Retirement Planning - Lessons Learned

[drssg]

I think part of the deal with remote employees is that it puts more pressure on management to understand what their employees are doing, so they are in a position to evaluate whether the remote employee is doing a good job. For a considerable portion of my career, I had a non-technical administrative manager. The sad reality was that he/she didn't even know what I do. If I provided a detailed description of everything I did during a specified period, he still wouldn't be in a position to evaluate whether that was an impressive amount of work, or not. The nearest hope of evaluating my performance was to note whether I show up on time, stay reasonably late, and appear to be diligently working on something whenever he walks past my desk. He combines that with feedback from other people who also don't understand what I do, and that becomes a perception-based annual performance review.

I worked remotely for the last two years of my career, and I had the best manager of my career. This guy could have done my job better than I could, but his time was better spent overseeing and managing what his team was doing. There was clear visibility and expectations of what everyone was supposed to get done and when. With that level of understanding nobody really cares what exact hours of the day I spend sitting at my desk.

I had no commute. I could work in my pajamas. I had a beautiful view of my property outside my office window. Those were the best years of my career.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^^
The communication infrastructure has to be in place for that to work, however. Internet service in this area is a crap shoot; I've rebooted my router at least a dozen times tonight as that's what it takes to stay online; we're operating on '70s vintage lines and the phone company has no reason to upgrade. Satellite doesn't work well when it's cloudy out... I've seen the sun about 5 days this year. I'm thinking about switching to cellular; it will work for me, but they cautioned me that it isn't for somebody who likes to stream movies.

 

[ultrarunner]

Yep... I left 1920's infrastructure for 1950"s infrastructure with copper for internet... Such is the state in the big city.

The call went out to work remote but it was a no go when you care for patients and keep the facility open.

If remote is the future what prevents off shore?

 

[JethroB]

^^^^^
The communication infrastructure has to be in place for that to work, however. Internet service in this area is a crap shoot; I've rebooted my router at least a dozen times tonight as that's what it takes to stay online; we're operating on '70s vintage lines and the phone company has no reason to upgrade. Satellite doesn't work well when it's cloudy out... I've seen the sun about 5 days this year. I'm thinking about switching to cellular; it will work for me, but they cautioned me that it isn't for somebody who likes to stream movies.

Streaming over a standard cell can get really expensive in a hurry. I got away with it for a while using a company cellphone as a hotspot but we had about 30 GB of unused data each month. (I managed the 40 phones. ) Verizon charges $15/ GB above my current plan of 2 GB/month. 1 GB is good for a couple of hours of high def streaming. Netflix allows you to dial down to standard definition and about doubles your mileage. The Verizon unlimited plans sound good but restrict the speed to 600kbps after the first 15 GB. Was a little careless last fall when my cable modem died. $60 in a couple of days.

 

[MossRoad]

Yep... I left 1920's infrastructure for 1950"s infrastructure with copper for internet... Such is the state in the big city.

The call went out to work remote but it was a no go when you care for patients and keep the facility open.

If remote is the future what prevents off shore?

Nothing. The lowest bidder will get the job.

So many companies are now facing the reality that they can toss their employees a few dollars more to stay home and it costs the employer less money in the long run, as they don't have a physical plant to maintain. Think about it. No heat, no lights, no I.T. staff to maintain no network. No desktop workstations. No restrooms. No office to clean.

My wife works for a financial institution. She's been working from home since March. The only time she goes in is if they need a physical thing done, like loading money on plastic cards. That only happens 1 day every few weeks. I think she's had to go in less than 10 times in 9 months. She has a card table set up in the corner of the living room. That's her office. They gave her a laptop and a 2nd monitor, a keyboard and a mouse. Her boss said they've been more productive than ever, and doubts they'll go back to working in the office anytime in the foreseeable future. No reason to.

I suspect they are more productive, because they aren't right next to each other gabbing all day. Everything is done via web calls and zoom meetings.

She loved it this summer. At 12:01 each day she was out in our pool for 55 minutes. Back to work at 12:59. All fall she took walks at lunch. Now that it's cold out, she rides her elliptical machine at lunch. She has no reason to go back.

So to answer your question, office work is virtual. Doesn't matter where you live as long as you have good connectivity.

 

[drssg]

There were certainly plenty of companies using off shore resources well before covid. The advantage is a lower hourly rate for resources. The disadvantages are that the resources are working in a very different time zone, there are frequently language barriers, and it's a contractor mentality where the resources tend to not have a long-term history with the company. For some situations, the employer considers it to be worth the reduced wage rate. In other situations, the employer wants to have more long-term stability, so they aren't constantly bringing new workers up to speed.

When I worked remotely, I had a six hour drive to come into the office about twice a year. I used to say that they wanted to make sure I hadn't gone feral, and I could still reasonably present myself. If the employer cared, that would also not be practical for an off shore worker.

 

[travisbb]

If remote is the future what prevents off shore?

Offshoring was tried in a big way in the 90's and early 2000's -- it almost always ended in failure.

It turned out being at work at the same time matters. If you can't pick up the phone and call the customer or manager everything takes three times as long. So anywhere not in the same timezones as the continental US is tough.

It also turned out that good English skills and an understanding of US work culture is important to understanding directions well enough to do the job right the first time. Redoing the job multiple times cost more than any possible savings.

With that in mind, outsourcing destinations these days aren't India and China, but rather smalltown USA and Canada.

 

[JethroB]

How many people can do their jobs from home? 10% maybe? Office workers, IT, sales. White collar mostly.
I managed or supervised an accounting staff of about 10 for 20 years. There always seemed to be one or two problem employees. Those PITA's that would spend the day talking, surfing, or playing minesweeper then hit the door at 5 o'clock. And how do you train new hires remotely? I'm glad I not there for the experiment.

 

[Snobdds]

Retirement is about free cash flows, in a constant stream. Any advisor will try to get you as many streams flowing into one lake for the rest of your days. Make better streams and remove dams.

At my company, a health insurer, we have about 90% at home. In 2019, we went to a cloud based system. Every thing is internet based and we had about a two month adjustment, then it was business as usual. The people in the building are upper management and my area, actuarial. The bandwidth needed to pull and push data is not present on residential internet. We need the fiber optic lines to handle the loads. Internet connections and speed capabilities have become a weak link in the evolution to working from home.

 

[two_bit_score]

If you have the means, having a mortgage in retirement is no different than having a mortgage in your working years.

But that piece of mind and sense of accomplishment is priceless. . The tax deduction advantage is gone for most people.

The tax deduction 殿dvantage never equals the interest you pay on any mortgage!

Free and clear always trumps tax deduction!

And the money that would go to the mortgage payment goes into other investments at higher rates of return. We enjoy being the lender instead of the borrower.