sounds like you need to run your build on a m2 max!

How about a $10K pay cut?

Absolute numbers are kind of meaningless but I for sure would take a 10% lower pay at a company that did 100% WFH. Thow in another couple percentage points for a 4 day work week.

I feel for all the folks that work at a place that implemented a hybrid model because I don't see that working ever if some people are in the office and some are permanently remote. I bet collaboration and feeling of togetherness suffers. When everyone's remote, you have to adjust your processes and ceremonies to account for that.

I can’t imagine a firm offering “a couple” of percentage points of comp for 20% less paid hours. Would you take a 20% pay cut for 4 day/32 hour workweek?

Just curious about your mindset on this. I would love to find myself at a spot where I’m working 4 days a week, but not interested in doing 10 hour days.

By the way, I do understand that most people, including myself, would probably have a greater fraction of productive hours of work working 4/32 than 5/40. Not sure if many employees would recognize that though.

I took a 20% pay cut for a 4 day/32 hour work week a few years ago and it was great. One additional day off is much more free time than you'd think. It's 50% more days off compared to the weekend. I'd recommend it to anyone whose circumstances permit it.

I would argue that an extra day off is effectively much more than 50% more "days off" for someone who typically only gets weekends off. Weekends are a miserable day to be off if you need to run errands, or just want to go anywhere in public where crowds can diminish your enjoyment or even keep you out entirely.

I take time off during the week for "appointments" at the park for precisely that reason - it's almost impossible to get a relaxing hike at some of my favorite trails on a saturday or sunday.

The flipside is that it's much easier to hang out with your friends on weekends, because most of them are also probably off. So having a little of both is best.

"Would you take a 20% pay cut for 4 day/32 hour workweek?"

I would take an 80% pay cut for a 1 day/8 hr workweek in a heartbeat (the industry is remarkably inflexible and I ended up having to do a 100% paycut for 0 workdays and I'm happy with that too).

Yeah you're obviously right, 20% would be more of a starting point for a negotiation. I'm still thinking about it but right now I feel like with WFH and PTO I get enough time with my family that I don't need a full day yet. If that changes, I'm planning on taking a day a week off to spend with my kid before he's at school age, I'll do it. 20% less comp (in reality it'll be less due to tax brackets)for 50% more time is a no-brainer for me.

Why would it have to be less paid hours? Lots of people do 4/10 instead of 5/8.

That is just a preference for myself, I bet it's much easier to negotiate 4/10 than 4/32 - I just hate working extended hours even if it means a day off.

Knowledge work isn’t time based. Your brain doesn’t turn off.

We have a 4-day workweek, but still do 40 hours. We work 4 10-hour days. I love it.

I'm sure there are some forms of carefully crafted hybrid that works well - but in our case it's become a weird case of "whoever happens to live near an office comes in". End result is you have folks with no team overlap across the company hanging out. You get the social bits, which is nice, but none of the collaborative parts. Net/net feels like the worst possible option from a company productivity perspective.

WFH and 4 day workweek should just be standard, and you're saving the company massive amounts of money from doing WFH, so there's no way you should be taking a paycut for it.

You could easily spend 10k on commuting. That's only about $40/day. Between fuel, maint, tolls, and maybe food, you can easily bust $40/day in the Bay Area. That's not even considering the _time_ spent commuting.

And the morbidity/mortality risk. Driving is the most risky thing most Americans do.

I already hated cars, but since I began WFH I've become really averse to driving unnecessarily. Getting killed by a car is one of the absolute stupidest ways to go. My dad smoked all his life and still made it past 60; my brain could hit pavement tonight if I run out of milk.

And the worst part is that it wouldn't have to be my fault at all, and it wouldn't even require somebody to do something extraordinarily reckless. Driving too fast through my neighborhood is typical, because it happens to offer the shortest path from A to B for many people, and the road is wide thanks to bike lanes that I have never seen bikes in (because: cars drive too fast). I'll cut myself off here before this becomes an overly long screed.

My car conveniently started having reliability problems about the same time I started working remotely. We're not talking "oops need an oil change today" but "car won't start for weeks on end and is in the shop more than it's on the road". When I had to commute to the office, this would have been a pants-on-fire career-ending emergency, but now it's just a minor inconvenience. I might just sell the damn lemon and get a bicycle for those rare times I need to go anywhere. Would not have had that option with my previous 50 mile (each way) commute.

I so rarely see this pointed out in the WFH threads, but it is one of the biggest ones to me. I don't want to get killed by some idiot driver for the sake of the company I'm working for.

If you spend an hour in traffic each direction, that $10k is about $20/hour, before you start talking about costs like wear and tear, gas, parking, etc.

I'm saving money that would normally be used for office space; if anything I expect a pay raise. A cut would cause me to seek other opportunities.

Depends on how much 10k represents to you, many have explicitely chosen to be paid less to get a better life balance.

No thanks. How about a 10k pay raise you would otherwise spend on office space?

Offices cost businesses more than wfh. Petty tyrant bosses will try this, but the rest of the market will continue valuing those workers the same.

We should theoretically expect WFH compensation to asymptotically approach getting paid (prorated per head cost of office space) more.

You can change jobs, become a virtual worker at new company, and increase your salary. I did this at the end of 2021 and made a 45% increase.

Screw a pay cut the company should be increasing my salary so they can reduce spending on office space. Except they likely get tax benefits on a lease so that’s not happening.

Then you just do $20k worth of work less.

Why not $10K pay increase?

I think management somehow think they are getting less ( and I am not convinced that is the case ) and want to price "it" accordingly. What is missing from the story is what they are getting less of.

I want to say I am participating in less gossip, less pointless meetings and less ass-kissing rituals. To me, personally, this counts as a major win. What I certainly do not generate is more 'spontaneous collaboration" that various executives are quick to trot out, but.. I never have beforehand either.

For most of the people on this site that is probably not very significant in percentage terms, and even in absolute terms is probably easily outweighed by the cost savings associated with WFH.

What if it becomes clear across the industry that remote workers are first in line for convenience layoffs? Beyond reduced pay and benefit scenarios, I'm curious if reduced job security will be a price workers are willng to pay for WFH.

What if it becomes clear that remote workers are the last to go since they have less overhead in office space and other office amenities that companies offer to entice them to come to the office (on site gym, snacks, lunch, etc).

Amazon just got rid of a 29 acre property that they paid $123m for, why wouldn’t other companies recognize savings from remote workers?

> What if it becomes clear that remote workers are the last to go since they have less overhead in office space and other office amenities that companies offer to entice them to come to the office (on site gym, snacks, lunch, etc).

The lavish amenities of big tech were put there for a reason -- to get people to work more. Maybe secondarily for retention.

If you think that companies are going to look at declining productivity and think "hm, that's an acceptable tradeoff, since I'm paying less for office space!", then I'll take that bet.

They are paying less for all those amenities, too. Food and all the other things provided per employee really add up. When in a rough economy, cutting those things and keeping your 'best' employees regardless of WFH status is the best of both worlds for an MBA

> declining productivity

Isn't this begging the question? I've never been as productive in an office as WFH. I know that's not everyone but I also know I'm not the only one.

I'm not begging the question -- it's the core assumption of the entire thread. I am agnostic on the "who is more productive" question. I find it less interesting to speculate than to observe what is actually happening.

Parent is asserting that even in a world where companies want employees in the office (i.e. the current world), they're going to cave on the matter because of the money they're saving on office stuff.

I made no such assumption, you read that into my comment. I made the same statement about productivity as the post I replied to… none.

I guess I missed the decision that an in-office workforce is more productive than fully remote (I personally think that hybrid is bad for productivity, and companies should pick one or the other). There is certainly a lot of evidence and debate on both sides but no real proof one way or another.

And of course I am talking about knowledge workers, not surgeons or assembly line workers.

As I said, it's the core assumption of the entire thread. GP set things off with:

> What if it becomes clear across the industry that remote workers are first in line for convenience layoffs? Beyond reduced pay and benefit scenarios, I'm curious if reduced job security will be a price workers are willing to pay for WFH.

I grant you that it's not explicitly stated, but it's reasonable to assume that companies aren't just laying off productive workers out of sheer pettiness. Replying to GP with the premise reversed (as you did) implies that the cost/benefit equation is reversed as well.

>I grant you that it's not explicitly stated, but it's reasonable to assume that companies aren't just laying off productive workers out of sheer pettiness.

The premise was that remote workers might be first in line for layoffs, no mention of productivity, and as you said, companies wouldn’t lay off more productive workers out of pettiness. So it’s fair to assume that the list of workers that are candidates to be laid off are already at the same level of productivity.

My comment was asking what if the opposite was true and if when it came time for layoffs, workers in the office were first in line because laying off office workers saves money in office space.

At no point did I say or imply that productivity would be ignored.

> The premise was that remote workers might be first in line for layoffs, no mention of productivity

Right, and followed with a fairly archaic assumption that remote workers are inherently less productive.

I used to believe it too, so I get it.

Companies actually track productivity. WFH had been around for a long time, treated as a perk. If it's been improving productivity it had been mandatory already. If it's been neutral - it had been encouraged (due to additional expenses on the office environment). It's pretty obvious by the push to RTO that it have been neither of the above.

It doesn't always improve productively. It doesn't work for some people.

But a lot of the resistance is less about productivity and more about sunk costs and not fully understanding a relatively new world. Work was done in the office exclusively for so long that it will be hard to change the way some people think about it.

Work has not been done in the office exclusively, we had WFH for a long while. The only thing new now is that it's been mandatory for a while so the productivity data is rock solid.

Where is this rock solid data?

At the companies that had employees in the states that went into lockdowns and had to switch to WFH.

Your link doesn't appear to be working.

I have not given any links. Real life is not Reddit, sometimes you need to use your brain to figure things out and get ahead.

Huh, generally when people talk about the large volume of data that's out there they'd have ... something to point to?

Guess not.

Yeah, like for example when they talk about NSA collecting data all the time on this same website... Performance drop figures is not something a company would like to publicize for everyone to know, it's usually shared internally but I guess not in your case (which is understandable if you are an IC in a big public co, anything shared with everyone in such an environment goes public in minutes).

So to recap ... there's a bevy of "rock solid" performance data but you can't link to it because it's guarded like NSA data. But you're either privy to it or just gleaned it by using your brain and not Reddit.

This is really what you're going with?

You know it'd be perfectly fine if you just said "it's my opinion." It's certainly a whole lot less eye rolling than this story you're selling.

There is no need to be upset to the point of making up quotes, if you don't even know that your performance is being measured you are obviously not in a position to change WFH/RTO policy anywhere so just accept whatever is coming to you, being snarky will only make it hurt more.

To be clear, I would have been really interested in data about this, particularly if it were "rock solid" (which is a real quote, btw, not made up).

But you're clearly just blowing a lot of smoke. You don't have that data.

Not supplying any actual support was a tip-off, but there's little doubt once you started with snark "Real life is not Reddit, sometimes you need to use your brain to figure things out and get ahead" (real quote, not made up) and then trying to project it onto me.

Like I said, I don't care if your answer is "it's just my opinion that WFH is less productive" or "I've heard about data" but you don't have anything to support what you're claiming.

And doing the "you're mad" thing is the last refuge for a broken argument. Do better.

The secret is that economists have no idea how to measure productivity.

Yours is probably the best rebuttal on the subthread. Measuring productivity is hard.

I do think this is something that is identified in aggregate, however. Maybe you can't attribute the loss in productivity to individual employees, but you definitely notice if projects start taking a lot longer than they used to.

Depends on how it's viewed. When you're looking to save money, WFH workers have less financial overhead than Office workers. They often take the burden of office, electricity, etc costs.

After all, we're in a thread about Amazon selling an Office to save money.

Then employers smart enough to prioritize wfh will gain a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining talent

> What if it becomes clear across the industry that remote workers are first in line for convenience layoffs?

From the article:

"The Bay Area’s office market has been hit hard over the past two years, as companies pivoted to remote work and gave up real estate to cut costs."

It looks like remote work is not being singled out. In fact, it's pointed out as a cost saver.

What makes you believe that remote workers are first in line for convenience layoffs?

Thats pretty cool, I can see it being annoying for those that don’t have a partner and don’t have any structured environments to meet more people

I’m not saying hit on coworkers, having coworkers increases the entropy of activities after work and their additional social circles. but yes, also hitting on coworkers happens without incident too

This sounds good if family relationships are priority. I think networking and building professional relationships are often improved over in-person interactions.

As we get more isolated in remote work, are there any diminishing returns which often not talked about? Any idea, how are these concerns for folks who are in or want to work for startups? How are WFH folks networking in bayarea?

I signed up to go to Hacker Dojo in Mountain View to get out the house, my employer pays for me to use WeWork whenever I want, and most importantly the bar (I found any freelance work I've wanted to pick up by having a beer and someone there asking for help for their startup from time to time).

WeWork is still a thing?

This was a legitimate question. We don't all live in the Bay area and my understanding was that the business model failed.

Yeah it’s still a thing! There’s 5 in SF and one in most cities down to San Jose

So quite reduced from their initial operations though, correct? Why is that notion apparently so threatening? I remember people here proudly loathing the distracting music and making (apt) comparisons to existing co-working spaces, shared offices, coffee shops and public libraries (in order of increasing affordability).

I never used one, but the idea that it's a household name is just tone deaf. Most people probably know it best from the Hulu series about it's demise.

> This sounds good if family relationships are priority. I think networking and building professional relationships are often improved over in-person interactions.

This is overlooked so often by (I am assuming) experienced, older engineers. And it's really a one-two punch for younger professionals.

One, they may not have the family at home to spend that time with. Of course, it's also wonderful to spend time alone, but if a person doesn't have a partner and wants a partner, they're going to get more value out of going to the office for several hours than reading a book for 15 minutes at home. It may be they don't/can't/won't date anyone at work directly, but at the very least they're building their social network - which, before dating apps, was THE best source of dating partners.

And punch number two is that networking is so, so important early to one's career. Sure, you can still reach out for references to people you worked with even if you never saw their face, but the connection is almost never as strong as with someone you meet day-to-day. Plus, social events mean you may meet people in their networks, etc.

I am not fighting for return-to-office. Work from home should always be an option for anyone who wants it, and should be the default for many jobs/companies.

However, it's a tricky situation, because if you're young and want to get the value of going in to the office, but 75% of your peers are WFH, well you're not actually getting much of that networking bonus. Then it becomes an issue of finding the right workplace - but again, that's so much harder for younger people or those earlier in their career (those overlap but are not 1:1).

Optimistically, perhaps normalizing WFH will have the effect of reducing the importance of and the need to constantly be "networking". To me it's exhausting hanging out at the water cooler making small talk with people about sportsball, just because it happens to be a ritual that (for some people) somehow leads to career development. Now that the water cooler doesn't have anyone hanging around, it might start becoming less important to your career.

I think this is a dangerous dream to have. The reality will probably be that the water cooler (or some virtual equivalent) will still be integral to career development, just maybe not yours.

People are inherently social and no workplace will ever be a strict meritocracy. Eschew small talk at your own risk!

> This sounds good if family relationships are priority.

I would like to think that should the default if you have a family.

> How are WFH folks networking in bayarea?

The upside of having most of the big industry names in a relatively small geographic area is that you can't throw a stone in the bay without hitting someone working in tech. I've done as much networking, if not more, by just having a healthy social life versus going into the office.

> This sounds good if family relationships are priority. I think networking and building professional relationships are often improved over in-person interactions.

I don't understand this comment. We're living in a world where the bulk of our social relationships have mostly an online component. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, slack, mastodon, WhatsApp, etc... It's all online. We search for jobs online. We have professional social networks.

And we're expected to believe that networking is either done in person or not at all?

> And we're expected to believe that networking is either done in person or not at all?

Where did OP make this claim?

Community relationships should be built.

Not office relationships.

Networking with people in the same industry isn’t as effective as meeting people from a wider base that can exchange services and support each other.

Corporations are not “families”. Work colleagues are not your friends.

Sometimes they become that. But real community connection that isn’t judging you on your office work is far healthier!

Let me tell you about this great investment opportunity called WeWork...

Congrats! I hope your employer doesn't make you return to the office anytime soon.

WFH for a programmer can be far more productive because you don't have the interruptions of random colleagues. If you have kids at home, however, it might be just as bad. I think at some point there is going to be a surge in working-from-the-WeWork-closest-to-home for people who can't afford a dedicated home office.

I feel the exact same way, I run a data science team from my basement. At 4:30, I walk to my daughter's daycare and we play together in the time that I used to spend commuting. I never want to go back to an office.