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Ask Slashdot: Would You Take a Pay Cut To Telecommute?
coondoggie writes "IT pros want to telecommute — so much so that more than one-third of those surveyed by Dice.com said they would take a pay cut for the chance to work full time from home. In a survey conducted by the careers site, 35% of technology professionals said they would sacrifice up to 10% of their salaries for full-time telecommuting. The average tech pro was paid $79,384 last year, according to Dice's annual salary survey, which means a 10% pay cut is equivalent to $7,900 on average."
When you factor in commute time, gas and car maintenance, the need for 2 cars for family ,child care and office politics it's definitely a pay raise.
Having to provide less office space, less resources, less money on utilities to keep up an office... yet IT people are expected to take the pay cut? We go into the office for them, not the other way around.
Really, I would think that the company themselves should be willing to pay more for someone who telecommutes, due to needing less facility needs (space, cubicles, utilities) that would be saved from allowing telecommuting. And there is the added benefit of making sure all the equipment can be administered via telecommuting as you can then simply call up the IT group(s) and they can fix the problem from home without waiting the upwards of a hour that it would take to bring someone in to flip a switch/enter a password.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
In some companies, telecommuters tend to be forgotten about. This means that Jack Brown-Nose who comes in and does almost nothing will always be seen by the boss and keep an impression, while the co-workers who are at home actually working are invisible. End result: Jack tends to have an edge when it comes to promotions, or even keeping the job.
I've telecommuted for 5 of the past 6 years.
I've saved thousands of Pounds on the commute into London.
I can spend more time in the morning in bed.
But
You have to be comfortable with your own company.
It can get lonely.
You need the heating on all day in Winter.
On the whole it is great.
Now... If I had a job it would be great. If said job offered me the opportunity to work from home then even better
At the moment, this is all wishful thinking though.
I'd rather be riding my '63 Triumph T120.
I think some working families throw their children into daycares during the day after school (if the kids go to school) until they come home from work. I hear daycares can cost a lot too.
You'll save 3-6K in gas, parking and transport alone. Pick up another $800-$1500 in phone, cell and internet reimbursement. Get back 1-2 hours of your day that you used to spend commuting. Not a bad deal.
Pro tip: If your job can be done from your house, it can be done from India.
Full-time telecommuting doesn't really work most places. Unless your work assignments are planned well and can be done truly independently, you've gotta put in some face time to get stuff figured out.
Hell yes. In fact, I just quit my day job so I could restructure as a less-benefits consultant so I could do exactly this.
Won't you take a pay cut for us. It's the only way to keep the jobs away from those $2 an hour people we know overseas... It's a perfect deal, you get to provide your own office space and we get a fancy new yacht to bang illegal under-age girls on.
Firstly, I don't make as much as the average tech pro. Secondly, I live ten minutes from my workplace. Telecommuting can be beneficial for some, but it's entirely circumstantial.
Transportation is budgeted as my #2 expense, just behind rent. Last year I had major car issues, and transportation may have exceeded housing in raw $ spent. Add to that the amount of time I would save and it becomes even more obvious.
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
You save money on time and logistics, but you also have to create a work area in your home. Certain organizations have sqft requirements. You also need to establish locked areas to hold files and documents. And, ultimately, you're no longer allowed to check-out. With a standard job you are expected to be responsive during your normal work hours (say 9--5:30). With telecommuting the work hours shift and you will easily find yourself on call 12 hours a day. Additionally, you lose camaraderie with your coworkers, a chance to hunker down and drive through projects faster, and possible extensive delays in communications.
Then factor in the possibility of children banging down the door to play, and the guilt you feel by having to shuffle them out to finish a project. Then a spouse who takes advantage of you "being there" for babysitting, phone calls, emotional chats, and I'd rather be at work during the day.
If my commute was longer, 45min+ and/or there was no parking I would take a small pay cut. By small I mean, savings of not driving or buying a parking pass. So probably 5%. However, I already get to work from home at least twice a week and my commute is only 20-25 min without a pay cut.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
I moved from Cleveland to Seattle about a year ago and now I telecommute all the time. It definitely saves on gas and lunch expenses, since I usually just eat leftovers now. Overall, it's hard for me to say whether it's been like a raise or not since the cost of living is a bit higher here, but there is no state income tax. It is hard to put a price on the ability to roll out of bed, make a cup of copy, and start working.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
I work for Rackspace full time from home, and I'm paid the same as I would be at the office. Whether I work from home or not is ultimately irrelevant, because the most important variable of all is loving your job. I work where I do because it is a truly amazing place to work.
That said, volunteering a pay cut is risky business. Your salary is a gauge of how much your company values you, so you should try to get as much as you possibly can.
A few things to keep in mind:
1. If you telecommute, it's also cheaper for the employer (less electricity, water, bandwidth, etc)
2. If you take a pay cut, any time you get a raise it's going to be less than it could have been, since most companies do raises as a percentage of your current salary
3. The downside of working exclusively from home is that it's easier to not get noticed. If you're not getting much face time with your peers, you better be doing some amazing work
because I do desktop support, including hardware diagnosis and repair.
However, in general I think being able to telecommute would be worth a small pay cut on account of less wear-and-tear on your car, less gas expended, and the extra free time - I drive 1:40 each day, round trip.
Couldn't sleep in later, though, because my kid needs me in the mornings.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
I wouldn't take a pay cut, but I'd consider it a raise during an economy where most companies are stingy with raises. I could save $5000 a year on car costs alone (I'd only need one car if I worked from home). The trick is, to save that much cash, I would have to get rid of a car. That means I couldn't come in without planning far ahead. Most of the people in my company that work from home do it 2-3 days a week. I wouldn't want that.
The "one-third" you quote is the number willing to take a pay cut to telecommute, not the total number interested in telecommuting. Another 35% was interested in telecommuting at the same pay.
So it's only another 30% that don't matter.
BTW, thank you, network world, for doing that math for me. I was about to break out the slide rule to figure out 10% of my salary.
You reading comprehension must be quite low. 33% is the figure of those willing to take pay cuts. I wager that those wishing to telecommute without pay cuts is at least double that.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
If you can telecommute full time and do your job from the comfort of home, then so can anyone in the world. You're now competing with folks who would be happy to have your job at 10% of what you're paid -- not just a 10% discount!
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For me, no. The value of what I do, the requirements and qualifications needed to do the work, and my employability elsewhere are not reduced by telecommuting (or lack thereof). Telecommuting is a perk, not compensation... and if it's the only way to get the job done (i.e. the employer is a "virtual office"), then it's just part of the circumstances of employment (and therefore still is not compensation).
If the same amount of work gets done, the same amount of salary gets paid. If someone else views telecommuting as a part of compensation or salary, fine for them, but I won't allow an employer to claim that for me.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
I work from home sometimes with a wife and four kids. I'd take a pay cut to be forced to go into the office.
Then that means someone else lifts the servers, swaps the backup tapes/HDDs, gets interrupted by users while reading /.
Of course, that means I can't completely trust the servers or backup media. I'll always trust the users to find a way to interrupt me, so they're not a factor. In short, pay me more because I'm entailing more risk by being responsible for systems that I have less trust in.
I used to want that, but the more work I had that I could take home, the less it seemed like a good idea. To me that's like asking "Would you take a pay cut to always be on the job and move all your office crap in your bedroom?" Not a chance in hell.
When you factor in the full cost of commuting (fuel, maintenance, parking, higher food costs) 10% in some cases would be money ahead. Moreover, the entire time consumed by commuting, including dressing for outdoors, finding the keys, etc, is saved also. For me that would be around 2 additional hours a day I could spend doing something else, like, well, working.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Last month, Dice warned that IT tech talent poaching is expected to get more aggressive this year. A combination of factors -- including growing numbers of unfilled job openings and underpaid employees who want more lucrative jobs -- is causing a hiring rush that's expected to worsen.
With so many unemployed people, why is there so much poaching?
Oh yeah, if you're out of work, you're no good.
OK, so I'm no good. I'll borrow some money and get retrained in something else (the solution of many who have no clue). Let's see, where is there a demand? Hmmmmm. No where. Nursing shortage? Ahahahahahahah. Guess what! There's hiring freezes because hospitals have budget problems because - Unemployed people have no health insurance and can't pay their bill, jackass.
So, something else right? Well then, you run into this: He went to school because he couldn't get a job and therefore there's something wrong with him.
You can't fucking win.
Start a business? Really?!? been there done that: failed three times. It's not easy . If it were, everyone would do it because just about everyone wants to work for themselves and be their own man!
For the "consultants" out there:
Unless you're drumming up business (you're your own sales guy) and have multiple customers, being a S-Corp/1099 "consultant" working for one company or a contracting firm isn't a real business - it's just a tax status.
Rant over. Another day has passed where I haven't shot myself - I'm doing good.
Just in gas, it typically costs me $7800/yr in gas. So add in wear and tear plus insurance savings, its likely a break even at worst. For most people, working from home saves money for both the employee and the employer.
In some companies, telecommuters tend to be forgotten about.
I'd say most companies fit this description.
Visibility is a huge issue for almost every worker out there from the VP to the customer support person.
Telecommuting simply exacerbates this problem. Furthermore, lots of folks are just not motivated (despite thinking they are) to work if there aren't people nearby to motivate them.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
I live in small city, I drive a big 5minutes each days but my salary is about a third (I use to think that I could double it but I recently turn down an offer at a conference and it was 3 times my current salary) of what it could be in a big city. But a paycut to stay home, no fucking way, not with a 5minutes drive....
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
With some of the people I've worked with that have burst into my office screaming at me, or burst into private meeting threatening to beat me up, I'm not seeing the downside to not seeing people at the office. (As a contractor, you have zero recourse no matter how badly people treat you.)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I'm a single guy. If I could fully telecommute, I would take a $20k pay cut for sure and spend time traveling to Europe etc.
Currently hooked on AMP
At my office, the longest commute for anyone is maybe 20 minutes in traffic. Personally, my commute is about 5 minutes.
We are a web company, yet highly value being in the office. In fact, people have left telecommuting jobs and moved states just to come work in the office with us.
In addition, coworking spaces are huge now. These locations are filled with people that are technically telecommuters, but they are tired of not being around other people and are sick of the "Starbucks office."
So to me the question "would you take a pay cut to telecommute?" misses the point entirely. People are willing to take pay cuts to work in better environments. If that means leaving the office to telecommute, leaving your job to work at a smaller company, leaving your job to start a company, or volunteering to move to a different office across the country, people will do it if they believe that the value added by the change or the potential it offers outweighs the loss of income.
I don't know anyone, except managers, who have had pay rises (even to keep up with inflation) in the last few years. Effectively, this is already a pay cut.
I wouldn't take any more of a cut, but I would consider working from home 2 or 3 days a week for the same money. That way I get to save a bit to make up for some of the inflationary pay cut and the company gets to save of "overheads" so the "investors" get a bigger earning per share this quarter.
Stick Men
I'd find it so useful, because it means that if they want say a once a week face to face meeting I could live further away out in the bush(I love being in the bush, but I also 3 my internet) so I'd drive in once a week for the meeting or something. I'd love to do it.
I hate telecommuting. I am completely unproductive. All I do is surf Slashdot all day.
Wait ...
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
I dunno, would my bank take a cut in my mortgage payment if I went into work less?
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I used to work for a major open source project at home for 2 years... it felt awesome for the first 6 months, but after that I felt terrible being at home alone all day long, every day. I have a few other friends who experienced something like that, working at home for large tech companies for various reasons - it's awesome for the first few months, but you'll feel really bad after a while.
Seeing as how it cost almost $7,900 just to put gas in my Prius this morning, I'd come out ahead by not having to drive to work every day.
My current commute is from my bedroom to a home office down the hall that would make some managers jealous. It's worth more to me than I could have ever dreamed. I'm not working in IT though (I'm self-employed). I pity people who go to work every morning to get stuck in traffic and whatnot, and anybody who has the opportunity to work from home, I highly recommend it. The one downside is the social aspect of seeing your coworkers and stuff, but in all the extra spare time you get, and the money you save on gas, you can certainly afford to have a much nicer social life outside of work.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
My commute (10 miles each way) is my 'gym class'. If I did not have that, I would have to join a gym and pay $$$ to wait in line to use the machines which are not properly wiped off by the previous user.
On the days that I do telecommute (because of a package delivery, doctors appointment etc), I find myself not as energetic as those days that I do the bicycle commute into the office.
I am single; no children. Therefore I cannot comment about day care. I don't know how much it costs.
I do have hobbies at home. They can be distracting. I sew, weld, and do light art. Those can be quite distracting from work.
Most Respectfully Yours Mark Allyn Bellingham, Washington
I'm doing outsourced work for a US Corp. in India... and they don't let me telecommute! You insensitive clod!
Set your phasers on "funky"!
It was worth about 50% of my salary to cut through the red tape and just get work done--I've also had time for studying other work in a way never possible before--I wish it had only been ten, but then my field is teaching, not IT. Has losing ~50% of my salary been painful? decidedly, but we have kept to our budget well and it has worked out--just no extra trips this year and paying off the mortgage early is not something we are working towards at the moment (we were and likely will be again in the future, God willing).
The absolute best money the govt could put forward towards green initiatives is a heavy tax break based on number of telecommuters employed by a company.
It is absolutely absurd the amount of fuel I waste every year to unplug from my network at home just to drive to work to plug back in and perform the same job. In fact there are very few people in my office that really could not perform their job full time from home.
Got Code?
I live 3 blocks from my office.
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
I know most folks would jump at the opportunity to telecommute. I've been lucky, as my current workplace is very flexible and allows people to work from home at their own discretion with project manager approval. Some managers are very loose with it and only care if you are getting work done and can be reached through reasonable means. Other prefer that you're in the office, but make allowances under special circumstances.
Now, I absolutely love the flexibility, but there is something that would be missed if we moved to a full telecommute model. There are plenty of times when you might overhear a co-worker discussing a problem or perhaps a solution. You might be able to provide some insight or a solution to them. It saves them a ton of time, and it gets you some respect points with your peers. And obviously it works both ways, where someone else might help you at at some point.
In a pure telecommuting environment, you'd probably miss out on some of those incidentals. Although there are some that would argue that you'd also decrease the amount of distractions, which can definitely be true. So, there are good and bad points. Just playing a little devil's advocate.
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
It is a figure of speech as well as a measure of desire to say that "I would take a pay cut ...". In this case, it actually makes sense, but that still doesn't mean taking it literally....
I switched to full-time telecommute 10 years ago, and it definitely has financial advantages, in addition to enhancing your quality of life.
Career-wise was quite the change. Being out of immediate touch is a nice bonus, since you don't have to put up with all those 'quirky' people you work with, but you can still pull off informal social occasions with the co-workers you can stand.
Eventually, you become a 'virtual contractor' - you aren't really part of it, you are an outsider that does task work. This is the perfect segue into becoming a 'real contractor' and working for yourself.
If you time it right, you can arrange a 'buy out' from your employer, to help ease the transition, and from then on everything is great.
Next time you are listening to some doofus expand a 30s presentation into a 1 hour seminar; look at the people around you. Some will have a look of annoyance at their time being wasted; some will be asleep; some will be hanging on every word as if their next advancement depended upon it; and some will be quite serene. The latter is your contractor, because how your company wants to piss away its money doesn't bother them. They just want some to splatter on them.
Don't take the job. You'd be surprised how much more you spend in electricity and other utilities by simply being at home all day. And, for me anyway, I like being able to get out of the house and having that physical separation between work and home life.
In my experience over the years telecommuting has been a disaster for corporate America. This is based on observations of friends who telecommute and experiences with clients. I realize there are exceptions, but far, far too often telecommuting has a dramatic negative impact on productivity. Everyone I know who's worked from home spends the bulk of the day on personal things. It might be good for that particular employee, but it sucks for everyone else.
Certainly, there are certain jobs where it's feasible. Developers and designers come to mind. It's very easy to quantify how productive they are: is the task they've been assigned complete? But even then, I think the loss of direct communication, being able to just walk into their office and ask a question, is very detrimental.
However, the real problem are managers who telecommute. If they're not present overseeing employees and projects then what good are they? I can't count the number of meetings that have had to been scheduled around some jerk who works from home a few days a week. And then, because they aren't around much, they have to get caught up on everything because they can actually do their job. These people routinely spend their time at the office not actually managing anything, but merely being updated. They contribute little but somehow manage to keep their jobs.
Plus, if they live close to the Oregon border, they can do all their shopping in Oregon and not have to pay any sales tax!
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
If you could telecommute, you could get one of those jobs in the bigger city, make double or triple your current salary, and then take your 10% pay cut. You'd have a higher salary, same cost of living, and no commute. Remember that and make a counter offer next time someone offers you a job at a conference.
Sometimes.
I was telecommuting out-of-state with no benefits for almost 4 years when I got tired of the job and the pay and found one 65 miles away, in the closest metro area to where I live for my wife's (higher-paying) engineering job. The new job actually paid almost exactly 10% (plus benefits) more than the old one, as I suspected it would, as I was pretty underpaid at my old remote job.
Even commuting 65 miles each way every day, assuming fuel prices between $3.00-3.50/gal (which it is in my area, luckily), fuel costs only soak up about 40% of the gain, giving me a net gain of about (60% * 10% = ) 6%, plus benefits. Wear and tear on my car is pretty minimal, monetarily, as I drive a 22-year-old reliable sedan, on which I perform all regular maintenance and break-fix work myself, meaning that it's pretty cheap overall. Parking at work is free, and my commute is a straight shot on two-/four-lane highways, regularly averaging 80 mph with no real traffic to speak of. I listen to books on tape while I drive, and it makes it pretty stress-free.
In addition, I actually *love* my new job, and although I am authorized to telecommute one day a week, I usually do it more like one day a month, when I have commitments (doctor/dentist appointments, etc.) near home.
Overall, I think I've come out ahead trading a 10% raise for a real commute, and I wouldn't take a 10% pay cut to telecommute full-time. I don't think I'd even take a 5% cut. I wouldn't take a 10% pay *raise* (putting my right where I am now) to go back to my old job, as I felt under-valued as a team member, and didn't have any potential for upward mobility. Here, I have awesome benefits, a decent commute (which may be shortened significantly in the next year or two, if an expected transfer and relocation with my wife's job comes through), and I feel like a part of a dynamic team with significant potential for upward mobility and regular over-COLA raises.
But I recognize that I am probably a pretty unique case...
I would take a cut of 10-15% without even batting an eyelash if I were able to.
http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
The downside:
I've interviewed for office jobs in my area and had a couple offers, but nobody could make it worth my time. A few thousand dollars more each year are just not worth it. When I think about having 60 to 90 minutes each day driving to and from work instead of spending it with my family, the numbers just don't add up.
I've been working at the same place for 6.5 years and I wanted to move to my hometown 7 hours away. My boss offered me to telecommute (greatest boss ever) instead of accepting my resignation without doing anything. As a bonus, he matched the salary I was offered at that other job I had interviewed for. I'm really looking forward to it, but part if me is a bit worried about human contact.
Say the company cut the sq ft per employee in half by going to non-dedicated workspace for when employees are in the office, and say we are talking about IT workers in central office tower space that is Class A or B. I used the following reference:
http://books.google.ca/books?id=lJmBYCED_nMC&pg=PA92&dq=office+space+cost+per+employee&hl=en&ei=LY6bTZrONcnPgAeAuZCdBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CEIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=office%20space%20cost%20per%20employee&f=false
On page 92, for the city of Ottawa and an urban location, the savings per employee are significant. They give a figure of about 18,000 per employee but I would think that figure is high (the calculation includes costs of setting up space as well as operational costs, and also estimates zero on-site time for the telecommuter).
Still, using much more conservative numbers, a business with an existing employee base and location could easily look to save 5,000 per employee per year in space rental costs, hvac savings, and reduced power/lighting costs. Insurance rates could be affected as well.
I don't see why the employee would opt for a pay cut to save the employer money.
A couple of years ago my department laid off a bunch of us, but I found another job inside my company. The catch was that instead of telecommuting plus frequent customer visits, I've got a long commute in a direction where public transit isn't available. It really takes an annoying amount of my time, plus a lot of money spent on gas (I could reduce that by spending a bunch of money on a new car instead.) But hey, it's a job, I get to keep my benefits and get a similar salary. But, like going to an office almost every day? What a weird way to work, hadn't done it in years.
Back in the 90s I was commuting by train, which was better. It still took too long, but I could read or work on the train, and I could get out of the office at a reasonable time by saying "gotta catch the train" and get home at a semi-civilized time of day.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I've worked out of my house and it should really come with a RAISE, not a pay cut.
First of all, who pays for high speed internet access? It can be a drag when someone in the house decides to stream a HD movie or some other bandwidth suck that slows network access. Sure, you can get another connection, but who pays for it? And in some cases, the broadband provider (yes, singular) won't deliver service to the same address twice, no matter how you explain it.
What about the computer equipment required? Am I supposed to use my home PC or will I be provided with a computer? What kind? Printer? Color, laser, etc?
Telephone? In some cases, a mobile would work, but in a lot of cases mobiles blow -- voice lag, weak signals, the whole laundry list of problems.
Then there's the SPACE issue. Most people I know don't have a huge empty spare room in their house they can put a proper desk, computer, printer, phone and all the crap associated with many jobs. If you have a wife and kids you definitely need to have a totally seperate room with a door you can close.
And then who pays for the other items? Electricity? Heat and A/C? Heat is significant -- I turn mine down WAY LOW in the daytime. Misc office supplies (paper, staples, pens, toner, etc)?
I doubt I'll ever be in the position to negotiate for it, but if someone said "we want you to work with us but its a telecommute position" I'd almost be tempted to negotiate the price of a small apartment and turn that into an office, or find one of those one-man-band offices that are kind of like a studio apartment.
There's so many BS small items associated with working from home that really add up you can't take a pay cut.
I got myself a place 5 minutes by Segway from work, and then bought a Segway.
Hell, you'd have to pay me extra to telecommute!
How can anyone live on $79k?
Sure you do- walk out. That's why you keep a years pay in the bank.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
But only if I NEVER had to show up for meetings or travel. Even one in-person meeting blows the deal.
"Liechtenstein is the world's largest producer of sausage casings, potassium storage units, and false teeth."
My office is located out in the suburbs. Some of us live very close and the rest are commuting opposite of rush hour (no traffic!). It works out great. And the floor space is cheaper for the company, too.
I went from 3-4 hours commuting to D.C. every day to a 5 minute drive or a bike ride. It's better than telecommuting.
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
You're correct. What I meant to say is you have no legal recourse. The only recourse you have is to STFU and find another contract. Which is exactly what I did when I was contracting at Intel. Twice. (Their motto appears to be "We hate contractors... and it shows!") For some reason managers acting abusive towards contractors appears to be the rule rather than the exception at Intel. Including the former manager of of the Netport products group that was fired for sexual harassment. (Hi Claudio! Yes, I'm talking about you!)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
in gas, at today's usurous rates. Let's ignore insurance, tires, and repairs for the moment.
If would cost me about 4% net to take a 10% pay cut and stay home. In other words, a 6% cut would break even.
I already took a 15% cut in 2009 to keep my job. I'm not interested.
If, however, you're actually paying more than 10% of your gross on commuting, you might want to reconsider either your method of commuting, your distance, or your salary.
Because that seems like you're already losing, to me. And I'm on the cusp of losing.
Yes, for those of you about to give me a good going-over, I'm considering finding work closer to home, but this position has many advantages that have enough value to keep me here unless something very sweet comes up closer. And I'm not expecting anything. The market is not that good yet.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
IMHO the daily commute is one of the worst things about having to work. But for those against, whether they are employers who would just rather see butts on seats, or employees fearing pay cuts, there are some good reasons to telecommute.
First, there the environmental value. If a substantial percentage of the workforce were to work from home, then that would mean a lot less pollution. Second, more telecommuters means less traffic on the roads and fewer traffic jams. Really, until the day comes when most cars on the road are driven by computers instead of people, telecommuting will be probably be the best way to cut down on traffic, thus freeing up the roads more for those who have no choice. Third, I'd go for it even if it meant losing some money in the end, just because of all the time it would save me on a daily basis. Think about it: all that extra free time -- I'd be mighty grateful for that at the end of every day! (and at the end of every year, when you think what it would add it up).
On the other hand, one of the worst barriers that holds back telecommuting is the lack of decent bandwidth -- upload bandwidth -- available to the average consumer through local ISPs. The down/up ratio is usually 10:1 or worse; I sure wish that would change. Often, link reliability is also a challenge, although using a second ISP can be a solution. I'd say another issue is the poor quality, poor manageability and high price of commercial software, which is important when dealing with so many remote systems and when downtime results in a serious loss of productivity (I say that because most people and organizations are too stupid to consider FOSS as an alternative, even when technically there are no barriers to speak of).
Count in the costs of the wear&tear, health issues that may come up due to telecommute, workplace stress or health conditions.
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No. I'm still leasing my car for the next 4 years because of work. Whatever the amount of gas I would save, I would still need to pay for it and the insurance, and a pay cut would certainly hit me. Once I finish my lease, I could reconsidering it.
Basically, there is little or no need for an office anymore. The entire concept is obsolete. The only reason management balks at the telecommuting because they would be subject to staffing reductions. Either that, or they have some micromanagement complex. Studies conducted repeatedly have shown that telecommuters are happier and even more productive. Employees in a telecommute role generally stay in their jobs longer. Some have said a telecommuter should be paid more. Uh, no, in some cases you are making a compromise with the company. I would gladly take a 10% pay cut for the privilege so long as a contract is in place that states if management changes its mind, my salary must revert back to the additional 10%. I hate offices! They are stuffy, inertial relics of a bygone era.
Isn't Dice a find-a-job site? Aren't they really asking "Would you take a pay cut to get a job?" What next? "25% of Dice visitors feel that not having health insurance is okay?"
As someone who has telecommuted for half of my working life at a variety of companies I would say that in my experience there are obvious pros and cons to working from home.
Ask yourself the following questions:
1) Do you have space for an office at home? Will it take up space currently being used for other purposes? Will your office be used for other purposes in your other 8 hours? You need to be able to close the door on your work at the end of your working day and keep it closed until the next morning.
2) Are you a workaholic or do you have tendencies towards that problem? If so, working from home is dangerous for you as you may not be able to put down what you are doing at the normal end of your working day and may return to your work outside of your core hours. The OP is talking about taking a pay cut. Are you willing to do more for less?
3) Are you disciplined enough to work consistently when your garden, laundry, kitchen, TV or games room are in need of attention or are a potential distraction? Will your spouse expect you to do more housework because you are "at home"?
4) Is your boss disciplined enough to work from home? If your boss would fail to be disciplined when working from home, he/she may assume that you are too. If your office does not have a telecommuting culture, being "different" may breed resentment or envy in your colleagues.
5) Is your office political or cut-throat? Does your job rely on working closely with the end user? Will not being in the office result in your being manoeuvred out of the door if cuts are made, as a result of you being "Out of Sight, Out of Mind"?
6) Not being in the office results in a huge drop in levels of human contact. Can you do without the social aspect of your workplace?
7) Is your company geared up for telecommuting? Will they pay for your home office equipment (printers, paper) and costs (heating, lighting, electricity, furniture, internet, coffee) in the same way that they would if you were in the office? Will they pay for your travel to the "Office" as it's now not your usual place of work?
Don't get me wrong, for the right person and personality, telecommuting is a fantastic opportunity. But I would never have taken a pay cut to work from home. You are saving your company on office space use, electricity, heating, lighting, furniture costs and in my experience you will be hugely more productive working from home where there are far fewer distractions than you would encounter working in an office. You will be fresher when you arrive at your desk having commuted down the stairs rather than down the motorway [freeway/turnpike/peage/autobahn]. Typically the coffee's better too!
Case in point: Me. I took a 20% pay cut to go to telecommuting. I gained back 520 hours a year of my life just from the commute alone. That doesn't even take into consideration the amount of interaction I get with my family during the day, and especially having lunch dates with my wife.
Before commenting on the Bible, please read it first
My commute is 40 miles each way.
I leave in the dark and come home in the dark.
I can do 99% of my job from a keyboard.
I'd telecommute for TWENTY PERCENT less.
I am my own gestalt.
My commute is 14 minutes -- in traffic. When I work from home, I have kids who don't respect the sanctity of my work, and while my wife does, she can't help but ask me to do one little thing here and there. Working at home I don't get hallway conversations, I don't run into people in the hallways and catch up on the latest exciting thing they're doing (or advertise for a position in my department).
At work, I have better bandwidth, I'm closer to my lab, and someone else pays the electricity bill. My work desk is big enough to spread out everything I need to work on, while at home my iMac is pushed to the front of my desk so it's easier to see with my feet up.
If they want to offer me 10% more because they don't want to pay the facilities and utilities charges associated with storing my butt, we're within negotiating space, but I would walk away from a 10% "take it or leave it".
If the offer of "a shorter commute" is something along the lines of "I'm going to live in downtown Boulder and my commute will be to Pearl St." then yes, that's worth a lot to me. Of course, that short commute can't come with a pay cut. I need 150K minimum to do that. The last place I interviewed with in Boulder didn't see it that way (but I would still happily do this, if you're reading!)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I'd love to work at home but then how would I communicate with my co-workers?
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With a year's pay in the bank, you cross a line from being someone that your boss might want to get rid of, to being someone that your boss, or someone else, wants to figure out a way to get you to invest in their enterprise. It's also the threshold where you can be really honest when talking to your boss.
I can guarantee that unless your boss is a devotee of Dave Ramsey or something, he doesn't have a year's worth of *his* salary sitting in a money market account (this is in addition to investments, mind you.)
Yeah with just a few months of living expenses (it doesn't have to be a whole year, nor does it have to be your whole *salary*, just your expenses), you have a very liberating ability to be very honest with people. It's pretty cool -- I've been there once, and am trying to get there again.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
If you can provoke them all they way past threats and into assault, you can probably retire on that ;)
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I wouldn't ever telecommute, even for a pay increase. I might not like most of the people I work with, but I need at least a little face to face social interaction to keep life worth living. Sitting in my dark room by myself reading emails and grinding away at decade old c scripts would remind me too much of the years when my existence consisted entirely of WoW and sleeping.
I took this crappy job just to get away from that.
Would I take a pay cut to telecommute? No, but then I only live 15 minutes for work (which includes stopping for coffee).
Ceci n'est pas un sig.
Having said that I wouldn't go 100% telecommute either. One day a week or maybe two at most. More than that and you lose face to face interaction with co-workers and supervisors/managers. I could have done a recent project completely at home with no supervision but all anyone would have seen would be the end result. It's just as important to be able to physically present the process you go through in order to be appreciated for the work you do. No appreciation for the work = you don't get appreciated as an employee and you'll be passed up on opportunities.
So the average pay of $75,000 or whatever is irrelevant. What is the median pay of a tech worker?
That being said of course if we can telecommute it's better than wasting time traveling to and from work, or preparing / dressing up for work. Thats a complete waste of productivity.
How about the companies pay us more to work from home since it benefits them and lowers their cost for office space? Yep didn't think so...
-Xen
If trains would increase productivity, lets tax workers and build more train tracks?
Human need for company & interaction is understandable, however, what I don't understand is that why are we discussing this in terms of either-or. i have seen plenty of folks who telecommute 1-2 days a week and are perfectly fine with it. This also allows more types/numbers of jobs to be telecommute-able since usually even those jobs that can be done remotely can need occasional 'human touch'.
We are always correct.. even when we realize we were wrong.
If it weren't for the office, I probably would never meet another soul.
What the beer gardens (or whatever informal meeting places) are for?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Since I've been doing embedded Linux and Android work, I mostly work from home AND my pay is higher. Its a simple supply and demand thing. Go where the demand is, and you'll get better pay and a better work environment.
The Bolachek Journals
I just switched jobs from a full time onsite to a 20% travel telecommute job. I was initially offered a 8% pay cut, but after my interviews was offered a higher salary than my previous one. The ability to walk away for a while, the lack of stress, and being at home really makes this feel more like a vacation than a real job. It's the happiest I have been so far in any job.
Telecompute is so.... 90s. I hate to say it. But we've moved past that.
The future is ROWE. Results Oriented Work Environment. In a ROWE only results matter. Not how you get it done, or where you get it do it.
In essence, if you can get your work done from a tropical island (with good wifi), then by all means do it. You are not paid for putting your butt in a seat, but rather for your productivity.
ROWE treats employees as adults who know how to manage their own time. Telecommuting, "flex time" and the like are just ways of rewarding employees with what they should already have... control over their lives.
ROWE came out of a successful experiment at Best Buy (HQ not retail stores). Its been adopted by a lot of big name companies, including Netflix.
To learn more, check out: http://gorowe.com/
I switched my company to ROWE last year after months of due diligence. And we've never looked back.
David
David Whatley
If you're spending hours in your car everyday, and you could avoid that, how much would that be worth?
Well, I will go ahead and go the opposite of where you were going with this...
Yes, how much IS my commute worth. Considering that I will spend at least half of that additional time doing work instead of sitting in a car, how much is that worth to my company? And, how much is it worth to them to have me start work in the morning not being frazzled from multiple flirtations with death from the idiot motorists that commute alongside me? And how much is it worth to them for me to work all day long on projects instead of spending two or three hours a day helping other people with problems that they are supposedly paid to know how to deal with on their own?
I estimate that when I work from home, I am about 40% more efficient than when I go in to the office.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I don't have kids so there are no day-care costs, but I hate commuting 30-45 minutes twice a day. It's not the worst commute ever, but the cost savings in gas and car wear, in addition to being able to sleep in an extra hour a day would make it worth a small cut. Not sure about 10% though... Maybe 5%.
So all of you complaining about having to go on site to reboot a server don't telecommute either. You can't have it both ways.
Regarding shoddy equipment, you should probably stop talking before you embarrass yourself further. Seriously. That's the same as asking why IT departments exist.
The simple fact is that all of you in IT think that you're special. You're not.
I've telecommuted for years and the company I work for now encourages it. Fact is, I rarely speak with another employee in my division that doesn't work from home even all the managers I know work from home I'm flat out amazed that anyone thinks they would have communications problems. For small groups you can use IM or anyone remember IRC? Hell I used IM and IRC when I was in the office. The team is always on the IRC channel so quick bits are easy and you get to use the hive mind on things very rapidly.
In general I prefer that people schedule a time on my calendar to talk to me. Too often when I worked in an office, people would just "pop by" and waste an hour of my time I had intended to use otherwise. Being home also makes taking international meetings a bit more palatable. Nothing like taking a meeting in you PJs.
Those that say that working from home means your job can be done elsewhere need to wake up! Your job can be done elsewhere regardless! You compete on a world talent market and you shouldn't forget that.
I do work more but I can also leave @ 5pm to go do fun stuff too.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
As I see more and more job postings and the reqirements to be a programer, a DBA, Windows server expert with just about every microsoft product, a Linux expert, a Cisco expert, PBX expert and doing desktop support for a measley 65k.
The skill level required to soley manage a companies IT dept along with the BS politics does not even come close to what IT admins should be making.
Let's add up the above experience. Hmm looks like 400k a year to manage all that. So let's be realistic because we all know no company won't even come close to that. 100K EASY! that should be the average IT admins take home pay.
Wrong calculation -- the average pay of the 35% who are willing may not be equal to the average of all tech pros. So the 10% cut might be far from the said figure.
I don't know what the going rate is for a masochist/submissive pro nowadays but its a lot more than $7,900!
Seastead this.
I'm an independent, and I've been working from home several years ago. At first it seemed nice, sleeping in and working on my own hours. But there were a couple of things that really started to bother me after a short time: For one, you can never escape your work place, at least not if you're living in a small, 1-room apartment as I did at the time. That, to me, made it very difficult to stop thinking of work and relaxing after hours. Then, there's the problem with the little distractions at home. Nobody's looking over your shoulders, and your friends and family know you're home so they think it's okay to call and distract you, and if you're not disciplined, you might even distract yourself. I've noticed this happens a lot more when working at home. Finally, and this is probably the most important factor for me, I'd miss the interaction with my peers at work. I do not like all of them, but we do laugh a lot and generally have a lot of fun, plus we do exchange a lot of knowledge. And if they're getting too loud or annoying, I just tell them to shut up and it works :)
So, in conclusion, I'd not only not take a "pay" cut to work at home, I wouldn't even do it for more money.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
great saying by the Goblins in WoW. but truthfully, i'd have no issue taking a pay cut. that just means, less wear and tear on my car, less gas, maybe even cutting down on my insurance, less chance of getting a ticket and less headaches. probably the only issue for me is just losing some of the immediacy to my coworkers that i enjoy at times. not all the time, but it's good having people around you sometimes like when you're encountering a particularly difficult problem or just want someone to chat with. sometimes IMS isn't a great substitute for a physical sit down.
Will I take a pay cut to telecommute full time? Well, that would depend on a lot of factors, really.
I have been working from home the past almost three years for a wonderful start-up. Before I joined them, I was working at a company I used to drive a long way to every morning in rush hour traffic, only to find crappy places to park cars where I'd risk getting my car bumped or scratched on any given day (lest I paid an unbelievable amount to park my car at some dedicated parking of a hotel nearby, as the company didn't provide parking). By the time I reached the office, I felt completely exhausted and tired. On the way back home, I struggled with the rush hour traffic again, taking anywhere from one to two or more hours to get home completely dead. It was peaceful inside the office, though, with air-cos on 24/7. I didn't have to worry about the sky-rocketing power bills or the ever increasing power cuts (I live in a country that is plagued with problems that make it impossible to get even basic necessites properly at times). However, I completely hated the workstations they had provided. CRT monitors! My eyes would bleed (and as I never miss the chance to bitch about it, they refused my requests to provide me with an LCD, asking me to get a doctor's recommendation letter that said that CRT cause strain on my eyes first). And of course, not to mention the fact that things in the city would turn sour every now and then, creating more problems during commuting safely back and forth.
In contrast to that, working from home has been a bliss. I have a nice set up at home in terms of my work environment. I had to however invest in a power backup generator for the times the power isn't available (which is a couple of hours every day if life is good for us). Because of the hot weather mostly here, I have to keep the air-co running on most times when I am working (because that is possibly the only way to stay sane while working, otherwise the heat gets to you badly). This eventually causes the power bill to go significantly up. The company does contribute, but I'd like them to do so more gratuitously. Of course, I also have to get a good Internet connection for work (Internet is still somewhat expensive over here). So, while the work is enjoyable, and I love working from home, these concerns do bother me all the time. I know that these won't really apply to everywhere or everyone, but for me, these are some of the factors that I weigh in when deciding whether it is better to telecommute. I have not had any issue with communications. We are mostly always on Skype and IM and IRC and of course over email. I think that if I didn't have to worry about the power-cuts, and could run the air-co all the time while working without feeling a little guilty or worried about the power bill, I would be much happier than I am right now.
So you are saying
Telecommuting means employees save money, so its okay for the company to cut pay to allow to telecommute.
I totally agree by your logic. But then they should pay extra to employees who work from farther. For example not telecommuting for your colleague ranked same as you and at the same post in your company could be 12000$ extra. So you are okay with him getting 6000$ extra because he drives a SUV, or lives farther away?
A company should never pay an employee for his lifestyle. Pay and hikes should be paid on work performance. Not how an employee works or from where he works.
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Working from home saves on office space at the employer. Office space at prime locations costs an arm and a leg. Considering that, payment should remain the same or rise actually.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
I work 3 days at home, 2 in the office. That way I get the best of both worlds, collegue face time for meetings plus at home I get extra hours and save commute costs. My commute is 1.5-2hrs each way so I can start earlier at home, get more done and finish earlier to spend time with my family. It also makes things easier for the rare times I need to work weekends or fix something, no more hours on the train to do a 5 min fix. My employer was quite keen on telecommuting to save having such big buildings to stuff us all in so they pay £500 to let us build our home office (chair, desk etc) then pay a % of the electric/gas bills after that. Or team is all over the place anyway at different sites so it really makes very little difference as most work is done via remote logins, phone based meetings etc.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
Telecommuting means, literally, commuting at a distance, or remote commuting, just like television means vision at a distance, or remote vision, and telecommunication means communication over a distance.
As such, the word "telecommuting" is a pleonasm and thus nonsensical, the creation of a very confused, uneducated person.
Teleworking on the other hand means working at a distance, or from far away (from the office), and the term that should be used.
Not all jobs that involve telecommuting can be outsourced. I do a three month call rotation. When on call, I'm available 24x7. The 5% of the problems that require a site visit require me to get there within 2 hours. Try that from India! The two hours a day I drive to work and back are gone from my life forever. What a waste, sitting in a car.for 2 hours a day, every day for your entire life. Gone forever.
Please mod me 1 or troll. It's where the truth is these days, even on Slashdot. Beware the power of moderators everywh
Telecommuting costs the company LESS than having offices, why should you take a pay cut? If anything, you should be getting a small raise!
~Syberz
It all depends on the workplace policy for telecommuting. Where I'm currently at, we offer telecommuting and flextime. I don't participate in either since being the sysadmin if something blows up, you have to come in anyway no matter what your schedule is.
That being said, I wouldn't mind working from home a couple of days a week since the majority of my day is monitoring systems or researching, I can do that easily from my couch. But that is where the catch is in our organization. To remote work or telecommute, the person needs to have a dedicated workspace to just their work related activities, a secured location to save work materials, and "isolation" from the rest of the house. So as a number of other people have mentioned things like saving on daycare and such, if it is discovered that your kids are playing on your work system or you are supplementing daycare by working at home those are grounds for revoking the teleworking if not a full firing.
Sure there are holes in the system, like managers that want to stay the employee's friend and not enforce the policies. I have several employees that we know for a fact are supplementing daycare or out golfing when they are "telecommuting." Unfortunately there isn't anything that can be done about a manager that refuses to enforce their own policies.
My average commute is 15 miles each way. For a 5 day work week (not counting oncall trips due to failed hardware), that's 150 miles a week. I have a Jeep Wrangler that gets about 15 miles per gallon - but it's paid for (no car payments) - so that's roughly 10 gallons of gas per week. At $3.80 (in Minnesota) my average fuel bill is $38.00 per week. There are 4.33 weeks in a month, so I can expect to spend no less than $164.54 a month on gas just for work. The annual cost would be $1,974.48.
If I didn't use the car for anything else, I could factor in the maintenance costs, but since I do use it for other things, the only expense I can legitimately use is fuel.
I can save some money on laundry, but that is pretty much peanuts. And besides I know technical people that don't know you are suppose to wash your clothes (and body) occasionally. So, we cannot deduct that.
Sitting around my home office in my underwear (or nothing at all) is not a deductible expense - a nice perk for some people, but not an expense.
So, bottom line, the savings are a little less than $2,000.00 a year. I could, therefore, only justify a 2% pay cut. Forget it.
This mostly depends where you live. If you live in the suburbs and are like a 20-60 min drive away, then yes telecommuting might make sense.
If your like me, I bought my house specifically close to work so I could walk every day. I got a smaller house that isn't as new (1915 VS 0-20 years old). I am close enough I even walk home for lunch most of the time. I bought a new car in 2002 and have a under 65k on it so far.
So while sure you could have your employee makes these options and decision for you, or you can decide on your own what is important to you. Personally I can't imagine spending more than 40min each day commuting to work, added up over time its crazy. I would rather live closer to work, and all that it entails. As an added bonus its great for the environment, and so far as carbon foot print is pretty hard to beat.
I certainly wouldn't take a pay cut, as I rather like the money I make... but I wouldn't even really want to always telecommute if I could do it for free. We have a developer on our team who for other reasons has to live in another city. He's great as his job, the team is glad to have him, and sometimes I have to ask him for help on something, but I'm always happier when I can ask someone else instead - it's far easier to explain things in person than over IM. I can't even imagine that being me off by myself, having to only talk to coworkers via IM. Not to mention, I'd be distracted like crazy by the internet and stuff, working on the same computer I goof off with at home.
I could imagine doing it maybe a couple times a month if I had the option, but not every day.
I've been full time telecommuting for 5 years now ... or "ROWE" if you must call it that ... ... Fucked up beyond all recognition, be prepared for a living hell.
It all boils down to the same thing "get it done, no matter what".
That's just FINE if you work in a situation that is NOT fucked up.
If, however, you work at a company that is, as 99.999% of companies are
The best analogy I can think of comes from the second season of Lost. ... the dude in the bunker who had to push the button every 108 minutes or the world would end?
Remember Desmond
Welcome to your new telecommuting wonderland.
It's not that it starts out that way ... it just inevitably winds up that way. ... this means ... since you work from home that obviously you won't mind taking calls at 5 in the morning from Europe ... then taking 11pm calls from Australia *in the same work day* ... day in ... and day out.
The reason is that people don't *see* you working, and as such they presume that you are *not* working, or that you have infinite capability to take on more work. If you work for a global organization
Telecommuting is a double edged sword. It has some really, truly great advantages.
I don't waste 4 hours out of every work day in traffic. I'm here when my kids get home from school, I even know what they look like. I have indeed folded laundry on conference calls and worked in my pajamas.
I also spend almost *every waking moment* (save an hour here and there with my family), working. ... and by extention ... *by the cheapest competent person they can find in the world to do it, regardless of location*.
Because when i moved into a telecommuting position, I made it crystal clear to my company that my job can be done *from anywhere*
3 out of 5 of my co-workers will be replaced by offshore development resources (i.e. cheap mo-fo's who'll do the same thing for 1/8th the cost) by the end of the year. So now I have to *zero* leverage to push back when things get overwhelming.
Yeah, telecommuting (or ROWE or whatever) can be great ... but like I said ... it's pandora's box.
And I would not go back if you paid me more!
Ok, it was kind of forced upon me. I got laid off and the best job I could get as the job market started to tank was a telecommuting job for a company that had no offices. It had to take a $20K salary cut but I was employed when my peers were not and was able to make ends meet. I'm still not back to my former salary but frankly, I'm turning down better offers just because I'd have to commute ~2 hours a day.
What's two hours of your life worth?
Aside from day care costs (which I have none), or the cost of commuting, or your pay rate... What is your time worth?
What is your blood pressure worth?
Getting in urban traffic and fighting with idiots with licenses to endanger lives is not my idea of a healthy endeavor. Forget about the financial cost of fuel, insurance, payments... driving is stressful!
I could go on and on but then I'd just be a bore. There is certainly a down side that should not be ignored. Telecommuting is not for everyone. It takes more self discipline than most of my former co-workers have (you are the only one keeping you off facebook all day). The hardest discipline is actually ending your work day. When the computer is just around the corner it's all to easy to "Just do that one task that's bothering you". I think the hardest part is a lack of social interaction. Try not talking to anyone at work about non work stuff for the next month (I give most of you a week at best). It's easy and healthy to chat over the cube walls while still tuning an ugly bit of SQL code. you don't get that opportunity when telecommuting. Chatting with your co-workers over IM about last night's game takes your attention away from your task resulting in longer less productive days so you eventually stop doing it (or go looking for a new job). Lately, I've taken to absconding the company conference line when not in use just so we can chat over the virtual cubicle walls. My boss would surely shit if he knew but I see it as a mental health hour.
Regardless of whether you take a cut now to telecommute, unless everyone, or nearly everyone, at work telecommutes you will find you won't get the raises that you would have working physically close to the ones that make the decisions about pay. This is really untestable, and there are bound to be exceptions, but I think it is probably the case most of the time. The other thing to note is that it's harder to move up the org chart if you are telecommuting. That said, I have been a happy and distant telecommuter for almost all of the last 20 years.
I'm also guessing that anyone who leaves a child to "free range" won't object when you're spending your retirement money to bail him out of jail in about 10 years......
Just more lame parents who think plugging their kid in to a an electronic device or turning them out for everyone else to deal with is a fine idea.
And people wonder why I despise OPC (Other People's Children). It should be legal to slap the parents when the kids are being a brat in public.
Examples from my recent experience - While out having dinner a nice restaurant, I am assaulted by a child who is about 8 years old and who is busily clearing his parent's table by throwing everything from food to the condiment containers - mostly in my direction. When the salt shaker lands in my plate of food, I ask them to have him stop. Do they say anything to the child? Oh no! Instead, I get some crap about how he's expressing himself. I tell the father that if he doesn't want me to "express myself" he needs to get his ugly squealing brat under control because I'm pay just as much to eat there as he is. While I am dealing with the parents, the little miscreat has left her parent's table and moved to my table where she is now eating off my plate. At this point, the parents have the nerve to tell me "Oh, look she LIKES you." My response was, "Good, because you just bought my dinner. The veal and lobster really are quite good here."
While waiting in the ticket line at the movie theater, a couple and their children walk up behind me. They have two boys who are playing with yo-yos. Now that doesn't sound bad until I tell you that their "idea" of playing with the yo-yo's is to try to clock each other in the head with them. All the thrashing around, shoving, and fighting results in me be whacked with the yo-yo's. When I ask the boys to please stop because they're not just hitting each other, the mother starts screaming at me that I can't tell her children what to do. At that point, I tell her that she can either make it stop or the yo-yo's are going to end up in a very uncomfortable spot for her.
At a completely different movie theater and parents bring a toddler - barely walking - to Grindhouse. The poor child was so frightened she screamed though the entire movie and was still screaming as her parents sedately waddled back out to their car. OMFG! Who takes a child to Grindhouse????
HDGary secures my bank
I have a few reasons why I would not. A) The fridge is too close, B) Too many distractions such as cutting the grass, painting a room, C) I need a social life that working provides. The A) and C) are the most important reasons to explain why I would not telecommute. It is important to be with a real person, rather than an image of a person via skype or whatever,
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
I was almost given the opportunity to stay at home for a considerable pay cut today ... luckily I kept my job ...
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
"free range" does not mean what you think it means in this case. It means giving your child the tools and discipline to act appropriately and independently without having to worry that they'll behave as you describe. "free range" does mean wild. It means capable and allowed to grow given the right tools and parameters. It means meeting your neighbors and exchanging phone numbers and other information. Free Range kids means guidance and empowerment, and lots of good consistent parenting, while not being over-protective. It does not mean abandoning a child in the way you describe.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
I can just make sure they know I'm in my office if something bad happens. Days when I work from home are significantly quieter than days when I go in to work. sam network marketing in india