Comment by spaniard89277 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spaniard89277 | Hacker News Reader

I do the exact same job in my office than with my laptop anywhere else.

Im in my mid 30s, and most of employees are +45 in my job. They really want to come back, and there are already a few in there, but whats the point?

I guess they feel lonely, bosses too, but my life is so much better with WFH.

Now Im just used to go places with my laptop, my phone as hotspot, and do work somewhere nice and quiet.

I can even travel on workdays. This very week Im heading to Madrid to visit a friend. I don't need to take time off as I'll be capable of working there.

It's usually just around my province, but knowing I can do this if I want is very liberating.

Im not a SWE, I'm aiming to be one, as I currently work for an ISP and get low pay. Getting even a junior job in SW will likely give me a jump in income. I wonder if I will be able to continue with this lifestyle, because I'll probably need more concentration, not sure yet.

Of course the fact that I can do this makes my otherwise boring and alienating job, with low pay, much more attractive. I didn't leave because I was afraid when the pandemic, now I just take it easy while I i study to change career.

Of course I have no kids, no wife, no responsibilities. If I don't do this now...

The same thing for me. I go to another city and pay a visit for a week, but say I need to be available on Teams from 9 to 5 and attend some meetings, and get some work done. Usually it slows me down a little, so I do some extra prep work before the visit and catch up when I return home. It's like a little vacation without taking time off.

What do you do on your city visits? I would like to do that but everything I like to do is only open during the day, and where I live by 5pm when I finish work it's dark and cold

Travel to a sunnier part of the world.

That's quite expensive, and also bad for the environment with flight emissions

Usually I go back to my hometown and work during the day, and visit friends at night. I go out during the day on the weekend.

I go out during lunchtime during the week (or message on Teams that I will be out for a little while), but usually that is for appointments or errands - on my last visit to my hometown I visited my accountant to do my taxes.

I work until 16 and here in Spain you still have sun and plenty stuff to do. I live in the colder part so I it's pretty confortable.

Un Madrid I guess I'll visit my friend, some museums and stuff and go eat and drink out with people.

Cries in Englishman

Portugal is waiting for you. If you're able to get a remote job, you're set.

You don't even have to become a freelancer. Remote.com and similar companies can set you up as a portuguese employee.

I'm saying Portugal and not Spain bc I think it's better for foreigners right now. And Portugal is amazing.

You can change time zones too. I went skiing recently and ran into some people who wfh in the east coast. They were living right in breckenridge for the season, working in the mornings, then by quitting time east coast time hit they still had a few hours every single day to go out and ski in mountain time.

It might go either way to be honest. I'm currently living and working Spain as a SWE (immigrant) for a US company and the amount of useless meetings there is insane. That makes it quite hard to work on-the-go as half of the day is spent in meetings (most of them with camera turned on).

We rearely do that. We just type the stuff we need in teams and the occasional formative talk once a month or so.

Meetings are about twice a year, and they appear in my teams calendar so I can plan ahead.

When I feel we need a serious discussion I write a long ass text, and people usually follows without needing a call. It's like forums, so that's something I'm used to.

But again, my job is very jump in, jump out. I don't really need too much focus, it's pretty much helpdesk with some admin, so I can get distracted without problem, and I don't really need to keep any code model in my head.

My only worry if I find a job in SW will be that, the need to keep my mind focused, not being able to be pretty much anywhere. I hope the pay offsets this fact.

That sounds like a dream to be honest. I wish I could work without having meetings where nobody likes to say anything and it just drags on.

Wrt the SW job, it might be more difficult in the beginning as it takes some focus to understand the system and how your work fits into the bigger whole. After a time it becomes easier to understand and to jump in, jump out.

Of course this completely depends on the company and job type. My job is very non-demanding and I can easily coast by on just 3-4 hours of work a day. Other people are in a different situation.

It's not a dream job because it barely pays above minimum wage. I have a hard time saving. And that's cos I live in a cheapish city.

I hope jumping into software makes this better and can finally be financially confy.

>most of them with camera turned on

Just record a loop of yourself and use OBS as a virtual camera.

Can I ask how are you dealing with taxes, working for a US company in Spain? Are you contracting your SWE services and billing them? Or are you an employee of the US company?

I'm an employee of the Spanish office, but the company itself is a US one.

Check remote.com or similar solutions. They have a few competitors, but for 200$ you become a full employee in your country of residence.

In some countries working as full time employee via remote.com etc. gets you less money than having a company and dealing with the taxes.

Yes, that's common for sure, but you also don't have to deal with the amount of BS that comes with being a contractor in some countries. It's the case of Spain, where the Tax Agency and Social Security are very aggressive and gives lot of headaches depending on what you do.

Some employees even have premiums for putting their hand in your pocket. So yea, it may be more expensive but the peace of mind that gives you for offloading all of that to someone else is priceless.

+45 is a temperature, or something else on a scale that goes below zero. >45 can be written as 45+, not +45.

I understood what they meant.

That’s a pretty low standard for written communication though.

1T5 G00D 3N0UGH.

It’s good enough to not complain about and spend my time on better things.

For real?

Not all comments need to be read as aggressive. This sounded more informative, and personally as an ESL, helps me improve.

GP's Spanish writing habit, without a doubt

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