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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

#131

Post by csnover »

RestlessMind wrote: post #116
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Because "we as a species" evolved to work in groups. Humans are not loners. We eat, work, recreate and live in groups. To ship any complex groundbreaking product, you have to collaborate closely with a big group. Only in the last few decades, and only a minority of Human population in that period, has there been so much emphasis on "privacy".

I think you’re right that humans work best in groups, but there is a difference between collaborating with a group and being physically proximal to a group. You can collaborate with dozens of people over the internet, or you can be the only programmer in an open office with dozens of co-workers who can’t help you.

Many of the most complex (software) products in the world are open source: web browser engines like Blink and Gecko, operating systems like Linux and its various distributions, compilers like GCC and LLVM, nearly every programming language, etc. Nearly all of that work is done collaboratively within a group, but it is not done in physical proximity to the rest of the group. Which works fine!

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

#132

Post by colechristensen »

tomtheelder wrote: post #87
colechristensen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone on HN who loves urban density should read things like this. Quality of life cooped up in a dense urban setting, especially with a family, is awful. There's so much space in the world, we don't need to pack ourselves in tiny urban centers near "tech hubs" at all.

This comment makes no sense. Folks who love urban density... love urban density. Why would reading a comment from someone who feels differently be important to us? I totally respect the parent comments opinion, but their lived experience differs from mine entirely. > Quality of life cooped up in a dense urban setting, especially with a family, is awful. This is unbelievably subjective, and you simply cannot state thi…

The people on HN want to push their preferences on everyone and change cities to appeal to their usually single-ish, 20s-ish lifestyle of appreciating a 600 sq ft apartment

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

#133

Post by skirmish »

vel0city wrote: post #118
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 still don't get how we as a species went "this is fine". The complete loss of audiovisual privacy is such an immense drain. Throughout history a huge chunk of us as a species did not have audiovisual privacy at work, and a massive percentage of the jobs throughout history never had it and still don't. Its immensely rare for us as a species to have full audiovisual privacy at our workplace, and has been for a long…

Sure, doing repetitive thoughtless work is more fun with other people milling around. But when you are at your cognitive limit trying to consider various ways this code could be failing, conversations about weekend plans are immensely distracting and rage inducing.

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

#134

Post by diob »

colechristensen wrote: post #132
tomtheelder wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes no sense. Folks who love urban density... love urban density. Why would reading a comment from someone who feels differently be important to us? I totally respect the parent comments opinion, but their lived experience differs from mine entirely. > Quality of life cooped up in a dense urban setting, especially with a family, is awful. This is unbelievably subjective, and you simply cannot state thi…

The people on HN want to push their preferences on everyone and change cities to appeal to their usually single-ish, 20s-ish lifestyle of appreciating a 600 sq ft apartment

I think it's more that folks wish we would build upwards more.

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

#135

Post by DragonStrength »

colechristensen wrote: post #132
tomtheelder wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes no sense. Folks who love urban density... love urban density. Why would reading a comment from someone who feels differently be important to us? I totally respect the parent comments opinion, but their lived experience differs from mine entirely. > Quality of life cooped up in a dense urban setting, especially with a family, is awful. This is unbelievably subjective, and you simply cannot state thi…

The people on HN want to push their preferences on everyone and change cities to appeal to their usually single-ish, 20s-ish lifestyle of appreciating a 600 sq ft apartment

Do they? When I was that age, I read all the time in tech-friendly press about how much I wanted those things, but I assure you I never did. It's always seemed like a narrative pushed by people who have just assumed the next generation will line up to spend even more money for less. I suspect if 25-35 year olds could reasonably afford 3 bedrooms in the Bay Area we wouldn't be having this issue at all, ignoring density of this area.

But don't make the mistake of conflating 700 sqft apts w/urban centers. On today's remote wages, an engineer can afford the kind of modest home in a walkable urban area in many parts of the US, but affording that on even NY and Bay Area Big Tech wages is looking out of grasp for that next generation. It certainly looks a lot riskier.

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

#137

Post by wolverine876 »

colechristensen wrote: post #132
tomtheelder wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment makes no sense. Folks who love urban density... love urban density. Why would reading a comment from someone who feels differently be important to us? I totally respect the parent comments opinion, but their lived experience differs from mine entirely. > Quality of life cooped up in a dense urban setting, especially with a family, is awful. This is unbelievably subjective, and you simply cannot state thi…

The people on HN want to push their preferences on everyone and change cities to appeal to their usually single-ish, 20s-ish lifestyle of appreciating a 600 sq ft apartment

Could you provide some examples of that? Most of what I see is trying to impose the trend of the moment, that cities are bad.

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

#138

Post by zer0-c00l »

rhino369 wrote: post #123
BlargMcLarg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Cubicals were much better but they were "lame" and "soulless."

agreed. My favorite office environment was a cube farm, and I’d argue that it was less “soulless” than the myriad open offices I’ve worked at since because people actually personalized their spaces.

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

#139

Post by wolverine876 »

colechristensen wrote: post #65
angarg12 wrote: post #23

All of my career I prioritized short commutes, which led to living in tiny apartments (as small as 25 sqmt) within a short commute from work. When Covid hit we had just moved to a new 1 bed flat and were paying our highest rent yet, but hey, 15 minutes commute! When it became evident we were in for the long haul we started looking to move again. We ended up moving to a 3 bed house with garden in a tiny village close…

Everyone on HN who loves urban density should read things like this. Quality of life cooped up in a dense urban setting, especially with a family, is awful. There's so much space in the world, we don't need to pack ourselves in tiny urban centers near "tech hubs" at all.

As others say, the density means you are walking distance - and otherwise public transit or bicycling distance - from all sorts of services, arts, etc. that aren't in the suburbs. I'll add that those services, arts, etc. include much that is far better than what is in the suburbs - better food, art, music, etc. etc. That doesn't appeal to everyone, of course, but if you care about it, then there is no substitute.

Look up a listing of music playing this weekend in NYC, for example. Look up arts and museums. etc.

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

#140

Post by vel0city »

skirmish wrote: post #133
vel0city wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Throughout history a huge chunk of us as a species did not have audiovisual privacy at work, and a massive percentage of the jobs throughout history never had it and still don't. Its immensely rare for us as a species to have full audiovisual privacy at our workplace, and has been for a long…

Sure, doing repetitive thoughtless work is more fun with other people milling around. But when you are at your cognitive limit trying to consider various ways this code could be failing, conversations about weekend plans are immensely distracting and rage inducing.

I'm mostly going against the extreme hyperbole of "we as a species" as if software developers in private offices are a species on to themselves. The percentage of humanity who did not have a private office for their main workspace vastly outnumbers those who did, and its been this way since probably the beginning of civilization. Its absurd to suggest that "open offices" are some recent fad from the 90s or even 80s...offices have had open spaces with multiple people in them since we've had workplaces! And even then, many of those offices had highly skilled people working on difficult engineering problems, and they often didn't have private offices either. Plus, its not like non-repetitive thought-engaging work is only done in offices, tons of challenging work is also done in the field or in labs or elsewhere.

Are brickmakers and steelworkers and mechanics and factory workers and lab techs and pharmacists a different species because they never gave up the loss of audiovisual privacy at their workplace? No. Its an absurd and vastly insulting statement BlargMcLarg was making.

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