Simon Wardley: “Some companies are going to be asset stripped of talent” | Hacker News Reader

Simon Wardley: “Some companies are going to be asset stripped of talent”

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19 pointspeteretep11 comments

I’ve been a remote contractor for almost 10 years and we never used video conferencing. Pandemic hit and boom, everyone’s using their cameras. Except me. I’ll turn it on for 15 seconds to say hi or introduce myself to someone new, but no one needs to see my face/body to communicate complex ideas. In fact, I find myself closing my eyes and just listening. It’s like story time but with people who pay you money to write the next chapter. I just don’t understand why everyone thinks video is necessary. It’s way too distracting. It’s detrimental. It wears people out.

And ditto on the CO2 meter. It’s required gear in any office setting - home or otherwise.

I was right there with the author until this part:

> I do have to ask whether the cost of the office, the discomfort of people and the impact on quality of life (family etc) can be truly justified by the massaging of some exec's ego. From cost efficiency it might be more effective to replace the exec with someone able to adapt.

IMO this perspective on what "being together" means and creates makes the rest of the thread read more like an introvert's career-longings mood board.

To be sure, there are a lot of important strengths and leverage points mentioned, which are finally getting their fair exposure in the current workplace change-up. It can be emotional to experience that, for people who have suffered in the past and now see the light.

But that doesn't mean the "other side's" perspective is garbage or even ineffective. And it _definitely_ doesn't mean that creative integration of both ends of this here/there dichotomy can't be accomplished. Humans are great at exploring new possibilities, and a lot of those possibilities can be worked out to be a win/win.

(Yes, a win for the creative person at home, and also for the "tall extrovert" mentioned in the thread...both wins would be great. And here is the one place I'll mention I hold a certificate of ethics of personality type. ;-) No type is better than another! I know it feels great to stereotype sometimes, but c'mon...not every extrovert is that particular dick, and every introvert--so the theory goes--has an extroverted side.)

Everything that he gives as Zoom "democratizing" meetings is why in-person will come back: it's not as easy for managers to impose their will. And that's also why people will be back in the office, so that managers can see them working, and impose the manager's will.

I think that imposition of a manager's will is incredibly underestimated as a motivation and a driver of business behavior.

I feel like the central point he's making though is that companies that _don't_ force people back into the office will have a huge comparative advantage over those that do when it comes to finding and retaining the best people.

I don’t think life will get back to normal for at least 5 to 7 years.

And even with mass vaccination, or herd immunity, you still need to wear a mask in public. Or in the office. Or when you’re in a small meeting room, crammed full of people.

It only takes one sick person, and the virus will spread like wildfire like the flu. The vaccine only protects you from the deadliest of results, but you can still get sick and contagious.

And with news of all the mutations, 4 of them now, that I think we are seeing a new normal with remote work.

> I don’t think life will get back to normal for at least 5 to 7 years.

I'm in the south of Thailand. We've not had a case in some months where I am, and Thailand had managed to get down to zero cases before some infected people walked back over the border. Pretty confident they're going to get back down to zero cases here again.

Life is ... pretty much back to normal? There are some situations where you need to wear a mask -- many stores will require it (+ a temperature check) and on public transport, but people are back in restaurants without masks, people are back in offices without masks.

It's back to normal + people always have a mask on them for the situations when they need one. Led to believe this is pretty much the same situation in Oz and NZ too.

Thailand sounds like a dream. Are you an American expat?

Not American, and whether or not I'm an expat is complicated :-)

NYC office worker making 100k gross: Taxes: 34k Rent $30k Commute $2.5k Lunches/snacks $4k Clothes $2k

Which leaves 27.5k for fun (or 401k contributions)

Move this person to work remotely from Texas and you get: Taxes: 25k Rent 18k Lunches/Snacks: 2k Clothes: 1k

Which leaves 54k

You could argue some of my costs, but it is going to be hard to keep talent in high cost superstar cities if they have the opportunity to make nearly as much somewhere else.

If this person stays in the same job with the same company but works from a different location, they will probably get a CoL adjustment of their salary due to the lesser CoL in Texas. It has happened to colleagues of mine when a location has closed and the employees laid off or moved to different locations. Likewise if they quit the New York job and find the like job in Texas, the pay won't be as high. And small companies know the same facts and enact the same policies.

> Today, I have been to India, Japan, US, Australia, Canada, Russia, UK and France without removing the slippers

Even if one is using advanced VR (which I think they are not referring to), that is a bit of a stretch. Everything else seem spot on.

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