431–440 of 479 posts
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Only if you got an extra work-only desk. Even then, an extra desk by itself isn't very big.
A desk is big if you live somewhere where property and rent prices are high. Like California, for instance.
And maybe I'm weird but I'm going to have a desk no matter what.
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A desk is big if you live somewhere where property and rent prices are high. Like California, for instance.
Still, it's a tenth of what an entire room costs. When you do something like weigh the cost of commuting vs. the cost of that space, a desk is probably going to win. And maybe I'm weird but I'm going to have a desk no matter what.
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> You have to pay for your own. You have to do it anyway. The rent did not went up due you being at home during day.
Either you paid for more space or you lost space at your home during the 8 hours you were previously working at an office.
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Not just when you’re at work, unless you tear down your desk and store it out of sight every single day!
Only if you got an extra work-only desk. Even then, an extra desk by itself isn't very big.
Plus a separate office means a door to keep out noise, room for bookshelves and other office items, and the ability to just "put things down" without having to spend time cleaning off the kitchen table before dinner.
Any setup other than having a specific office for work is, in my opinion, sub-optimal. Sure, you can make due... but you could make due with a poor environment in an office building too... but why would you? You can't compare the setup in an office building to a much worse environment at home and then say "home is cheaper". For a like-for-like comparison, it costs the employee more to work from home.
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Still, it's a tenth of what an entire room costs. When you do something like weigh the cost of commuting vs. the cost of that space, a desk is probably going to win. And maybe I'm weird but I'm going to have a desk no matter what.
If you already have a desk that easily accommodates both your work computer and whatever other non-work things you use the desk for, then sure, but you could say the same thing for any new at-home requirements for a job that you just happen to already satisfy. I don't have any reason non-work reason to have living space dedicated to a computer desk, and I suspect that's true for most people.
How do you typically browse websites at home? Do you play any PC video games? Steam has a ton of users.
(And if you use a table, then you could use the same table for working.)
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Only if you got an extra work-only desk. Even then, an extra desk by itself isn't very big.
Desk, monitors, keyboard, mouse, external hard drive, and other things that go on a desk. I'm certainly not going to tear all that down every evening and set it back up every day. Plus a separate office means a door to keep out noise, room for bookshelves and other office items, and the ability to just "put things down" without having to spend time cleaning off the kitchen table before dinner. Any setup other than ha…
At worst that's still only a desk of space wasted.
And if you're willing to commute, you should probably be willing to spend 2 minutes putting all that stuff away. If you still decide not to, then it's because that space isn't needed very much.
> Any setup other than having a specific office for work is, in my opinion, sub-optimal.
I agree, but this line of conversation is specifically about if you don't have a separate office.
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If you already have a desk that easily accommodates both your work computer and whatever other non-work things you use the desk for, then sure, but you could say the same thing for any new at-home requirements for a job that you just happen to already satisfy. I don't have any reason non-work reason to have living space dedicated to a computer desk, and I suspect that's true for most people.
> I don't have any reason non-work reason to have living space dedicated to a computer desk, and I suspect that's true for most people. How do you typically browse websites at home? Do you play any PC video games? Steam has a ton of users. (And if you use a table, then you could use the same table for working.)
It's true that PC gaming is as popular as ever, but I suspect its rise has been at least somewhat countered with a decrease in desktop computing at home as smartphones became ubiquitous.
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Desk, monitors, keyboard, mouse, external hard drive, and other things that go on a desk. I'm certainly not going to tear all that down every evening and set it back up every day. Plus a separate office means a door to keep out noise, room for bookshelves and other office items, and the ability to just "put things down" without having to spend time cleaning off the kitchen table before dinner. Any setup other than ha…
> Desk, monitors, keyboard, mouse, external hard drive, and other things that go on a desk. I'm certainly not going to tear all that down every evening and set it back up every day. At worst that's still only a desk of space wasted. And if you're willing to commute, you should probably be willing to spend 2 minutes putting all that stuff away. If you still decide not to, then it's because that space isn't needed very…
> only a desk of space wasted
There is a lot more to a dedicated, optimal work environment than "only a desk of space". Plus the fact that a LOT of people live in places that don't have an extra "desk of space". Approximately half the places I've worked couldn't give up a desk's worth of space without it being in everyone's way.
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In my opinion this is an argument fallacy.Almost any economic activity causes pollution and spike in environmental and economic costs. Moving to WFH will not do anything to reduce emissions and it could actually lead to an opposite outcome due to increased consumption as people would have more time to travel longer distances.
At face value: There won't be increased consumption at 7 AM and at 5 PM on a weekday if less people commute. I just don't see it happening. Additionally the tech industry isn't exactly a groundswell of people either -- if all tech workers stop commuting, that isn't going to have enough of an impact to change traffic conditions except literally in silicon valley. There just aren't that many workers in tech. But let's…
There's a delayed consumption.Time and money saved will inevitably turn spending time and money later. Also not only tech workers work in the offices.A lot of other people might demand to work from home (and they already did).That's a lot of people.
>But let's examine the flipside... The average commute distance in the U.S. is 16 miles. The average tech company is located in a densely populated metropolitan area, and the average passenger vehicle in the U.S. emits 411 grams of CO2 per mile. Commuting two ways that's 32 miles * 411g = 13.152 kg (~29 lbs) of carbon emissions for your daily commute. The average American household in total has around 39.8 kg/day (~88 lbs) of C02 emissions. Reducing that by 29 on weekdays is a 1/3 reduction in emissions. That's huge. Also consider that the average person in the U.S. drives 36.9 miles per day. For working people cutting this by 32 miles on weekdays is an enormous change.
I dont think you can make an equation like this.People instead of walking to their favorite restaurant might decide to order more or make longer rides to go to "the better restaurants" instead of just consuming what is withing the walking distance from their apartments / office.
>Consumption isn't going to increase proportionally because everyone is still going to be too busy working. The people who were already "consuming" during the day are going to continue to do so, but that population isn't going to increase. It's fixed. Maybe some will drive more, but it's not going to have the same effect that the people no longer driving 32 miles / weekday no longer having to do so will have.
Except a lot of people will gain time and money to spend later.And that's usually one of the main arguments in these discussions that people hate to spend time and money to commute.
>I'm also ignoring the significant environmental and monetary costs of keeping an office running, and the increased work that needs to be done because of the (being charitable) at least 15% production drain of working in an office.
I was under the impression that offices generally are environmentally speaking better buildings than your average condos and houses.They have to follow specific sustainability standards.
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Often times the feeling of pseudo-social life and working too much are some of the things stopping you from doing this. Then maybe a pandemic happens and you realize that all those people were doing the exact same thing, and there's no neutral substance to your friendship. For this reason, I always recommend meeting the friends of people at work. They're relatively neutral, and you only rely on your work connections…
> For this reason, I always recommend meeting the friends of people at work. They're relatively neutral, and you only rely on your work connections as a jumping off point. That's an interesting approach - how do you even do that though? Honestly - WFH isn't much more time liberating for myself. Any amount of commute time I had (which was never very much - always under 20min each way, closer to 10min) was taken over b…
Absolutely agree. This is why I mean more specifically that this shouldn't be relied upon entirely. If you stop being in the office, and your social life goes away, then maybe too much is coming from your work social life, whereas my opinion is just that it should be an augment. You may not need your casual work buddies to come to your wedding, but you probably want someone to come to your wedding, and it probably needs to come from somewhere else.
It's just a common thing I've heard—from particularly 9 to 5, somewhat more socially anxious people—that they have no idea how to make friends now that they realize their work friends don't necessarily want to go have a picnic. Work tends to usurp their personal lives in this sense, though I don't necessarily mean it to be so dramatic.
> That's an interesting approach - how do you even do that though?
It takes time and breadth. It's probably a better idea in general to just meet people through other means, but the big thing is simply forming enough of a connection with a small subset of your colleagues that they'd invite you to a party or something, then you might get to meet some other people, of which a small subset of those will vibe well enough with you.
It's just like meeting the friends of your current friends in that if they move away, you have redundancy. You wouldn't want 10/11 of your social group dependent on that one person you met them through, but that one person might give you exposure to the other 10. Ideally you get to a point with the other 10 where you'd invite them regardless of your first friend's availability.