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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?

#481

Post by gridlockd »

Let's be honest, if there's no second wave that's stronger than the first wave during winter, there's no rational reason to not go "back to normal".

All the data we have now shows that even unmitigated COVID-19 spread is not dramatically worse than a strong flu season, with the difference that COVID-19 kills far less younger and otherwise healthy people.

Even the argument that "we have a Influenza vaccine!" doesn't really cut it, because those vaccines are only 50% effective on average.

Of course, there are plenty of irrational reasons not to go "back to normal". I wouldn't be surprised if these were to prevail.

Governments around the world have just been handed powers they never knew they had, and I'm not talking about the power to do lockdowns.

I'm talking about the peoples of the free world demonstrating that they can easily be scared into compliance, that they will follow the dominant narrative, that they're ready to denounce their neighbors for infractions of rules "for the common good" - anything you would expect in a totalitarian regime works just as well in liberal democracies.

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

#482

Post by woodson »

maigret wrote: post #251
woodson wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Staying at AirBnBs in the listed cities and working from there is quite likely cheaper than renting office space in Boston (probably even including airfare). So it’s not about “resources” as in money, it’s about being able to be productive working from all these places, especially when taking into account the time zone difference to other members of the team.

Yes, and... I’d be curious to see which digital nomads follow the local taxes regulations. It’s easy to get in trouble with working abroad.

Fully agreed, taxes and work permit/visa are topics that are likely being neglected by most. Often, there simply isn’t a visa category that allows individuals to work for foreign entities while residing in another country, as regular work visas are for employment with an entity based in the country.

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

#483

Post by nucleardog »

ghaff wrote: post #275
Retric wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Based on not traveling, a $50/month delta between me not being in the house at all vs. being there full-time is actually about right. But then I don't live with someone. But simply not being in the house for 10 hours a day doesn't affect things much. Admittedly I use AC minimally. That said, I'd be happy to concede that working at home costs me $1K/yr. in costs I wouldn't have were I to go into an office every day. B…

Yeah, my stay at home costs are not zero, but just being able to scale back to one car (dropping one insurance payment), cancel parking downtown and stop burning so much gas is already a $700/mo saving.

Add in some of the other costs of the “downtown lifestyle” (lunch and coffee; skipped and brewed at home for pennies now) and I’m saving like $15k/yr post tax.

Just on insurance, parking, gas, lunches and coffee I’m saving enough to buy a brand new Aeron chair every month, give or take.

And if this turns permanent, there are a lot of other changes I can make to save even more money and increase my quality of life.

I’d say $1k/yr sounds about right for the extra expenses I’ll incur. That’s not even on my radar with all the other money this saves me and the opportunity it creates.

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

#484

Post by himinlomax »

sriku wrote: post #447
mancerayder wrote: post #392

This is a complicated problem with different perspectives that no doubt will get muddled at some point. I'm confident at least the following is true: Some people have long commutes and wfh is great Others have small, expensive apartments they paid for shorter commutes and it's suffocating 40-50 hours a week Some people live in palaces and offices are a step down in comfort Some people are happy with the online intera…

Most of these are what one might call "first order effects" - i.e. factors immediately associatable with work location. For prolonged situation, higher order effects are going to become more important. Here are some candidates - 1. Improvement in city air quality due to reduced commute - road and flight. 2. Erosion of "social credits" over time due to lower bandwidth interactions when remote. 3. Cumulative impact of…

> bad eating habits

I have much better food at home than whatever shit I can buy at or near the office.

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

#485

Post by nucleardog »

dwd wrote: post #374
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…

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.

Same here. Just on the really obvious and direct expenses, I got around a 15% raise out of this. There are a lot of other expenses that have gone way down as well and the other expenses that have increased have been... basically line noise. An extra $10 on coffee a month compared to $1200+ in savings isn’t even worth looking at.

And this is still when it’s unknown whether I’ll need to go back to an office full time at some point. If this turns into even 60-80% remote long term, I can start looking at things like selling the second car, moving a little further out instead of paying a premium for a “short” 1 hour commute, etc.

And that’s all without even discussing the time. The extra several hours a day I have to spend with my wife/child/dogs and doing things I love instead of sitting in gridlock are invaluable.

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

#487

Post by kelnos »

maneesh wrote: post #154
01100011 wrote: post #140

I would be in favor of a number of working arrangements, ranging from working in a Bay Area office full-time(least favorite) to working from home most-time in an area that provides me with the chance to buy a home and have a reasonable commute to a satellite office. I am absolutely, 100% against full-time WFH in an expensive, low-quality(no sound/thermal insulation) Bay Area apartment without a dedicated workspace. >…

>> if your job can be done from home, it can be done from anywhere in the world > I will call anyone's bluff who says this. Do it. Good luck. If you haven't successfully done this already, there is a reason and you know it. Welp, I'm the CEO of a smart wearable device company ( https://pavlok.com ). We were based in Boston because everyone told me, and I believed you HAD to be in one place to build a startup, and DEF…

I don't think the point being made was that you can't have a remote workplace, it's that you can't just find the place in the world that has the cheapest labor and assume you'll be successful.

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

#488

Post by kelnos »

gerdesj wrote: post #255
ConcernedCoder wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't know about working from "anywhere in the world"... I'm sure there's places without good internet, etc... that would make that difficult or impossible. I can say one thing about it after being 100% WFH for 2+ years now, I can set my alarm clock, to wake me up exactly 1 hour before my morning video conference "standup" meeting, and still have time to wash-up, make coffee, watch the markets open, be proper…

I'm an MD of a very small firm in the UK and I have had my mindset changed by events. A huge social experiment on homeworking has been done (and ongoing) and results are in. I will make my commuters into remote workers by default unless they either want to come in or have to. One of my guys is Polish in Poland and can do whatever the hell he wants! Most of my staff are a bit stressed over SARS-COV-2, as am I but we w…

> A huge social experiment on homeworking has been done (and ongoing) and results are in.

Sort of? Unfortunately this experiment also has included forced isolation and social distancing, and for parents where schools and day care have closed, a further experiment in what happens when parents have to simultaneously do child care and get work done.

I expect it's hard to look at what's going on now and really see what prevalent home-working looks like in normal times, when there isn't a global pandemic going on, people can still meet co-workers when necessary, and friends for normal social activities, and parents can still send their kids to school and get in a productive day of work without constant interruptions from their kids.

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

#489

Post by pjc50 »

mancerayder wrote: post #392

This is a complicated problem with different perspectives that no doubt will get muddled at some point. I'm confident at least the following is true: Some people have long commutes and wfh is great Others have small, expensive apartments they paid for shorter commutes and it's suffocating 40-50 hours a week Some people live in palaces and offices are a step down in comfort Some people are happy with the online intera…

There's lots of reasons why individuals themselves might want or not want to go back in the office.

What is more complicated is why they want to take everyone else with them. My own employer is letting some people come back in the office but not insisting on it.

And all of this in the context of the trilemma: try for zero virus, accept total spread with associated medical costs, time off, deaths, and potential long term complications, or delay until the vaccines are ready and being deployed.

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

#490

Post by timwaagh »

mattlondon wrote: post #98
weeksie wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm talking about macro level gains. When your small local accountant figures out how to manage work from home a few days per week that creates small, cumulative gains over the whole of the economy. Hard to quantify right now, especially because of all the noise going on. i.e. GDP is currently getting slaughtered for reasons other than lack of productive business practices. I do think that it's harder to notice from…

> When your small local accountant figures out how to manage work from home a few days per week that creates small, cumulative gains But what are those gains you get from working from home? The only "real" one I can think of is no commute ... but that removes productivity from the businesses now failing and going bankrupt because they have no/reduced customers. Plus the commute is not just dead time, at least for me…

You are free to spend that time however you like. I get to sleep for three hours longer. Needless to say i produce a lot more code these days.
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