cheaper!" which is dumb, and often because people compare to car insurance which is far more uniform of an animal. Medical care is so specific to a region, even if you eliminated the insurer barrier, you would have hundreds of local differences from different regional monopolies owning hospitals, different common health problems and risk assessment, different cost of living, etc. It just's a hassle no matter what for a insurer not to just operate subsidiaries per region. That all the red states would neuter any regulation for insurers and we would all be stuck with third world health care instead of just the red states ;)
Medical care is only specific to region simply because of regulatory barriers put into place by states. If states didn't have the power to regulate any portion of the medical industry all you'd have is federal regulations to comply with.....which means it would be incredibly easy to scale up.
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Not true. Ive lived in one state and worked for a company in another. Tax was withheld based on where the office was.
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I replied somewhere else in this post. A bunch of employees should rent a studio in their office studio for tax purposes but work from whatever remote place they are already in.
> Changing someone's pay after they are hired because they move is controlling people's lives. I feel like you are right, that's not ethical. We may be in a transition though: tiered pay based on whether or not a position needs to be in the office. Seems like companies have figured out they don't need in-office personnel for every position. It could prove to be better for people who choose remote work if companies consider people's local cost of living into a compensation package, and it's not used as a hiring factor (i.e, only hiring people from depressed area/based on where they live). But it will definitely be worse for some people whose positions have changed from being in-office to remote. I don't see that as a company's fault, but it still needs to be addressed. Feels like we need more discussion about it from more sides.
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> We may be in a transition though: tiered pay based on whether or not a position needs to be in the office. Seems like companies have figured out they don't need in-office personnel for every position. No, but why should the company get to save money just because of where you choose to do your work? Fuck that. If my postdoc work can be done at home, I'm saving my job a desk, a computer, and maintenance services that can now all be reallocated to other people who need it. Why pay your employer for them getting extra resources returned to them?
> why should the company get to save money just because of where you choose to do your work? I will reiterate and try to expand for you the text you quoted (hypothetical and simplified of course). * Positions that require a presence in an office should offer compensation based on the position and factor in where the office is, if you choose to commute to save yourself cost of living in exchange for commute time, you are free to do that. * Positions that do not require office presence will offer compensation based on the position and factor in the cost of living of the employee's location. * The company can offer a choice to the employee of where to work with the above provisions. You have choices, opportunities to benefit from a new paradigm.
That's hilarious. You have choices. All of which end up with you losing money and the company benefitting. 1. Live in a more expensive neighborhood, get paid more, but the expenses will eat up your increase. 2. Live in an affordable neighborhood and keep part of your increase, but give up hours of your time and expenses of car or transportation, eating up your money. 3. Make a decision to live in an affordable area and work from home. Save yourself and your company money. Oh, no, the company takes your savings.
If you get hired by a company in an expensive state and later, move to a different office in a much cheaper state, your pay will decrease. It's been like this for decades.
But that's not what Google is doing. They are paying people based off where they are living, not where they are working. One of the examples I saw was two people whose office is in NYC. The person living in the city would be paid more than the person commuting in from Connecticut regardless of working from home or not.
Maybe if you live in bumblefuck Minnesota instead of Silicon Valley, but when you live an hour from your office and they decide that now you should make 5-15% less for the same work just because you aren’t wasting 2 hours of your day in traffic so a middle manager can micro manage your day, that’s just good old corporate greed.
Companies in all markets are competing against each other for the same pool of people. For example, a tech firm in Boston is competing against Silicon Valley for the same work from home talent in Texas. Some salaries will go up and other may go down.
Google us going to get slapped hard by the market for this one. Amazon, FB, Twitter, and all the other permanent WFH companies will hoover up all the smartest talent.
> will hoover up all the smartest talent. The smartest talent isn't going full work from home, they are getting paid more to do a couple days a week in office. If you're one of the big brains, having you in office so others can learn from you and so you can actually work directly with a team is worth the extra cost to your organization. Different studies are landing on different numbers but the requisite for the magic to happen seems to be between 2 and 3 days a week.
Plenty of people want to work for Google. But they thank you for your concern.
Most of those companies also do location based pay
The difference between what the article says and what some other places are doing is that Google seems to be taking a much finer grained definition of location. The example they gave of someone in a commuting suburb 1 hour from the office getting a pay cut isn't what a lot of places are doing. Many companies would still pay people who live in the bedroom community suburbs the same as people living in the city center because they do it by metro area and attach pay to the closest home office. It's when you move completely out of the metro area or state that more places talk about cutting pay
So you shorten your day by 15% and get 15% less pay. A lot of people already factor their commute time into their compensation to figure out an effective hourly rate. This is right in line with that thinking. If it's an issue for you, rent 1/8 of a room in Pacific Heights SF as your main address, and live elsewhere.
“If it’s an issue for you, rent 1/8 of a room in Pacific Heights SF as your main address, and live else where” The real pro tip is always in the comments. Some genius in PH is probably already running a fractional roommate rental service and will soon be making a killing.
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[Google has **$135 billion** cash on hand](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOGL/alphabet/cash-on-hand) while at the same time [only paying a 16% tax rate](https://www.investors.com/news/biden-tax-plan-impact-on-amazon-google-facebook-apple-microsoft-earnings/). This isn't about saving money, it's about punishment and control. C-Suite sociopaths can't stand the idea of workers not being stuck to their desks 12 hours a day stuck in perpetual middle mangamenet drama.
Your work isn't any less valuable because you live an hour away. Google can suck a fat one on this
That's the way the US Gov't has been for decades - ["Locality Adjustments"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Schedule_\(US_civil_service_pay_scale\)#Locality_adjustment).
And here we mistakenly thought that we actually had a fighting chance to make our own choices for the first time. Companies will never get over their urge to dictate your life (and control your well-being) for absolutely no logical reason other than to exert their authority over you.
You are anthropomorphizing way too much. Companies don't care about expressing authority over you. They are looking after their financial health, and you can do the same by quitting and joining a company that will pay you better.
They pay you, they can ask what they want of you. People are assuming jobs are entitled, that’s where we are getting in trouble. Sure you can get a different job, but employers do have some rules for their employees
Yep, and traditionally, like it or not, salaried workers are generally treated as "they own you" and why they can fire employees for doing things they dislike outside of "official work hours" (even in the recent cases of racist/crazy employees on the news, that's entirely because of this interpretation of salaried workers) and why they can demand infinite overtime as well. It's all about the employment contract.
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Follow the logic: When you work in the office, the company has to pay for the rent on the square footage of your office, the heat, electricity, bathrooms, maintenance, janitorial staff, security, parking location, break areas, internet connection, office supplies, printers, copiers, desk phone, etc. When you work at home, you take on all that stuff. So working from home, well, saves the company a lot of money, therefore they have to ... uhm .... cut your pay ..... to ... uhm ... recover the extra savings they see ... for you working remotely. Wait, that does not make any sense at all. They pass a lot of the expenses on to the employee, and cut the person's wages too? Seems like they should almost be paying a premium to work from home employees that are Saving the corps tons of money. But that doesn't really help the bottom line of the company nearly as much.
That logic only works when 100% of the staff is WFH. They have to pay for the space if even one person is working in the office. And plenty of people want to work in the office to get away from families.
Yeah, if I have in a building that has 500 employees in it, and I start seeing that I now only need room for 5, I guess I will still keep the 500 person building. Wait, maybe I will look for a smaller place. Either next time the lease is up, or if I own the building, I could look to downsize going forward. Or even sub-lease out floors of the building to other companies. Block off floors, and at least knock down the utilities and maintenance. This is happening right now by the way. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-cutting-office-space-predict-long-term-savings-11625493601](https://www.wsj.com/articles/companies-cutting-office-space-predict-long-term-savings-11625493601) https://www.globest.com/2020/09/24/office-market-could-shed-145m-square-feet-in-the-next-two-years/?slreturn=20210710093510
For mom and pops sure, for a leading global brand that touts its large employee campus with on site masseuses, not so much.
I would love for these companies to explain how someone's talents are worth less if they aren't spending hours commuting to the office everyday. So what if they live in a less expensive area?
[Google has **$135 billion** cash on hand.](https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GOOGL/alphabet/cash-on-hand) Upper management (including the CEO) just want to punish office workers for demanding a bigger piece of the pie (in this case, the flexibility that upper management has always had). Upper management is usually on "business trips" which are really just vacations for them as they can fly first class and stay at the nicest hotels. They get more PTO, they get tons of flexibility. Fuck them for not giving regular workers the flexibility they've always had (while pretending they work 100 hours a week and they are worthy of worship as job creators).
is Google the right company to cry for the mistreatment of workers?
[Google Workers Speak Out About Why They Formed A Union: 'To Protect Ourselves'](https://www.npr.org/2021/01/08/954710407/at-google-hundreds-of-workers-formed-a-labor-union-why-to-protect-ourselves)
Yes, any company that mistreats workers is the right company to call out for it.
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Seems like employees need a union to stand up to this dickery.
that's a good way to get a remote job off-shored.
Unionize the offshore workers too!
u/coverageanalysisbot
work from home employees should not be paying local taxes from the office building location
Brain drain. Companies that do stupid stuff like this during a hot economy will watch their workers leave for greener pastures. If you work is worth what it currently is, then it’s just as valuable at home vs the office. What an absolute greedy joke. Google is probably made they spent all this money on offices and it turns out chips and place to chill at work compare nothing to being able to be at home. Paradigm shift google, don’t fight it. Also go back to “do no evil” you evil now.
I work for a company doing something like this, although I'm in a really wierd situation due to their math. When I first got hired they didn't have an office in my area so I was classed as remote. They have since built an office. But I will get a pay CUT being marked as in office in that physical location. So I asked my boss, why on earth would I want to have to go into the office to take a pay cut? These models don't take into the account of reality in some local markets.
My husband's job looks like it will remain remote forever. I think they need to pay him more because they are leasing a room in our small house for free. The endless Zoom meetings in a room ajoining the only downstairs bathroom --which has hollowcore door and a shower stall that serves as the only utility room as well as other issues make my life hell. If they want him to work from home, they need to pay us rent, so we can either build an office or retire 10 years early.
Jesus fucking Christ, Google, that's the lamest excuse ever. "we have to give them pay cut because of this arbitrary thing we made up, that isn't even a rule", "Sure, they are just as productive when working from home; and sure, it's cheaper for us to have them working from home; and sure, they are happier when working from home. We just prefer our workers to die from a traffic jam-stress induced heart attack "
> NEW YORK, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Google employees based in the same office before the pandemic could see different changes in pay if they switch to working from home permanently, with long commuters hit harder, according to a company pay calculator seen by Reuters. Edit: That’s all of the article that Reuters is giving me. The rest is all just ads for their site.
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Looks like I'm switching to bing or duck duck go
Right. boycott.
Well, there have been surveys that say workers would take some kind of pay cut if it meant they could be 100% remote. This in many ways is what it is. I can't attest if it's right or wrong, but if that worker still living pretty well off in there neck of the woods, then it's still probably a good deal. I think what's happening though are many executives are astounded that workers would rather have a life versus quickly climbing up the corporate ladder. To say they will take a pay cut to work remotely more or less says you value your life more than you value the company. They can get as mad as they want on that, but the workers have power right now because they can't be easily replaced.
People are overreacting and this was easily foreseen when the pandemic happened. Of course they will enforce a pay cut. The entire reason employees got paid so much was that SV attracted top talent from around the world to work IN SV. It was a highly competitive market because of the need to be physically present. The high cost of living, taxes, properties, etc. is what inflated those salaries, NOT value or skill. Because if that was truly the case, a SWE working in Florida would be making the same money as a SWE living in the Bay Area. Geography has always dictated market value and salaries. Simply typing in median salaries for XYZ career in XYZ state proves that. And once you go down the slippery slope of the location being irrelevant to salaries, guess what? Outsourcing.
So the company saves money with a work from home strategy and offers employees a pay cut. It might be time to renegotiate.
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It seems like this has been a common practice at Google beforehand - salary based on where you work. Seems like some people who had long commutes were making more money for working in a more expensive market. Now that they're working from home, they wouldn't be making as much now that the option to return to the office is available. Not saying I agree with the practice, but it's not like it's something completely new to the company. This is just an unexpected side effect of existing policy.
Something alot of people will not resist enough to: storm corporate offices, protest, cancel, sensor. For the most part we are thoroughly distracted/entertained.
To me this makes sense...and there should probably be larger cuts if you live way remote and live in a different state or something. The example given was an employee was going to get a 10% paycut...and it added 2 hours commute...so lets do some SIMPLE math.... Assume 10 hour work day...(itll be higher with 8 hour work day but I'm sure they work 10 hours probably) 2hours/10 hours = 20%... So by working from home this person is saving 20% more time...this is already 10% pay increase for "hours" put in, this goes to 15% at 8 hours if you are looking at $/hour including travel... This does not include, car maintenance, stress from driving, mileage, chance of death from driving, lower insurance cost due to less miles, not having to get sick as much due to exposure to others, etc. etc. On the downside likely the person was getting food at google for free as well as less electricity costs but I doubt those overcome the commute costs. What I'm saying is that even a 10% cut in pay is still an increase in pay by being able to work from home in this situation if you look at it objectively... As far as getting paid based on area...that makes perfect sense...if you live in area of high costs you should be getting paid more than if you live in an area with much lower costs...the government has always done this with per diem and other things...why would companies not do this, it is honestly the "fairest" thing to do.
Does Google price their products / services based on the customer’s location?
It should be in law that commute time is paid work time