Thanks for the comments guys, I appreciate the feedback.
I understand the surge in work from home culture, and I also believe the benefits are great on both sides of the coin. I just don't like how it's affected MY business. I've been freelancing for most of my adult life, and working remotely for the last ten years. I've also shared a home office with my wife while she worked remotely for a call center before the pandemic. The differences between our experiences as a contractor vs an employee were like night and day. And the differences between then and now are even more drastic.
Many companies were thrown into transitioning to work from home with no experience or guidance on how to do it effectively. I believe that a good percentage of them have gotten over the growing pains of that change and fine-tuned their standard operating procedures into something that works for both them and their employees.
But that's the key word here, employees. The most successful operations offer well defined roles within an organized structure and provide the necessary equipment to do the job. It's unreasonable for a business to expect someone to use their own equipment, yet demand full backdoor access into it enabling them to spy on personal data or usage.
Before freelancing, I used to manage IT assets for a living. I know how simple it can be to issue equipment to personnel on loan. And if they don't return it when their employment ends, just take it out of their last pay. Which brings up another point: employers are saving massive amounts of money by not maintaining infrastructure and equipment, but many are not passing these savings along to their staff in the form of higher wages, even though they now have higher bills to pay in the form of increased electricity consumption or internet bandwidth to cover the excessive amount of video conferences that have become the norm.
But all of this is secondary to my original point, that business who do not understand these concepts have invaded platforms which were meant to cater to short/mid term contract-based work. They have saturated my feed with posts that belong on their government sponsored job bank website.
I personally am not looking for a full-time position. I love freelancing and going from job to job with different clients on a regular basis. I highly value the flexibility this allows. I also believe my skills should be shared with as many clients as possible. I have high standards and a wealth of knowledge to offer.
The problem for me is that it's becoming harder to sustain this business model. The niche that I serve is getting smaller every day and it's becoming harder to make ends meet. It's always been hard enough to convince clients that a standards based approach is best, but now it's nigh impossible. Everyone has their pre-conceived notions of what they want because they heard some buzzwords being thrown around. They only just learned the basics but can't seem to grasp that not all of us are new to this.
This is especially troublesome for developers. It's one thing to hire remotely for a virtual assistant position and expect to dictate the requirements. However, when you're trying to solve a technical problem, it's best to let the experts tell you the best way. After all, we're the ones who designed and built the systems they use every day. Of course, not every developer is an expert at their craft, but someone who has been writing code since the dawn of the internet might just know a thing or two which you haven't even considered.
Hi 👋
This is Suchintan a Full Stack Developer with MERN stack.
Want to know more about me?
Connect me on - https://www.linkedin.com/in/suchintan-das-b698bb1b8/
Very well written Besworks 🙂, I totally understand your point. And I do feel the pain freelancers are facing due to this transition that the companies have taken 🥲.
As you shared that companies got their profit increased but are not ready to increase the wage. You really hit it in the pin point ❗
Let me share my experience which I face while working as a employee. As the work from home started companies found it tough to take the transition. During that time I used to look for internships. Here's one of the company that I had to work which told me they operate on remote basis . I was totally fine with the thing, they used to assign me work one in the morning and another on the evening. I considered this thing also as fine as I get to work remotely. But now here comes the twist, they told me as their company is still not established so they will not be able to provide me the offer letter. Things really turned little bit strange for me as I think offer letter is one of the first document that I signed between an employee and employer 😞.
Now here's what I learned about work from home from companies side. You get to work from home so they consider you to be working 24 hours. Like they will keep track of hours of a work, you do it slower they call you ❗Get done faster they track you ❗. As you got done , they assign you another and this goes till night 10pm or something. Earlier they used to have employees from 9-5 but as employee is working remotely they don't think there is any bound to assign them tasks ⌛. They are like , you are working remotely and developers 🧑💻 are more productive in this mode . Let me know when you get done , we will assign you another task and you need to be in continuous zoom meets 🎥 and every hour we will monitor your progress. Isn't is harsh ?
Secondly if the employee would have been in office 💼 they would have worked for 5-6 hours out of 8 hours and would have been having time to take small breaks and some talks between each other. I had talked with many developers even from big mncs. They are not tracked by every hour and are not expected to work like a robot 🤖 with just sitting in a chair and typing all along 8 hours .
But here's the twist as the employee is at home , there is no restrictions of meetings, you are having your meals 🍳 but still need to attend some zoom calls explaining your role and work you did on the assignment. From day to night all along there is no control over meetings and expectations of getting things done. They sometimes want you to build whole Amazon in 2 hours and they want you to integrate a whole ML model with that. And that also like a day's work only.
I would point out the fact that the difference between a employee and a contractor has become negligible for the companies. They are assigning their work based on hours to their employees and want them to have thier own system and compatiblity to work smoothly.
What I noticed is that if a company used to get a job done in 3 months earlier are now getting done in 1 week or something. Due to work from home they got the freedom to increase the work pitch to it's pitch. Getting 24 hours of their employees day working.
They are also generating a very good profit. But here's the twist, due to remote work expenditure of employees increased drastically, working over a heavy project ? Get a high end setup at home and that also on your own cost. Got less or no internet, get your setup done on your own cost. But the company will be paying you the same salary or something marginally less just because that employee is working remotely.
The whole profit then get's used to expand the whole company and marketing. Ran out of budget? layoff employees as due to remote work number of applicants that you can get is much more due to worldwide coverage and you can get them anytime you want. Every single job listing says join immediately, in 1 week you get hired and the 2nd week you should be in the company working.
I see work from home as a new toy which a child got into his hands and is exploring and found it fascinating.
Work from home had some responsibilities from employers side but noone focusses on that. Every single person I met, just lists the advantages of it that hire from anywhere, get people onboard easily and get your company started in no time.
I have seen many people facing the issue that companies hire them remotely ,provide the employee a offer letter even and just after couple of days. If they find the need of that person , they send them the requirements with immediate joining or else terminates the offer letter 😞. Just see it from employees side how harsh it would be for them. They left their earlier job to join the new company and suddenly one day the company thought let's not onboard them and terminates the offer letter. A happily working employee just became job seeker in split of days 😫.
It's ofcourse based on my experience and opinion. I am open to know others thought, if they faced the same or something better 👇.
Many of the issues you describe are the exact reasons I avoid these kind of jobs. I refuse to be exploited in this manner and that is leading to an inability to find work.
This situation reminds me of the transition from the early days of the internet to the current ecosystem. Originally, there were only technical minded people online, then over time the average person was able to get connected. This completely changed the landscape of the web. The same situation is happening now. Remote work was dominated by freelancers and entrepreneurs, now many more people are working from home and companies who have never considered this as an option are diving head first into the pool and disrupting the workflow of those of us who have been in this game for decades.
In many ways, it's not unlike colonialism. Our "lands" and culture are being usurped and there seems to be no recourse. The employers do not care about the impact they have made, and refusing to participate has little to no effect. There is a seemingly endless supply of desperate people willing to apply for these positions so the businesses have no incentive to change their behavior.
I've honestly considered giving up freelancing to seek a manual labor job rather than put up with this anymore. But this is not really what I want to do. I have too much knowledge that would go to waste by such an action. I am just hoping for better times to come soon.
Hi 👋
This is Suchintan a Full Stack Developer with MERN stack.
Want to know more about me?
Connect me on - https://www.linkedin.com/in/suchintan-das-b698bb1b8/
Yes I understand Besworks, I am also hoping that just like internet has later on turned to be even more better and now-a-days there are a lot of useful stuffs to use on internet due to the transition that took while making everyone get an access to the web easily 🙂.
I believe something similar can also happen for work from home.
Freelancing will soon be one of the demanded fields in future which everyone will aspire to achieve just like influential market has turned. And getting a bid would be a lot harder slowly and slowly. Maybe that's the step of the world to bring everyone on the same ground where your location will not matter but your skills and experience will decide if you can get a work or not 🤔.
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Thanks for the comments guys, I appreciate the feedback.
I understand the surge in work from home culture, and I also believe the benefits are great on both sides of the coin. I just don't like how it's affected MY business. I've been freelancing for most of my adult life, and working remotely for the last ten years. I've also shared a home office with my wife while she worked remotely for a call center before the pandemic. The differences between our experiences as a contractor vs an employee were like night and day. And the differences between then and now are even more drastic.
Many companies were thrown into transitioning to work from home with no experience or guidance on how to do it effectively. I believe that a good percentage of them have gotten over the growing pains of that change and fine-tuned their standard operating procedures into something that works for both them and their employees.
But that's the key word here, employees. The most successful operations offer well defined roles within an organized structure and provide the necessary equipment to do the job. It's unreasonable for a business to expect someone to use their own equipment, yet demand full backdoor access into it enabling them to spy on personal data or usage.
Before freelancing, I used to manage IT assets for a living. I know how simple it can be to issue equipment to personnel on loan. And if they don't return it when their employment ends, just take it out of their last pay. Which brings up another point: employers are saving massive amounts of money by not maintaining infrastructure and equipment, but many are not passing these savings along to their staff in the form of higher wages, even though they now have higher bills to pay in the form of increased electricity consumption or internet bandwidth to cover the excessive amount of video conferences that have become the norm.
But all of this is secondary to my original point, that business who do not understand these concepts have invaded platforms which were meant to cater to short/mid term contract-based work. They have saturated my feed with posts that belong on their government sponsored job bank website.
I personally am not looking for a full-time position. I love freelancing and going from job to job with different clients on a regular basis. I highly value the flexibility this allows. I also believe my skills should be shared with as many clients as possible. I have high standards and a wealth of knowledge to offer.
The problem for me is that it's becoming harder to sustain this business model. The niche that I serve is getting smaller every day and it's becoming harder to make ends meet. It's always been hard enough to convince clients that a standards based approach is best, but now it's nigh impossible. Everyone has their pre-conceived notions of what they want because they heard some buzzwords being thrown around. They only just learned the basics but can't seem to grasp that not all of us are new to this.
This is especially troublesome for developers. It's one thing to hire remotely for a virtual assistant position and expect to dictate the requirements. However, when you're trying to solve a technical problem, it's best to let the experts tell you the best way. After all, we're the ones who designed and built the systems they use every day. Of course, not every developer is an expert at their craft, but someone who has been writing code since the dawn of the internet might just know a thing or two which you haven't even considered.
Very well written Besworks 🙂, I totally understand your point. And I do feel the pain freelancers are facing due to this transition that the companies have taken 🥲.
As you shared that companies got their profit increased but are not ready to increase the wage. You really hit it in the pin point ❗
Let me share my experience which I face while working as a employee. As the work from home started companies found it tough to take the transition. During that time I used to look for internships. Here's one of the company that I had to work which told me they operate on remote basis . I was totally fine with the thing, they used to assign me work one in the morning and another on the evening. I considered this thing also as fine as I get to work remotely. But now here comes the twist, they told me as their company is still not established so they will not be able to provide me the offer letter. Things really turned little bit strange for me as I think offer letter is one of the first document that I signed between an employee and employer 😞.
Now here's what I learned about work from home from companies side. You get to work from home so they consider you to be working 24 hours. Like they will keep track of hours of a work, you do it slower they call you ❗Get done faster they track you ❗. As you got done , they assign you another and this goes till night 10pm or something. Earlier they used to have employees from 9-5 but as employee is working remotely they don't think there is any bound to assign them tasks ⌛. They are like , you are working remotely and developers 🧑💻 are more productive in this mode . Let me know when you get done , we will assign you another task and you need to be in continuous zoom meets 🎥 and every hour we will monitor your progress. Isn't is harsh ?
Secondly if the employee would have been in office 💼 they would have worked for 5-6 hours out of 8 hours and would have been having time to take small breaks and some talks between each other. I had talked with many developers even from big mncs. They are not tracked by every hour and are not expected to work like a robot 🤖 with just sitting in a chair and typing all along 8 hours .
But here's the twist as the employee is at home , there is no restrictions of meetings, you are having your meals 🍳 but still need to attend some zoom calls explaining your role and work you did on the assignment. From day to night all along there is no control over meetings and expectations of getting things done. They sometimes want you to build whole Amazon in 2 hours and they want you to integrate a whole ML model with that. And that also like a day's work only.
I would point out the fact that the difference between a employee and a contractor has become negligible for the companies. They are assigning their work based on hours to their employees and want them to have thier own system and compatiblity to work smoothly.
What I noticed is that if a company used to get a job done in 3 months earlier are now getting done in 1 week or something. Due to work from home they got the freedom to increase the work pitch to it's pitch. Getting 24 hours of their employees day working.
They are also generating a very good profit. But here's the twist, due to remote work expenditure of employees increased drastically, working over a heavy project ? Get a high end setup at home and that also on your own cost. Got less or no internet, get your setup done on your own cost. But the company will be paying you the same salary or something marginally less just because that employee is working remotely.
The whole profit then get's used to expand the whole company and marketing. Ran out of budget? layoff employees as due to remote work number of applicants that you can get is much more due to worldwide coverage and you can get them anytime you want. Every single job listing says join immediately, in 1 week you get hired and the 2nd week you should be in the company working.
I see work from home as a new toy which a child got into his hands and is exploring and found it fascinating.
Work from home had some responsibilities from employers side but noone focusses on that. Every single person I met, just lists the advantages of it that hire from anywhere, get people onboard easily and get your company started in no time.
I have seen many people facing the issue that companies hire them remotely ,provide the employee a offer letter even and just after couple of days. If they find the need of that person , they send them the requirements with immediate joining or else terminates the offer letter 😞. Just see it from employees side how harsh it would be for them. They left their earlier job to join the new company and suddenly one day the company thought let's not onboard them and terminates the offer letter. A happily working employee just became job seeker in split of days 😫.
It's ofcourse based on my experience and opinion. I am open to know others thought, if they faced the same or something better 👇.
medium.datadriveninvestor.com/the-...
Many of the issues you describe are the exact reasons I avoid these kind of jobs. I refuse to be exploited in this manner and that is leading to an inability to find work.
This situation reminds me of the transition from the early days of the internet to the current ecosystem. Originally, there were only technical minded people online, then over time the average person was able to get connected. This completely changed the landscape of the web. The same situation is happening now. Remote work was dominated by freelancers and entrepreneurs, now many more people are working from home and companies who have never considered this as an option are diving head first into the pool and disrupting the workflow of those of us who have been in this game for decades.
In many ways, it's not unlike colonialism. Our "lands" and culture are being usurped and there seems to be no recourse. The employers do not care about the impact they have made, and refusing to participate has little to no effect. There is a seemingly endless supply of desperate people willing to apply for these positions so the businesses have no incentive to change their behavior.
I've honestly considered giving up freelancing to seek a manual labor job rather than put up with this anymore. But this is not really what I want to do. I have too much knowledge that would go to waste by such an action. I am just hoping for better times to come soon.
Yes I understand Besworks, I am also hoping that just like internet has later on turned to be even more better and now-a-days there are a lot of useful stuffs to use on internet due to the transition that took while making everyone get an access to the web easily 🙂.
I believe something similar can also happen for work from home.
Freelancing will soon be one of the demanded fields in future which everyone will aspire to achieve just like influential market has turned. And getting a bid would be a lot harder slowly and slowly. Maybe that's the step of the world to bring everyone on the same ground where your location will not matter but your skills and experience will decide if you can get a work or not 🤔.