Tech Biz: Elon Musk says the ‘laptop class’ needs to ‘get off their moral high horse’ when it comes to remote work

[crossovernegro]

Here's the thing though.... employers were always and are always looking for ways to cut expenses (and employees are expenses). So unless you contribute directly to the company bottom line in a way that you can't be replaced either by someone thousands of miles away working via broadband or in the near/far future by AI.... they were always gonna be looking to replace you. I'm working on servers in Texas right now that years ago would have been administered by guys in Dallas. Now the only guy we have in Dallas is a tech who goes in to move cables or push buttons while we wait .

So the technology we have and technology being developed are gonna disrupt us no matter what. A CEO isn't gonna care whether you're working two floors beneath his suite or in your basement halfway across the company when he gets the word that he can chop millions of $$$ of salary and non-salary compensation off the books by using software. They just have a lot of shit to work out before it's feasible in a lot of industries. I'm 54 so I may escape having to really worry about the AI part too much, but if you're 34, it's coming.


Oh, also something I've noticed about myself as a WFH'er over the past 10+ years, and the same thing is being noticed by management over the past 3 covid/post covid WFH period.... when working from home, people tend to take less time off. Both PTO and sick time. People used to call in sick because of the sniffles, but it's incredibly rare to see any co-workers call out sick now unless their liver is falling out of their ass or some shit. During our quarterly meetings, our President always ends each call telling everybody to put some PTO on the calendar each quarter because they have been noticing that people aren't taking days like they used to. There's good and bad to that of course, but there's no way in hell that they don't like the fact that people aren't calling out because they woke up with a headache or because their daughter had to stay home from school today.

It’s easy for differences of opinion to turn into a debate where the goal is to protect the opinion rather than seek the truth. If we are all being honest, most of you like working from home because you can multitask doing your personal stuff and have your own entertainment (TV, podcasts, surfing internet, BGOL, etc) while working.

One thing that hasn’t been discussed in this thread and to look out for is that working remote increases the odds of your job getting disrupted by AI.

 

[Kwame Coltrane]

Im not remote and i aint did shit at work in nearly two weeks, so there goes that theory

 

[^SpiderMan^]

Oh, also something I've noticed about myself as a WFH'er over the past 10+ years, and the same thing is being noticed by management over the past 3 covid/post covid WFH period.... when working from home, people tend to take less time off. Both PTO and sick time. People used to call in sick because of the sniffles, but it's incredibly rare to see any co-workers call out sick now unless their liver is falling out of their ass or some shit.

I didn’t think about this and it makes sense. I could see sick leave reducing if you can stay home anyway. Employee complaints like Harassment likely reduce as well.

 

[Piff Henderson]

I could make the same argument and claim being a billionaire is "morally wrong" since it's an elitist position the vast majority of people will not and cannot ever attain.

This guy wouldn't recognize irony if it raped his ugly, weird ass chick, killed his kids, and kicked him in the ass.

 

[Dannyblueyes]

The part about companies having to pay for leased space that isn't being used, I do understand. Full disclosure, been working from home since way before Covid.... when my current employer bought my old company and merged us into my current group, they were already very ok with WFH, and said up front that since the group was headquarted in Tampa and we were all in NJ, they didn't want to lease space up here and that we'd be working from home. This was 2013 or so and it has worked out. I'm in a systems administration and application support group, so lots and lots of collaboration, training, on the spot innovation, etc. Work with other sysadmins, software developers, QA people as well as customers, vendors, etc. In our case, working from home has not led to a drop in productivity or any other problems. Our servers are hudreds to thousands of miles away from all of us, and many of our developers and DBAs are out in Olympia, WA... so even for the people that are in the office are collabing with co-workers on the phone or on Teams more than they are with anyone sitting in the same office.

With all that in mind, they worked out leasing a much smaller space in the same building, probably less than 1/3 the size of the original space with the idea that the people in Tampa are gonna do the hybrid thing; 2 days per week in the office at least, and more if they want, although nobody is really policing it.

Not everybody works in tech so I'm sure it may not be as smooth at a financial, advertising or chemical company, etc. I do believe that to some extent though, higher up managers are bullshitting about production dropoffs. I say this because in the 10+ years that I've been working from home, they get wayyyyy more out of me than they did when I was working in the office (old company, before this company bought us out). When it's quitting time, I'm not rushing out to my car to get the fuck outta dodge... and at night or on the weekends when I think of an idea, I'll sit down at my desk in my home, log on to the vpn and fuck around to test out that idea. When there's some shit that I didn't get a chance to work on during work hours, I'll be sitting at home watching TV and decide to turn my chair around and work on it instead of waiting until I'm back on the clock. I've jumped out of bed to log in and make a change or prevent some problem that I just thought about while dozing off. None of that shit would be happening if my desk wasn't a few steps away. My direct supervisor is moving 90 minutes north of the office so he'll be switching to 95% WFH, and he would definitely not be doing that if he thought it would cause any problems... but our VP is always pushing getting locals back into the office for that hybrid model, which is cool, but he keeps talking about collaboration, etc, and we laugh because for us, being at a desk 10 feet away from another guy at a desk is no different than me working at my desk in my room in New Jersey and the guy I'm working a problem with being at a desk in his house in Tampa, or the office in Tampa.

I've been working hybrid since 2017. Obviously I can't DJ a wedding or high school dance from my bedroom, but most of my sales calls are done from home. So are my rehearsals, library management, mixes for cocktail hour and dinner, equipment repairs, supply ordering, etc.

The best part is that nobody is breathing down my neck except life itself. In other words, nobody's on my ass about when I start, when I finish, take a break, whether I smoke or not, what I wear front of the laptop, etc. The only crucial thing is that everything is set up and working when the client needs it. I also have to rock the house every time I plug in those speakers. Long as that happens nobody really cares what else I do.

The only rule is that I never work past 10:00 p.m. unless I'm playing a gig. Before that rule it was easy to put things off until 3:00 in the morning. At that point I was either too tired, did sloppy work, or got so exhausted that the next day was pretty much wasted.

 

[darth frosty]

 

[Piff Henderson]

Pris was hot. Daryl Hannah's best role. The comparison to Musk fucks it up though.

 

[Dr. Truth]

Pris was hot. Daryl Hannah's best role. The comparison to Musk fucks it up though.

Hot? That looks like Sting.

 

[Incarcer8dagain]

Just know if your job is 100 percent remote. That means the chances for it to be done anywhere in the world at a cheaper rate increases.

You hear Mr. Wonderful talk about profits, so don't be surprised when all these jobs are done by AI or overseas for cents on the dollar, no benefits and no regulations.. they'll sell these commercial spaces and outsource the labor. Increasing profit.

And do know that countries are flying teachers and paying them astronomical salaries for ESL.

 

[Piff Henderson]

Hot? That looks like Sting.

She had the sex appeal rather than looks but now I'm gonna think of classic Sting every time I see her from now on so thanks for that.

 

[playahaitian]

Work: Most bosses regret how they mandated workers return to the office. They blamed it on not having enough data

https://fortune.com/2023/08/14/bosses-regretting-return-to-office-mandates/amp/

www.bgol.us

 

[blackbull1970]

Struggling U.S. City Offers $20,000 For Workers Too Relocate There
February 24, 2025

Cumberland, Maryland, is one of dozens of places offering financial incentives to people willing to relocate. Nancy Chen reports on how the rise of remote work is making it easier for struggling cities and towns to revitalize their economies.

​