I spent my entire career so far working remote in the business process outsourcing industry (I was an interpreter for 8 years, got fired, spent 11 months unemployed, and got a customer service representative job that I officially started this past Monday but training starts tomorrow).

The commonality between the jobs is that both my former and current employers are companies controlled by people outside of Canada. At my former job, HR personnel was somewhere in South America while my manager was in the US. They did not pay severance after firing me, forcing me to sue them. At my new job, my manager is in the Philippines, and who knows where HR personnel is. The recruiter who gave me the offer is in El Salvador. But at this new job, I am facing a minimum wage issue.

For context, in Ontario, Canada, there is something called the homeworkers minimum wage under the Employment Standards Act (ESA). That is a minimum wage specifically for remote workers, which is why it is relevant to this sub. It is always 10% higher than the general minimum wage. The problem was that I applied for this customer service job, got an interview and got offered $16.58. I rejected the offer because I know it's illegal, as the general minimum wage is $17.95 and the homeworkers minimum wage is $19.70. It took them a week to come up with a $18.25 offer, which I accepted even though I know it's still illegal.

Now, the job post itself is logically inconsistent. It clearly states that it only hires people living in Quebec. But they posted the job under Toronto, Ontario. I repeatedly told them I live in Ontario during the entire process (from the initial application to the interview, to all the onboarding paperwork, including TD1 and TD1ON Personal Tax Credits Return for income tax withholdings) and they allowed me to proceed. Now that all onboarding paperwork is complete and a corporate laptop has been shipped to my address and I signed for it, I will start training tomorrow.

To be clear, the homeworkers minimum wage does not apply to independent contractors. I am obviously not an independent contractor because:

• The company sent me a laptop

• I will be assigned shifts

• I have a manager

• I have been enrolled in health insurance that is heavily subsidized (I only have to pay $120 a year in premiums, which likely means my employer is paying at least 90% of the premiums)

• I joined a Registered Pension Plan (defined contribution pension plan) that is only available to employees of the company, where I contribute 6% of my pay and my employer contributes 3%

So, is it true that if I bring up the minimum wage issue as a newbie, it will likely put my job at risk? Section 74 of the ESA protects employees against reprisals. Is it better for me to wait until after October 1, 2027 (assuming I still work there) then talk about this issue (because everyone knows that minimum wage is definitely going up on that day, which could cause the $18.25 wage to fall below even the general minimum wage for all work completed after that date)? Of course, under both the ESA and the Limitations Act (i.e. Statute of Limitations), I have 2 years from the date of the first minimum wage violation to complain and get back all the back pay I am rightfully entitled to. But is it really safer to complain after I am established? It is important to note that nowhere in my employment contract did it say that, in the event of a layoff or dismissal without cause, that I am only entitled to the ESA statutory minimums, which means the company is likely liable for common law reasonable notice, just like my former employer was when I was fired. So, the longer I work at a company, the more expensive it is for them to get rid of me unless they can successfully prove, on a balance of probabilities, that I am dismissed due to intentional wrongdoing, in a court of law.

Hey everyone!
In 3 days I am starting my first remote job and I don't really know how remote working works. I am working as a customer support chat associate. What are your tips and tricks for remote working and also for when you need to go to the bathroom or just to step away for a few minutes so my status won't appear as 'Inactive' on Slack, platforms like these etc.
Important context: I'm working on a company-issued monitored laptop, so installing third-party apps (like mouse jigglers, auto clickers etc) or plugging in sketchy USB devices is completely out of the question.

Reposting. Apparently I hadn’t acknowledged the rules. Im not great at Reddit

I’m low level management for a Fortune 500 company. Our team has been officially remote since the pandemic and the office we used to report to was closed down a number of years ago. Like just about everyone, the company is dealing with hard times and laid thousands of people off a few weeks ago.

Today, we were sent an in person meeting and told that the meeting was mandatory for anyone who lives in the state. Three days notice with no information what the meeting is about. The office we are expected to meet at is almost an hour away and in a shady part of a large metro city.

In the last 6 years, this has never happened. I lead an international team and besides my sr manager, our other leaders live out of state. Since there are only two people my director manages in the state, I go into the office the few times a year he’s in town.

My sr manager asked the leader who scheduled the meeting what it was about. No response.

Are we cooked? I think they’re about to force us to start going into the office. What are your speculations? Funny. Crazy. I need a pick me up. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.

What are the steps that I should take to be able to get a contract with a company? I have a degree in Electric&communications engineering and can pretty much work on (software,Ai,Embedded systems,electrical,automation) engineering but whenever I apply for junior positions there is no said reason for rejection and sometimes no reply comes....I just need tips on how to actually get a remote job.

I thought this would be good for me after being laid off from my remote job in July. Boy this is really hard, one of the hardest things to adjust to in my life. I definitely grew a fear of people and being out of my house in those ten years. I’m in week two and might quit without a backup. I feel bad because everyone likes me and I’ve met everyone but the job isn’t what i expected and I’m realizing that I’m underpaid for the expectations now.

Cons: commute (half hour each way), hearing people eat and talk, germs, bathroom stalls, being asked to go to lunch when i have IBS and gluten intolerance, I’m an introvert, being watched, having fears of everything, the lighting 🤢, strict schedule, working next to boss

Pros: stability, being a real face to the team, belonging, meetings in person, dressing nice.

Edit: hybrid, two days wfh after probationary period (2-3 months)

Hey there, I have been scouring the internet to see if anyone has actually used VettedLance and successfully got a job. It has hundreds of jobs posted on the site but ZERO information anywhere I can find in any reddits/sub-reddits/linkedin posts (anywhere!) that can verify if anyone has actually got a job from it.

So my question is, has anyone actually applied, done the AI interview and received a job?

Posting here as well as another subreddit - hope thats ok!

I'm 18 and currently in college with a lot of free time. Unfortunately, I can't work in real life because my mom has an illness that requires additional care, so I'm basically her caretaker. However, aside from doing a few daily tasks and helping her from time to time, I'm doing absolutely nothing for the majority of the day/week.

Since I was 14, I've been doing a lot of gigs and side tasks online. I've worked as a moderator/game support for a game for quite a few years and made a few thousand dollars from it. Unfortunately, the game developer is no longer working on the game.

While I was doing that, I also tried multiple other gigs. I tried becoming a photo editor, tried voice acting (didn't work), tried video editing (wasn't really my thing), tried YouTube but had no passion for it, and tried streaming for a while, which also didn't work out. I even tried language translation (I know two languages), but that didn't work either.

I also tried learning coding online. I followed a 20-hour course and couldn't even type a single page on my own, lol. I applied for audio transcription jobs but didn't get accepted. I also tried data entry and applied for multiple random AI jobs that seemed like they didn't require any experience or a degree, but I don't seem to be the type of employee they're looking for.

Anyway, that's a list of some of the jobs I've tried applying for or learning, but either failed miserably at or got rejected from.

Does anyone have any advice for me or could possibly point me in the right direction? I genuinely don't know what I'm missing or what I'm doing wrong. I've been mass-applying to multiple jobs every day for the past five months, but I've only gotten one interview, and I was rejected afterward. As for the rest, they didn't even give me a chance at an interview.

I'm not looking for an insanely high-paying job either. I'd be happy with $800 a month. I'm not expecting a $2k or $3k job or anything like that. I'm simply looking for a job or profession I can get into, develop my skills in, and eventually build a stable career around.

If any of you have any advice, please let me know. I'm also open to learning new skills, and taking as much time as it needs, as long as I can eventually achieve my goal.

(Also i need money right now so i can't really wait until i get my degree in 4 years)

Tested the routers in and out of the country. My teams location is fixed. Anything I am possibly forgetting? Thank you

Kinda random but if you need a good team activity, we just played this free one called Sheeple- https://thorsteingames.com/sheeple. It was a good ice breaker at least.

(Sorry for the repost, guess I clicked the wrong rules submission button lol)

Hoy there!

I don’t know if anyone here works in a small, async remote team where everyone happens to use Apple devices. I realize that’s very niche, but I’ve been building something for a while and wanted to share it.

It’s called Hoy, and I know I’m biased, but it brought fun and a weird kind of satisfaction to how I talk and share stuff with my team every day.

I’m a bit embarrassed by how much time I’ve put into it. It started as a silly, rough experiment, but the concept felt strong and I couldn’t stop tweaking. It’s still far from my vision, but it finally feels like a real app and not an experiment.

Slack, Teams and the like never quite worked for us. They’re great tools, just overkill for our small creative team. I wanted something simple, useful and beautiful, where I can share anything with anyone, keep my people always on top, and feel like I’m talking to them on a walkie-talkie. Drop something and carry on, no switching context, no juggling windows.

So Hoy puts your people as little faces in your Mac’s menu bar. Drag a file onto a face and it lands in their channel, even if they’re offline. Hold a face to talk and it writes down what you say as you speak. You can also record your screen with a selfie bubble and narrate straight from the face. No more recording, saving to the desktop, opening the chat, dragging the file in... you know the drill.

Every face is a channel, one person or a group, and an invite link is all it takes to bring someone in. Absolutely no sign-up, no account, no Hoy server. It runs 100% on your own iCloud.

It’s free, and Pro isn’t needed for most people. iPhone and iPad versions are ready too, beta opens Monday.

I’d love honest feedback. Does this fit how remote teams actually work, or am I solving a problem only my little team has?

gethoy.app

(Mods, if this isn’t welcome here, feel free to remove it. I just wanted to ask for feedback.)

Realizing I don't know what all is out there and when reflecting on this, tips came to mind more than buys. Maybe a hot water bottle for cold season days or a good seat cushion? What is everyone else using and is your remote from home or nomadic? Alternatively, what do you need that would most improve either?

(Apologies for the repost - per automod instructions, had to accept having read the rules and resubmit. Didn't see that option when viewing on .old)

My first post on reddit!
I work from home since a few years from Switzerland and it is really damaging my mental health.
Everyone I hear in my company loves it, but I am not one of them. With this post I would like to understand if there are people that share the same opinion I have.
A bit of context: I have kids only 50% of the time, and my wife works in hospitality hence we barely see each other. Some weeks are hectic with the kids but I still see no one during the day, other weeks I barely see anyone, except sometimes friends. I feel I need more human interaction with people, and more remote meetings are not helping at all.
Yes, sometimes I go to the library, sometimes at a coffee shop, but for me these solutions don't really cheer me up. I looked into shared workspaces, but at least in Switzerland, they have all prohibitive prices.
I am happy to hear ideas on how to improve my situation, but more than that I want to know if I am alone in this, or other feel the same way about remote working.

Hi all! I have noticed my home life and work life kind of blur together since wfh. I live in a small space so I don’t have a separate work space unfortunately. I am looking for recommendations for like podcasts to listen to, radio shows, or ways to make it feel more like office hours vs home hours if that makes sense. Smells. Any of the things you find that work for you. Open to suggestions. Thank you!

I use a small timer widget and switch it on when I start a task. The entries get approved afterward, and AI can draft them from my calendar.

It works for me, but I’m curious how other people do it. Do you use a timer, fill in a timesheet at the end of the day, or estimate? And has anything you tried turned out to be more hassle than it was worth?

We have this weekly meeting wherein someone shares their screen n spends 20 minutes walking everyone through it. Half of it could’ve been sent beforehand and nobody would’ve missed anything.

I want to try just sending the update and skipping the walk through. We use google slides now and I’ve been looking at gamma because it scrolls more like a page, so people might actually read it on their phones without needing it explained.

But I’m not convinced that anyone will read it without an actual meeting being scheduled😭

What does your team do for weekly updates? Did anyone actually manage to kill the call?

I'm trying to understand which tedious, repetitive tasks eat the most time for people working remotely, things like copying data between tools, status updates, reformatting, chasing approvals, and so on.

If you have a couple of minutes, I'd really value your input in this short questionnaire: https://wishatool.com/?src=reddit-remotework-nov6

Also curious in the comments: what task do you do over and over that you'd happily hand off?

I have been spending more time working from coworking spaces lately, and finding a desk with an available power outlet has become a bit of a problem.

I usually get there later in the day, so most of the spots near the wall are already taken. i work with a bunch of spreadsheets open at the same time, and honestly, going back to just my laptop screen is pretty frustrating...

My portable monitor is an older one that gets its power from the laptop. it's convenient, but the battery drains so quickly when both are running, moving desks is annoying too because i'm constantly unplugging and sorting out cables.

working from home isn't much better. i somehow get less work done there than anywhere else lol.

i've thought about getting a power bank or maybe one of those portable monitors with a built-in battery, but not sure if either is actually worth it.

What's your setup like if you work from coworking spaces or move around a lot?

I would love to find something that doesn't involve carrying a whole bunch of chargers everywhere.

This is like my third corporate job. At all of them I found that most people didn’t actually work during the day. Like maybe 2 hours total then spent the rest of the time trying to look busy. Is this legit? This is such a mind game. I tried to tell me boss that I like working hard and feeling like an earned a days paycheck but idk if it’s something that everyone knows about but just doesn’t talk about.

What makes me even more paranoid is we have monitoring software on our computers as well as teams that goes idle if you aren’t on the computer within 5 minutes. But I have no work. I’ve literally seen other people read, watch tv, chit chat for hours at previous jobs but I thought it was just a culture thing. Am I wrong? I’m scared that I’m gonna lose my job for not doing it but I don’t have anything to do. I’ve tried to come up with things to do, projects, but I’ve been told that other people handle that kind of stuff.

Recent grad and am starting the third week of my new job. I know no one is physically watching me (unless they stalk teams) but even just a quick break to go downstairs and fix myself a snack has the back of me saying “this adds more to the time you have to make up”. I still get my work done, early even, but I have this nagging thought of “you need to always be doing something when you’re on the clock” or “don’t leave your workstation”. Any tips to help alleviate this for an aspiring young professional?