Remote working is an incredible privilege I'd today take a big big salary cut for. Instead I'm in an expensive city paying 8 dollars for coffee, whatever in rent, and dealing with congestion of people everywhere. Congestion of people everywhere is way more of a mental health hazard for me than being alone.

Point is, you lost me after complaining about remote work. It reminded me of what I lost forever. I could have been working from a rainforest or the beach, in a low cost of living area, instead of this nightmare.

> Point is, you lost me after complaining about remote work.

The point is, not everything works the same way for everyone.

> Remote working is an incredible privilege I'd today take a big big salary cut for.

Actually working with people, not just occasionally seeing names and faces on a screen or in future largely interacting with mostly just this one odd individual called Claude, is something I'm seriously considering taking a massive pay cut⁰ for. AI isn't the reason, but it is the extra bale of hay that might finish me off in this respect.

I'm not even really a massive “people person”, I avoid town at busy times, avoid big cities aside from the occasional tourist trip, I'm not even happy in a pub if it gets too crowded, and really fear being centre of attention in more than a tiny group, etc. But connecting with remote people feels so fake sometimes, and I have to concentrate to care about them or even keep them in my head at all¹ once the mail is sent or the call is ended, that they might as well be LLMs.

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[0] at very least 50%, even allowing for differing tax allowances meaning I'd keep more of the gross pay

[1] which takes a draining amount of mental effort over time