> I am the boss but I am part of the Global Cryptobank team, and I value honesty almost as much as making money.
This one is a gem.
Banking work culture is alien to me. Whoever figured out that you can get legions of people to debase themselves to each other for the promise of a ledger entry and some toys was brilliant. It's still funny, even if such a malign intelligence would be a threat to our species, but I have to admire the craftiness and give the devil his due.
"Gazing down on the expensive apartments in Tribeca where some of you live, thanks to our generous bonuses, I see bankers on video calls with cameras switched off, sipping wine."
I hold an extreme view on the "work at home" situation: my working at home not only improves my life, but also the lives of those who work in jobs that causally require their presence (baristas, doctors, construction workers, etc.).
You're absolutely right, though: the office is a fantastic place to get a regular social fix. I absolutely understand where you're coming from, because social experiences are as important as food and water to humans, but here's the thing:
The concept of an office wasn't created to solve human socialization.
Why not try and solve the socialization problem, and ignore the notion of an office? Set up a lunch group with your street, see if you can create a coworking space in your apartment/condo building, rent a coworking space close to home, or something else. As a socialization solution, offices are a comfortable rut/local minimum.
You can absolutely have your e-commute, as well as your social experience. The problem is that we've been doing offices for so long, that we kinda forget that we need to rethink/replace what they were doing.
100%; and doing this correctly has the critical property of not causing your entire social circle to get destroyed because you decide you need to switch jobs for the good of your career.
Please ping a colleague for chit-chat. You'll figure out pretty quickly who is interested in this. Just like face-to-face some people will want to talk and others won't.
I chat about kids, hobbies, side-projects, etc. with coworkers on a daily basis via Slack. I really stepped this up during the lockdowns specifically to help maintain sanity. One coworker was in Canada with her son while her husband was trapped in the US and they could not see each other due to travel restrictions. I checked in on her regularly and she seemed to really appreciate it.
This has lead to one former coworker and me starting our own small business and significantly increasing our income. As well as other friendships where we do things like vacation together even though we don't see each other on a regular basis.
> It's hard to ping a colleague for some chit-chat.
Try it. Some may not be interested but others will be. With a dozen engineers at your work, at least one will feel in a similar way to you, so you can help each other.
Or look for a smaller coworking space in your area, even if it's for one day a week. They're fun social places. (At least the small local ones are - not the big vc funded work spaces)
We’ve had decent success scheduling virtual team lunches and happy hours. We have a few opportunities per week on my team / org to just kinda hang out and not necessarily talk about work. Most people don’t show up regularly but we have a small regular group and the less-frequent visitors drop in every few sessions. I get that some people would rather just do the work, and it’s honestly optional, but some of us do enjoy it as a chance to connect.
Opposite view: I am not much a small talker and working from home leaves me with only functional communication with colleagues and a lot more free space for my mind to focus.
> If I am called chief executive officer but cannot behave like a chief or take executive decisions, the only part of the role left is officer, which means being in the office.
Haha brilliant :-). Love seeing this in Financial Times
> “If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York. None of this ‘I’m in Colorado . . . and getting paid like I’m sitting in New York City,’” he said.
This is interesting. I wonder if companies will start to try and tier wages according to where the possible new hire resides.
This is definitely done already. GitLab (where I work as an engineer) has done it for a number of years. They used to publish the numbers and ranges for every role/location but they made it internal only a year or so back for reasons that I can't remember. You can still see the old calculator thanks to the internet archive - https://web.archive.org/web/20200606161551/https://about.git...
I don't want to debate whether this is the best approach in terms of treating employees fairly, but it certainly seems to have it's advantages for the company - they get to save money by hiring people in places with a lower compensation rate.
Apart from saving money, another aspect of their reasoning iirc was that paying a single rate would create a very lopsided team in terms of geography: the company would be offering the “best” salary to employees in the lowest cost of living places, and so the incentives would lead these places to be dramatically over-represented relative to higher cost of living places. That’s the theory anyway.
I haven’t heard people in favor of geography-agnostic salaries address this concern, which seems legitimate from the company’s perspective. I suppose there are tradeoffs either way.
It is frustrating and illogical. Why do companies think they can do this to individual workers instead of just trading money for value? Imagine if a company suggested doing this in a B2B contract - it wouldn’t work and it would look absolutely absurd:
“Oh your company is in Backcountry Town, Flyover State? Well we will pay 20% less for your widgets then.”
The first is that being in-person is valuable to many companies, enough so they're willing to pay a significant premium for it. If you're remote, then you get less.
The second is that it's all about negotiation. Companies by and large have the upper hand here, and would pay much lower wages if they could. FAANGs do not pay 2-300k salaries for fun, but because of the local competition.
Software developers are finally getting a taste of what the average citizen has to deal with compensation-wise, no wonder people are reacting badly.
They don't think they can, they know they can. So of course they will.
And from the employee side it's not a bad deal either so many people are happy to take it. Sure I wouldn't love a 20% pay cut, but if I can get a 50% reduction in cost of living by taking a 20% pay cut, that's a large raise effectively.
But that is what happens via negotiation, isn't it? Just like people in lower cost countries can accept lower pay and sometimes do, there are firms with lower cost bases that can accept lower offers for their widgets and sometimes do so.
Inflexible entities either find someone willing to pay up or they have to find something else to do.
And I almost feel bad I didn't give more attention to my intuition. I will not delete my other comment immediately though :)
To repeat another commenter, I have also noticed increased difficulty in spotting satire when browsing the web. I guess this is one consequence of the C19 crisis.
A little bit out of topic but just to share: 2020 taught me that the people I love(d) the most could fall prey to disinformation. 2021 is teaching me even worse: I am slowly coming to the realization that people very dear to me have totalitarian values.
If I had a nightvision telescope which i used to spy on others I would certainly not be blogging about how I use it to spy on others.
I am often apppalled at the ability of executives to completely flounder their one responsibility. Crying in a blog and oversharing does not develop my confidence in this persons leadership, but I suppose crypto trading might have already been a red flag to warn of the nature of this article.
Readit News
This one is a gem.
Banking work culture is alien to me. Whoever figured out that you can get legions of people to debase themselves to each other for the promise of a ledger entry and some toys was brilliant. It's still funny, even if such a malign intelligence would be a threat to our species, but I have to admire the craftiness and give the devil his due.
LMAO
A lot of time I feel the need to talk about work but there is no one to talk to. It's hard to ping a colleague for some chit-chat.
You're absolutely right, though: the office is a fantastic place to get a regular social fix. I absolutely understand where you're coming from, because social experiences are as important as food and water to humans, but here's the thing:
The concept of an office wasn't created to solve human socialization.
Why not try and solve the socialization problem, and ignore the notion of an office? Set up a lunch group with your street, see if you can create a coworking space in your apartment/condo building, rent a coworking space close to home, or something else. As a socialization solution, offices are a comfortable rut/local minimum.
You can absolutely have your e-commute, as well as your social experience. The problem is that we've been doing offices for so long, that we kinda forget that we need to rethink/replace what they were doing.
I chat about kids, hobbies, side-projects, etc. with coworkers on a daily basis via Slack. I really stepped this up during the lockdowns specifically to help maintain sanity. One coworker was in Canada with her son while her husband was trapped in the US and they could not see each other due to travel restrictions. I checked in on her regularly and she seemed to really appreciate it.
This has lead to one former coworker and me starting our own small business and significantly increasing our income. As well as other friendships where we do things like vacation together even though we don't see each other on a regular basis.
Try it. Some may not be interested but others will be. With a dozen engineers at your work, at least one will feel in a similar way to you, so you can help each other.
Or look for a smaller coworking space in your area, even if it's for one day a week. They're fun social places. (At least the small local ones are - not the big vc funded work spaces)
Haha brilliant :-). Love seeing this in Financial Times
This is interesting. I wonder if companies will start to try and tier wages according to where the possible new hire resides.
I don't want to debate whether this is the best approach in terms of treating employees fairly, but it certainly seems to have it's advantages for the company - they get to save money by hiring people in places with a lower compensation rate.
I haven’t heard people in favor of geography-agnostic salaries address this concern, which seems legitimate from the company’s perspective. I suppose there are tradeoffs either way.
“Oh your company is in Backcountry Town, Flyover State? Well we will pay 20% less for your widgets then.”
The first is that being in-person is valuable to many companies, enough so they're willing to pay a significant premium for it. If you're remote, then you get less.
The second is that it's all about negotiation. Companies by and large have the upper hand here, and would pay much lower wages if they could. FAANGs do not pay 2-300k salaries for fun, but because of the local competition.
Software developers are finally getting a taste of what the average citizen has to deal with compensation-wise, no wonder people are reacting badly.
They don't think they can, they know they can. So of course they will.
And from the employee side it's not a bad deal either so many people are happy to take it. Sure I wouldn't love a 20% pay cut, but if I can get a 50% reduction in cost of living by taking a 20% pay cut, that's a large raise effectively.
Inflexible entities either find someone willing to pay up or they have to find something else to do.
I think based on your home address but not sure.
To repeat another commenter, I have also noticed increased difficulty in spotting satire when browsing the web. I guess this is one consequence of the C19 crisis.
A little bit out of topic but just to share: 2020 taught me that the people I love(d) the most could fall prey to disinformation. 2021 is teaching me even worse: I am slowly coming to the realization that people very dear to me have totalitarian values.
And the other way around too. I think it's satire but nope.
Deleted Comment
I am often apppalled at the ability of executives to completely flounder their one responsibility. Crying in a blog and oversharing does not develop my confidence in this persons leadership, but I suppose crypto trading might have already been a red flag to warn of the nature of this article.