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Comment by ckdarby | Hacker News Reader

Lot of folks are already doing this with remote simply without the pay cut.

It's fair when someone is able to accomplish the expectations before the allocated time but a lot of individuals are not equipped or built for remote and don't meet expectations but cut their hours.

I'm pro remote but don't think a lot of individuals are equipped to be able to effectively do it. What I see and when talking to leaders in other companies it is about 20% truly justify the remote and the other 80% would be more effective in the office.

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Meanwhile many of us have cut the commute out of our day, resulting in hours of extra butt-in-chair per day/week. Additionally, we spend much less time at the (proverbial) water cooler. And for anybody who needs to actually think to work effectively, a private home office is much better than the racket of an open plan office filled with people in zoom meetings.

What is “effectively” in this context? Is it the same level of efficiency (provided efficiency can be defined for the given type of work) as working in the office? The company is trying to extract as much as possible for as little pay as possible. They obviously want workers to be as efficient as possible. However, I see no problem with workers pushing back against this and doing as little as possible for as much pay as possible. Why should the company be at the winning end of this tension? The state of the labor market over the last 4-5 decades has favored the company. Perhaps it is time it favored labor.

> The state of the labor market over the last 4-5 decades has favored the company. Perhaps it is time it favored labor.

Has it ever actually favored labor?

It seems to me that other than very brief blips, the economy has always made companies (and owners and executives) very wealthy by extracting as much labor as possible as cheaply as possible

Favored labor? Probably not out right. But labor certainly fared better when unions were stronger and had more members.

Yes, companies have been winning. But the sociological friction is adding up. They'd be wise to adjust their game plan (i.e., be less greedy). We'll see.

I tend to agree and I hope we are correct.

Yeah. I accepted adjustment in pay as their default for everyone else was the typical 40 hrs. But it was well worth it.

That said, a 4 day WW can work anywhere. It ceratainly not remote-only. My general sense is, most managers/leaders can't imagine beyond the status quo so they stick with ehat they know. Yeah, I know. Not actually leadership then :(

But if those remote workers keep their jobs and continue to get paid, then it doesn't really matter how "effective" they are, does it?

Their employer keeps paying them, so the amount of work they are doing is about right.

companies do not, and at times cannot, simply hire and fire as inefficiencies are noticed. it is a process, and often a poor one.

the employer keeps paying them, so the larger system evidently tolerates their current efforts. for the time being. this is not the same as their amount of work being about right.

unless you intend to say that milking a system without hitting the breaking point is optimal.

> milking a system without hitting the breaking point is optimal.

That's how the people on the other side of the table feel.

well as long as everyone is in agreement, this wheel can keep on turning.

> That's how the people on the other side of the table feel.

Of course, you can't say such a general thing about a very diverse group of people with different motives and incentives.

Why shouldn't workers maximise their utility?

If you want someone to work harder than they "should", you need to motivate them somehow.

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