More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs • Hacker News Board

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#101

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:19 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #58

paulcole wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I consider myself, without doubt, to be an introvert. I hate parties with a passion Those aren't necessarily connected in the way that many people like to assert with such conviction. Many introverts (like me!) love parties and hanging out with friends.

You are right that they aren't causally connected. The OP is using the colloquial understanding of introversion. A more accurate description would be "asocial". Psychological terms like these get confused in common-speak all the time. I am always a little thrown off when someone describes an asocial person as "antisocial", without realizing that the latter means something very different and disturbing [1]. [1] https:…

[deleted]

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#102

Post by Markoff » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:21 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

Meanwhile 56% of people who work or study in Copenhagen commute by bicycle.

European cities are much more compact than American. Americans want to live in suburbs in their own houses and drive cars, Europeans have no problem to live in apartments in city and use public transport or bikes. It's generalization, but it goes back to history how European vs American cities were built, so it's nothing really to be proud about, of course ideal would be having house close to downtown but that's just not realistic, in Europe you can have at least apartment, in US usually you don't have even this option in many smaller towns.

Many Europeans nowadays can't reach property prices in cities and are forced to live in suburbs where they end up commuting by cars, same as Americans (I can see that in my family, my sister and cousin rather build house outside and drive cars + switch to train, personally I am against this since I don't want to be taxi driver of my children, so I opt for apartment in city in walking distance to subway, but I am the weird one because I prefer apartment over holy grail - own house, but my sister can enjoy her 1 hour commute and she is extremely lucky her work is next to train station, otherwise it would be like 1.5 hour one way which I say no thanks, I didn't travel that much even in pretty big Beijing).

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#103

Post by tjr225 » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:29 PM UTC

buckbova wrote: post #92

mikro2nd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm... I get that, but... A place I worked at provided showers, mainly at the instigation of people who biked to work. Thirty years ago.

There are showers. It's just not for me. Now I'm dragging a set of clothes/shoes, soap, towel/rag, hair brush, razor, shaving cream, etc to work? Probably should wear sandals in the shower unless I want foot fungus. Then what do I do with my wet towel and stank clothes? Stuff them in a bag where they stink worse? Hang them in my cube? Then I head home and have to put on my stank clothes and get all sweated up again.…

I bike about 18-20 miles round trip every day and I spend between an hour and an hour and ten minutes on the bike (total, not one way). I bring a change of clothes, lunch, and macbook in a waterproof backpack. Shower once in the morning when I get to work. I get my exercise and my commute done at the same time and I don't have to pay for/maintain/fuel/insure a car. On the off days that I don't feel like cycling or the weather is insane my wife drops me off or I get an uber.

This is my opinion and it may ruffle some feathers but if it takes you 10 minutes to go from door to door in a car and you don't have a disability, you shouldn't be driving to work. At least not every day.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#104

Post by cr0sh » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

buckbova wrote: post #42

bryanlarsen wrote: post #5

Meanwhile 56% of people who work or study in Copenhagen commute by bicycle.

I doubt they have the hills I have to contend with. I don't want to show up to work drenched in sweat.

Or how about heat? Ok, maybe I'm biased here...

/I call Phoenix, AZ home...sigh

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#105

Post by ghaff » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #73

bphogan wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. Do you have any sense of how many people who are forced to head to an office each day would rather not? Probably not. I know I don't. But that's because the majority controls how these people work. Working remotely doesn't mean you're a hermit. If you are, your organization has a communication problem. I work remote and am able to get social interaction insta…

"Working remotely doesn't mean you're a hermit." Yes, I'd call it much closer to monk-like existence. It still isn't what the vast majority of humanity is going to prefer. The proof is that if there was some sort of massive preference for working from home, we should be seeing it now. The tech is here. The Internet is here. The computing power is here. All the preconditions would seem to be here. If what is missing i…

> The tech is here.

While I WFH quite a bit, I have to disagree with this statement. For a lot of interaction modes, being remote still lacks a lot of the bandwidth (for lack of a better term) than in person. If you're working out a problem/presentation/etc. with a group, it's still hard to beat a conference room with a whiteboard.

Things are better than they used to be. Something like Google Docs can certainly help. But working with a group F2F, serendipitous encounters, informal interactions, etc. can be hard to replicate. And, again, I say this as someone who works remotely much of the time and doesn't go out of my way to commute, even though it's not a bad commute.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#106

Post by bigtimeidiot » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:33 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #26

jonheller wrote: post #17

I consider myself, without doubt, to be an introvert. I hate parties with a passion, and am perfectly happy in my own head compared to even hanging out with a good friend. But I hated working at home. The isolation was terrible, not to mention the challenges of working on project teams (even with Slack etc). I felt lonely and less motivated. It is funny though, because my wife is the opposite of me on the social scal…

I'm with you in regards to how my mind responds to working from home (not well). Humans evolved as social animals. Everything we've always done has been in groups. When you are growing up, you spend most of your waking time in the company of other people (school). The ones who don't, who are homeschooled alone, turn out "weird". Until the modern advent of telecommunications, working has meant being physically colloca…

>The ones who don't, who are homeschooled alone, turn out "weird".

And those in the public school system are juuuuusssst fine...

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#107

Post by cr0sh » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:38 PM UTC

rlglwx wrote: post #69

s73ver wrote: post #37

The biggest hurdle to biking and walking, for those who are already comfortable doing those activities, is showering. I don't want to show up to the office drenched in sweat, making the work area smell like a gym. And there are some things that you can do, like the wipes and that, but they don't feel anything like a shower. The more offices that either put in showers, or locate near gyms and places that do have showe…

You don't have to bike like a madman when you commute. You can bike at a moderate pace 10-12 mph (roughly 4x walking) pace and not break a sweat.

Where I live, at certain times (say middle of July or August) I could walk down the street at midnight, and get heatstroke if I don't carry water with me.

/dead serious here

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#108

Post by deathhand » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:44 PM UTC

seattle_spring wrote: post #96

rlglwx wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to bike like a madman when you commute. You can bike at a moderate pace 10-12 mph (roughly 4x walking) pace and not break a sweat.

The 400 foot elevation gain in my commute respectfully disagrees.

My 13 mile route concurs.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#109

Post by bdcravens » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 7:50 PM UTC

buckbova wrote: post #63

ge96 wrote: post #52

I wish I didn't feel in the way when riding a bicycle on the road. So I walk instead. Oh well. Then my next fear is being confronted by strangers asking for a lighter then money. It's not so bad though, I just feel anxious to be encountered.

> my next fear is being confronted by strangers Don't make eye contact, eyes straight ahead, walk with a purpose.

Not being afraid to say no works too.

Re: More Americans now work full-time from home than walk and bike to office jobs

#110

Post by atemerev » Thu, Apr 13, 2017, 8:25 PM UTC

galdosdi wrote: post #90

dkarl wrote: post #53

It's interesting to see that the average earnings of people who bike to work are increasing so much faster than the other groups. There's a stereotype that people who bike for transportation are just rich spoiled white liberals. I have no idea where it came from, and I'm pretty sure that historically it has been the opposite of the truth, but it's used as a political weapon by people on both ends of the political spe…

Motorists (and many pedestrians) just hate cyclists and look for any excuse to marginalize them. If they go too slow, they're slowing down traffic, if they go too fast they're a menace. If they're spandex clad, they're hated for their wealth, and if they're toting delivery food they're hated for their poverty. There's no winning. Despite cycling being the obvious fastest and cheapest way to get around in a dense urba…

I'll be happy to explain! Indeed, both as a driver and a pedestrian, I am usually not particularly happy with cyclists.

Cyclists are the most vulnerable agents on the road. More than pedestrians (even a light touch or sudden appearance is enough to tip the bike). At the same time, they are usually the most reckless people on the road. They are happy to ignore traffic lights, passage priority, almost never signal a turn (when they do, I am applauding in my mind), and generally consider themselves invulnerable. Motocyclists can be reckless, but at least they stop at red and signal lane changes. Pedestrians are vulnerable, but careful. Cyclists are the worst of the both worlds. Yes, they risk their lives, but I am not happy to take their life and go to prison for nothing. There are rules for everyone on the road, including cyclists -- please do not ignore them, and we'll be happy.

As a pedestrian, I was nearly hit by a cyclist quite a few times while walking at the park. They are silent and can't be seen until the very last moment. I am also not happy about that. Some attach this ratchet thing to be more noticeable -- you are the real heroes. Unfortunately, I almost never see it in the wild.