not sure what this channel is for, but i just want to say that companies shouldnt do cost of living adjustments for remote workers. Also does working from SoHo house count as working from SoHo?

This is to "Discuss work, jobs etc" per the Purpose in Channel Details 🙂

@jgh dunno. I'm a remote worker myself, I'd sure want a SF salary while living elsewhere. But is it fair that I live a luxury life in e.g. Barcelona while my SF colleague does just good-ish?

Cost of living is a touchy subject. If a company in a rural area wants to hire remote workers who are in Silicon Valley, they're not going to get very far paying rural salaries -- so either they factor in cost of living or they don't get to afford a lot of potential candidates.

@jgh Is it possible to work from “small or home office”? Shouldn’t any SoH office upon observation collapse to either small office or home office?

@seancorfield fair, but I would argue that’s more about market rate than cost of living adjustments. I’m more referring to the company in the jobs channel doing it the other way round

basically punishing remote workers

Unless the working person has no consciousness and hence cannot observe anything, causing the wavefunction collapse (assuming Copenhagen interpretation).

trading money for time/comfort is often a conscious decision

@dottedmag there’s a private club called SoHo house 😉

@vemv i dont think that tradeoff needs to be made.

@jgh Most companies I know choose to pay "market rate" for the location of the remote worker -- that's also kind of the whole point behind offshoring, after all...

@vemv True, I live in the SF Bay Area and I would want a big raise to actually commute anywhere here (I work from home 100%).

offshoring is different because you’re hiring another company to outsource to. If it’s like “well you can work in our office in [wherever] for $130k or elsewhere for $less” I’d rather just tell the company to take a hike

My commute right now is "turn right out of the bedroom". My shortest commute for SF would be about an hour each way and so I'd need to deal with driving to BART (and parking argh!) and standing on the train mostly during rush hour... that's a lot of extra expense and discomfort and hassle.

the job should be worth a certain amount of money and if I do the job I should get paid that, doesnt matter if im in New York, SF, or Nebraska

Several companies that approach me are down on the Peninsula which would require driving all the way -- so maybe an extra three hours a day on top of my work hours, in miserable traffic, where I can't even read or do email or whatever. Ugh!

@jgh Software engineering/consulting market is not (yet) truly global, so there is no global market rate.

@jgh If that company was in SF hiring locally, it would pay one price. If that company was in your location, hiring locally, it would pay a different price.

but it isnt 😉

For our company, everyone works from home, but we could establish actual offices in at least two locations that have multiple staff "nearby" -- and it makes sense to pay them based on where those offices would be if they existed.

@seancorfield You’re basically saying that the company hiring a remote worker tells him/her that it competes against another companies in the area.

I don't think one's work has an absolute monetary value. it has a value for a given context (employer, location, how you did in the negotiation) this is especially true at a global scale. it also should be true at a USA-local scale (it's a huge country after all!)

So all the potential employee has do is to turn it around and show the company that he/she accepts the offers from everywhere, not only from the local companies.

When I was at Macromedia and Adobe, they both had a lot of satellite offices (through acquisitions) and each office paid local market rates. Over time, several of those offices closed and the staff started working from home. Are you proposing they should suddenly get raises to match where the company HQ was? (SF and SJ)

yes

Hahaha... well, good luck with that 🙂

@seancorfield If the employees at these places suddenly started getting better offers (up to SF rates) — yes. Otherwise, no.

unfortunately people put up with a lot of crap from big companies so i guess they have no reason to do it yet 😛

@jgh That I'll agree with. Like many other Bay Area employees, I was part of the class action settlement against Adobe, Apple, and others that alleged they were fixing salaries. The settlement amounts varied but many were "several thousand dollars".

@seancorfield As another example, I had negotiated a good rate with a remote company, living in an expensive city, and then moved to much cheaper one. Does the company have right or need to lower my rate now?

(much cheaper = nearly 2x cheaper)

@dottedmag I would certainly expect it to affect future salary discussions... I doubt many companies would reduce your salary tho'...

@dottedmag would you credentials change as well then?

So if these folks from recently-closed satellite offices started to fish for new positions in SF and getting offiers, Macromedia/Adobe would be forced to pay them comparable salaries, or lose them.

And the same applies in reverse, if you're hired in a rural area and you move to SF, you're unlikely to get an instant raise but when salary discussions come around you might get more to redress the cost of living.

(I think it matters)

@andrewboltachev Credentials?

@dottedmag a thing via that they pay you, e.g. B2B

@dottedmag You mean, assuming those rural remote folks could find remote work for other SF-based companies that paid SF rates instead of comparable rural rates?

(given that the pool of local work is likely greater than the pool of remote work -- and local work would pay local rates)

@seancorfield My argument is invalid — the current company will say “Yes, you have an local offer in SF for $Y, but after your expenses you’ll have only $X, which is comparable to what we pay you in Hickvillage anyway, so no raise for you, good luck in SF”

BTW, I'm talking about FTE rates here -- not contracting.

Say you're earning 180K remote in USA and you move to Barcelona where you'd be doing 60k (with luck). It'd be certainly antithetical not to communicate this. It's not in the interest of companies to give plain developers "f you money". f-you-money predictably removes sense of commitment/duty?

(here one can purchase a whole flat with 100k or less btw)

@vemv Even with $180k in Barcelona you’ll need to save for quite a number of years until you reach “f-you-money” level.

If you move from the USA to Barcelona, you'll be under a completely different tax and healthcare structure, most likely, and probably paid via that company's European offices (if they have them).

@vemv Also, you’ll put yourself to “golden handcuffs” situation.

I know that, I have done that myself.

Out of curiosity, not possible to remain a FTE employee in USA while doing the job elsewhere?

Double taxation treaties say a lot about offshore (haha) work, airliners and sea vessels crew. Most likely no, for the rest of us who are not on oil rigs.

Interesting, thanks for the clarification

Norwegian tax administration accepted my weird status “employee without an (Norwegian) employer”, but it seemed to be a loophole for embassy workers.

its a demonstration of capital's triumph over labor. capital can relocate manufacturing to cheaper areas to reduce costs while keeping prices the same, but you, labor, will be laughed at if you try to reduce your costs by moving to a cheaper location and keep trying to charge the same

@hiredman It’s possible, but requires tricky negotiations.

it definitely is possible

fair observation! OTOH that very same capitalism gives us developers quite a privileged position

so?

From a job offer in #remote-jobs: > Accept a salary paid in Ether

Anyone adventurous? 🙂

yep, so much confusing

so, personally I count my blessings

I know that a shitton people make 10^n more than me doing far less valuable work

that doesn't affect me, I live well.

my point is just the lopsidedness of it, to allow for companies to move things around to get and advantage, which is so routine at this point it wouldn't even be news, but workers at companies trying to do it is comical nonsense

@hiredman … yet

yet it does happen sure

The companies had trouble moving around too in not so distant past.

Can you guys suggest the legal status of Ether in different countries? There in Russia I heard that Bitcoin was said illegal

My accountant said that the cryptocurrencies are just another kind of asset for her, though a very volatile one.

Yep, here one tax official said that even things like Payoneer may be considered as "bank account outside of the country" and thus should be declared etc

But she wasn't sure, 'cause such question is very uncommon

Because nobody cares to declare Payoneer accounts in Russia? 🙂

In my provincial city, may be 🙂

> It’s not in the interest of companies to give plain developers “f you money”. f-you-money predictably removes sense of commitment/duty? Why should developers have commitment/duty to companies?

Companies certainly dont have it toward them

If the work I’m doing is making a company f-you money, I should be getting f-you money.

of course someone will call me “greedy” for that, when a company’s entire raison d’etre is greed.

as hiredman said, capital’s triumph over labor 😛

feel bad for asking for more money, etc.

My view is that most developers and companies live by capitalism rules (maximize benefits, minimize costs, disregard 'fairness') so it shouldn't surprise us when either part acts at it deems optimal. You cannot only benefit from a game? You decide to play, you decide to assume some quirks. Additionally, nothing stops you from creating your own company

Nobody gets to decide whether to play the game, though.

the only winning move is not to play

(or to organize, but that's not going to happen)

i actually saw an ad for a developer guild at the bus terminal in toronto the other day

ill have to check if it’s still there saturday when i go there again

remote-only shops definitely raises a bunch of questions regarding salary

it'd be great if everyone got paid roughly the same

but if someone who lives in the same area as you with the same skills offers to do the job for $10k less

(which they can, because cost of living is lower)

then the one hiring is just more likely to go with the cheaper option

well…you have to bring more to the table than being a simple code monkey.

but yeah i guess depending on the job you could run into competition like that

way of the road, bubs