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Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

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Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#101

Post by jimworm »

jlarocco wrote: post #40
ogreveins wrote: post #21

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Especially if you don't own much stuff? How much do you actually need besides your computer, phone, clothes and toiletries? Gym for bathroom and free public wifi for internet aside from your phone and you're set. The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't cons…

What doesn't make sense to me about that line of thinking is why even keep working? Why not work for a year, save money, and then live in your van wherever just doing whatever? If you could save $75k of the $135k salary, you could go a very long time living in a van in somewhere like South Dakota.

Alimony, or the quick modern way for man to achieve indentured servitude.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#103

Post by Reedx »

Interesting. This is something I've been wondering about.

Because I've been noticing a lot of RVs and vans (with windows blacked out) that seem to be permanently parked in areas of Palo Alto. Sometimes on fairly busy roads. So have been curious as to whether any were actually being used that way.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#104

Post by superuser2 »

zzalpha wrote: post #27
ogreveins wrote: post #21

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Especially if you don't own much stuff? How much do you actually need besides your computer, phone, clothes and toiletries? Gym for bathroom and free public wifi for internet aside from your phone and you're set. The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't cons…

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Really? You honestly can't fathom why some people might desire their own, private space, away from their work environment, where they might, I dunno, live their life outside of their day-to-day drudgery? I'm not even sure how to react to that. It's such an alien way of thi…

I desire private space, but I'm willing to sacrifice just about anything to avoid the Midwest and suburbia. If no private space is the cost of living in real city, then so it goes.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#105

Post by timothybone »

mathgladiator wrote: post #46

When I was in my mid twenties, I lived on my college campus for a year (not approved, slept in the computer science building). It was awesome. ;)

I think things like this are great, as social experiments these are important, esp. b/c we are exploring how to reclaim spaces, making it less of a crime to inhabit spaces.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#106

Post by timothybone »

zzalpha wrote: post #27
ogreveins wrote: post #21

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Especially if you don't own much stuff? How much do you actually need besides your computer, phone, clothes and toiletries? Gym for bathroom and free public wifi for internet aside from your phone and you're set. The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't cons…

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Really? You honestly can't fathom why some people might desire their own, private space, away from their work environment, where they might, I dunno, live their life outside of their day-to-day drudgery? I'm not even sure how to react to that. It's such an alien way of thi…

>>Questioning that need is questioning one of the founding tenants of modern human society...

There's private space to live in his van, there's no problem there, yes he too wants a private space to live in like the rest of us. The difference is the van does not provide a box around him unlike the 2-3k box.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#108

Post by jarcane »

Part of my ‘problem’ with some elements of programming culture, is I fundamentally I don’t think I have that part of my brain where code is my hammer and every problem looks like a nail, so I struggle to even imagine a self-made project I’d have that kind of dedication to, let alone some random corporate or startup app thing.

Like what does Google even do that’s really deserving of that kind of dedication? There are religious orders that are less demanding than many of these stories. I kinda get the practical argument about SV housing costs until I think about it for two seconds and go "What? Fuck, no!"

It's a job. Might even be a good job. But if your work-life balance ceases to be so much a balance as 'just work all the time until you're rich' I can't see that as healthy. It's like some people are entirely voluntarily recreating the company town, and employees are lapping it right up.

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#109

Post by fwn »

nosuchthing wrote: post #33
ogreveins wrote: post #21

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Especially if you don't own much stuff? How much do you actually need besides your computer, phone, clothes and toiletries? Gym for bathroom and free public wifi for internet aside from your phone and you're set. The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't cons…

Imagine an affordable mobile home for college students, or developing nations, or even just Americans who are priced out of the area where they work.. http://www.designboom.com/design/cornelius-comanns-bufalino/

Looks cool but maybe overengineered?

I don't know about college students in the US, but German students live pretty cheap in shared flats. I pay 350 Euro for my share of an inner city Wilhelminian apartment house. It goes down to maybe 200 Euro. I can't see this to be a bigger problem in developing nations.

I'd consider those mobile homes for the mobility though..

Re: Thirteen Months of Working, Eating, and Sleeping at the Googleplex

#110

Post by collyw »

s73v3r wrote: post #31
ogreveins wrote: post #21

The rationale behind it makes perfect sense. Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? Especially if you don't own much stuff? How much do you actually need besides your computer, phone, clothes and toiletries? Gym for bathroom and free public wifi for internet aside from your phone and you're set. The rental and housing market is disgusting. I wouldn't cons…

" Do you really want to give someone $2-3000 per month or $24-36k a year just to have a box around you? " Yes. I want to leave the office. I want to have my own space, where I can do my own thing. I want to have a place where I can cook my own meals, and raise my plants. Possibly a pet.

I want the box part, but the $24-36k per year bit I don't.
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