this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
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Although I agree with what everyone is saying "that it make sense to compensate workers for the commute in time and money", I'd like to nuance a little, because I think it is a bit more complicated from a moral standpoint: Imagine employer were paying for your commute and you were on the clock during it, what happen when you move to another appartment/house further from work ? Should the employer continue to pay and clock your longer commute ? It seems weird that my decision to move to another part of the city would affect my employer. The consequence would be that employer will mandate that you cannot move without their appoval or that their cost for your commute is fixed in the contract and need to be renegociable. In the end what it boils down to is not that commute should be paid for and part of the work day. What people want is better salaries and smaller hours. Then the commute doesn't matter anymore, and stays at the expense of the worker who can therefore move wherever they want.
What people also want is to work from home if possible.
To stay out of the adult kindergarten managers desperately want to put people into for reasons entirely unrelated to productivity.
Paying for the commute would be the boss paying the cost of the unnecessary demand for repeated physical presence.
The programmers especially on my team agree with you 200%
My team works from four locations in three states, two time zones. We work on the computer, we meet on Teams, we chat on Teams. Occasionally we phone reach other
The other IT people are happy to be in the office occasionally to catch up with others in the office, the programmers overall don't
So they commute typically about an hour each way on days they must be in the office to work exactly as they do at home and have about as much social contact
Some of them are quite unhappy with the situation
To add a totally contrary point here, imptomptu in person conversations I've had with other teams I wouldn't interact with a lot has given me a tonne more perspective as a software developer. Especially with people working in sales and support but also from other engineering teams. I think it comes down to office culture. Yeah if everyone just comes in, never interacts with anyone and sits there coding all day then goes home, then yeah that's going to be a worse experience but if you actually embrace office culture I think it's super rewarding and beneficial to career development.
Impromptu in person conversations.
Impromptu ~~in person~~ conversations.
I like the latter.
In my experience most people are really bad at jumping out of their team and silo remotely, especially software developers. Some people might make it work, but that's not my experience with the majority of coders. Also as good as zoom/teams/slack is, it really doesn't compare to an in person conversation. It's a more formal and often friction filled experience. Conversations remotely are mostly done with purpose, you call someone for a reason. This makes relationships really transactional. The in person aspect drives a lot more potential for organic conversation. Remotely I might see two of my colleagues in a huddle on slack, if I happen to be looking at their profiles at the right time, but I would never join them. Conversely however I've commented and jumped in on conversations between the ML engineers sitting behind me all the time, and vice versa when I'm discussing python programming.
You don't seem like you have even a toe in casual online culture, are you treating this lemmy conversation as a transactional relationship, too?
Those problems are optional, treating it formally is optional.
Just don't force people into the office just because you can't manage to chill out online.
Most of my hobbies are online actually, in fact as an expat they're the only way I stay connected to friends around the world. The majority of my really deep friendships are these days virtual.
I don't mean the conversations are formal, but the format is. As an example, a group conversation in person can have smaller side conversations going on. On video chat one at a time. Yeah you can still have good conversations, but the only one speaking limitation introduces a level of formality to the conversation. I can't lean to a friend and whisper an in joke, or comment something.
No forcing at all, if you don't want to go in, don't, I just don't think it actually does your career or relationships any favours.
That's comparable to sitting in a group chat/call and sending a dm. You can absolutely do that.
But is not nearly as easy. Conversations move faster than can type out complex thoughts most of the time. They might not even see it till minutes after. The experience is simply not the same. It leads to a very different social experience, that imo, leads to less strong relationships, especially for people joining a new company and for people on the lower end of the career ladder. I'd hate to have to seek mentorship virtually if I was a grad or junior atm.
And this is totally ignoring the fact that for a lot of people they connect over things in person. Walking by the bar on the way to the station and spotting colleagues, stopping in for a pint that turns into dinner. The walk to get lunch at the market. Sharing a homemade tiramisu. My deskmate asking about my coding problem as I swear under my breath. All things that happened this week and I only go in for 2 days, voluntarily, the rest of my team is entirely in other countries.
At the end of the day, do what you want, but the studies do show a drop in productivity for WFH. I think that stems at least partly from the social interaction elements. My counterpart is 10 years my senior in terms of ability and about as virtually social as a software developer gets, but because I'm well known in the office I get a load more of the random software questions. Which is good for me in the longer term. That's my $0.02
What the fuck kind of life is that?
Look, go to the office, have fun with the tiramisu, just don't ever argue your perceived benefits of in-person communication in support of a manager's wish to force it. I'd much prefer if you would directly argue in favor of it being kept an open option.
I am completely out of the job market right now and I really fucking hate participating in corporate culture. Fuck all of it, completely. It can all burn in a world-ending self-inflicted catastrophe. A bunch of idiots laughing over a coffee about how they're gonna earn their share from completely unnecessary and actively destructive activities. Managing the company profiles of fucking sports commentators. Designing and turning giant sheets of steel into "decorative" fucking planters.
It's just so much fluff. Meaningless, unimportant fluff. And this is what we're requiring people spend 8 hours a day for the rest of their life on.
I fucking hate our civilization.
Mate you sound totally unhinged. Sorry you're so triggered that I would enjoy casual conversation with a colleague while we try some new food together. My point was that a lot of people connect over shared experiences and the small stuff.
I'm guessing you couldn't piece together the fact I only go in 2 days a week and explicitly mentioned to do what you want that I'm not arguing everyone returns to 9 to 5 mon to Fri, but maybe you can use this as an exercise in logical reasoning. Me saying there are benefits to going into the office isn't suddenly asking everyone to go back full time.
I find it more unhinged and illogical that we see mobile game development as a more productive endeavor than picnics and naps, "You might be scamming addicts out of money, but at least you're putting in work and being productive!"
Your apparent love of corporate culture sent me fucking reeling mate.
Well don't disagree with you on that first point.
But I'm not sorry I actually like seeing people in person and aren't a total shut in. If that triggers you, seek mental help.
Because employers have never forced indirect layoff by changing a person's office location without agreement to make them quit instead of being fired.
exactly, this is a non issue. if someone wants to go through the immense hassle and expense of moving just to get like 30mins more pay daily, ok
Paying for commute expense is already a solved problem.
Some examples, a fixed amount based on data provided every month for commute. (200 dollars a month or whatever)
Or if a company wants to be both stingy and generous at the same time, make you expense your gas or public transportation every month up to a certain limit.
It doesn't matter if you move to a different part of town. The cost is negligible to a business.
The expense half may be cheap, but does the time count as wages? That could be non trivial.
In my case, I leave the house an hour before work, but I have some errands I run. When does my "commute" begin? If I wanted to cheat and bump my pay, drive to a park and ride near work and show up on the bus, which wouldn't be that much longer than normal. Then show my employer the public transit route from my house that would have a 2.5 hour transit time, and claim the extra 3-4 hours as pay.
It's such a tricky gray area. On the one hand it is unfair to lose hours to a commute on your own time, on the other it creates ways to cheat the system that should be difficult to audit, unless I give my employer permission to track me, which seems unreasonable.
Yes, we all must suffer because Dave was a slimy fuck and lied about his commute that one time. /s
So many good things we decide not to do because Dave might fuck it up.
Or actually, because racism, but we don't want to admit that and blame a hypothetical Dave instead.
It is not tricky at all. Again the commuting cost is a solved issue and not even the one discussed in the article.
No one pays you by the hour to commute to work. This is not a thing.
I admit I'm not paying to read the full article, but that seems to be exactly what the article is saying, does the workday start when you get to work or when you start the commute?
I'll agree I've never heard someone seriously chase commute as work hours, but this article suggests it is a thing, so I was commenting on that context.
Where I live, I have to calculate (and show the process of calculation) the cheapest cost of getting to and back from work from my house. My boss simply pays me that much each workday. If I move, I have to do this calculation again. It doesn't matter how long it takes me to get to work (i.e. I'm not "on the clock"), they are simply imbursing me for that part.
Ironically, sometimes moving further away is both cheaper and faster.
See that's the problem, in America this needs to be solved without asking people to do math.
It is for most companies. You put the drive into a mileage calculator for your company and they reimburse you a certain amount per mile. You don't do napkin math, they need legitimate records for accountants, audits, etc.