
Remote work has its perks, until you want a promotion - headalgorithm
https://www.wired.com/story/remote-work-perks-until-want-promotion/
======
ahh
Humans don't have emotional object permanence.

My ex-girlfriend described herself this way to me once and I thought it was
funny, but it's in fact true of people in general: if you're not physically
present near them, they will forget that you really exist as a human and a
social peer. It's unfortunate but it's true: you are going to naturally think
more about and have better feelings about the coworkers you see every day in
person. No, VC doesn't count. I think this is pretty much a human universal;
the only exceptions I know are quite far on the autism spectrum. (Even I
notice myself doing this, and I'm definitely somewhere on that line.)

Given that, I want to be in the room with my coworkers. I want them to
unconsciously think of me as part of their tribe, and I want to feel the same
way about them; that means we need to be able to perform regular in-person
social petting. This is doubly true of my bosses. It sucks, but there's no way
around it.

(Also, while this is less universal, there are plenty of extroverts, even on
HN. I'm one. It's ironic, in that I _also_ suffer from pretty nasty social
anxiety; large rooms of strangers scare me and choke me up. But lock me in a
room by myself for a month and I go crazy. I am happier, by far, when I can be
in the same room as people I like.)

~~~
MattGaiser
> This is doubly true of my bosses. It sucks, but there's no way around it.

So many opportunities in my life have come from casual interactions with my
bosses, i.e. they spot something in an email and because I am sitting nearby,
they propose it to me or they are coming out of a meeting and mention some
corporate goal.

Working remotely, I do not even speak to my boss every week now. I am a
microservice outputting work.

~~~
moriarty-s3a
This is completely cultural. I had a manager that I didn't meet in person for
over a year and he was constantly sharing stuff like this with me, frequently
multiple times a day. As the sibling points out, if you aren't speaking with
your manager weekly, or really almost daily, then something is very wrong.

~~~
lalos
When does the line blur and it becomes micro-managing if speaking daily?

~~~
cddotdotslash
"Speaking" doesn't imply "managing" in a negative sense. It's simply a medium
to convey information. Is it micro managing to see a direct report in the
hallway or at lunch and casually say "Hey, Alice was saying that we could
really use a new X, what do you think about that?" That level of discussion
would very rarely occur over Slack or during a scheduled 1:1.

~~~
RHSeeger
> "Hey, Alice was saying that we could really use a new X, what do you think
> about that?" That level of discussion would very rarely occur over Slack

Out of curiosity, why? I have this kind of discussion in Slack fairly often,
sometimes in a (smaller) channel, sometimes in direct messages (occasionally
with >2 people in in). A quick conversation about an idea, where people can
respond as time permits, seems fairly optimal for Slack.

------
khazhoux
At this point I've mostly given up on the concept of promotions anyway. The
amount of downwards pressure against promoting people is unreal.

I've seen managers stuck in their level for years and years. Then a new
candidate comes in for a Manager role, asks for more money, and (boom!)
they're hired as a Director. Fuck everyone else who was already running teams
successfully and trying to grow. Same for individual contributors. Best route
is the insta-promotion during hiring negotiation.

You want a promotion but don't want to switch companies? Gee sorry your scope
isn't wide enough yet. You're doing a fine job --a good job, even-- but you
have to understand that this was already the _expected_ job level... we need
to "see more."

Every performance-review meeting I've been in, when one manager brings up one
of their people for promotion, immediately some other manager will jump in and
say "No I don't know about that, someone on my team had a bad interaction with
them once... nope not ready for promotion" and that's that. Only once in a
blue moon does the room agree that someone should get the promotion.
Hallelujah!

~~~
lr4444lr
I understand your frustration, but also consider, being promoted over your
colleagues poses its own risks to the social fabric of a company. Your last
paragraph alludes to this kind of rancor.

Bringing in people from the outside (or leaving to go somewhere else yourself
when you're ready to make the jump,) has its benefits for what it avoids.

~~~
khazhoux
Internal discontentment follows from promotions being so difficult, and it's
worsened by everyone seeing new people walking in at a higher level than seems
justified. Then, having to deal with the new person once they land and it
quickly becomes obvious (in 99% of cases) that they are not more accomplished
and don't deliver more results than the internal people they leapfrogged.

My first job two decades ago didn't have engineering levels (apart from Tech
Lead designation, which wasn't a formal level). People still fought for raises
and the salaries/bonuses were sometimes not perfect, but there was no
"promotion" per se and in retrospect it was healthier for everyone.

~~~
m-ee
That sounds healthier for the org internally but I don’t think I’d ever take
the job because of the risk of stunting my career growth. Harder to move up
the ladder at my next job if I don’t have a decent title at my current one.

~~~
khazhoux
In fact, the company I'm referring to did eventually adopt SWE job levels
(right as I was leaving) and I was told it was because engineers were being
recruited away by companies offering a "Senior Engineer" title.

------
everdrive
I've recently moved back into private sector, and it's been pretty surprising
to me just how little of the business world has to do with actual business.
There are the expected things, such as relationship building, empire building,
fiefdom building, etc.

But, it also seems that a lot of the actual effort people expend doesn't have
very much to do with the business. For example, we had an executive whose
passion in life was clearly just to speak in front of people. He never did
real work, but made sure to take every opportunity to ensure he was speaking
in front of people. It's clear that he should have been a public speaker.

I don't mean to pick on this particular executive, but it seems like there's a
lot of this here. A lot of people, engaged all day in things that don't
produce work. They're more about building some special, separate social
hierarchy: determining who is in charge, who has influence, who matters. That
seems to take up a lot of time in the private sector. I'm sure it's not
universally true, but this has been my ad-hoc experience.

And, I get it: this is what people do, and what people value. We're social
creatures, etc. But it sort implies that everyone's engaged in a joint lie.
That lie being "we're here to work and we're all hard workers. We're primarily
interested in advanced the business." It seems like a more literal truth might
be: "We're here to take part in a social hierarchy, and forge friends and
enemies, and do enough actual work that no one minds how inefficient our
business is."

~~~
LordFast
Good point, and I used to actually hold a stronger belief in things like that
because to me they represent a larger-picture type of work that seemed more
interesting.

BUT, ever since I exited out of that game to start my own business, my beliefs
have been shifting. Now I can see exactly how successful businesses come
together and make enough money to fill payroll, and there's no getting around
the fact that real, valuable work needs to get done. And that only once the
real work has been done, do you then get to have the nice byproducts of
success which is to do public speaking, culture building, and etc all those
extra-curricular things. But the existence of these extra-curriculars are
predicated on having a successful business in the first place. And no matter
how cynical anyone gets, you won't have a successful business based on /JUST/
bullshit empire building alone- you gotta do real work and provide real value.

I can also see more clearly now that if society doesn't have the right balance
between doers and talkers, we're eventually gonna have nothing valuable to
show for anymore, and the fallout from that won't be pretty.

When /everyone/ _DESIRES_ to be talkers, instead of just a small minority,
it's a worrisome trend.

~~~
everdrive
I think that's very fair, and to be clear: I'm not necessarily even suggesting
this is a bad thing, just that I was surprised by it, and that it seems to run
counter to what people publicly espouse. For certain, some businesses are more
efficient than others as well.

------
aSplash0fDerp
Shopping your resume around will be the new promotion (similar to pre-covid
career growth).

If turnover rates start to match the fast food industry, only the best
companies will thrive.

~~~
brtkdotse
No kidding. Unless you’re in a “tech for tech’s sake” kind of job, you need to
get up to speed on the problem domain and the business. That usually takes _at
least_ 18 months and if people bounce just as they’re getting proficient
you’re throwing money into a black hole.

~~~
vonmoltke
Alternately, the software industry could go the way of the electrical and
mechanical engineering industries and just not hire people unless they already
possess relevant domain knowledge. It was a bit of a shock to me when I
transitioned from EE that I could get hired in this industry with little to no
domain knowledge on what I was being hired to do.

~~~
exdsq
I do wonder if this will happen. I reckon there will be some sort of
catastrophic programming error which brings in a level of certification akin
to other engineering disciplines. I've seen jobs advertised nearby for a
nuclear defence company that have the same requirements as a web dev agency.

~~~
ununoctium87
So, kind of like a software bug that causes 1 or 2 planes to crash, killing
all on-board?

~~~
philjohn
Or killed a bunch of people undergoing radiotherapy, or exploded an Arianne
rocket, or required years of remiedial work before 1st of Jan 2000 ... the
list goes on and on.

------
BiteCode_dev
If you want a promotion, move to another job. Most companies make it
incredibly slow and painful to evolve in their own walls, while giving big
rewards to new comers.

Unless you happen to work at the legenday ones that do care about you, don't
play according to their rules. Those are here for their benefit, not yours.

Remote or not.

~~~
person_of_color
This. You will get a 20-100% raise in a new job, and peanuts for staying with
a company.

RSU refreshers might change the equation.

------
lcam84
You will start to see many articles degrading remote work. Remote work is too
efficient to this economic system. We need to spend time on traffic and
restaurants.

As we saw Jorge W Bush at the moment of crisis asking citizens to consume, I
would not be surprised to see politicians asking employees and companies to
reduce remote work for the good of this economy which is based on exponential
growth such as this virus

~~~
Jommi
Why do you think people who work from home would consume less?

Where does that excess money go to?

~~~
lcam84
Having more time on our hands can reduce consumption, for example, we can make
our food instead of going to the restaurant or take away. We may have more
time for the family and thus spend less on nursing homes or kindergartens.

This is just my opinion but it can also reduce conspicuous consumption. Remote
work makes it less necessary to be in the centre of a city or surroundings.
This reduces the consumption used to define social status. For example at the
moment the fashion business is in a strong decline.

We are already seeing an increase in savings partly due to remote work.
[https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/12/investing/jobs-
coronaviru...](https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/12/investing/jobs-coronavirus-
consumer-spending-debt/index.html)

~~~
ubercow13
Maybe businesses will have more incentive to produce actually 'fun' stuff for
people to spend their money on, rather than more and more unnecessary status
items.

------
dhd415
The headline doesn't distinguish between remote work at companies that are
remote-first vs. companies where remote is simply an afterthought or tolerated
option. Promotions, raises, influence, etc., are no issue for remote workers
in the former kind of company but certainly can be in the latter. Even though
the article mentions Gitlab, a remote-first company, it doesn't tease out the
distinction. Given market pressures, I expect the best remote workers to
gravitate to companies that are remote-first, not just remote-available.

~~~
digitallogic
> Promotions, raises, influence, etc., are no issue for remote workers in the
> former kind of company but certainly can be in the latter.

FWIW, remote first companies are not automatically immune to these dynamics. A
few examples of how they can still emerge:

* A group of folks that all live in the same city informally decided to start working from the same co-working space. A clique emerges.

* The CTO frequently travels to SF to talk to customers, regularly has lunch with a local employee who later gets promoted over better performing peers.

* Same but while the CEO goes to talk to investors.

* Same but the whole leadership team meets in the same airline hub city twice a quarter because it's easiest for everyone to get to. Employees in said airline hub city have better outcomes.

* You live on one coast, and your supervisor lives on another. People in the same timezone as your supervisor get more virtual face time.

There are definitely more opportunities for this dynamic when some people are
remote and some are in a shared office. But I'd be wary of any organization
that tells you this can't happen to them just because they're remote-first.

These dynamics can emerge in many ways, and if an organization doesn't
realize/acknowledge this, there's a decent that they could fall prey to it, or
may already be in progress.

edit: formatting

------
Arubis
TFA, being in Wired, appears to be focused primarily on the tech industry. At
the risk of being pithy, the best way to get a promotion in tech has--for a
_long_ time--been to get a new job. Even if you do score an in-house title
bump, your pay raise is likely to be a single-digit percentage above
inflation, when jumping ship can easily net you 20%.

If more people going remote makes this more visible, fine by me.

------
lucideer
This is not just true of remote work, it's also true of "remote" offices.

I work in Ireland for a US company. When I started in the company, I was
constantly surprised with the competence of people I work with in my local
office, in NY, in D.C. & in Asian offices, compared to those I work with in SF
(our HQ).

But after a while I realised it wasn't that people in SF were less competent
or people in other offices were moreso. It was simply that the levels were
different. PoCs for a project who were at a similar "level" to me were clearly
less experienced in SF, due—seemingly—to the promotional ladder just being so
much more accessible there. Because those responsible for promotions are
present in person.

I don't think this is an easily surmountable problem with humans, but I do
hope that WFH becoming more common will make people generally more aware of
the challenge.

~~~
babesh
I’ve seen the opposite from a company overcompensating. There was a remote
office and some complained about promotion opportunities. There were
promotions alright and then there were several complaints about the competence
of some people there. Nothing was done for a long time other than blaming the
people who complained about not working with them better. They didn’t try to
argue that the people were actually competent since there had been multiple
complaints from multiple people. Furthermore, there were obvious issues. The
remote office basically formed a remote clique. They eventually got reorg’d
out of existence as an individual group due to incompetence.

I think it just depends on the particular situation. It can swing either way.

------
Taniwha
I've worked remotely for almost 30 years now, my take on it has always been:
"it's great you can avoid most office politics", followed by "you always lose
at office politics"

It's happened at every company I've worked at - in general you need to have a
manager who will have your back and represent, and have to be able to not
worry about the small stuff

------
drawkbox
Lots of anti-remote work suddenly.

Remote work means companies can get the best people for that company anywhere.

Remote work means life changes can happen and you can retain the best people
for that company. With jobs and life, changes happen, people move, have
families, want to be close to family, want to change scenery, get a new
significant other, go to school, buy a house, all of these things can mean you
might have to quit if you have to physically always be in the office.

Even when companies have remote/different city offices, virtual communication
is very important anyways.

Clients and customers are almost always remote with some sprinkled in meetings
but mostly virtual communication and communication through the work.

Companies would be wise to switch to remote first thinking and processes with
a focus on virtual communication and a nice to have of physical meetups,
integration sessions etc.

Remote work helps companies focus on their external view not just their
internal machinations.

For truly unique talents and workers, location has never really mattered.

The world is virtual and remote now, the companies that perform well in that
and with their external view, not internal view, and do the best virtual
communication will win, and not just in tech.

~~~
softwaredoug
Remote means not building genuine relationships with any coworkers. Remote
means not sharing a meal, getting coffee, building friendships, or growing
past an automaton that gets work done.

~~~
Consultant32452
>Remote means not building genuine relationships with any coworkers.

I would argue most relationships with coworkers aren't genuine. You might have
a different metric for this, but mine is that when you change jobs, these
relationships evaporate.

FWIW, I've worked remotely for 10+ years and some of my good friends are
remote. We live on opposite sides of the country, and in one case the globe.
But we catch up with each other, know about each others families, etc. And we
haven't worked for the same employer in years.

~~~
pandler
> I would argue most relationships with coworkers aren't genuine. You might
> have a different metric for this, but mine is that when you change jobs,
> these relationships evaporate.

True, my relationship with my coworkers is scoped to my work environment, but
I don't think that makes them not genuine. Rather, they are circumstantial,
limited, and probably have a time limit on them. I don't value them any less
for what they are. In fact, I embrace them for what they are: a meaningful
aspect of the large chuck of my life that I spend working, even if they never
exit outside of that realm.

Some of them do, like you say, slip through the cracks and do become friends
outside of work.

As an analog, I spent about 5 years traveling and working remotely out of a
backpack. I met A LOT of people, and I had many genuine and sometimes
perspective-changing interactions with people. Most of them I don't keep in
touch with anymore, but that doesn't devalue the time that I spent with them,
even if we knew from the moment we met that we would only ever interact face-
to-face for a few months.

Transactional and/or circumstantial and/or scoped to some time-bound aspect of
your life != genuine

------
donretag
This sentiment is precisely why I have returned to an office job (now remote
like everyone) after years for working remote as a full-time employee.

I have specialized in a niche which made employers allow me to work remotely
since they could not find local talent. Being the sole remote (tech) employee,
or one of the few, means you will not get promoted. Remote-first is a
different ballgame.

I now turn down all "only you will be remote" positions that are sent my way.
I no longer work in my niche since there is no demand locally, but I will not
be the sole remote person again.

PS: I am an extrovert

------
xcavier
This attitude really bugs me:

> Zuckerberg said Facebook will reduce salaries for people who move to cheaper
> places >

If company X moves manufacturing to a lower cost company, it doesn't suddenly
discount its product. The CEO's mindset is: if I can provide the same value
for a lower cost, I get to pocket the additional (saved) margin.

But when an employee provides the same value but at a lower (personal) cost,
the boss wants to clawback the savings.

~~~
mixmastamyk
Should be giving a raise due to reduction in office rent and increased
productivity. Ha, back to reality.

------
igeligel_dev
The aspect of social interaction definitely has an impact on promotions, but
what's more important, at least in my company are results. We act on
leadership principles similar to what they have at Amazon and employees are
getting rated against that.

In my team, at the end of the day, everyone is sharing what they did
throughout the day work-wise. You can still list things that are non-
engineering related. What I also do is tracking these notes in an application
and tag the notes later for a self review. In the end, sharing these notes
gives the team some perspective of what the others are doing and because of
the random stuff everyone is doing from time to time we had awesome
conversations / ideas because of that.

------
ryanSrich
You have to be 100% remote. No functioning hybrids exist.

Most tech companies should be 100% remote with no exceptions. That doesn’t
mean small satellite offices or co-working space for a group of employees. It
means literally everyone from the CEO to the lowest paid IC works remotely.

This is the only way it can work. When you start mixing in-person and remote
you create a political monster.

------
falcolas
Counter point: I’ve gotten three promotions (one of which included a
significant change in my role) while only seeing my bosses in person about 2-3
times a year.

I also, in contrast with other commenters, talk to my direct boss 2-3 times
every week in a standup. We have weekly 1:1’s. My successes are recognized, my
failures are managed.

Getting (or not getting) promotions is a function of your communication, not
proximity. Those two-three yearly returns to the office don’t include any more
(or less) communication than I had previously.

------
xwdv
Promotions are overrated in a remote work world IMO.

Do you want more money? Get a better remote job anywhere else or do something
else for money or keep good investments.

Do you want more prestige? For what exactly? You're not seeing any co-workers
regularly to pull rank on them and there is no corner office desk with a
window to fight for. If you want to be respected in your industry commit to
some charitable projects or give talks.

Do you want different responsibilities? Ask, and if you don't get it go find a
more suitable job.

------
MattGaiser
The reality is that a lot of promotions and opportunities are simply based on
getting attention and it is a lot easier to get attention in an office than
remotely.

An email is easy to ignore. The boss's boss will at least know my name if he
sees me every so often.

------
mcph
This article (similar to the several others that have been posted on remote
work today) didn't touch at all on how working remotely may affect companies'
ability to combat implicit bias vis a vis promotions. From conversations I've
had with folks in tech, it seems that many managers believe remote work will
improve the fairness of their promotion processes because it removes vectors
for implicit bias like how social a person is, what a person looks like, etc.

But it also removes what I've experienced to be a low-barrier opportunity for
those who are quiet or unlikely to promote their work to do so—in person in a
one-on-one setting. Without the opportunity to learn by example in-person, I
worry that less experienced people (especially shy ones) in technical career
tracks will not self-advocate. In turn, due to implicit bias that will
inevitably shape manager-employee relationships, I fear they'll stall.

It's really not a solution to say that managers should be offering the
conversations, because of course, managers inevitably will fail to do so in
many corporate culture.

We are going remote-first from the jump, but as we scale I am pretty concerned
about how to combat this phenomenon.

------
zapf
I have been remoting for over ten years now. The only rule I have now is to
work with remote first teams. If there's an office where a big clique meets,
you'll eventually feel left out.

------
soheil
In case anyone wants to listen to this instead of reading it:
[https://playthis.link/https://www.wired.com/story/remote-
wor...](https://playthis.link/https://www.wired.com/story/remote-work-perks-
until-want-promotion/)

------
angarg12
My cynical self loves the headline of the article. Pity it is only mentioned
once in passing.

All my career I have been moving to increasingly more expensive places chasing
after better jobs. So far I have very strong feelings about what I call 'the
satellite office effect'. Anecdata shows that my colleagues at the head office
get promoted at a ratio roughly 3:1 compare to my (remote, smaller) office.

Amid this pandemic and many companies looking at full remote, I decided to
move to the US to a yet more expensive city. I love the idea of living in a
low CoL area and working remote, but for the sake of my career I feel the need
to work at the main offices. Even if one day I decide to make the switch, I
would never consider working for anything else than a full remote company.

------
seph-reed
There's three posts about how bad remote work is today:

[https://www.wired.com/story/remote-work-perks-until-want-
pro...](https://www.wired.com/story/remote-work-perks-until-want-promotion/)

[https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/can-
remo...](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/can-remote-work-
be-fixed)

[https://marker.medium.com/remote-workers-just-outsourced-
the...](https://marker.medium.com/remote-workers-just-outsourced-
themselves-3f771f9d1529)

Most plausibly just coincidence, but an interesting anomaly none-the-less.

------
nniroclax
My last role was remote. I was only promoted after a big onsite meeting that
went really well. If that in-person meeting had never happened, it would have
been really hard to get that promotion.

------
B4CKlash
I’ve seen a number of these ‘for and against’ conversations. One aspect that I
often see overlooked is the relationship between managers and direct reports.
Managers use the ‘ass in chair’ as a proxy for work load. What time did you
arrive, what time are you leaving, how often are you in and out of your chair?
Rightly or wrongly, the 40 hour work week is only flexible in only one
direction. If you improve your ability to complete your job duties, new job
duties magically appear. To that end, it’s allowed the average manager to
‘outsource’ direct management. I’m curious how this relationship will change
and I’m hoping the 40 hour work week will change with it. The crux of this
question is, Why is the average employee not able to control the incremental
value of their time? Is it possible to move to a task-based compensation
system? and/or remote work have a positive or negative impact on the
compensation structure – reducing work creep, Etc.

~~~
kyuudou
Just load on more work until they burnout, then hire fresh new blood.
Particularly desperate graduates. Burn them out, hire offshore. Rinse and
repeat until the economy itself burns out and we're all delivering organic
food to each other on bicycles until people get angry enough to start
shooting.

------
Simulacra
Remote work means that anyone can do your job. This is going to make the job
market significantly more competitive.

~~~
MattGaiser
80% of jobs are filled through networks anyway, so unless that changes, it
doesn't really change a lot except for those just entering the workforce or
those without a strong network.

~~~
notahacker
A _lot_ of that 80% of jobs being filled through networks is 'X that I don't
work directly with but enjoy having lunch with and happen to know is looking
for...' and 'Y whose actual contributions I'm unable to audit who always
strikes me as smart and perceptive in watercooler chat'.

~~~
MattGaiser
Exactly. It often has a fuzzy at best relationship to actual skill but a
strong relationship to social likeability.

------
bane
It's really important to work at a place that rewards based on meritocracy. I
know that where I work, not all managers really pay as much attention to each
employee as desired, but there is a culture of employees that will email
managers with emails who's content is essentially "you should consider
promoting xyz, they totally made my work easier because of abc...".

This is incredibly important for managers of large teams and contributes to a
really great culture of people who appreciate each other rather than people
who are in competition with each other.

I personally have received several of these emails since the lockdown. It's
not enough to act on, but it's enough to ask peers some questions to help
establish a 360 degree view of an employee's performance.

------
papito
Out of sight, out of mind. That will never change.

------
buboard
People who write these articles assume that remote work will be "Secondary" to
office work. Wake up, it's already primary work, and it s going to stay that
way for about a year due to health concerns. Afterwards, when half the people
return to the half-empty office, companies will prioritize remote first,
office will become secondary, and soon after a liability. Until a month ago ,
remote workers were the rare exception, now everyone is already a remote
veteran. Past remote work experience is a very bad predictor of a remote-first
workplace.

------
ravenstine
These articles are hilarious.

Lots of people are working remotely, and it looks like the #RemoteBacklash has
begun because... well, everyone is different. But I don't think I've met a
single remote worker who thinks that literally everyone can and should work
remotely. It's a totally made up argument.

This article is made up, too. It's totally speculative, cites nameless studies
about "trust"(however you're supposed to measure that), and seems to believe
that the rest of tech operates like Twitter and Facebook.

------
diogenescynic
For me, remote work is a promotion so long as my salary isn’t adjusted. If I
can take my same salary and move somewhere (within reason) my salary goes
further... that’s a pretty huge perk.

------
PopeDotNinja
It depends on how valuable you are. There's no substitute for being an amazing
value proposition to your employer. Everyone onsite company wants onsite
resources until they can't hire then locally. Be invaluable remotely, and if
you don't get that promotion, find it elsewhere at another company. This is
basically similar to the advice that the easiest way to make more money is to
take a job at a different company.

------
Ididntdothis
I am pretty senior and remote now. I would agree that the potential for
promotion has gone down a little due to lack of visibility. My strategy is to
carve out a niche for myself where I can produce high value stuff that usually
doesn't get done in the rush of the office but can be done because I am out of
sight. I think this works for me and fits my work style but I don't see myself
moving up a lot.

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semerda
Promotion or Responsibility? If a remote worker is trusted, gets things done
and is an important cog in the wheel then limiting their growth would be an
unwise decision and ultimately cost the company a great employee. So why would
remote work be an issue with a promotion — maybe remote work is also a filter
for below satisfactory people managers. Either way, HR will have a lot to
rethink how they run.

~~~
cmiles74
This implies a rationality that I have not often seen in my professional life.

The places I have worked, HR has typically let the hiring manager decide if
they want to promote an existing employee or start a new search. I don't
expect remote work will change that much.

Given that, it comes down to the hiring manager and I wouldn't feel
comfortable that they are this level of rational either. They may have some
pre-existing opinions about remote workers and those opinions may not all be
reasonable.

I think there's also reason for concern when a remote person has to "compete"
with an in-office presence for the position. Qualifications and job
performance aside, the person who is in the office every day, I suspect, has a
real advantage here. I do think it is easier to form relationships in person,
rather than over conference calls or Slack.

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ryanmarsh
Why all the anti-remote work stories as of late? Am I just imagining this or
have the remote work articles (up until recently) been mostly positive?

~~~
closetohome
At the moment there's essentially zero debate that having as many people work
from home as possible is beneficial to the people, the environment, and the
economy.

These articles are introducing FUD so that when companies start recalling
employees, the opposition won't be as universal as it would be otherwise.

~~~
rodiger
Or maybe we can take a more nuanced stance and say that some people just
prefer to work from an office with their colleagues.

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
If we did then there wouldn't be articles complaining about WFH.

Just let people do what they want. If you like WFH then find a company that
allows it, if you don't, do the inverse.

I don't see why there is so much hate against WFH when it's a choice (not
including the virus situation).

I would NEVER go back to an office. I've been WFH for 5 years now.

You can certainly put a price not having to live in a rent-trap city.

I bought and paid off a 3bdr house in a year because of low cost of living. I
no longer pay rent/mortgage or commute.

I see how some people wouldn't like it, but there are plenty of jobs for those
people.

P.S: a 30 minute commute is 252 hours of your year gone ($25,200 @ $100/hr)
and $3-6k in gas plus stress.

Do yourself a favor and start working on your office setup, you'll want to
work remotely when you get older at least.

------
windex
Promotions are the wrong goal. Organizations seem to want you to think it is
and stay put no matter what. Don't. You should keep moving. I would argue that
remote working makes it possible for the employee to not be emotionally over-
invested in work/employer and to target for better economic outcomes for
themselves.

Offices are corrals in a way. Dont allow yourself to be herded.

------
quantified
I see a high likelihood that being assigned or allowed to work in the office
becomes a status/power thing, similar to the old office vs cubicle divide. Who
is worth letting into the sanctum? If proximity becomes a more limited
commodity it will become more precious.

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Havoc
I personally prefer a choice.

e.g. currently I've got a fixed desk at the office. But if I decide to work
from home nobody is going to ask questions.

Given 5 min commute I'll probably go in most of the time, but the ability to
decide is almost more valuable than either on it's own

------
Animats
Page [https://www.wired.com/story/remote-work-perks-until-want-
pro...](https://www.wired.com/story/remote-work-perks-until-want-promotion/)
appears to be down. (Back up now.)

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bhewes
There was a term I would hear as a kid professional attainment management, it
is what people sent to remote posts would talk about. The need to go to HQ
either regularly and/or a few years every decade to be part of the culture.

------
methodin
I've often wondered what would happen to the jobscape if employers spent more
to keep people then they do to hire their replacement. If jumping ship was
always a pay cut, what would that do to both the company and employees?

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z3t4
You promote peoole that strive towards the common goal, that are decent and
loyal. You dont promote someone just because they live next door. Computer
technology is superior for communication. The problem is the organisation.

------
prions
Not everyone has:

\- long commutes

\- crappy coworkers or offices

\- a space large enough to comfortably work remotely (or the money to afford a
bigger space)

\- a partner, kids, or both, which makes extended social isolation more
livable

\- a rich network for career growth and opportunities

God forbid some people _want_ to live in big cities and don't make their
choices solely based on reducing costs and bottom line expenses (ironic since
every other day people here rail against big corporation bean counters).
Example: Facebook's latest internal polling - the majority of people want to
be in the office sometimes.

People suddenly waking up and realizing the office is a huge scam is the
current du jour opinion here. But time and time again the HN demographic only
speaks to itself.

And of course people will reply with that it expands _choice_ , but that
doesn't stop those from cheering that companies going full remote like its a
universal good thing for everyone.

And on top of that, my observations are anecdotal. No need to point that out.

edit: Going full remote is a _huge_ cost savings to companies. A cost that is
now hoisted onto employees. So unless employees are receiving some equivalent
compensation for blowing out my utility bills and refitting my office, be
careful who you're cheering with.

~~~
Axsuul
In LA, a lot of people depend on their workplace for A/C during the summer.

~~~
prophetjohn
Does it just cool down that much in the evening? What about the weekends?

This is fascinating to me. I've lived in the rural Midwest, NYC and Texas and
always had A/C everywhere I lived – only question was central or window unit.

~~~
ConSeannery
Coming from someone who is a complete an utter pansy when it comes to
humidity, 100F with almost no humidity is a lot more bearable than 75F and
100% humidity

~~~
filoleg
Can confirm about humidity being a giant factor. I was mostly fine outside in
Seattle at 100F, but at just 75F in Atlanta I was soaking like crazy.

------
msoad
at least in the software industry promotion is not easy. Your current employer
is not too incentivized to give you a promotion. They are however incentivized
to bring in that guy who did great in interviews so they might get an instant
promotion to the next level while you're going to get your 3rd "maybe next
cycle" response from the promotion committee.

What I learned from working at large tech companies is that the only way up is
out.

------
k__
Yes.

I left my first remote job, because becoming a team lead would had me required
to give up remote.

Went freelancing afterwards, because there I can promote myself.

------
shahbaby
Do we have to generalize everything?

Just because it was true for you doesn't mean it'll be true for all.

------
sngz
i don't care about promotions as long as I get paid more. I've had to ask for
raises every year cause they kind of just "Forget" and they realize how
valuable I am when I lay out what I do for them and accept my number every
time.

------
baby
Always worked remotely, never had a problem with promotions, ymmv

------
kiviuq
I can't recall to ever getting suggested for a promotion.

------
fredsters_s
HN used to rewrite clickbait headlines...

------
Antecedent
I worked for a company that regularly does half in person and half remote
employees. You could choose either or. The problem with being the remote
worker on a partially in-person team is that you miss all the face-time and
exposure to new opportunities simply because you are not a person but a task
completing widget.

You are never the presenter at company events. Nobody outside your team can
recognize you. Nobody talks to you except to get something or clarify
information. People can casually take credit for your work as you aren’t there
to defend it. You lose out on all the background information like conference
funding availability or the cool new job in Innovation.

You miss all the little opportunities for going the extra mile as you never
look over your colleagues shoulder to see how they do their job and nobody
looks over yours.

So much of success is being in the right place at the right time to meet the
right person and that can’t happen as much remotely.

