alt Hacker News> We’ve hired some real duds into remote roles who had years of remote experience, apparently doing the same thing they tried to do with us: Work a couple hours a week or maybe collect paychecks from multiple jobs.
Did you ever hire any duds when you were not hiring remote?
> The remote world changed a lot since COVID and the rise of /r/overemployed and “Four Hour Workweek” junk has only made it worse for those of us who just want to work remote without shenanigans.
A four hour work week is very normal in plenty of countries and in some there are common constructs built around even shorter work weeks.
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> Did you ever hire any duds when you were not hiring remote?
Of course, but that's obviously a deflection.
In person hires can't physically be in two offices at the same time.
In person employees can't get a new in-person job and then not resign from their last job because they want to extract as many paychecks as they can before they get caught and fired.
In person employees can't substitute in a hired interview taker for the interview and then hope nobody notices their voice sounds too different when they start the job.
These are all real things that we've encountered with remote work (and more)
Saying X can also happen in Y! Is a classic fallacious argument used by people who want you to think two things are equal, when in fact they can have very different probabilities and risk profiles.
When I was working at a hybrid company we even had a few cases where people either couldn't focus at home (kids, family, distractions) or were insufferably combative in chat. Bringing them into the office solved it.
The two environments are not equal, no matter how many times someone tries to deflect with "That problem can also happen in the office!"
> Did you ever hire any duds when you were not hiring remote?
That only worked a couple hours a week and collected multiple paychecks? Probably not.
Sure, they hired duds. Just not that level of dud. And if they were, they found out much more quickly.
> Did you ever hire any duds when you were not hiring remote?
Bingo. I had an exec ask me once how will we know people are working if they are remote? I asked back, how do we know they are working now?
Remote work is harder on management and leadership. It’s easy to see if someone is at their desk and seems friendly, it’s hard to really think about what value a person brings.