Office jobs are BS in the internet era. You go to work to look at a screen. You come home to look at a screen. You go to bed, you look at a screen.
Your bosses are taking calls from their hot tubs while smoking big spliffs and making fun of you for not being as smart as them. They figured it out and they’ll be retiring any day now. I’m not even being facetious, I know these people. They’re the Pakleds of the human race.
Pakleds are an alien race from star trek. They’re known for tricking smarter people into helping them only so they can take advantage of them, ensnare them, and then dominate them. They also on average have low IQ (in universe).
Are people forgetting that the salaries were high in high cost of living areas to account for this cost. In the new normal, should employees expect pay cuts, or should employees that opt in to in office expect higher pay or stipends?
Also, curious about tax advantaged commuter benefits. Sure sticker cost is a months groceries, but if you are commuting and able to pay that pre tax for Metro or rail passes, it’s only 66 percent of the sticker cost.
Also I think the pet and childcare costs are interesting. For child care, is that assuming like 1 or 2 extra hours of childcare per day?
So you’re saying people should take a paycut because they are more productive?
It’s more having your cake and eating it too. When pandemic hit and you got to keep your salary and work remote, maybe move to a cheaper area, no one complained that they kept all the benefit of the in office pay. But now that you got to keep the same pay, and are asked to come back into the office, you aren’t suddenly making less money. You’re just paying for the cost that was always expected as an employee that was hopefully accounted for in giving you a reasonable salary.
And some of these costs that add up to “a month of groceries” can be mitigated by having flexible in office policy. It’s not that transport takes a month of groceries. The cost is transport + childcare + pet care. For some childless and petless workers the cost of in office transport isnt that bad, and might be tax free if you have programs for it. And child care and pet care can be reduced with flexible in office requirements. Some companies used to let people bring their dogs to the office, for example.
I expect to be paid based on the value of my work, not based on how much my boss personally thinks I need. If I ever got a pay cut that was justified by my own low cost-of-living, I would quit on the spot. Don’t punish me for being frugal. I’m saving for as early of a retirement as I can afford.
Cost of living adjustments are real. The value of your work is based in part of market rate. And part of that market rate is based on location due to various costs of livings, taxes, laws etc. I think the thing is the pre pandemic salaries should have accounted for those factors, but when those factors change due to people moving etc. it is reasonable to expect the question to be asked about adjustment. You’re not being punished for being frugal.
Many large companies that support wfh, set pay scales based on where you live, not where they are. If you live in a low cost of living area you get paid less. Live in a high cost of living area get paid more.
Before you start jabbering about how companies don’t do that… They do. Just because you don’t work for one, or don’t know about your own companies policies you should look it up. Most companies are pretty discreet about it and people don’t talk about taking pay cuts to move to low cost of living area but it is common.
Yep. The way I’ve heard of it actually happening to folks where I work is when they moved during the pandemic their pay didn’t immediately change. But when they got their promotion, they got a 0% percent increase because that was when they recalculated the cost of living adjustment. So maybe they got a 12% raise, but moved to a place with a 15% lower cost of living. So they weren’t going to piss off the employee by rewarding with a pay cut, but use that as the time to reset compensation leveling.
Seems like everyone in this thread is okay with pay cuts as it is less than the benefit.
This article is saying the average is ~$500 a month. Imagine pre pandemic work norms. If your employer offered you $500 less a month, but the trade off was you got to work fully remote, would you take it?
“OH no. Those poor white collar employees”
So anyways, here I was breaking my body doing a job that has to be done in person but earns less pay and benefits when al…
“I can’t work from home, so nobody should!!!”
Look, when people who don’t not need to be present at an office can stay at home, it frees up the streets/trains etc for all the people who do. WFH benefits everyone, except owners of office buildings I guess, but fuck them lol
With a large increase in the number of office workers working from home, cafes opened in the suburban centres near me. Though the cafe workers have to work from work, it’s certainly a benefit for them to be able to work walking distance from home instead of an hour bus commute away with expensive parking when they had to work in cafes near the offices
WFH moves the support jobs closer to home
Sure it doesn’t help if you’re in construction, but it’s a net good for many people
Lol. I remember when Mark Shields said in one of his last appearances on the PBS News Hour something like “The democratic party used to party of the PBR and a whiskey shot, but now it’s the party of Sauvignon Blanc.” I guess I’m technically a tech bro, but I think you are spot on pointing out this conversation about “work” ignoring very important work that can’t be done remote.
Cities are expensive if your time is free. All the bullshit really adds up.
I mean, I account for $10k salary increase for in office work compared to what I’d take 100% remote.
That’s based on an offer with a 15 minute commute and free parking. It scales up and I’ve had this conversation when being offered a job.
