Why Do We Still Commute? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#161

Post by humanrebar » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:42 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #149

imgabe wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about this in the past. What if companies had to pay for the time you spend commuting? They'd have an incentive to hire people as close as possible, and support local policies that make it easier to live closer to work. On the other hand, employees would have an incentive to try to stretch out their commute as much as possible, to get extra pay for time "not working". I don't know how rampant that would…

In the end, setting aside the distortions caused by minimum wage laws, companies pay for the value they receive from their employees. How you want to apportion that value (hours, widgets, hours [including commuting hours], flexible work arrangements, paid time off, company holidays, etc) doesn't matter much. As an employer, I'm indifferent between paying someone $50/hour for an 8-hour work day, or $40/hr for an 8-hou…

But you would also be incentivized to locate your office in a more commutable location. In some cases, a slightly higher rent would even make sense to offset the costs of paying people to commute.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#162

Post by wpietri » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:43 PM UTC

codingdave wrote: post #81

I worked from home for five years, and just this week started back into a job where I commute to an office. I don't love the commute, but I also don't agree that working from home is a universally better answer for me on a personal level. Everyone knows the benefits of working from home, but there are downsides as well. Fixable downsides, but they exist nonetheless -- it is easy to become a hermit. Easy to over-work.…

Excellent points. One further thought:

> if you have personal discipline, good co-workers, and great leadership

I agree this is true, and have seen a couple of high-functioning distributed teams. But a question for me: if we have those things, do we want to spend them on working from home? Personally, I'd rather have a modest commute and spend our discipline and leadership points on solving a problem in the world.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#163

Post by maxsilver » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:45 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #107

twoquestions wrote: post #98

We commute because businesses can push off the cost of commuting to their employees. I'd personally be in favor of a "congestion tax" or somesuch for companies that force their employees to come in rather than work remotely. Commuting takes up energy and resources, and the congestion incurs costs on third parties (car accidents, higher gas prices, and the like). While it's debatable whether remote works for businesse…

I've thought about this in the past. What if companies had to pay for the time you spend commuting? They'd have an incentive to hire people as close as possible, and support local policies that make it easier to live closer to work. On the other hand, employees would have an incentive to try to stretch out their commute as much as possible, to get extra pay for time "not working". I don't know how rampant that would…

> What if companies had to pay for the time you spend commuting? They'd have an incentive to hire people as close as possible, and support local policies that make it easier to live closer to work.

I don't know. I worry that would immediately become a major form of discrimination -- it would inherently put anyone who was poor/middle-class or anyone with any sort of family/children at a huge employment disadvantage. Large companies would only ever hire already-hyper-wealthy individuals for their main positions (since they are the only people who are ever allowed to live in dense urban places). I'm imagining employers in Seattle saying "We like this guy, but he doesn't live in Pioneer Square where our office is, so that will be a pain, we should pass on him"

Many people already have to deal with that discrimination somewhat in terms of employers only being in major cities. Having that hyper-charged down to just major cities wealthiest neighborhoods seems like an even worse situation.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#164

Post by beojan » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:45 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #107

twoquestions wrote: post #98

We commute because businesses can push off the cost of commuting to their employees. I'd personally be in favor of a "congestion tax" or somesuch for companies that force their employees to come in rather than work remotely. Commuting takes up energy and resources, and the congestion incurs costs on third parties (car accidents, higher gas prices, and the like). While it's debatable whether remote works for businesse…

I've thought about this in the past. What if companies had to pay for the time you spend commuting? They'd have an incentive to hire people as close as possible, and support local policies that make it easier to live closer to work. On the other hand, employees would have an incentive to try to stretch out their commute as much as possible, to get extra pay for time "not working". I don't know how rampant that would…

What if commuting expenses were paid for, but the time spent commuting wasn't?

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#165

Post by DarronWyke » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:45 PM UTC

Swinx43 wrote: post #19

BjoernKW wrote: post #14

I think that the 'importance of face-to-face interaction' argument is a helplessly contrived one, an attempt to avoid the elephant in the room. There are plenty of examples that show that working remotely without daily face-to-face interaction can work very well. What's markedly different about environments that successfully adopted remote work are aspects like: - a lack of cargo cult work organisation and office pol…

These are points that I have found to be true as well. In many organisations where remote work is not allowed I found there to be generally worse communication, masked by meetings that achieve very little other than giving people a false sense of "work being done". There also seems to be a lack of properly planning tasks and as such this lack of planning is papered over with the sort of serendipitous spontaneous comm…

And working remote can give better focus. Sure, there's always the risk of distractions by home events. I personally have slacked off while working remote -- when my workload was nil (ie, tasks are waiting on other people now). But at the same time you can be there to respond, so there's less stress about things happening at home, no matter what they are. You're not worried about the HVAC tech fixing your AC and making sure it's done right while you're in the office. You're not worried about your sick spouse or sick kid, since you're there.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#166

Post by notyourday » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:46 PM UTC

gerardflo wrote: post #76

majewsky wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your boss. I had plenty water cooler conversations with mine.

I would say that is not professional. If there is anything work related, you book a meeting and then discuss. For this reason I know few people are on the look out when to go get the water without stumbling upon a boss or a manager, because they take it as a harassment. This adds huge amount of stress and knocks the productivity. Workplaces with "we are big family" approach are the worse. This should be illegal.

Death by a thousand meetings!

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#167

Post by inertiatic » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:46 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #162

codingdave wrote: post #81

I worked from home for five years, and just this week started back into a job where I commute to an office. I don't love the commute, but I also don't agree that working from home is a universally better answer for me on a personal level. Everyone knows the benefits of working from home, but there are downsides as well. Fixable downsides, but they exist nonetheless -- it is easy to become a hermit. Easy to over-work.…

Excellent points. One further thought: > if you have personal discipline, good co-workers, and great leadership I agree this is true, and have seen a couple of high-functioning distributed teams. But a question for me: if we have those things, do we want to spend them on working from home? Personally, I'd rather have a modest commute and spend our discipline and leadership points on solving a problem in the world.

Some of us do and that's enough.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#168

Post by computerphage » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:47 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #149

imgabe wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've thought about this in the past. What if companies had to pay for the time you spend commuting? They'd have an incentive to hire people as close as possible, and support local policies that make it easier to live closer to work. On the other hand, employees would have an incentive to try to stretch out their commute as much as possible, to get extra pay for time "not working". I don't know how rampant that would…

In the end, setting aside the distortions caused by minimum wage laws, companies pay for the value they receive from their employees. How you want to apportion that value (hours, widgets, hours [including commuting hours], flexible work arrangements, paid time off, company holidays, etc) doesn't matter much. As an employer, I'm indifferent between paying someone $50/hour for an 8-hour work day, or $40/hr for an 8-hou…

Not to mention distortions from everything else

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#169

Post by PeterStuer » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:47 PM UTC

tbrownaw wrote: post #130

BjoernKW wrote: post #14

I think that the 'importance of face-to-face interaction' argument is a helplessly contrived one, an attempt to avoid the elephant in the room. There are plenty of examples that show that working remotely without daily face-to-face interaction can work very well. What's markedly different about environments that successfully adopted remote work are aspects like: - a lack of cargo cult work organisation and office pol…

When people say that they can't communicate as well with someone who isn't in the same room that doesn't necessarily mean that a remote setup doesn't work. It could simply mean they're just lazy and not willing to adjust to a different kind of work environment. It could also mean they actually have sufficient social skills that they're able to make full use of the higher bandwidth available face-to-face, and aren't w…

And that they probably are also not afraid to use that 'full bandwidth', disrupting everyone workflow, repeatedly, like calling an hour long team status update meeting for a communication that could have perfectly occurred in a 2 line email message. Which you'll also receive. Oh yeah, who's taking the minutes by the way?

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#170

Post by raducu » Fri, Nov 03, 2017, 1:48 PM UTC

ransom1538 wrote: post #82

BjoernKW wrote: post #14

I think that the 'importance of face-to-face interaction' argument is a helplessly contrived one, an attempt to avoid the elephant in the room. There are plenty of examples that show that working remotely without daily face-to-face interaction can work very well. What's markedly different about environments that successfully adopted remote work are aspects like: - a lack of cargo cult work organisation and office pol…

"Working remotely requires the participants to be much more communicative because in such a setting communication for the most part doesn't just happen serendipitously, you have to work to make it happen. " Yes. Having managed remote teams and being a remote dev, it's all about response time . If someone slacks you, the response should be as quick as if it were verbal in the office. If it takes 2 hours to get a respo…

I've had only bad experiences where a 2 minute reply time is mandatory. I found that's the case with large-amorphous projects where nobody knows anything for certain, there's piss poor planning and that's why they need to keep "chatting" all the time. You're basically reduced to a message switch.