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Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

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Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#51

Post by BlargMcLarg »

Johnny555 wrote: post #6

That's one reason for sure, but even if my house was a 10 minute walk from the office, I'd still rather only go in for meetings. At home I have my own private office with a nice view. I have a nice set of speakers and can play any music I like. If I want to go for a walk, I'm in a quiet suburban neighborhood with hiking trails nearby. The kitchen is always stocked with snacks I like plus freshly prepared healthy lunc…

>There's enough background noise in the open office that I keep headphones on most of the time while I'm at my desk.

I still don't get how we as a species went "this is fine". The complete loss of audiovisual privacy is such an immense drain. I'll buy the "being close together works better" argument, but I still can't grasp how that offsets all the distractions in the modern office.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#52

Post by willcipriano »

timr wrote: post #36
Johnny555 wrote: post #6

That's one reason for sure, but even if my house was a 10 minute walk from the office, I'd still rather only go in for meetings. At home I have my own private office with a nice view. I have a nice set of speakers and can play any music I like. If I want to go for a walk, I'm in a quiet suburban neighborhood with hiking trails nearby. The kitchen is always stocked with snacks I like plus freshly prepared healthy lunc…

> My commute is less than 30 minutes (one-way) and is a pretty pleasant drive.... it takes an hour out of my day, but it's not the primary reason I don't want to go to the office. Focusing on "reasons why I don't like the office" is missing the point, IMO. A lot of folks are betting on the long-term results of a short-term dislocation, but ignoring why things were as they were before the dislocation. It's sort of lik…

> being in the office will be how you get noticed and advance in your career

That's a classic move. Businesses could offer a significant premium over remote roles to attract candidates, and could easy afford it if you take their in office productivity claims at face value, but that costs money, much easier to make handwavy, unfalsifiable (at least with the information you have as an employee) claims about how you will be rewarded someday in the future.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#53

Post by tristor »

timr wrote: post #36
Johnny555 wrote: post #6

That's one reason for sure, but even if my house was a 10 minute walk from the office, I'd still rather only go in for meetings. At home I have my own private office with a nice view. I have a nice set of speakers and can play any music I like. If I want to go for a walk, I'm in a quiet suburban neighborhood with hiking trails nearby. The kitchen is always stocked with snacks I like plus freshly prepared healthy lunc…

> My commute is less than 30 minutes (one-way) and is a pretty pleasant drive.... it takes an hour out of my day, but it's not the primary reason I don't want to go to the office. Focusing on "reasons why I don't like the office" is missing the point, IMO. A lot of folks are betting on the long-term results of a short-term dislocation, but ignoring why things were as they were before the dislocation. It's sort of lik…

> I'd bet that being in the office will be how you get noticed and advance in your career

I think this is true, somewhat. But I also will say that as remote work has become more commonplace, it is less true. In my mind, it's mostly about social norms, more than some universal absolute. It used to be the word on the street that if you wanted to get ahead at any FAANG you had to move to the Bay, rather than working in NYC, Austin, et al. That's hasn't been true for awhile, and with remote work now commonplace it's no longer true you need to be in the office to get ahead.

I've been perm remote for quite some time, and in that time I've shifted from Eng to PM, and have moved ahead in my career quite significantly. A lot of that is due to remote becoming more socially acceptable over time, and part of that is that I learned remote skills in how to appropriately communicate my successes so others know about them without needing to hear about it at the watercooler.

Different work environments require different processes for self-promotion to be noticed, but it's still definitely possible while remote, and it becomes more possible the more remote work becomes the norm rather than the exception. I see no reason that we require RTO for people to advance their careers other than butt-seatism managers who mostly should just retire at this point.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#54

Post by Johnny555 »

timr wrote: post #47
MrPatan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"being in the office will be how you get noticed and advance in your career. " In every job I had working from the office I didn't have to get noticed before quitting for a better job and advancing my career.

The exception makes the rule. If you're truly working a job where you only advance by leaving , then you likely aren't in a position where you can advance at all. Or you are in such a job, but you've neglected the value of visibility to your career growth (PSA: this is far too common amongst programmers). It certainly happens, but it's not a counterargument to what I'm saying.

If you want to make big advances in your career and/or compensation, getting a new job will get you there faster. Advancing within a company is almost always a very slow process with minimal rewards - you get to move to a new salary band, but that doesn't result in a big jump in salary.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#55

Post by the_only_law »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #51
Johnny555 wrote: post #6

That's one reason for sure, but even if my house was a 10 minute walk from the office, I'd still rather only go in for meetings. At home I have my own private office with a nice view. I have a nice set of speakers and can play any music I like. If I want to go for a walk, I'm in a quiet suburban neighborhood with hiking trails nearby. The kitchen is always stocked with snacks I like plus freshly prepared healthy lunc…

>There's enough background noise in the open office that I keep headphones on most of the time while I'm at my desk. I still don't get how we as a species went "this is fine". The complete loss of audiovisual privacy is such an immense drain. I'll buy the "being close together works better" argument, but I still can't grasp how that offsets all the distractions in the modern office.

I used to keep the clip as a joke, because I was constantly going into the office early so I could get some work done before the constant chatter.

https://youtube.com/shorts/4whlr2dVDws?feature=share

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#56

Post by timr »

willcipriano wrote: post #52
timr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My commute is less than 30 minutes (one-way) and is a pretty pleasant drive.... it takes an hour out of my day, but it's not the primary reason I don't want to go to the office. Focusing on "reasons why I don't like the office" is missing the point, IMO. A lot of folks are betting on the long-term results of a short-term dislocation, but ignoring why things were as they were before the dislocation. It's sort of lik…

> being in the office will be how you get noticed and advance in your career That's a classic move. Businesses could offer a significant premium over remote roles to attract candidates, and could easy afford it if you take their in office productivity claims at face value, but that costs money, much easier to make handwavy, unfalsifiable (at least with the information you have as an employee) claims about how you wil…

I think you're attributing too much intent to the process. Monkeys gonna monkey.

As you note, you can do things to try to fight our fundamentally social nature, but it's like fighting the tides.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#57

Post by Steltek »

As the exception that proves the rule, I missed my commute terribly and its absence was having a negative impact on me. However, I have a 30 minute bicycle commute, which I think changes everything. The daily exercise, change of scenery, and fresh air made all the difference in the world. I'm probably more productive for my employer at home but I feel way better as a human being when I commute in.

When WFH, there were days where I wouldn't even leave the house. I had no idea what the weather was outside. Now I know what you're thinking but no, I couldn't maintain a habit of getting out of the house to do exercise for exercise's sake. The bike commute always felt different because it wasn't primarily about exercise and if you're committed to going to the office, you can't skip it no matter how much you want to.

Now that all said, I don't believe any level of car commuting is healthy. Kill that with fire and WFH!

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#58

Post by PaywallBuster »

best part of asia is that there's huge cities with nice condos everywhere

you can always find a nice place to stay near work or your favorite spots in a very short time and for reasonable prices

in western cities (tech capitals) you spend months looking for the "least worse" overly expensive option and you're stuck there, too often you're living one city away and spend 1h each way on commuting

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#59

Post by timr »

Johnny555 wrote: post #54
timr wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The exception makes the rule. If you're truly working a job where you only advance by leaving , then you likely aren't in a position where you can advance at all. Or you are in such a job, but you've neglected the value of visibility to your career growth (PSA: this is far too common amongst programmers). It certainly happens, but it's not a counterargument to what I'm saying.

If you want to make big advances in your career and/or compensation, getting a new job will get you there faster. Advancing within a company is almost always a very slow process with minimal rewards - you get to move to a new salary band, but that doesn't result in a big jump in salary.

Sure. But there are other steps that matter on the way. Want to get on the interesting project, which lets you put the big accomplishment on your resume? Want to get more responsibility, which lets you tell the recruiter that you've done the $essential_thing they're seeking for that better job?

It always helps to be visible, even if your long-term plan is to job hop into infinity (though I have to say this as another PSA: job-hopping will eventually stop working. It's a notably programmer-since-2012 phenomenon to assume that leaping from place to place will result in a monotonic increase in your salary and/or prestige forever and ever.)

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#60

Post by Johnny555 »

timr wrote: post #36
Johnny555 wrote: post #6

That's one reason for sure, but even if my house was a 10 minute walk from the office, I'd still rather only go in for meetings. At home I have my own private office with a nice view. I have a nice set of speakers and can play any music I like. If I want to go for a walk, I'm in a quiet suburban neighborhood with hiking trails nearby. The kitchen is always stocked with snacks I like plus freshly prepared healthy lunc…

> My commute is less than 30 minutes (one-way) and is a pretty pleasant drive.... it takes an hour out of my day, but it's not the primary reason I don't want to go to the office. Focusing on "reasons why I don't like the office" is missing the point, IMO. A lot of folks are betting on the long-term results of a short-term dislocation, but ignoring why things were as they were before the dislocation. It's sort of lik…

>Focusing on "reasons why I don't like the office" is missing the point

Well, that depends on whether the point is my own job satisfaction, or my employer's belief that making me work in a different environment is better for him.

I'm at the point in my career where I can focus on the first point.

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