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

paulitaylor.com

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

#371

Post by WWLink »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #281
de_Selby wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ideally You missed a key word in the parent post. _Ideally_ people wouldn't be forced into multiple hour long commutes either, but that has been the reality for many before this year.

Comparing being "forced" to commute hours (in a house that you chose to live in when you took the job) is a bit disingenuous to being actually forced by a pandemic to not go into an office. Im happy for all the people that can live happily hours outside of urban areas but the insistence that remote work is uniformly better for all people is just so exhausting. I for one, will be glad when it ends and will continue to…

> the insistence that remote work is uniformly better for all people is just so exhausting

The insistence that we need to force everyone back into the office makes me quite upset.

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

#372

Post by pbuzbee »

Really, I just want the choice to work remotely. I prefer working remotely, but everyone has their own preference and it's been discussed ad nauseum.

But my concern is that I likely won't get this choice. I suspect that the layers of management above me will want employees in the office ASAP because that's how they wield the most influence and control. Plus, management makes more money, so they aren't as subject to the quality of life tradeoffs that come from being in the office. I feel like if only one of the people in my management chain want me back in the office, then I'll have to go back. It seems unlikely that all of them will be OK with remote work.

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

#373

Post by ghaff »

phillip_cypher wrote: post #351
dathinab wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In addition, you're being forced to adjust your personal lifestyle because of the office space your employer is choosing not to provide. Perhaps it would be cheaper to live in a farm house in the middle of nowhere, but what if you want to live in central Tokyo? Perhaps it's the American in me, but doesn't everyone deserve the right to pursue happiness, even if it's in the form of the city in which you live?

Sure, you might want to live in central Tokyo, Manhattan, SF, etc. And it would be nice to be able to do so. But also Aspen, Nantucket, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Myrtle Beach, etc. Absent a business purpose, why should the former be subsidized over the latter.

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

#374

Post by dwd »

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…

Personally, usually most of the 3-4 commute hours per day I can spend in productive work so the time factor isn't a big issue. But cost wise I have literally saved thousands of dollars not commuting the last six months - probably to the equivalence of a 15% pre-tax pay rise.

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

#375

Post by atlasunshrugged »

s0rce wrote: post #202
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…

Exactly, I have a 1 bdrm apartment (in law) that I share with my wife. We alternate working at a desk in the living area, at the dining table or a folding table set up in the bedroom. I used to commute 20min by bike in the SF East Bay. I very infrequently go in when I need to do something in the lab (biotech company, not everything can be done remotely). When I found this place I never intended for it to for it to be…

Yeah but then you'd have to live in Minden, NV. From a guy who grew up in Gardnerville, NV, it's sure as hell not a place I'd ever move to - if you're looking for the nature and tax break of Nevada outside Tahoe or Incline is probably much nicer.

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

#376

Post by Dylan16807 »

VLM wrote: post #325
ethbr0 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tuitio…

If your electricity is 10 cents per kWh it would be that much.

Since they said NYC we can bump that to 21 cents and then $150-$200 becomes 980-1300 watts, or 8-11 amps. That's something most people could plug in to their bedroom or living room circuit without a sweat.

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

#377

Post by sokoloff »

VLM wrote: post #325
ethbr0 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tuitio…

In MA ($0.195/kWh), that’s only about 1400W, or 12A which is supportable on a single 15A circuit.

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

#378

Post by ImaCake »

xyst wrote: post #46

Why do people continue to push this myth? “ Kirsty Allsopp led the anti-remote work charge on Twitter, suggesting that if your job can be done from home, it can be done from anywhere in the world. Who would have thought that a couple of months of working in shorts and a T-Shirt has made us more susceptible to being replaced by less expensive folk in India, Myanmar and China?” It doesn’t matter if they are American or…

Maybe management keeps saying this to scare the operations people into working harder. Lots of arsehole managers think this is the way to hold onto staff and make them work harder. Of course it really doesn't work that way, but maybe some managers benefit from this shitty tactic in orthogonal ways.

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

#379

Post by DaiPlusPlus »

jayd16 wrote: post #323
dijit wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is that necessary anymore though? Consoles have been x86 and effectively almost identical to commodity PCs for 7+ years (and the original (pre-release) Xbox One devkit was a PC: just a souped-up HP Z-series workstation, if I remember correctly).

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

#380

Post by onecommentman »

xyst wrote: post #46

Why do people continue to push this myth? “ Kirsty Allsopp led the anti-remote work charge on Twitter, suggesting that if your job can be done from home, it can be done from anywhere in the world. Who would have thought that a couple of months of working in shorts and a T-Shirt has made us more susceptible to being replaced by less expensive folk in India, Myanmar and China?” It doesn’t matter if they are American or…

1. I do wonder why in the US we permit discrimination based on place of residence and place of birth. You can legally discriminate based on accent or other indicators of your place of birth or development, but not legally discriminate for race, gender, sexual orientation. And similarly we are also permitting employers to discriminate based on where you choose, or life exigencies compel you, to live, modulo objective work-related collocation requirements. Maybe a pivot by SJWs is in order.

2. The very largest US companies learned long ago about the importance of a significant geographic economic presence all over this great country aka USA. Alternatively 90+ Members of Congress explained the virtue via anti-trust actions and other targeted legislation. With telework, FANG and the like get the political benefit of constituencies across Congressional districts and States without the overhead of managing a lot of real estate for offices.

3. There are a lot of edge cases being thrown around in this thread. It’s good to hear those voices, but it can make it hard to gain a sense of how many people actually now experience telework as a good thing or a bad thing, especially if/when some fraction of infrastructure cost savings are directly shared with the employees.

4. To the question of the original post, businesses dependent on commuters (including those who own real estate in the commercial area) call up the Mayor, and the Mayor calls CEOs and begs/threatens/pleads/flatters/seduces/cajoles and it is easier to send the droids back to the grind than to hear the Mayor’s minions whine and complain, unless the droids push back hard. [Purely personal guess]

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