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Why Do We Still Commute?

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Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#281

Post by sokoloff »

humanrebar wrote: post #161
sokoloff wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Maybe. (In fact, we already care quite a bit about commuting time and ease because we want to retain our developers in a very competitive employment market.)

I think it's more likely that the interview process would just have another step to suss out how much commuting time I'd be paying you for, and then figuring out how to divide up your day rate of $400 (higher in reality, of course) across the buckets. So Laura Long Commute gets $40/hr * 10 hrs/day and Sally Short Commute gets $50/hr * 8 hours/day.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#282

Post by dsacco »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #259
BeetleB wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. To be frank, people using IM to communicate with me disrupt my flow a lot more. They start a thread/conversation/request, and then are slow to respond, or disappear. You…

>They start a thread/conversation/request, and then are slow to respond, or disappear. That's the primary benefit of qorking remotely IMO. Not having to immediately stop everything im doing allows me to stay in flow state. It also improves the quality of my responses and solutions since i can let the request percolate in my head. Usually, I come up better answers when Im not actively thinking

That does not strike me as a quality of remote work. That seems to me to be more a cultural issue with the team in question. I have seen plenty of teams have a “heads down” mode where they are effectively on Do Not Disturb despite being in the office.

Conversely, I’ve seen plenty of “mandatory meetings” in remote work as well. Neither paradigm seems particularly advantageous.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#283

Post by rwmj »

moxious wrote: post #261
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…

How is it that the business is pushing the costs off? If you have a job, you're selling your labor. The commute is part of what you have to do to get your goods to market. Are you, as a purchaser of bananas, "pushing off the costs of transport" on to the seller? That seems silly considering the transporter prices that into the bananas, just like workers can price in longer commutes. Don't accept less money to travel…

It's an unnecessary cost though. It's like if I had a choice to teleport the bananas over the phone, but the buyer insisted that I deliver them by hand. I'd charge that awkward banana-buyer more.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#284

Post by rwmj »

savanaly wrote: post #276
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…

>We commute because businesses can push off the cost of commuting to their employees. This is a severe misunderstanding of the economics of the situation. Employees know that they're going to be spending time commuting, and they take that into account when they decide whether to take a job. In more academic terms-- that information is already informing the labor supply curve of which each individual is a part, and th…

The GP's point is that it's an externality for the company, and therefore they have no incentive to reduce the cost of commuting.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#285

Post by lkbm »

blunte wrote: post #113
dagw wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually commute by public transport. The 30 minute walk is something I do because I find it a nice way to start the day. Instead of changing busses, I just walk the last 2-3 km.

That sounds like a good situation (and apparently your weather is tolerable). Unfortunately, this just wouldn't work in Texas, for example, because even 10 minutes of walking when it's 100+ leaves you very uncomfortable and not very presentable when you arrive in the office.

When it's 100f+ I prefer to wear shorts and change when I arrive, but aside from that, my ~10min bike ride in great. (Austin TX)

Generally it's not bad in the morning, and it's going home that's worse, but at that point, it matters less if I get sweaty.

I used to bike 30-45 minutes each way to work, and, yeah, I got very sweaty. I always wished there were a shower I could use there. It's not ideal biking (or walking) weather, for sure.

One additional anecdote I'd like to share: my coworker just moved to be under a mile from the office. His first time biking to the office from his new place was under five minutes. The other day he had to drive home. He messages me afterwards: "Took me 31 minutes to drive 9 blocks". (5:30pm and raining.)

So I love my bike, even in the Texas summer. :-)

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#286

Post by guelo »

moxious wrote: post #261
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…

How is it that the business is pushing the costs off? If you have a job, you're selling your labor. The commute is part of what you have to do to get your goods to market. Are you, as a purchaser of bananas, "pushing off the costs of transport" on to the seller? That seems silly considering the transporter prices that into the bananas, just like workers can price in longer commutes. Don't accept less money to travel…

If a workplace needs bananas then they have to pay for shipping to get it into the office. Labor is the only workplace input that walks in the door for free.

I think a fairer deal would be if commute time counted against the typical 8 hours of work. That way everybody's interests would align around having short commute times.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#287

Post by indigo0086 »

We're trained since the day we go to school to stay quiet, well behaved for the duration of X classroom. It's in our bones to arrive and stay seated. Very few can thrive naturally in a remote environment. We really need to stop feeding the education industry that was built on pumping out factory workers.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#289

Post by wolco »

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.

If you removed that perk those high functioning team members may not be able to produce at the same level at the office. Those leadership points may not go as far because you have to deal with a host of other issues. There are less sexual assaults and unwanted touching in purely remote teams. Less conflicts with culture, race and gender. Issues like Jim's lunch smells and is making Jan sick or Bob talk too loudly to clients on the phone beside Jim can he stopped.

Working from home can make a manager feel less control. It takes a different type of leadership. But requires less leadership points.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#290

Post by richardknop »

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.

This sounds pretty ideal. I think 1-2 days of remote work per weeks is ideal. Still leaves enough days in office to have the face to face contact with colleagues and communicate directly.
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