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There's been some recent speculation about the effects working from home will have on various parts of the economy, particularly the commercial real estate market. If companies can figure out how to keep employees productive, coupled with the desire for some to relocate to more rural areas (and consequently, farther away from the office), it's possible some companies may reconsider continuing to carry all the overhead associated with having an office.
Which leads to the question: should remote workers accept a pay cut for working remotely?
A recent survey of 600 U.S. adults found 66 percent willing to take a pay cut for the flexibility of working remotely.
To what degree varied, however.
- Fourteen percent would take a one to four percent cut;
- Twenty-nine percent would take a five-to-14 percent cut;
- Seventeen percent would take a 15-to-24 percent cut;
- Seven percent would take a 25 percent or more cut;
- Thirty-four percent would not take a lower salary for flexible remote work.
The survey, taken from July 5 through 7 from Fast, a start-up specializing in online checkout, found COVID-19 safety concerns part of the current appeal of remote working. Thirty-nine percent were less comfortable returning to their physical office compared to 30 days before. However, 65 percent preferred a workplace that gives employees the flexibility to choose where and when they work remotely.
[...] The concept of "localized compensation" or paying someone less for the same work because of where they live is being hotly debated in human resources circles. In May, Facebook drew some backlash after announcing that employees choosing to permanently work remotely will receive salary cuts if they move to less expensive areas.
Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday July 27 2020, @01:54PM (11 children)
I'm sorry to sorta disagree with you, but the way I see the things, roughly "THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY PRODUCE REAL VALUE" are those:
1. who put food on your table
2. who make sure your power grid delivers energy
3. some of those who help you keeping healthy (gyms, supplements and life-style gurus excluded)
4. (in the near future) who make sure you can telecommute
All the others mostly are delivering a mixture between various levels of potential values (researchers) and making money (finance, entertainment, etc) with various levels of makework.
A pity most in the first 2 categories are in the red states and the divisive politicking in US drove a thick separation wedge between the two.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @02:08PM
Your 1-4 are all micro optimizations.
Only the last unnumbered item will meaningfully improve quality of life. See, for example, clean tap water. You may be able to find other examples.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Monday July 27 2020, @03:27PM (3 children)
The first 2 categories are in the red states only because tariffs keep cheap grub from abroad off our tables. If you think you can produce any kind of farm product in the US at competitive rates you're delusional.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Monday July 27 2020, @03:37PM (2 children)
Yeah, China was making a favor to US by buying $23.8B/y (17% of U.S. total agricultural exports) [state.mn.us] worth of food at inflated prices, right?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @04:21PM
Yeah, it kinda was [cnbc.com].
That's why the Phase 1 trade deal required China to buy even more from us. [agriculture.com]
But there's real questions that China will meet those goals, instead of looking elsewhere as it has to. [forbes.com]
Because "America First" doesn't work so well as a strategy when there are other players who will sell for less, and a pandemic happens. Why else do you think Trump has upped his invectives against China to include the racist slur of the, "China Virus"? Answer... his trade deal is imploding and he needs the average citizen to hate China now so it's not his fault.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday July 28 2020, @10:16AM
Your tax dollar at work. Or why do you think China buys that from the US? Because US pork is cheaper than some from Vietnam? Dream on.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 27 2020, @04:55PM (5 children)
Boring Business software has real value.
Can you imagine converting a modern business accounting system back to manual? Do you have any idea how many people would need to be employed in order to do this work done by a computer?
I won't get into how much human labor (that would be done by a fleet of workers) is saved by a modern payroll system -- especially across multiple states.
Inventory control systems. Point of sail systems. City or Utility billing systems (water meters, natural gas, trash pickup). Think of how many legal secretaries are no longer needed due to modern legal office software for our valuable lawyers.
This may not be among the items you mentioned, like food, power, transportation, health, but most of these, and other industries require software in the modern age. (Or require a whole log more workers.)
I heard it estimated that in the mid to late 1960's the Bank of America, without computers, would have needed to employ more accounting clerks than the entire population of the US. (I have not looked for a source for that.)
I do know that in the early 1980's, the type of offices that my company's product serves, were amazed at how much labor they could save for the one or two persons who did the specific type of accounting work that the product does. (Those people often have other tasks to do. They still have to run the computers, key in data, run reports, etc.)
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2020, @06:21PM (4 children)
For some values of real
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday July 27 2020, @07:13PM (3 children)
Since 64-bit float already can hold all possible values of real, there is no need for a 128 bit floating point format.
But wait, now the new 128 bit floating point format can definitely hold all possible values of real. Really. For sure! This time!
Next up, a 256 bit wide floating point format, so it can really, really, for real hold all possible values of real.
Then next, 512 bit . . .
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 27 2020, @11:45PM (2 children)
Nonsense - any mathematician can tell you that The Real Numbers is an infinite set, and thus arbitrary specific values *cannot* be represented by any finite-length encoding.
And any even middling decent computer scientist or programmer can tell you that floating point numbers categorically do NOT represent Reals, and exactly why you should never treat them as though they do.
The more bits you add, the better the approximation you can achieve, but since an accurate representation would require infinite bits, no matter how many bits you add you'll always be infinitely far away from achieving true accuracy.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 28 2020, @02:36PM
Since real numbers are an infinite set, that is why anyone arguing that a fixed size float (or even limited only by available memory size) float will have to keep moving to a higher and higher bit width.
Moving from float 64, to float 128, to float 256, etc is the first of an infinite process.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 28 2020, @02:37PM
Or maybe you don't get the joke.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.