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

361–370 of 400 posts

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#361

Post by kilroy123 »

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.…

This is why I work at a co-working space. I'll mix it up with some cafe working as well.

1) I get out of the house and I just seem to focus much more there at the office.

2) I feel like a normal human going to an office and talking to others. (Maybe I don't always talk to others, but I can if I want.)

3) When I want to be lazy and just stay home, I just do.

4) Co-working space or cafe is just a 2-15 minute walk away. No commute in a car.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#362

Post by mac01021 »

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 already do. I'll take a lower salary from a company that doesn't make me commute.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#363

Post by mac01021 »

pixl97 wrote: post #121
bartedinburgh wrote: post #50

I think it's connected with the rise of bullshit jobs. If your job is well defined, e.g. make an app or a website design, you can do it anywhere in the world. The app/design is your deliverable that anyone can see and judge. If your job is a poorly defined "management" or "product ownership", with no real deliverable, how can your work be judged? Your job turns into convincing other people that your job is useful. Wo…

If your job is well defined it can be contracted out to a non-employee, which means another member of the gig economy, rather than a full time job with benefits. This is where the future is going. Anything that has a very strict definition of the work that can be done will be subject to automation or outsourcing. All the 'bullshit' that is left is what defines the full time job. Welcome to the future.

The sooner the better.

We'll finally be able to stop tying health insurance to employment in the ridiculous way that we currently do.

Skilled professionals will more often be able to make their own hours and find more variety/novelty in their work by taking jobs for a variety of customers.

And there will be so many freelancers that a solid industry for helping them connect with consumers of their services so that the hardest part of freelancing (finding work) starts to become a non-issue.

Transitions are messy, of course.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#364

Post by mbrock »

poslathian wrote: post #340
mbrock wrote: post #152

Seems to me that this has a pretty intimate relation to the question of the "nature of the firm." Why do we work in firms rather than as independent contractors making contracts with each other? Why do we gather in rooms every day instead of working independently and emailing each other with low frequency asynchronous requests? I don't really understand firms, to be honest... I suspect it has way more to do with inst…

Last years econ nobel prize winner pioneered research into this question. https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-sciences/la...

Thanks, I'll check it out!

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#365

Post by gaastonsr »

Spivak wrote: post #266
PeterStuer wrote: post #169

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. Which you'll also receive. Oh yeah, who's taking the minutes by the way?

Being remote doesn't fix that. They'll just initiate a video call or start a conference.

Working remotely you can minimize these interruptions by turning off notifications. Which in my experience is common. And bad etiquette to interrupt (buzzing channels) unless it’s urgent.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#366

Post by gaastonsr »

notyourday wrote: post #336
FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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

And that's exactly why managers aren't interested in people working remotely. Good managers ask when they actually need something and they expect those working for them to accommodate such requests immediately. That is why, after all, they are managers.

Bad managers IMO. Since their work should be minimize interruptions and facilitate communication inside and across teams.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#367

Post by loup-vaillant »

duckmysick wrote: post #188
loup-vaillant wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's subtler than that. Because it is hard to measure, one has to make explicit effort to demonstrate value. This wastes time and energy that could have been used to increase the very value that needs to be demonstrated. Value is lower because of the consequences of being hard to measure. Then there are actual bullshit jobs, whose value is difficult to measure because they have no value to begin with.

> This wastes time and energy that could have been used to increase the very value that needs to be demonstrated. How do we know the value has been increased at all?

We don't.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#368

Post by WalterBright »

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.…

One option I've done is 2 days at home / 3 days in the office.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#369

Post by Torkgin »

PeterStuer wrote: post #222
JulianMorrison wrote: post #51

Managers. People working from home scare them. They might be slacking. They might be leaking. Heaven's sake, man, they might even be organizing a union!

Closer tot he truth: they are scared that the 'managing' is actually not realy needed and contributing all that much.

This makes me wonder, is it truly so? Every organization starts without managers and they are added later once the organization grows but if they are not really needed, why is every organization adding them?

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#370

Post by wpietri »

wolco wrote: post #289
wpietri wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I've tried it both ways, and I definitely find it easier to lead people in person. I learn so much from implicit communication in person that has to become carefully explicit when remote.

I also think the sexual assaults thing is a terrible red herring. Remote teams still should get together regularly, and abusers will happily abuse then. For that matter, abusers are perfectly capable of being abusive remotely. (Exhibit A: the internet.)

Post reply on HN