Moving to the sticks (1 Viewer)

[rettucs]

Or at least out of/far (ish) away from Dublin.

Anyone have any thoughts of doing this? I'm currently 60/40 on it, specifically to Kilkenny. Already started looking at gaffs there. The idea being that theres 10 years left on the mortgage on the gaff in Dublin but there's enough paid off to be able to sell up, clear the rest of the mortgage and buy something outright, or close to outright. And, get a bigger gaff and live closer to the city.

In a lot of ways its a no-brainer. The only possible spanner in the works could be the work situation. I'm currently fully remote and will be for as long as I'm in this company. But its unlikely this company will be around a year from now. It'll either go to shit, or get bought out.

anyways, anyone else ever think of doing anything similar?

 

[magicbastarder]

i misread the address as being given as phibsboro - it's DNG phibsboro who are selling it.

 

[Deadmanposting]

Lads

Plunge in 'fully remote' jobs advertised as employers reverse tack

The number of fully remote job vacancies being advertised has plummeted in recent months as businesses revert to mandatory in-office days.

www.independent.ie

 

[ernesto]

Lads

Plunge in 'fully remote' jobs advertised as employers reverse tack

The number of fully remote job vacancies being advertised has plummeted in recent months as businesses revert to mandatory in-office days.

www.independent.ie

C u n t s

 

[Cormcolash]

People need to get with the video-conferencing programme

 

[rettucs]

That is a bit shit. When I was job hunting in March around 50% of the jobs I applied for were remote. 1 of the 3 I was offered was remote, and thats the one I took.

A couple of the bigger companies went gung-ho on insisting people come back into the office a few days a week. They were calling peoples' bluff over a mass exodus and, because things are leaner than normal on the jobs market, they got their way. Once that happened, other companies started to row back too.

But, it won't last. Once the dust has settled on all the tech layoffs, things will pick up. Once they do, things will develop rapidly and we'll get back into that dick measuring shite where companies try to outhire each other, and it'll become an employees market again. At that point companies will have to offer fully remote again, in order to get people to even consider them.

The last time it was an employees market I was trying to hire lads and was up against a situation where people were receiving a cash amount for even just doing an interview with a company. It was nuts. Obviously you'd have to get past the initial screen and probably the first round. But every round after that you would receive mulah for just talking to a company. And to offer someone a job you'd need to give them a shit-tonne of equity and a signing bonus. So offering remote work won't even be optional for companies in a few months time.

 

[magicbastarder]

with a lot of companies, i suspect they're paying for expensive office space on leases they can't get out of, so it's really a sunk cost issue for them. a 'we'd better force people back into the office otherwise we're wasting this rent money'.

 

[rettucs]

with a lot of companies, i suspect they're paying for expensive office space on leases they can't get out of, so it's really a sunk cost issue for them. a 'we'd better force people back into the office otherwise we're wasting this rent money'.

I frequently hear about this 'watercooler' interaction thats being lost by working remotely, and its probably true. But the fact is that none of us choose to be fully remote during covid. We did it because we had to and we proved it was workable. If any company is requesting people back in the office because they don't trust them or doubt productivity, then they are pricks.

there are a lot of kids early in their career who have never been fully office-based. This will be a shock to the system for them.

And for one of the jobs I was offered I was told I'd have to be in the office 1 week per month (consecutive days). Every other aspect of the job was great and it would have been a better career move for me than the job I ended up taking. That was the deal breaker for me and I let them know it. I was chatting to a lad I know in that company and he said that people were raging over the decision. People had moved out of Dublin thinking remote work was here to stay. There was a lad in his team in Donegal, and 5 consecutive days a month would either involve him commuting every day, or staying in a hotel, at his own expense. So that person is likely to leave.

I'd have done the week-a-month thing if this job hadn't turned up. It would have meant a Kilkenny-to-Citywest commute, which wouldn't be the worst, but still a pain in the hole.

 

[magicbastarder]

i get to see the people i work with about once a year, and in a compressed three day workshop.
i'm one of several guys on the team who are each the only member of the team from a country (i.e. i'm the only irish guy, there's an italian, and a greek guy too), and i do think we suffer a little from not having that more casual interaction than teams allows.

 

[rettucs]

I can say too that on-boarding while fully-remote is tough. My last place did it terribly and then showed no patience that I didn't know everything by day 2. The place I'm in now on-boards even worse, but they seem more patient. The company is also being acquired right now so everyone is kind of consumed with that.

 

[ann post]

When we were online we kinda had to invent a few things that put everyone in one video call chatting shit about non work, the proverbial water cooler had to be timetabled, it did help with the newer staff feeling a bit more like they werent just staring at emails in silence all the time.
Meanwhile I know of one multinational here that have a 7 year lease on a building that really really facilitates a job that a most of the staff learned online and do just as well online. And same as above, once a return to physicality was enforced people with various home responsibilities were gone immediately.
It does seem like a little bit of a market gap for the right approach to poach staff who just want to be at home and are way better at what they do at home - Like you can definitely undercut the ones with the big city leases....

The whole economy around an office block is sorta the blueprint the world has been built in for a few decades in ireland. Notiony food, coffee, gyms etc etc business model is bored office person on lunch or walk out of work. I'm sure a few of you follow those abandoned hotel accounts on insta - probably a wave of that coming along for the office block.

On the other hand, bean posts office was her bedroom for a year and she fucking hated it. Why wouldn't you like.

 

[rettucs]

It does seem like a little bit of a market gap for the right approach to poach staff who just want to be at home and are way better at what they do at home - Like you can definitely undercut the ones with the big city leases....

and its not like remote working is a one-way thing for employees in terms of advantages. Companies can hire, literally, anywhere. I'm one of 12 in Ireland in my company. I think only 2 of us are in Dublin with the rest scattered across the south of the country. They tried to hire for my position in Cork, cos they were gonna open an office there, but couldn't find someone suitable. So they opened it up to the whole country. Only possible because of remote-working.

 

[magicbastarder]

they've a massive issue in india, i have heard; loads of bug business parks built with tax incentives to use them, and now the companies are being told that they'll be stung for tax unless they start using those offices again. but by the same token, if they tried to pull all the staff back there'd be a mass exodus.
i know a couple of people based in india, one of them is living 600km from the office they nominally work in, the other is 1,500km away.

 

[egg_]

If any company is requesting people back in the office because they don't trust them or doubt productivity, then they are pricks

Just a little counterpoint here ... I've a friend who works in planning in a local authority, and they had quite a few people who did literally nothing when "working" remotely. Everyone's had to come back into the office because of those pricks

 

[MacDara]

and its not like remote working is a one-way thing for employees in terms of advantages. Companies can hire, literally, anywhere. I'm one of 12 in Ireland in my company. I think only 2 of us are in Dublin with the rest scattered across the south of the country. They tried to hire for my position in Cork, cos they were gonna open an office there, but couldn't find someone suitable. So they opened it up to the whole country. Only possible because of remote-working.

Similar to my company. When I joined it was a few months into the pandemic and it was ‘remote for now, but we’ll move back to the office in Cork at some point’. A few months after that they realised productivity was better than ever, and we’re all professionals who don’t need to be ‘on site’ to keep mum about potentially confidential matters, etc, so they confirmed permanent work from home. It’s been a bonus for my company as now they can recruit the best talent from across Europe (or at least the places where they have a legal entity for tax reasons I can’t be bothered to delve into). In fact nearly half my team, which was exclusively Cork-based, are all over Britain right now. And it’s a boon for me as I really didn’t want to move; renting down there would have meant no savings, whereas as things are now the prospects of getting a mortgage actually look not entirely slim? At the same time, I have a dedicated room to work in here; many of my colleagues are working in their bedrooms which has to get you down after a while, even if remote work is very much your thing. Getting out and meeting your co-workers if you can does help, I feel, and that’s coming from an antisocial weirdo!

 

[rettucs]

Just a little counterpoint here ... I've a friend who works in planning in a local authority, and they had quite a few people who did literally nothing when "working" remotely. Everyone's had to come back into the office because of those pricks

I presume they're public sector? If they were private sector they'd be getting a big toe up the hole out the door.

 

[egg_]

Public sector yeah naturally

 

[egg_]

Oh on a vaguely related note - in my sister-in-law's job they realised while interviewing somebody via zoom that he was in his underpants. Still gave him the job. Fired him after 3 weeks cos he was useless

 

[Anthony]

I heard that in work we might have been told not to rock the boat maybe and that WFH may be really working and that nobody should maybe take the possible piss and maybe fuck it up potentially for everyone.

 

[magicbastarder]

you work on a boat? you probably know seanc so.

 

[ann post]

he's that weird old guy sean talks about AFAIK