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Comment by Saline9515 | Hacker News Reader

I didn't think of Jeff Bezos as a benevolent community member of "the elites", doing everything he can, for free, to save the real estate portfolio of his unlucky landlord friends.

The truth is that after the initial movement toward remote work, we are starting to see the secondary effects.

For instance, starting as a junior in a remote job can be really daunting, and you're sure to never make any personal connection with anyone. Being stonewalled by a non-cooperative senior coworker in a slack chat while you start your job is a very stressful experience, I can tell you.

Remote also allows some slack if you don't enforce a very tight and intrusive management. See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.

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I do not think that you need to be around to make connections. I have had colleagues who were at office once every blue moon but everyone in the office knew them and invited them everywhere. And I also know of people who sit on opposite desks for years and only have greetings and coffee chit-chats when forced to.

Anyone with good people skills will break any barriers to connect and build a network of influence regardless of their expertise level. Anyone with communication issues or extremely introverted will have more difficulties to connect however, not that they would be doing great in person.

If non-cooperative senior coworkers are stonewalling, then it is a cultural or personal issues that needs to be managed, not the mode of work.

Starting a new job is always stressful, as any major change is difficult for human to adapt and needs time.

> See the countless stories about people holding two jobs at the same time.

This needs to stop, there were few reports, not countless. A few bad apples does not generalize the orchard. Also, if the pay is decent and living costs are affordable, no one needs to hold two jobs. If someone is holding two jobs remotely, it mostly means they are in "bulls!!t" job where they are not utilized to adequate levels and the symptoms of low output is not correctly noticed.

All of your posts supposes that companies are managed and composed of perfectly balanced and reasonable people.

The truth is that other employees may have personal issues, too much work, lack of will to let go some moat, and so on. Management usually doesn't care, especially if a junior is complaining. Especially in IT where workers aren't selected for their social skills.

Remote lacks the casual interactions, at lunch or at the coffee machine. We are social animals and the lack of face-to-face contact reduces a lot the bonding, especially if you know that everything personal you write is recorded and can be read by the HR department. Will you tell about your divorce on a company Slack?

I work remotely, I enjoy it most of the time, but I have seen the difficulties that emerge from it. And yes, people holding multiple jobs at the same time is common, I know several persons who do, or have done, this.

> If someone is holding two jobs remotely, it mostly means they are in "bulls!!t" job where they are not utilized to adequate levels and the symptoms of low output is not correctly noticed.

You are putting too much faith in human nature. Lot of times, people are simply greedy and abuse the cultural norms put in place to allow slacks when truly warranted. Seen those stories first hand, and then there is https://www.reddit.com/r/overemployed/

You don’t have time to work two real full time jobs. If you have time to keep 2 bosses happy where both are expecting 40 hours a week from you and you are giving 20, then those bosses suck at gauging performance and making good hires.

If you are actually twice as productive as your co-workers and can manage a 40-hour a week job in 20, then the companies are getting what they paid for. Good for you that you found two jobs you’re uniquely qualified for. I’m happy you’re getting paid to do both jobs instead of having to waste the other 20 hours of your week on labor you don’t get paid for.

True story of what happened in my team. A new guy joins. Immediately 3 months after joining, says his dad is ill and takes a 4 month unpaid leave. But his stocks continue to vest because the company believes in letting people vest their stock even if they are on medical leave. Comes back and is not very productive. Extremely reluctant to turn his video on. Never comes for any in person events we have organized. Rest of the team is pulling weight for him throughout all this. Eventually, management becomes suspicious, investigates and discovers that he is holding two jobs. Instantly fired and company reconsiders all the nice accommodations they have put in place to help employees deal with covid.

I have seen my share of bad managers and bad companies. Believe me - there are bad employees as well who poison the well for others.

While I can agree that starting as a new hire can be daunting, there should not (theoretically) be a case where a single colleague stonewalling a new hire is a problem. At least in an org set up correctly for remote work. Smaller teams (or those with a single decision maker) are more susceptible to failing this, but thats a management problem that needs to br highlighted and addressed. And requires management to be actual people and process managers, and not psuedo manage by following some random guides and ticking off items on a checklist and "managing" by graph/stat outputs and only attempting to make some dashboard green, lines moving in the direction etc.

As for allowance of some slack, yeah, theres possibility for that to happen. But management doesnt need to be intrusive: what does anyone care if some employee is working a 2nd job for example? Does anyone care how their colleagues or staff spend their time away from work as it is? As long as their work is done within acceptable timeframes (or there is reasonable limiting factors preventing it) , its of sufficient quality to meet expectations, and they meet expectations of availability, what they do in their spare time is none of anyones business. In other words, so long as someone is not breaking company requirements/policy (which would include working on competing products, etc), whether they hack away on side projects, volunteer their time somewhere, work a 2nd job, do nothing... it doesn't particularly matter. Management only needs to measure performance relative to the org's expectations of performance for that position, and timeously address any concerns if need be. Theres no need for the org to reach beyond whatever is agreed to for that role.

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