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Commuting Kills

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Re: Commuting Kills

#41

Post by OrwellianChild »

Mark Maunder is being generous with his statistics... With his average 50 min/day commute time, and assuming a 16 hour waking day, you're actually losing a full 2 weeks of waking days each year to commuting.

And I think that average belies the large number of people in tech working in dense cities like San Francisco or Seattle where the commute is much worse... We're talking 1-2 hours/day in the Seattle area if you have to cross the bridges.

Commuting is truly costly for time, health, and lifestyle in ways that neither the employers nor the employees usually account for. It's a serious externality that I wish we had a better mechanism for capturing, since people more or less take it for granted that they'll be locked in their cars for a large part of their day.

Re: Commuting Kills

#42

Post by diogenescynic »

rayiner wrote: post #18

The article argues for telecommuting to reduce commutes. I think a far less radical approach would be to open multiple offices and put teams in more affordable secondary cities. Modern technology has made it pretty easy to spread your organization across multiple offices. I work at an organization of less than 35 people that has offices in three cities. Outsourcing IT/HR/building administration makes it pretty low-co…

I know this probably sounds crazy to folks from the Bay Area, but I would gladly move offices if my company had remote offices in Boise, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, or Denver. I would even take a small pay-cut as long as I came out ahead when you adjust for cost of living. I don't know why no companies seem to offer this.

Re: Commuting Kills

#43

Post by kctess5 »

DannyBee wrote: post #35

" Brain power and productivity arrive instantly where they’re needed with zero transmission cost." Except, it doesn't, because achieving productivity usually requires remote workers to be able to collaborate effectively, and whether they can or not varies wildly. The author doesn't seem to get this - if remote workers were so amazing, and had been so amazing in practice, companies would use them more. Companies do no…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10034883

Re: Commuting Kills

#44

Post by [deleted] »

DannyBee wrote: post #35

" Brain power and productivity arrive instantly where they’re needed with zero transmission cost." Except, it doesn't, because achieving productivity usually requires remote workers to be able to collaborate effectively, and whether they can or not varies wildly. The author doesn't seem to get this - if remote workers were so amazing, and had been so amazing in practice, companies would use them more. Companies do no…

[deleted]

Re: Commuting Kills

#45

Post by cm2012 »

melling wrote: post #20
cm2012 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool fact: The average NYC commute is 79 minutes a day, 40 minutes each way.

Are you sure about that? I'm seeing 48 minutes. http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/new-yorkers-havelongest-... This includes people commuting from Brooklyn and Queens, which is most likely less than 10 miles to work.

That could be right too.

Re: Commuting Kills

#46

Post by kctess5 »

diogenescynic wrote: post #42
rayiner wrote: post #18

The article argues for telecommuting to reduce commutes. I think a far less radical approach would be to open multiple offices and put teams in more affordable secondary cities. Modern technology has made it pretty easy to spread your organization across multiple offices. I work at an organization of less than 35 people that has offices in three cities. Outsourcing IT/HR/building administration makes it pretty low-co…

I know this probably sounds crazy to folks from the Bay Area, but I would gladly move offices if my company had remote offices in Boise, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, or Denver. I would even take a small pay-cut as long as I came out ahead when you adjust for cost of living. I don't know why no companies seem to offer this.

I'd imagine this doesn't sound crazy to many of those Bay Area folks. Making a large salary isn't nearly as much fun when you throw it all into rent/mortgage payments.

I've heard that Austin TX is a good city for CS people - high paying jobs, low(ish) cost of living.

Re: Commuting Kills

#47

Post by OrwellianChild »

DannyBee wrote: post #35

" Brain power and productivity arrive instantly where they’re needed with zero transmission cost." Except, it doesn't, because achieving productivity usually requires remote workers to be able to collaborate effectively, and whether they can or not varies wildly. The author doesn't seem to get this - if remote workers were so amazing, and had been so amazing in practice, companies would use them more. Companies do no…

> If remote workers were so amazing, and had been so amazing in practice, companies would use them more.

This kind of thinking forgets the fact that the standard office arrangement has been the same since long before modern technologies became the standard way of communicating and planning.

We're dealing with a huge legacy of "how it's been done" that is slow to change, despite the fact that I talk to my colleagues by chat and e-mail the vast majority of the time and reliable voice, video, and collab techs are now widely available.

Add to this the fact that the remote office has been shown to work for companies that start out that way and work towards that ethos (e.g. Basecamp, others).

Re: Commuting Kills

#48

Post by beachstartup »

protomyth wrote: post #14
ryandrake wrote: post #7

My commute is a solid 2+ hours each way. I thought it would make me crazy, but acceptance has sort of seeped in after a couple of years. On one hand, it would be nice to have free time and/or see my family, but on the other hand, my family simply won't fit into a 900 square foot box in South Bay or a hammock in SF, which is what I could afford in those locales.

Mine is a little over 30 minutes in good weather[1] (28 miles of mostly highway), Sirius XM and Audible have been great investments. Its about the right length to get the days work sorted out in my mind, but I would live closer if I could. The reservation suffers from a serious housing shortage never mind not being a member of the local tribe, and eastern ND has a lot of families of folks working in western ND, so ho…

satellite radio is awesome. the best thing about it is it's the same channels and programs everywhere you go in the country.

Re: Commuting Kills

#49

Post by erispoe »

DannyBee wrote: post #35

" Brain power and productivity arrive instantly where they’re needed with zero transmission cost." Except, it doesn't, because achieving productivity usually requires remote workers to be able to collaborate effectively, and whether they can or not varies wildly. The author doesn't seem to get this - if remote workers were so amazing, and had been so amazing in practice, companies would use them more. Companies do no…

If telecommuting was giving a significant advantage to companies, at least some companies would have implemented it successfully. Apart from specific cases, that's not happening. The author's hypothesis is that telecommuting is at least as efficient, consumes less resources and makes people happy. A bold claim, but many have written that before. In light of the evidence, nobody's really doing it, what's the most likely, that the author is right and every company with brick and mortar offices is wrong, or the reverse?

Telecommuting is to work what VR sex is to sex. Will some people be content with VR sex only? I'm sure some people will. A majority of them? Not so sure.

Re: Commuting Kills

#50

Post by [deleted] »

diogenescynic wrote: post #42
rayiner wrote: post #18

The article argues for telecommuting to reduce commutes. I think a far less radical approach would be to open multiple offices and put teams in more affordable secondary cities. Modern technology has made it pretty easy to spread your organization across multiple offices. I work at an organization of less than 35 people that has offices in three cities. Outsourcing IT/HR/building administration makes it pretty low-co…

I know this probably sounds crazy to folks from the Bay Area, but I would gladly move offices if my company had remote offices in Boise, Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Chicago, or Denver. I would even take a small pay-cut as long as I came out ahead when you adjust for cost of living. I don't know why no companies seem to offer this.

[deleted]
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