patrick.net

Ceffer says

Workplace masturbation and porno breaks are de rigueur as long as you don't have a wide angle camera and utilize a fwap guard on the microphone.

Who hasn't tried this already!

My niece is an Computer Science graduate working from home in that field in Davao City, Philippines, all the clients are American companies.

A couple of years she told me her take home pay was between $200-$300 per month.

Working from home. In Mindanao. For American customers.

Those folks have all the same computer skills we have here, know all the same platforms, etc.

B.A.C.A.H. says

My niece is an Computer Science graduate working from home in that field in Davao City, Philippines, all the clients are American companies.

A couple of years she told me her take home pay was between $200-$300 per month.

Working from home. In Mindanao. For American customers.

Those folks have all the same computer skills we have here, know all the same platforms, etc.

So she has learned that she needs to work on her negotiating skills, yes?

BayArea says

Rents in metro centers have dropped and suburban SFH are skyrocketing - never in a million years did I see this coming.

Record low interest rates + work from home making people want to be more comfortable at home.

Yes. What is awesome and hilarious at the same time is TPTB have instituted this shift at the direct opposition to their Agenda 21, Year 2030 bullshit ideologies.

ForcedTQ says

So she has learned that she needs to work on her negotiating skills, yes?

I'd say she has superb negotiating skills, to get and hold the job.

It's dream job in Davao City. There's thousands more where that came from, and the schools are cranking them out every year.

I have so many inlaws in the Philippines struggling to find work even though they have Nursing Degrees, passed the board exams, etc. Those who are able to immigrate to here or the UK can easily fill the nursing roles here. They are not less skilled than our US-trained nurses. Some of my nursing-trained inlaws are doing other less skilled work because they cannot get a nursing job in their country.

Computer Science Engineering is becoming like nursing. In recent decades they figured out, like in India, not much infrastructure required to master those skills. They're cranking them out like crazy, just like nursing has been.

Waitup says

Is it wrong if I don't inform my company when I'm sure there will be no impact to my work hours and performance?

I'd at least check. One of my peers what fired when we were sent home to work and he flew to Japan to work from there. It was back in the 14 days to bend the curve so he wasn't preventing himself from getting the covids.

Not my call, I just saw it happen.

B.A.C.A.H. says

Computer Science Engineering

If you can work from home and your physical presence is not required by your employer to be in an office within the USA, then you place yourself in competition with foreign and cheaper workers who can perform the same work as you.

Its the democratization or globalization of the white collar workforce and I wonder if this pandemic was created to cause this. I have heard some call it a planned pandemic or pandemic to not only timely impact Trump's reelection chances but to have other effects like disrupt the white collar office workforce.

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Ceffer says

AF is in purgatory, and somebody has to take up the slack.

Those are difficult shoes. I hope it's not too much trouble for you. Your sacrifice is very much appreciated!

ForcedTQ says

direct opposition to their Agenda 21

Great point! I think the anti-suburb thing is still part of sleepy joe's platform though.

ad says

If you can work from home and your physical presence is not required by your employer to be in an office within the USA, then you place yourself in competition with foreign and cheaper workers who can perform the same work as you.

The other beauty of working from home is that you can work multiple jobs at the same time and neither employer have to know.

My company requires that I work within the state of California because it simplifies their taxes and protects them from tax claims by other states.

I could temporarily work from somewhere else and no one would know, but could not actually change state or country of residence and keep my current job.

Wait, maybe country would work, since I'd still technically be a resident of California. But I definitely don't want to pay rent in two places.

Patrick says

Wait, maybe country would work, since I'd still technically be a resident of California. But I definitely don't want to pay rent in two places.

Can't you just get a Mailboxes Etc or UPS mail stop in CA and then, AirBnB the world?

Is that a legal residence?

Patrick says

Is that a legal residence?

When I was working in NYC, NJ, etc, I'd kept a MA mailstop which became my home address so I only paid taxes to one state instead of several. This was before I'd bought my home in Central MA.

It's like

123 Main St, Suite 51
Cambridge MA 02141

as oppose to a POB.

That's very interesting.

So then your mail gets forwarded, right?

Any advice on which service to use for a mailstop?

I heard that if you work in another state/country and its not extremely temporary (I think 14-30 days) it affects how your company needs to do accounting and taxes. ie they may owe money to the state/country you're visiting.

I also heard that some tech companies are aware that many employees are relocating to other more affordable locations, and they're monitoring this, and some are hitting people will paycuts that reflect the difference in cost of living between their current and previous locations. Some made you sign an agreement to notify them if your move or leave the country, and they may fire you if they catch you.

I plan to travel a bit soon without telling my employer, and so I've been thinking about how to avoid detection. My plan is VPN + a dedicated travel router (GL-AR750S-EXT) that has the ability to handle the VPN connection internally. Then, I will connect to the router via Ethernet cable, and disable the wifi and bluetooth in my laptop.

The problem with wifi / bluetooth is that its common now for "location services" software to scan for mac addresses of nearby wifi access points to help locate you quicker. Same for bluetooth. Their database knows that a certain mac address is the starbucks on 12th ave in NYC, for example. Your company may make you install certain endpoint management software in your laptop, and it may contains such location software, or maybe your OS does and they utilize it etc... Also, endpoint management software tends to periodically collect other stuff like IP addresses of all network interfaces.

The reason you dont want to use VPN on your laptop is because their software may be able to see it, and may see your IP change as the VPN turns on/off etc... But, if the VPN is done in an external router, and you set it up so that no network connection is possible unless its through VPN (including DNS through VPN) and then turn off your wifi/bluetooth, and connect via ethernet, the only network connection visible is an ethernet cable. IMO this is a terrific solution. I can't think of how they could detect you, so long as your VPN exit point is located somewhere acceptable. You could have the VPN exit at your own home if desired, or just rent a VPS server and install openvpn on it (its really easy using the setup script projects people have created). I plan to VPN to my home, but will maintain a backup VPS w/ openvpn and wireguard. I'm mildly averse to commercial VPN, just because they have known IPs more likely to be on a list.

TrumpingTits says

And YOU might owe income taxes in both states, too.

The way it works is that you are taxed to the highest level. So if you remotely work for a California company in your home state or domicile of Connecticut, and your salary would equate to a 9% income tax rate in California, and a 10% income tax rate in Connecticut where you live, then you would pay 9% to California and 1% to Connecticut.

If you live in Nevada, Washington, Florida, or other states that do not have an income tax, then you would just pay the 9% income tax to California's Franchise Tax Board (FTB) in Sacramento. That is what I do living in the Florida panhandle (ie., Matt Gaetz's district) and working as an engineer and 1099 for Californian companies.

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Patrick says

That's very interesting.

So then your mail gets forwarded, right?

Any advice on which service to use for a mailstop?

I know people that use the UPS store which is like Mail Boxes ETC. They have a mailing address that seems like a physical mailing address which is the mailing address to the store. The store charges to forward mail as an additional fee if they are unable to pick up the mail at their mailbox at the store.

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Patrick says

So then your mail gets forwarded, right?

I have to request it and I pay a one time parcel fee every month since they roll up a few pieces for the month into one sleeve or they could just charge me per letter.

Patrick says

Any advice on which service to use for a mailstop?

The service I used to have was local and is gone now so you'll have to poke around.

Hircus says

or just rent a VPS server and install openvpn on it

This is the best idea because they are VPS servers in California and don't charge a hefty fee per month. And then, you just have to VPN onto it and you'll always be seen as a California person and not someone from Montreal, VPN-ing onto a stateside corporate site while banging a hot Quebecoise.

It's not a problem anymore as my firm allows me to travel 'the world' to spread the message of how great our company is.

Latest NPR report on Zoom Towns as part of work-from-home (WFH) trend

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/09/08/909680016/zoom-towns-and-the-new-housing-market-for-the-2-americas

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Waitup says

I've been working from home and will probably be in this situation well into the next year. I am planning on moving to Europe for a few months to live with a cousin and work from Europe. Is it wrong if I don't inform my company when I'm sure there will be no impact to my work hours and performance?

No!