Non Region Specific Ski Town Real Estate

[jmeb]

We'll go wherever it takes to get the talent.

Feel free to PM me if you're hiring. My wife just left her gig as an comp sci adjunct and is in the same space (ml engineer / algo design) looking for remote work (currently in a 3rd round 90min technical interview.... I'm hoping she makes enough I can do less work and spend more time in the hills ).

As someone (yes, a millenial) who frequently manages IT vendors -- I can save a great deal outsourcing development. But I often end up spending nearly as much in PMs and onshore resources to get things working, or working with data that cannot accessed from offshore for legal reasons.

While there will be a geographical reorganization of work for all this -- I think the idea that just because someone isn't in the office they're liable to be offshored is too reductive. This will apply to some jobs, but much of white collar work depends on workers who understand the local/state/national context of their work. My team is just one example -- while we all work remotely we'd be ineffective without being deeply embedded in our state. An office is just one place with productivity, creativity and local relationship building can happen -- it has upsides and downsides. I believe our working environments will gain in complexity and richness.

This will have impacts on all sorts of real estate decisions -- in ski towns, in downtowns, in neighborhoods. I for one was pretty good in an office environment in that I'm a generally affable white dude the office environment was made for. But I"m seeing a more diverse set of team members truly thrive now and enjoying my occasional in-person meetings at coffee shops, parks, co-working spaces, coworkers houses/yards, and the bar. Those meetings are important. My daily commute to work less so. FWIW, in my organization of ~5000 employees, 92% of managers reported stable or increasing productivity of their teams in the last 6 months.

 

[geepers]

I tend to agree. Look at how phone customer service jobs have been outsourced overseas. And the customer service has gone into the toilet IMO (AT&T, I'm talking about you!) Yes, the disaster of the pandemic is going to prove out in so many ways, including increased healthcare costs long-term.

I will say that I've been working remotely but I work directly with my HOA so much of it would be done "remote" anyway. However, the meetings over Zoom lack the personal contact that allows for developing good interpersonal working relationships and I can't imagine this being sustainable for larger companies long-term. It's especially hard when it's a group of people who have never met in person. It's honestly no different than on-line dating or even dating over the phone where you can't pick up on the nuances of that person's personality. It just.doesn't.work. So, I'm skeptical that it can be a sustainable long-term solution for a lot of businesses.

Some of my fondest memories are of working with fun, fantastic coworkers and the office dynamics that were just awesome. (I have some not-so-fond memories, too.)

Think it needs to be noted that there's a difference between "it doesn't work" and "it doesn't work for me". Or even "it doesn't work for me in a certain role".

 

[sparty]

I tend to agree. Look at how phone customer service jobs have been outsourced overseas. And the customer service has gone into the toilet IMO (AT&T, I'm talking about you!)
...

I'm 98% sure there are multiple tech companies who, while retaining an outsourced model for their lower-level tech support, have either kept it in the US or moved it back here.

One of the better cases years ago was a northern Vermont telecom (WCVT / GMA). They outsourced initial phone support to upstate New York; as a customer, it worked well enough, even if it was annoying to jump through their hoops as an IT manager (as in, yes, it's plugged in, turned on, and I've tried restarting it). Local accents are rather helpful, IMO, for phone roles, as tech terms can be tough to recognize with a heavy Indian accent (or a heavy Georgia accent, for that matter).

I guess the lesson is that a lot depends on your business goals and the resources you can get. WCVT's in house techs were decidedly better and only handled escalated calls, but there's no way they could've afforded enough people that good to handle all the "okay, try plugging it into an outlet that's not switched off" calls.

 

[Alexzn]

This is a familiar story. I'm a machine learning engineer / data scientist. I am the off-shored employee since I work for the European company, but we also have employees in India. We'll go wherever it takes to get the talent.

I also am the millennial that you speak of who packed up and moved to a ski town from a suburban office. I gave my terms to my employer -- take it or leave it. Fortunately for both of us they were happy to let me go full-time remote with a raise. I am never going back to the suburban office rat race.

Right. And my point is that you also think that it's your god-given right to tell that to your employer and not risk getting fired on the spot. Maybe you are a generational talent, but maybe you just happen to work in a really hot tech field: machine learning and AI, where the demand for competent people is far outstripping their supply. That is probably not quite the same situation for accountants, insurance agents, polymer chemists, mechanical engineers, sales people, etc. Our economy does not consist only of the AI data scientists (although some of my Silicon Valley friends seem to think that . You probably will be able to live in your ski town forever, I am not sure about some of your new neighbors who are in a different field of work. BTW, a lot of the valley companies who allow their employees to relocate and work remotely also dock their pay, so consider yourself lucky.

 

[Alexzn]

You'd think so, but I work in a field (software engineering) where outsourcing overseas has been a thing for years, and the price differences can be a full order of magnitude (we had quotes at $25/hour for an Indian firm, and there are definitely US firms that bill $250/hour). While there are plenty of low-dollar overseas firms out there, the high-dollar US firms se to be doing just fine, and the domestic market for software engineers seems plenty strong.

I've also been involved in three or four attempts to outsource development with different firms; in all those cases, it was worthwhile given that there's no way we could've brought on enough staff in-house to get the projects done, but at the same time, I spent a lot of my time cleaning up and finishing delivered code.

(a) Not every industry is software engineering... just saying... there is a lot of competent people in the world that can do simple white collar work for a lot less pay. My point is that unless you live in the neighborhood exclusively populated by tech workers (like Mission in SF), you are still vulnerable to the changes in the other industries.

(b) A lot of tech companies pulled back their outsourcing efforts when they had software engineer teams in-house sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in the open offices. With all the disadvantages of that arrangement, team communication was a breeze. When your US team is scattered between Vermont, Breck, and Hanalei maybe that team communication is lost. Maybe now your Ukrainian programmers can zoom into your meetings just like the surfer from Hanalei, and with 6 hours time difference between Vermont and Hawaii maybe Ukraine is not that far either. If the baseline of what is normal in the US has changed, it is naive not to expect the world to react...

 

[Alexzn]

FWIW, in my organization of ~5000 employees, 92% of managers reported stable or increasing productivity of their teams in the last 6 months.

Good to know that. Organizations usually have about 2-2.5 years of inertia, so we probably have not seen the full extent of the pandemic impact, but sounds like people are adjusting better than expected.

 

[MissySki]

Think it needs to be noted that there's a difference between "it doesn't work" and "it doesn't work for me". Or even "it doesn't work for me in a certain role".

Exactly! I very much disagree with the idea that relationships are lacking on Zoom versus in real life personally. Our companywide survey reveals a majority feel closer to their teammates than ever. Of course some people want to get back to the office too, but the decision to allow remote to be an option going forward was the fact that only 17 people out of ~350 actually wanted to go back full time. Though you need to be more intentional with all of your communication in a work from home situation, as an introvert, I have thrived and my confidence has grown immensely in the last 18 months with work interactions. All of the teams I work on have onboarded new people during this time and it’s gone great. It was a little weird at first, but now everyone is used to it. We had a company golf outing in person recently and it was really fun to see people on my teams in person. Some I had never met in real life yet! We picked right up as if we’d always been in person. My company also strives to “work fun” and we have a lot of opportunities for virtual happy hours etc. The model does work for many, so far anyway.

 

[MissySki]

I'm retired so I don't have a direct horse in the race, but it was so weird last winter riding chairlifts with strangers all winter (wearing masks of course). Most white collar workers middle-age and younger were having the time of their lives working remotely including while on extended ski vacations. Meanwhile older people were quite preoccupied about catching covid, remaining socially distanced, watching real estate go bonkers, and thinking the world is going down the tubes.
The original 9-11 event had a profound effect on my work environment as a longtime civilian employee of a military department. But the pandemic has had an even more widespread impact on our entire culture. And I agree that it will be years before we see how it will all play out.

I’m definitely one of those people who feel the pandemic has provided amazing opportunities for my work life in general and my work life balance specifically too. I’m not at all happy about Covid and the state of many things of course, but I’m pretty ecstatic about a lot of changes that came about in this time that wouldn’t have otherwise.. It’s a strange thing to ponder on at times for sure.

 

[MissySki]

Work from home indefinitely may be OK for some industries. It's been a bit of a nightmare for bringing new people on board where I work. But it has demonstrated to management that work from home is feasible and we can still get (some) things done without being in the office. So it is less of a stigma now to work from home, which is good.

We were some of those this past ski season, but our trips were only a week long. I tried to work as little as possible on those - prefer to actually use vacation time when I'm traveling somewhere nice.


California may have some weird tax implications for remote workers. I have heard we won't hire residents to work remotely from there because it may expose the entire company to that state's taxes. I may have misheard this.

Back to the topic - I have a dream to get a place closer to the mountains to make skiing, hiking, etc more accessible. As of now, we don't have enough saved to make it a permanent move. It's significantly cheaper to just spend vacation there and rent or stay in hotels (even with the relatively high prices). Cost of living is just so much cheaper where we are now. If we won the lottery, I know what I would want to do... apparently the mountains are where some lottery winners spend their $$ so it's hard to compete. The top 1% of wealth is accelerating away from the lower 99% so it's not going to get better any time soon without big changes from the government - at all levels.

Yeah we had a companywide meeting awhile ago that addressed that people can work in any state, and the company is setup to deal with any tax implications etc. They will even entertain raising your pay if you move to a higher cost of living area than MA, so CA would obviously be one. You will not get a pay cut for moving to a lower cost of living area though which some were originally concerned about. Not sure how that works when offering new hires salaries though. I personally wouldn’t want to live on the West coast because we do follow EST for hours and I’m not a morning person haha. No way am I going to be on 5 or 6am PST Zoom meetings regularly. But it seems to be working fine for our new CA employees I’ve interacted with so far. I try to schedule meetings later for them when it works out for everyone, but sometimes it just isn’t possible. I guess if you are a morning person it would be great because you’ll end your work day quite early too if you choose to. On the East Coast we are also very flexible with work times, as long as you attend any meetings you need to during core hours etc.

 

[jmeb]

The presumption that open-format, in-person offices facilitate team communications and ease decision making has a lot research that suggests otherwise. https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices

My personal experience is that the introduction of Slack and the dissolution of email as primary communications at work (which happened during the pandemic for us) is a far great net gain in team communication than any losses from being in the same physical space. The transparency and clarity gains are enormous.

 

[Wasatchman]

The presumption that open-format, in-person offices facilitate team communications and ease decision making has a lot research that suggests otherwise. https://hbr.org/2019/11/the-truth-about-open-offices

My personal experience is that the introduction of Slack and the dissolution of email as primary communications at work (which happened during the pandemic for us) is a far great net gain in team communication than any losses from being in the same physical space. The transparency and clarity gains are enormous.

I hate open office plans. That said, does the research distinguish between open office plan and in-person? Is it the office concept itself or a poorly executed office concept of totally open that hurts productivity.

Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan's opinion is that a lot of workers at his bank learn via apprenticeship style methodology and remote working kills that.

I think there are some jobs and careers where remote working works well, but other jobs it's a real minus in terms of collaboration and training.

Which begs the question that I don't think we hear enough about. What about the remote impact on education. If remote works well you could theoretically eliminate thousands of teachers and professors. You could theoretically have the very best teachers webcasting to thousands of smaller groups of students with lower paid teaching assistants. Unions aside, would that yield better results of giving thousands access to the very best teachers via webcast?

 

[surfsnowgirl]

I've been working remotely since January and I've never felt more connected to my coworkers. Teams and Zoom make it all possible. My confidence has also grown and I feel I'm thriving and gettng a lot done. Looking forward to going into the office once in a while but grateful for the balance. My office is 2.5 hours away so even when everyone is back full time those of us who live farther away won't be expected to go back regularly. I do like how I can go in for a couple days whenever I like, sometimes the facetime is nice but I much prefer working from home. My company also does virtual happy hours and ice breakers at the end of most meetings. I also love how I can work remotely in VT whenever I want and during the winter take a few runs during my lunch. Absolutely one of the positives of the pandemic.

 

[Alexzn]

I hate open office plans. That said, does the research distinguish between open office plan and in-person? Is it the office concept itself or a poorly executed office concept of totally open that hurts productivity.

Jamie Dimon of JP Morgan's opinion is that a lot of workers at his bank learn via apprenticeship style methodology and remote working kills that.

I think there are some jobs and careers where remote working works well, but other jobs it's a real minus in terms of collaboration and training.

Which begs the question that I don't think we hear enough about. What about the remote impact on education. If remote works well you could theoretically eliminate thousands of teachers and professors. You could theoretically have the very best teachers webcasting to thousands of smaller groups of students with lower paid teaching assistants. Unions aside, would that yield better results of giving thousands access to the very best teachers via webcast?

Remote learning sucks in comparison to in-class learning. Trust me. Ask how your kids did on distant learning last year

 

[newfydog]

Remote learning sucks in comparison to in-class learning. Trust me. Ask how your kids did on distant learning last year

Depends. I tried French classes at the local college. The professor was American, the students unmotivated, the curriculum irrelevant, the verbal demands miniscule. Then I got an online video Skype program with a few different teachers in France. Night and day, we tailored the courses to what I need, no time was wasted commuting, there was no place hide in the back row. Soon I was able to do things like call every bike shop in southern France to track down a replacement mountain bike fork for an old bike with obsolete headset dimensions.

 

[Alexzn]

Depends. I tried French classes at the local college. The professor was American, the students unmotivated, the curriculum irrelevant, the verbal demands miniscule. Then I got an online video Skype program with a few different teachers in France. Night and day, we tailored the courses to what I need, no time was wasted commuting, there was no place hide in the back row. Soon I was able to do things like call every bike shop in southern France to track down a replacement mountain bike fork for an old bike with obsolete headset dimensions.

Good for you. Now, imagine, how much more you would have learned by being in the same room with these teachers in France.

 

[newfydog]

Good for you. Now, imagine, how much more you would have learned by being in the same room with these teachers in France.

Good for you, you are perceptive enough to realize that the best place to learn a language is in the country it is spoken. That was not the point. The time spent commuting to France each week for a one hour class would be rather long. Sure, travel to the country is better, but as long as you are in the US, online language learning beats anything you'll get in any local school or university. I've done Spanish classes with locals before trips to Argentina, Mexico, and Cuba. Done French classes in the local accent with locals from north to south. From right here in my home office, 22 miles from the lifts. I won't be going back to an American classroom for languages.

 

[Rich McP]

Good for you. Now, imagine, how much more you would have learned by being in the same room with these teachers in France.

I was thinking about asking Breck if I could work remotely from Grand Cayman this winter. Shouldn't be any problem to teach skiing remotely, right?

 

[newfydog]

I was thinking about asking Breck if I could work remotely from Grand Cayman this winter. Shouldn't be any problem to teach skiing remotely, right?

If neither of you is on the snow, you would accomplish just as much (or little) no matter where you are both sitting. If you think that sounds absurd, just go through this forum and see how much online ski instruction goes on. Endless questions and answers about technique, online, usually without even video.

 

[newfydog]

The pandemic did a lot to remove the sigma of working from home. I used to consult for a multinational company in their Jakarta office. An acquaintance of mine became the manager of the Houston office. I told him I could do some short jobs for him out of my home in Bend and fly down to Houston to present the work. "No way!...It is hard enough to justify bringing in a consultant....if I paid one to work from a ski area they'd hang me" Told me I could come work in Houston any time though

 

[Alexzn]

I guess the subtle point of this discussion is not whether people like remotte work, of course they do, who would not like more flexibility. It is about whether the companies like remote work, and the jury may still be out on this one. As I mentioned, that question may be settled only by the next economic crisis.