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Why do so many people want us back in the office?

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Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#321

Post by briandear »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #189
x87678r wrote: post #124

My commute is 20 minutes on an uncrowded ferry, and my home office is a tiny desk in my daughter's bedroom while she works on the other side on school stuff. My colleague has a massive house with a pool tennis court and so much space he has literally 3 never-used bedrooms. His wife looks after kids who are at school most of the day again. His commute is 2 hours each way. People are talking home vs office people are c…

Commute time is a big thing here. People who have a 2 hour (one way) commute from hell from their massive house are super happy about this situation (shocking, I know). People who live in a small studio apartment 10 minutes from the office see it differently. What I expect this to result in is employers increasingly forcing people to WFH (either outright, or by making the offices horribly unattractive through hot-des…

So let’s give a tax cut to WFH people. Next, if you cost the employer less money, that means they are more profitable which means RSUs should become more valuable. Or, at the very least, ask for a pay raise. If your productivity is the same or greater, that shouldn’t be too hard. If you are replaceable by a cheaper worker, then that’s more of a statement i of your value rather than company economics. You can also move to a much cheaper area with much lower taxes. If my offices in Silicon Valley weren’t reopening in January, I’d already be living in Reno.

“Free” food isn’t free. “Amenities” aren’t free either.

Saving on the commute however, that’s a substantial savings in your time. Even if you have your commute subsidized, you aren’t likely being paid for your commute time. Getting back an hour or more per day is more valuable to me than a ping pong table or free coffee.

For those that live five minutes from the office — now you can move and save a pile of money in the process.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#322

Post by briandear »

ck425 wrote: post #304
lotsofpulp wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think utilities are expensive enough to compare to the explicit costs of commuting by car (fuel, wear and tear, insurance) and the implicit costs of commuting (increased morbidity/mortality risk from driving, opportunity cost of time needed to be allocated to commuting). Especially if the house isn’t completely empty when you’re at work.

Again this heavily depends on your situation. I live a 20 min walk from my office. I have £0 commuting costs. On the other hand I live in an old city with little new built housing. My flat is over 100 years old with massive ceilings, electric heating and no way to way to improve the insulation. Heating it just in the evenings for 5 hours costs about £50 a month, heating it while I work will likely cost £70-100 extra…

It’s not a zero cost: it’s 40 minutes of time.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#323

Post by jayd16 »

dijit wrote: post #267
danbolt wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed the a similar thing working with game console devkits. I can get most of my work done remotely, but due to the streaming/latency required it feels slower. I feel like for certain performance-sensitive tasks I'd need a special day in front of the hardware to test things.

For sure this is true, my girlfriend is QC at a major game company and watching her work from home is _painful_. Though Citrix is better than Parsec, and both are far better than Remote Desktop (in a huge way). I have been pushing for Stadia as a primary testing platform, but the backend is quite painful to use (please don't hurt me google, I know I signed an anti-disparagement agreement, but your backend is really i…

The devkits are often contractually obligated to be in a secure facility.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#324

Post by canofbars »

hordeallergy wrote: post #65

I have no interest in being in the office. The commute is horrid and a waste of time. The socialising is insignificant. The water cooler never has more than one visitor at a time, so the idea of it being an idea exchange is myth. Everyone communicates via chat in office, with headphones on. Being able to separate work and private life is a matter of self discipline, the other matters are not. The only thing I want is…

I feel very much the same. I think most of the commenters here probably live in the smallest 1 bedroom house in SF with the best office possible at work. Sure, if you go from that to working on the coffee table its going to suck.

I have stopped talking to people outside of the development team but I don't really care. I never really knew these other people I was talking to. We just shared random stories about the weekend.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#325

Post by VLM »

ethbr0 wrote: post #283
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I took on an extra $150-$200 in power expenses per month, and it was absolutely treacherous trying to get reimbursed for this Well, fuck that... if it's company hardware and there's no reimbursement, power gets cut to that rack at 5PM local time.

Just wire it into a light switch. If the switch gets flipped... shame. "I don't know what to do. I guess if you wanted to send an electrician out to install a new circuit with its own meter, things might be more reliable."

> send an electrician

I think OP needed an electrician onsite anyway, as $200/month would be somewhat over 2500 watts continuous 24x7 which would require in the US at minimum two dedicated 15 amp circuits. That's a serious enough amount of heat to require the attentions of a HVAC guy also.

I ran some small clusters at home for learning purposes and maybe $400 per year was pretty minimal compared to the cost of tuition, cost of the hardware, etc.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#326

Post by 627467 »

I've been choosing to live within an hour walk from work for many years now.

While I didn't normally walk to work (pre-pandemia) I knew I could and I did (I live in a major capital with lots of transit disruptions).

I definitely wouldn't want to work at the office every day, but I also wouldn't want to stay at home everyday either (hunting for a seat on a cafe counts as wfh for me).

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#327

Post by lr4444lr »

Retric wrote: post #259
ghaff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, there are only 2 costs that matter. On the one side you have the commute--both in time and money. On the other side is whether the place you'd be living in otherwise is suitable for long-term WFH or if you have to spend more money for another bedroom or whatever. So, if you already have a dedicated office in an exurban house (as I do), not commuting--which I rarely did anyway--is a cost savings. As someone wh…

Those minor costs can still add up. Depending on your setup and location you could easily be spending 30+c/h on electricity when working from home. Extra cooling, lighting, possibly multiple PC’s etc. At ~2,000 hours a year you’re talking an extra ~600$/per year after tax. On the other hand it’s also much cheaper to cook at home. PS: My preference is to live close enough to walk to the office, but that doesn’t really…

Commuting for a lot of us in the suburbs: long distance train passes, gas, parking, wear on the car, and increased insurance premiums for the mileage dwarf anything you're talking about. I'm saving over $500 after tax dollars a month by WfH. And that's before the buying lunch near the office, occasional Uber when trains were down, parking tickets...

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#328

Post by VLM »

an_opabinia wrote: post #278
x87678r wrote: post #124

My commute is 20 minutes on an uncrowded ferry, and my home office is a tiny desk in my daughter's bedroom while she works on the other side on school stuff. My colleague has a massive house with a pool tennis court and so much space he has literally 3 never-used bedrooms. His wife looks after kids who are at school most of the day again. His commute is 2 hours each way. People are talking home vs office people are c…

> His wife looks after kids who are at school most of the day again This is the real story. Suppose you're a company that pays someone a really handsome salary. It's a man. Do you want him in the office, where he is guaranteed to spend 0 hours taking care of kids, or at home, where it's not guaranteed? Don't pin this on the wife. Do you think she'd rather he drive 2 hours a day and not take care of the kids, and get…

> Do you want him in the office, where he is guaranteed to spend 0 hours taking care of kids

Almost all of the casual conversations with my kids are more interesting than the casual conversations with my coworkers.

The puzzle of the rare effective and profitable office conversation is kinda like the rare and effective advertisement; we simply accept that 99% of it is useless and force enormous amounts of engagement to promote those casual successful interactions.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#329

Post by vonseel »

ghaff wrote: post #209
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commute time is a big thing here. People who have a 2 hour (one way) commute from hell from their massive house are super happy about this situation (shocking, I know). People who live in a small studio apartment 10 minutes from the office see it differently. What I expect this to result in is employers increasingly forcing people to WFH (either outright, or by making the offices horribly unattractive through hot-des…

Really, there are only 2 costs that matter. On the one side you have the commute--both in time and money. On the other side is whether the place you'd be living in otherwise is suitable for long-term WFH or if you have to spend more money for another bedroom or whatever. So, if you already have a dedicated office in an exurban house (as I do), not commuting--which I rarely did anyway--is a cost savings. As someone wh…

The delta in utilities, in a place like Texas, during the summer months, is certainly not trivial. Relative to a tech workers salary, sure, a hundred bucks per month isn’t that much, but it’s costing me a lot more to keep my house cool through 100F days all summer long than it would if I let the thermostat go to 80F during the workday.

Re: Why do so many people want us back in the office?

#330

Post by Muromec »

dathinab wrote: post #309
jstanley wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you're WFH, you don't need to live in central Tokyo, you can live anywhere. You'd probably save money by gaining an extra bedroom and moving out of central Tokyo, no?

Anywhere where you: - Have reasonable fast internet. - (Affordable) Hospitals/Police/Firewatch in reasonable distance - Are not to far away from the companies office as you likely still have to go to the office from time to time. EDIT: Most people don't live in Tokyo or cities with similar expensive housings. The cost of moving away from cities is often much bigger then "just" longer transit times from home to work.

Thinking long term, housing is expensive because of mandatory office going, so removing the pressure from that side should in theory affect prices
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