Just 2% of workers at VMware showed up for the first day of in-person work

https://www.sfgate.com/tech/article/VMWare-2-percent-worker-Silicon-Valley-remote-work-16274581.php

by deminature • 5 years ago

76 97 5 years ago

sfgate.com

Tempest1981• 5 years ago

Hoping we can go as long as possible before returning to 6am-8pm rush hour traffic.

notwhereyouare• 5 years ago

Crazy that people accepted a pay cut to move.

TylerE• 5 years ago

Why is it crazy if, say, a 30% paycut lowers your CoL by 50%?

rognjen2• 5 years ago

And improves your quality of life as well.

refurb2• 5 years ago

Doesn’t your net savings at the end matter?

For me at least the added COL is more than offset by the higher pay.

Edit: This is more a pre-Covid comment. No idea the math for remote post-Covid.

tengbretson2• 5 years ago

Does your company adjust the price it charges its customers based on their geographical "cost of living"?

gnu82• 5 years ago

Why on earth should you take the pay cut? That savings is yours, not the company's.

If you take a pay cut for relocating to a lower CoL area, you are being stolen from.

staticassertion• 5 years ago

Not really, not to mention they can just leave later.

freyr2• 5 years ago

Or they did the math and it was worth it.

Maybe they don’t already own a home in the Bay Area?

The article mentions a 10% cut at a company where the average senior engineer makes $450k a year according to levels.fyi.

In most of the country, you’re living very, very well on $405k a year. In the Bay Area, you’ll make a 11% more and be house poor or spend your life in traffic. For most people, that’s a bad deal.

I’d put it this way: if a recruiter called me and suggested I quit my job and move back to the Bay Area for an 11% pay increase, I would be laughing as I hung up the phone.

ojhughes• 5 years ago

I work there and I’m pretty sure 450k average is wildly exaggerated

beebmam• 5 years ago

Given that it seems to be the case that the delta variant has had (at least partial) vaccine breakthrough ( https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/1408582695794483204?s=1... ), this sounds about what I'd expect

yumraj2• 5 years ago

And the CDC in the US allowed unmasked vaccinated people indoors, but no one wants to, or is allowed to, verify.

I guess we’re just waiting for a 2nd wave in the US.

sixothree4• 5 years ago

I wish we could be more like Australia. I'm straight up jealous whenever I talk to one of them.

dboreham• 5 years ago

They allowed unmasked vaccinated people indoors. Then all the unvaccinated people took their masks off, in effect lying about their status to everyone else.

nknealk• 5 years ago

The endpoints for vaccines are “does the person end up in the hospital and does the person die of COVID” not “does the person get infected”. To that end, the vaccines are still effective.

From the original WSJ source [1]: “Analysis by England’s public-health agency suggests vaccines provide significant protection against Delta after two doses, reducing the risk of symptomatic illness by about 80% and the risk of hospitalization by around 96%. That is only slightly weaker than the protection vaccines confer against Alpha, also known as B.1.1.7.“

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/india-warns-of-new-versions-of-...

macintux• 5 years ago

Not disagreeing at all, but there's another question you didn't list: does the person shed the virus in sufficient quantities to infect others.

Camillo• 5 years ago

Most of the workforce is young enough that they weren't going to die anyway. The endpoint they're interested in is "does the person end up with long-term lung scarring/cognitive impairment/erectile dysfunction/dry mouth" and all the other scary long covid effects. I've seen at least one study showing increased risk of all sorts of neurological issues after even mild covid cases, FWIW.

failwhaleshark• 5 years ago

The rare, fully-vaccinated, delta / delta plus breakthrough cases tend to be very mild. Anti-vaxxers are an existential threat to sane people because that's where variants are going to evolve that could defeat current vaccines.

If we're going to "optimize" life for as "little risk as possible," then optimizing for the wrong things is inevitable. I can see WfH if commute times, costs-of-living, and 99% of coworkers are assholes, but then there's social interaction, facetime, and how are people going to get promoted if their effort goes unnoticed.

slavboj• 5 years ago

Please refrain from "existential threat" rhetoric unless you are in fact advocating for an eliminationist total war.

hedora• 5 years ago

In fairness to the anti-vaxxers (I have no sympathy for them), COVID-19 has crossed over to many mammal populations, and the scariest variants will almost certainly come from animals, not from anti-vaxxers.

I say this because it leads me to view the situation less as a threat to my personal safety, and more like a mass Darwin Award candidate, or nature’s version of a voter registration purge.

I’m eagerly awaiting the day when we can vaccinate young children against COVID.

helge92103• 5 years ago

Anti-vaxxers are an existential threat to sane people

I see what you did here. Lockdown psychosis is not a joke.

superflit4• 5 years ago

We are not going back.

There is a huge demand for IT people.

And we all learn and know we can do it remotely as we are doing for almost 2 years.

I do get some people Want to go to the Office.

But the majority of tech scene is Introvert.

We are not going back.

We have better machines, espresso, coffee food and gym at our own house.

Now we are "saving the climate" not doing commute. It works both ways /s

lowkey2• 5 years ago

Now we are "saving the climate" not doing commute. It works both ways /s

I’m not sure why the /s as this is a legitimate argument in favor of WFH.

It is objectively better for the environment and reduces climate-impact so governments and corporations who have been green-washing should be embracing the new reality.

Instead we get unsubstantiated claims of better water-cooler conversations driving innovation and other baseless claims.

albatross132• 5 years ago

jinx

prepend2• 5 years ago

I think the /s is because the reason isn’t saving the climate but is presented as the reason as it’s virtuous and hard to argue against.

woodruffw• 5 years ago

I’m not sure why the /s as this is a legitimate argument in favor of WFH.

I suspect that there's significant variation here: widespread WFH means fewer people driving ~1.5 hours a day to their office park jobs, but it also means fewer people taking public transit to urban centers. The former is an ecological disaster; the latter is probably slightly better than the same number of people air conditioning, etc. their independent houses and apartments.

albatross132• 5 years ago

Honestly the reduction in carbon emissions is a huge one, imo. I'm surprised more companies aren't championing that as a reason, by itself, to downsize office space and let people work from home.

rorykoehler6• 5 years ago

Governments could rezone business districts to residential mixed use too and solve our ridiculous housing shortage issues.

superflit4• 5 years ago

Because it never was about "saving climate" it was only for a way to big corp deduct taxes and then tax YOU to pay the bill.

Strange that our "carbon free" companies are getting crazy about coming back and even more crazy now because nobody wants to go back to the cage.

Sorry but no.

I want to live where I want to live and I will work same or more efficient than I did before WFH.

No that cold free sandwich will not do it

rolleiflex3• 5 years ago

I laughed at espresso, I’m glad that has been a shared experience. I spent around $2k on coffee equipment since the start of the pandemic. No way I’m going to go back and drink sad office coffee or deal with poorly maintained espresso machines in micro kitchens now.

foxpurple5• 5 years ago

I spent $700 on the breville machine and it makes far better coffee than the $2000 fully automatic machine at work that has to be disassembled almost daily to avoid mould build up which no one does. When back at the office I’m drinking tea only.

aeharding• 5 years ago

There's definitely amenities at home that seem simple but seriously factor into my preference to WFH.

For example, a Toto washlet. I visited Japan in Feb 2020 and purchased a bidet promptly afterwards, along with starting WFH at the onset of the lockdowns. After more than a year, it's hard to imagine going back. :-)

coryrc• 5 years ago

Over 80% of my team wants to return. Dunno man, I don't get it.

achow• 5 years ago

Most of young & single are going mad in home isolation. They want to come back for social connect, better worksrations, free convenient food and many such..

drewcoo• 5 years ago

Why do the extroverts want to go back? Why would they rather spend time harassing introverts instead of spending more time at a coffeeshop or a gym or wherever other extroverts go?

superflit4• 5 years ago

Because vampires need blood?

throwaway98797• 5 years ago

if facetime matters those who go back will get raises. those who stay wont. over time in non-remote first companies the facers will out compete the WFH crowd.

queue articles on nytimes on pay discrimination for those who WFH.

superflit4• 5 years ago

That is false.

We all know the best way to get raises is to switch companies.

No switching means you will get maybe 5-8%

rognjen2• 5 years ago

The amount of noise on this website if you're not using an ad blocker is just incredible.

state_less• 5 years ago

You can just barely make our an article knitted between all those ads.

bdcravens• 5 years ago

No offense to the writer, but it's a relatively light piece given the amount of ads. 7 of the 9 "paragraphs" are only one sentence. If this was a newspaper, the entire thing would take up maybe 3 inches of a single column.

refurb2• 5 years ago

Let me guess, masks still required and other precautions?

My workplace did that and everyone agreed they would rather work at home than wear a mask all day.

Once that’s gone? Plenty of people want to come back - part time at least.

larrymyers• 5 years ago

A lot of people probably won't be able to go back in office full time until the fall. Remember that the whole child care situation is still not great. Summer camps may be operating at partial capacity, or not open at all. Parents didn't have time to line up child care this summer due to the uncertain nature of the pandemic.

I suspect it'll be a bit different when schools resume in the fall, but even then I doubt people will want to go back full time.

xwdv• 5 years ago

If you don’t want to go to the office and you’re being forced to, quit. There’s WAY too many jobs out there being offered fully remote and at the same salaries for you to accept that shit.

twright• 5 years ago

There was a "Office Reopening" lunch a few weeks ago. You could come in if you wanted or you could join over zoom while the CEO did their spiel. Since I was hired remote I went hoping to meet in-person the others on the engineering team. Only one other team member showed up of about 15. Got to meet a lot of the product and marketing people instead if that's any indication of who is going back to the office (Non-coastal, East of Missisippi but not Chicago).

thewhitetulip3• 5 years ago

I don't like WFH. Maybe it's because this is the 1st time I did it during the pandemic. So here are my questions to those loving it

1. How do you form connections if you do 10p% WFH? many of my friends and casual acquaintance are from meeting people in pantry area. Or meeting someone who is with someone I know. That's not possible now. I am an introvert so pre pandemic itself it was difficult for me.

2. Company doesn't pay for buying furniture or electricity used at my house. I am depreciating my house without any benefit. Company ain't paying enough to offset internet charges

3. I miss going out. But that's a pandemic thing

4. Do you think office politics will reduce if we WFH? I mean it's difficult to be managers pet when everyone is wfh

As an environmentalist I like that my travel has reduced and carbon footprint has decreased. So that's a plus. I've also planted around 20 plants this year. Benefit of WFH

jaredcwhite• 5 years ago

Ask your work for a stipend so you can purchase a co-working space membership. (Assuming you have one or more nearby.) Remote work most certainly doesn't have to mean only work from home. I also highly recommend finding local meetups (perhaps still online-only at present) centered on technologies or industries you care about. In short, I think it's important to seek out ways to get what you need out of life without expecting your immediate job description to somehow meet those needs.

pintxo• 5 years ago

Regarding 2, your company also does not pay for your commute, so this should equal out.

thewhitetulip3• 5 years ago

So company doesn't pay for my commute

And company doesn't pay for anything depreciating at my house except laptop

How does that even out?

On the contrary it 'odds out'. Everything odds out.

canada_dry• 5 years ago

A friend's firm introduced a 3 phased return-to-the-office plan:

    1 - volunteer (for those dying to come back)  
    2 - request (we'd really like you to come back now)  
    3 - require (come back or you're fired)

Each phase is spread a couple months apart beginning now. Seems like a reasonable approach.

Just 2% of workers at VMware showed up for the first day of in-person work

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