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37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

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Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone loves WFH, you know.

After covid we have some vague stats and yeah not everybody enjoy full remote. But 1) there's a large pool of people that do, 2) you can have hybrid 3) unless no other colleague goes to the workplace you may enjoy some workplace social context 4) we need to reduce energy expenditure and not commuting seems like a massive gain.

Right now I do hybrid work and it’s great, it’s easy to get away from the house and work from a nearby city. There’s little-to-no traffic where I live, so the commute is short and enjoyable. If I want after work I can jump in the car and drive to the mountains or go pick something up at the store, or go see a friend. The car operates on my schedule.

Moving away from this seems like stepping back into the 19th century. Usually when I hear people complain about cars they live somewhere that’s over-crowded with poor road infrastructure, traffic, and inflated taxes and energy costs. Sure if you live in that scenario maybe commuting sucks, but most of the USA isn’t like that.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#42
post #22
post #2

But execs want you to commute because their mindset is to make worker's life miserable, and working from home is seem like a privilege.

Executives work towards a large number of stupid performance goals, but worker misery isn’t one of them.

Citation needed. I could gesture wildly at everything these days. It sure seems like someone is working towards worker misery.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#43
post #4

Now think about the economic savings in the areas of energy and capital depreciation on cars. The overall economic efficiency boost from this could be unbelievably huge, not to mention the environmental benefits of less routine commuting. I wouldn't be surprised if this approves economic efficiency by trillions of dollars.

If only there were some way to transport people that wasn’t cars!

Do you live in a major metro area? If you do, you should know that the rest of the country was designed for cars. Mass transit in your average US isn't feasible as everything is so spread out. There is no city center. There's no downtown.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#44
post #22
post #2

But execs want you to commute because their mindset is to make worker's life miserable, and working from home is seem like a privilege.

Executives work towards a large number of stupid performance goals, but worker misery isn’t one of them.

It only seems like they do.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only there were some way to transport people that wasn’t cars!

That's the thing, remote working decreases the reliance on cars to some extent and not for everybody. Yes, cars are still used for transportation. In some urban settings public transportation is an option. I live in NYC and never owned a car not only because I rely on public transportation but it's a complete pain in the neck with parking, unwanted tickets and high cost for insurance.

For every one of you, how many people are priced out of living in the city and have to drive to a parking lot to take the train in, or want their kids to have some semblance of a yard so they live in New Jersey and do the same?

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#46
post #5

100% of the jobs I want to do can be performed entirely at home, but I prefer to do 100% of them in an office.

Not trying to be sarcastic. I genuinely asking. Why? I'm not a fan of the office because: 1. I don't like the commute 2. I have an office in my house, but at the "office"; I would be sharing some kind of space. 3. now that covid is less of an issue I plan on going to lunch more with freinds.

1. I bike/run commute and have planned my life to let me live with 15 minutes of where I work.

2. I purposefully choose to live in a small apartment with no dedicated “work” space.

3. Yeah, me too.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#47

i know it seems unlikely now but i think we will return to the office. not 100% of the time. not everyone was doing 100% before either. but a lot of people have switched jobs in the remote only era. we have experienced / are experiencing how little we know these new people. how little we feel connected to them. how strange it is to not make new friends at a new job that go beyond the work-friend level. i think most p…

I feel so much better working remotely so that I don't have to talk to my colleagues in person. We are completely different people, like from different worlds. RTO is mandatory at our place.

This made me happy every time I saw a rise in infections or new variant, for which I feel bad about myself.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#48

i know it seems unlikely now but i think we will return to the office. not 100% of the time. not everyone was doing 100% before either. but a lot of people have switched jobs in the remote only era. we have experienced / are experiencing how little we know these new people. how little we feel connected to them. how strange it is to not make new friends at a new job that go beyond the work-friend level. i think most p…

I started a new job during COVID. I've met my coworkers twice (two of them three times). There are a solid four people out of an org of ~40 who I unhesitatingly consider non-work friends now.

"You can't make friends over the Internet" hasn't been true for decades.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#49
post #5

100% of the jobs I want to do can be performed entirely at home, but I prefer to do 100% of them in an office.

Id be open to going into a office, but when I compare wages between jobs done from home and jobs that demand in office I'm not seeing a significant delta. Even if the drive was 15 minutes I'd want something to cover my costs and time.

I was interviewing a month ago and I got a in office offer that was a little lower than the remote offer I had. I brought up that I'd be willing to come in for more money or some sort of flex time around that hour commute and that was met with a audible gasp from the HR person. They acted as if the request was rude and that the occasional free lunch made up for the 10 hours a week time loss. That made the choice for me.

If I am truly more valuable to the business in a office I see no reason why I can't share in those rewards.

Re: 37% of jobs in the United States can be performed entirely at home

#50
post #38

The coding used by this survey is a joke. If 40% of an occupation says they work outdoors that's below 50% so it's bucketed into the work from home category on that criterion. I think if even 20% of a job is saying they work outdoors that's pretty strong evidence you're missing some information about what the other 80% are doing in their job that prevents it from being a work from home job. The net result of their se…

Couldn’t the job still be performed at home with the occasional on site? I’m thinking of a construction PM. The job could mainly be done at home other then when needed to meet GC on site. Seems like there is still WFH no?
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