I'm leaving GitLab to help everyone work remotely
There&#x27;s an interesting downside about remote work that most articles don&#x27;t talk about. Pay.<p>The brutal fact is most companies simply re-brand outsourcing as &quot;Remote&quot; employees. Case in point, a few years ago, a DIY website builder (a company with a name of a coniferous plant species which I won&#x27;t name directly) contacted me for a &quot;remote&quot; position.<p>I passed all their tests and we eventually went to the salary negotiation stage. I agreed to this interview in the first place because I read online they paid really well for their employees, particularly in the US (Bay area).<p>So, when we were discussing the pay, I threw in a number that&#x27;s common for the Bay area employees and what seemed very, very reasonable for me. In fact, my current salary was almost the same, just so to make it clear to you that I wasn&#x27;t trying to take advantage of them or anything.<p>Immediately, the founder got offensive and told me, &quot;What? Are you serious?? You live in Asia (I was living in Singapore at the time, which already had better pay as opposed to PH), for our employees in Philippines we pay 1&#x2F;3rd of that and I can still get the job done. Why would I want to pay you <i>that</i> salary?&quot; I told him, &quot;Well, this is what you pay your Bay Area employees, don&#x27;t you? Besides, my experience more than matches the job profile and requirements and my test results just proved to you I am more than capable for this position.&quot;<p>His answer? &quot;But, you don&#x27;t live in the Bay area&quot;. I thanked him for his opportunity and advised him to contact some sweatshops instead of playing the &quot;remote&quot; game. Since then, I very very carefully ask anyone who uses the word &quot;remote&quot; a LOT of questions, qualify them if they really know remote isn&#x27;t the same as outsourcing before even going into the interview.<p>I would have happily agreed to a lower salary if it was fair enough. But, asking me to go down to 1&#x2F;3rd of my price because of where I lived in seemed ridiculous to me. In the last 10 years, I&#x27;ve lived in 7+ different countries and 35+ different locations within them as I&#x27;m that sort of person who likes to travel and explore new cultures. Basing my salary or worth based on where I&#x27;m from, where I live in at present seems the most ridiculous thing to me about remote work.<p>Edit: Typos and clarifications