Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Do We Still Commute?

citylab.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 400 posts

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#241

Post by wambotron »

vog wrote: post #133
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.…

> it is easy to become a hermit. Easy to over-work. Hard to draw the line between your work time and your personal time Not just that, but there's also the other side: Easy to procrastinate, easy to give false reports which then leads to regular overwork in the days just before a hard deadline. I know these issues from remote workers I worked with, but also know this personally while working on my Diploma theses. Whi…

> Easy to procrastinate, easy to give false reports which then leads to regular overwork in the days just before a hard deadline.

This isn't a remote problem. I see this _all_ the time with people at work now and I don't work remotely.

This is more of a personal issue -- some people do it consistently, others don't. I never had that problem working remotely, and I don't pretend to be somewhere else in my regular reports in the office either.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#242

Post by PeterStuer »

briandear wrote: post #144
peterwwillis wrote: post #68

Things that happen when you're in the office: - spins around in chair, interrupts and asks coworker a question, workshops ideas for 15 minutes, comes up with solution, makes a meeting - boss comes over and tells workers there's some issue going on he's going to go deal with and he'll be available via cell only - when SCRUM ends, conversation continues in person, things get decided - walk into boss's office and make t…

Oh my gosh. That's pretty much my definition of hell. > spins around in chair, interrupts and asks coworker a question, workshops ideas for 15 minutes, comes up with solution, makes a meeting Slack please. Don't interrupt me. > boss comes over and tells workers there's some issue going on he's going to go deal with and he'll be available via cell only I don't care. If I need the boss, I'll text/Slack/email him/her. I…

Indeed. Companies that fail to recognize this behavior and put a stop to it usually end up in big trouble sooner than later. It is also one kind of employee for whim remote work is a major headache, as they have no defined contribution besides selfpromotional office politics. And let it be clear that I'm not judging the OP personally. I don't know him at all. I'm just reacting to the described behavior which would fit a 2017 remake of Bill Lumbergh.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#243

Post by PeterStuer »

salvar wrote: post #92
PeterStuer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds to me like you're a detriment to your entire office, callously leeching people's time.

This seems like an exceptionally cynical and judgemental view of a person based on what, a couple of sentences?

Not criticizing the OP personally, merely the described behaviors/

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#244

Post by jimmaswell »

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.…

>And when your entire company works from home, as mine did, you develop a culture of acting like there is no better choice, and the benefits of your personal flexibility at home outweigh any problems at work... causing people to not fight very hard to fix problems, and to stay in those jobs longer than they should because of how comfortable the working situation is.

On the flip side, when your entire company works from offices, you develop a culture of acting like there is no better choice, and the resistance to change outweighs its obsoletence, causing people to not fight very hard to evolve the workplace, and to accept offices longer than they should.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#245

Post by sh87 »

booleandilemma wrote: post #150
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.…

I think a good solution to this is to just mix it up. At my place we have a policy of working from home on Fridays and coming in the rest of the week. We get to have a day of not commuting, working in our pajamas, and still have plenty of time to be physically present in the office. As an added benefit, the workweek feels shorter.

Indeed. Flexible hours should also be added in allowing people to decide with a fair degree of freedom the hours they want to work remotely and the hours they’d be better off at work. My commute times are worst during peak office hours i.e. 8-10am to and 5-7 pm from work. I would just choose to work from 7-10 from home, commute to work and drive back at about 3. That seems fairly balanced to me.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#246

Post by rayvd »

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…

I'm not following. Companies do pay for this. Via salary...

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#247

Post by crdoconnor »

maxsilver wrote: post #235
asteli wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think we should take it for granted that it's prohibitively expensive to live in cities. That may be the state of metro areas in North America right now (SF, NYC, Vancouver) but historically this isn't a constant. Obviously enough economic incentive exists to convince people to spend the time and effort to commute, but if city centers were more affordable to live in, many fewer would choose to live so far awa…

> if city centers were more affordable to live in, many fewer would choose to live so far away from work. Myself included. I agree, and would personally do the same too if possible. But I've watched us artificially inflate property values for literally my entire life. Even in my tiny US Midwest city in the middle of nowhere, city center prices have never been remotely affordable. We should take it for granted that it…

Making city centers affordable would just require once again turning occupying / owning land into a tax liability rather than a rentier asset that grants you an effective right to tax others.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#248

Post by marcc »

saas_co_de wrote: post #208
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.…

The vast majority of time spent by office employees is socializing and non-productive ritual work. Since the purpose of going to the office is not to do actual work being able to work from home has not removed the need for the office.

  The vast majority of time spent by office employees is socializing and non-productive ritual work.
Do you have any links or sources to back this up?

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#249

Post by ck425 »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #230
ck425 wrote: post #215

Articles about home working often ignore the social aspects too. I enjoy working in the office for many reasons but top amongst them is the social interactions. Like many many engineers I was attracted to the role because I would work with other people like me, geeks and nerds (I realise there's a potential side critique about cultural homogeneity here). Being in the office is fun because I can make relatively obscur…

I notice many of the biggest proponents of remote work are people with partners and/or a healthy social life. I won't begrudge them that, but, as someone with social anxiety, the structured routine of coming into the office offers a lot of benefits.

Hmm that's an interesting observation. I wonder if the average age at remote companies is higher and if a growing number of remote companies could counter act ageism in tech?

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#250

Post by burntsushi »

briffle wrote: post #187
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…

Or at least encourage you to 'start at 10am' and other times, so that 7:30am-9am is not a single solid rush hour.. Spread the traffic over 3-4 hours, and its much nicer for everyone..

That's what I do. I commute to Kendall Square in Cambridge, MA. I get into the office at 6:30AM every day and leave by 2:30PM. It's still not a lovely commute---maybe 40 to 50 minutes each way---but it's half the time if I were forced to work 9-5. I pay for this with sleep. It's hard for me to get to sleep before 10PM. :-)
Post reply on HN