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Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

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Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#441
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

Europe is just as bad. House prices are obscene in/near big cities, and commuting still sucks (used to do 2 hours each way in London!).

[deleted]

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#442
post #189

I quit Amazon 3 weeks ago after nearly a decade. Work from home was one of the biggest reasons. In my view, the personality traits that are conducive to promotion up the Amazon leadership ladder are strongly aligned with loving work-from-office. Most people L10 and higher not only don't understand the desire for permanent work from home, I think maybe they cannot understand it. It's just too foreign to many of them.…

> a company that understands the cultural shift that just happened.

Can anyone name some of those companies? I would like to start applying in those places.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never lived in the US, so I can't comment on the commute situation there, but I live and work in Paris proper and one of the main reasons "I don't want to go to the office" is the commute. I need 30-45 minutes to get there, and our public transit system is supposedly good. But the metro's still too crowded, dirty, smelly, etc. And I even usually avoid rush hour and take an automated, hassle-free line. Commuting…

I'm actually wondering what you consider not a long commute if 30 minutes hits the threshold. I've known plenty of people who have longer commutes driving directly from home to work.

Pre-Covid I was travelling 1.5hours each way, door to door. Awful..

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#444
post #418
post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe only has good public transport in very few selected cities and you have to ignore strikes in France to pretend its working well and is reliable. It's working well and reliable enough. > The city with the best public transport in the world is probably Tokyo in terms of frequency and service reliability but it is constantly over capacity and things are not getting better. Things absolutely are getting better;…

> It's working well and reliable enough. For whom? Around this German state, a 30 minute drive turns into 2 hours commute into each direction if I go with public transport. And this is one of the places with best connections. Back home in Portugal, and many other southern countries, good luck with the bus connections that only come around once per hour, and better not skip the 2nd connecting bus/train.

Well, there are always exceptions, you can always find a place that's 10min by bus and the place that's 2h by bus but 30min by bike

It depends. Though German public transport is one of the best in Europe.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never lived in the US, so I can't comment on the commute situation there, but I live and work in Paris proper and one of the main reasons "I don't want to go to the office" is the commute. I need 30-45 minutes to get there, and our public transit system is supposedly good. But the metro's still too crowded, dirty, smelly, etc. And I even usually avoid rush hour and take an automated, hassle-free line. Commuting…

I'm actually wondering what you consider not a long commute if 30 minutes hits the threshold. I've known plenty of people who have longer commutes driving directly from home to work.

Now that I have experienced 2 min commute nothing will be better

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#446
post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What point are you making?

If your job is on the red line, and your house is on the red line, it's an easy commute, maybe 20 minutes. Calm, relaxing, easy to zone out. If you change jobs, the new office might be on the purple line. Which does not cross the red line. So now you need to take the red line, to the green line (15 minutes + 10 minute layover = 25 minutes), and then change trains again to get to the purple line (15 minutes). That's a…

Agree that you want to be living somewhere with enough employers within tolerable commute range, and obviously it's hard to compete with access to the whole world. I don't find a single change to be beyond the pale (maybe I would if it was a 10 minute wait), and I find that in dense cities with decent networks you can be in range of "enough" employers, but YMMV.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#447
post #417
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

> Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density Hmm, European cities weren't built for commuting or public transport, almost all of them were laid out in the medieval era for walking . They then acquired one or more railway stations in the 19th century, creating commuter ring #1 and becoming an order of magnitude larger, and may have been partially redesigned for cars in the 20t…

> I'm slightly biased, but I think the Edinburgh New Town design with a couple of modern adaptations could be the ideal even for the 21st century. Grid layout, four to six floors, high ceilings, decent size windows, wide streets, occasional shop on the corner or restaurant in the basement.

Likewise Berlin, though a bit taller: https://goo.gl/maps/HyMJsSFKQNErfWJZA

(New Town reminds me a lot of some parts of Cambridge; I think it’s the stone colour and some of the motifs).

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#448
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

I've never lived in the US, so I can't comment on the commute situation there, but I live and work in Paris proper and one of the main reasons "I don't want to go to the office" is the commute. I need 30-45 minutes to get there, and our public transit system is supposedly good. But the metro's still too crowded, dirty, smelly, etc. And I even usually avoid rush hour and take an automated, hassle-free line. Commuting…

I live in Stockholm and have a beautiful 20 minute walk to the office. It takes about the same by bus or metro.

On the other hand I have an 45m2 apartment, since I would rather have a small place in the center of Stockholm than having a bigger one in the suburbs.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#449
post #417
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have this theory that one of the contributing factors to the "I don't want to go to the office" trend in the US (which I'm part of), is that cities are also not made for commuting. Coming from Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density, your commute is often much less cumbersome AND you can enjoy some social life after work since you're in the city. Here (the bay) it was ju…

> Europe, where public transport is really practical, and cities are built for density Hmm, European cities weren't built for commuting or public transport, almost all of them were laid out in the medieval era for walking . They then acquired one or more railway stations in the 19th century, creating commuter ring #1 and becoming an order of magnitude larger, and may have been partially redesigned for cars in the 20t…

I just moved to the New Town from Chicago and the difference in walkability and general "convenient access to convenient things in the city" is startling. I highly recommend it!

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#450
post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Commuting by personal motorized vehicle is hell, so you can forget that. This is the standard way of commuting in most of the US.

Hell is well-populated.

Lmao, underrated comment
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