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Ask Slashdot: Would You Take a Pay Cut To Telecommute?

Posted by Soulskill on from the or-to-make-your-officemate-telecommute dept.

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."

8 of 615 comments (clear)

  1. Yes by fadethepolice · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Yes by bhagwad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They should pay me to work from home! After all, if there's no need for a huge office and staff etc. they save a shitload of money

    2. Re:Yes by Strange+Ranger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not sure I'm reading you right but fyi my 5 year old goes outside to play with the neighborhood kids throughout the 4 seasons. In winter they make snow forts, etc. They run and play through our typical suburban neighborhood all afternoon. I whistle when it's time for dinner. He also toasts his own waffles, and makes his own simple lunches (half day kindergarten) picks out his own clothes to wear, helps watch his little sister when I'm working at home, and generally has a lot of independence. He turns 6 this week. You say your kid is 7 and can't play outside by himself??
      You really really need to check out FreeRangeKids.com. Do him a favor that will help him his whole life and go there now.

      --

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  2. Depends on company by mlts · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Careful what you wish for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Pro tip: If your job can be done from your house, it can be done from India.

  4. No by Rurik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  5. Re:Sounds like they have the wrong priority by Fallen+Kell · · Score: 5, Informative

    In IT, there is another problem... ever try rebooting a server while logged into it remotely? Hint: All the connections go away the moment you reboot it. A lot of sites require that you either physically be on site, or take home with you thousands of dollars worth of equipment.

    Someone hasn't been keeping up with their enterprise grade equipment management. Just about every major vendor has a solution for this exact problem. I have over 500 servers at my work which I can shutdown, reboot, change BIOS settings, or fsck hard drives all remotely. Sun/Oracle has their ALOM/ILOM. Dell has the iDrac Enterprise. HP has their iLO. IBM has their Remote Management Agent.

    Basically they are computers within the computer, with their own separate CPU, network, and OS, which lets you fully manage the production server by giving you the ability to show the console/display of the device send keyboad/mouse commands even at the pre-POST screen of the server itself (just like if you were physically at the keyboard/monitor attached to the system).

    --
    We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
  6. How will we communicate? by burris · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd love to work at home but then how would I communicate with my co-workers?

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