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Comment by nfriedly | Hacker News Reader

I have a small private office that I just lease myself. I bicycle in every day and work "remote" for IBM. It's fantastic.

If I want some noise, I'll work from home (I have a 3-year old.)

The down side is that IBM's management has recently done a 180 on remote working and is now "strongly encouraging" me to move to one of their offices and work in a cubicle.

I'm pretty sure they won't actually fire me for not moving, but any promotion is probably going to be harder to come by until things (hopefully) swing back in the other direction.

Or I'll just retire. The benefit of living in Ohio is that I can save like 40% of my salary and still live comfortably. (And lease an office for $225/month!)

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> Remote, IBM

Did this not affect your role: http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/ibm-tells-its-...

Yea, before that, everything was roses. After that, I was initially told that I would be fired if I didn't move on site (I was given a few location choices).

I said "no", got a new job lined up, and then about 4 months later, they decided not to fire me (they apparently did let go of some people, I was an exception).

I don't recall the exact phrasing, but it was at least hinted that I shouldn't expect a promotion. I never received any of it in writing, it was all phone calls from the start.

I did get a 5% raise a few months later, though.

That's gotta be quite the complement to your value to the company. Not only did they not let you go, but you still got a decent raise later. Even if they hinted that you won't be eligible for promotions (I imagine that decision comes from someone higher than the person allowing you to continue working from home), I'd still be feeling good about myself if I were in your shoes.

Yea, I'm really pretty thankful; I think my teammates and manager really went to bat for me when the whole thing came down. Without their help, IBM almost certainly would have let me go.

It didn't work out so well for a colleague of mine who was on the design team. Despite several other teams within IBM trying to hire him, the company stayed the course and let him go. I don't know the full details, but I do know that he's a world-class web/mobile engineer and we're definitely worse off for loosing him. He's in Pittsburgh, if anyone is looking for someone there (or remote): https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuabsmith/

I just reached out to him. Thank you so much for letting us know about their short sighted decision.

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