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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

#151

Post by ansible »

wolverine876 wrote: post #149
ansible wrote: post #29

In one of the meetings this week, we were talking about changing how a program works, to allow the user better access to the diagnostics information in the event of a hardware failure. When the program was first designed, the idea was that the program would exit, and the system would either take corrective action or restart. Easy, simple. Now, if the program continues to run in the event of hardware failures, we need…

Lots of people do not have home computers beyond their phones. When the pandemic began, one urban school district discovered that half their students didn't have a computer (desktop or laptop) at home.

Yep. Business need to take that into account. Considering that they will in general be spending less on office buildings and equipment, it shouldn't be hard to justify enough budget for each home worker's equipment and Internet connection.

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

#152

Post by weberer »

ericmay wrote: post #48
weberer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you're describing towns or small cities. And now that people can work remotely, that may be more viable, since we're no longer forced to migrate to tech hubs for competitive salaries. Maybe cramming in to huge cities will become a thing of the past.

In America, yea. I think the issues we face with other American cities, like Columbus, or Austin, or Nashville, etc. is that they're not built like small cities - in that they try to be a New York City, when they should instead model after Copenhagen or perhaps Amsterdam.

Even those are huge cities in my eyes. I was thinking something more along the lines of Portsmouth NH, or Ellicott City MD. Places small enough where you can walk from end to end in short enough time, but large enough to have plenty of shops and events. These places are exceptionally nice areas to live.

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

#153

Post by [deleted] »

tomtheelder wrote: post #84
nightski wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes no sense. Just go out and bike. I've been WFH for 10+ years and I do this all the time.

Switching from in office to WFH turned biking from one of my favorite parts of the day into a dreaded chore. I still do it, but I hate it now. You can't just discount the psychological impact of having to force yourself to do the activity instead of it being an integral part of your daily life.

[deleted]

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

#154

Post by lamontcg »

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.

This shouldn't really be an either-or.

People who want to and can work remotely should move to suburbs, dropping rents and housing costs in the dense urban centers.

Suburbs should also be redesigned with more neighborhood commercial so that they're less designed around driving for miles to massive clusters of big box stores.

It would also be interesting to have more decentralized density, so clusters of density out in present-day suburbia. That could provide a bit more population density to support the commercial real estate for the surrounding low density residential.

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

#155

Post by colin_mccabe »

wolverine876 wrote: post #147
colin_mccabe wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wish we spent more on bike paths and infrastructure. It's much cheaper than any of the other transit initiatives. However, it becomes very difficult to use them if you have to drop off kids in the morning. So it is never going to be an option for a lot of people. In general, working from home makes cities and public transit a lot less relevant. There isn't a strong reason for everyone to get on a train to the bi…

> I do wish we spent more on bike paths and infrastructure. It's much cheaper than any of the other transit initiatives. However, it becomes very difficult to use them if you have to drop off kids in the morning. Out of curiosity, could you put the kids in one of those child trailers, or on a cargo bicycle? > When you add crime, COVID-19, pollution, etc. into the mix the case for just staying home seems even better.…

My point was that commuting causes pollution, not that cities are always polluted.

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

#156

Post by Ataraxic »

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #95
Ataraxic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the unicorn where I both enjoyed my colleagues in the office and had a lot of fun. Was it _more_ productive? Hard to say but I could easily put on my headphones and work. The lack of visual privacy I realize but I would never say it hindered my work. Then again nobody was on me if I went on reddit for a bit because the tests are running. I think a bunch of people on hacker news are discounting how much mo…

If individuals can function under these circumstances or even like it, cool, fine, great. I just don't think it should be assumed everyone functions under these circumstances, or that someone who doesn't is dysfunctional, as pre-COVID almost made it seem. Managers seemed all to eager to discount anyone as "not a viable programmer" the moment they balked at the sound of an open office. >I think a bunch of people on ha…

Sure I totally agree that people have different preferences. Do you have a link to the study which showed that open offices reduced personal interaction? That wasn't my experience and I'm wondering what their methodology was.

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

#157

Post by MrStonedOne »

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#158

Post by lamontcg »

dougmwne wrote: post #21

This is a point that seems to be conveniently left out by most return to office advocates. My coworkers in Boston, DC and SF often had hellish commutes, up to 2 hours each way. That is a serious chunk of the waking hours of the day to spend on the road, not to mention the huge cost and environmental impact of the fuel, the emissions, and the additional roads that needed to be built to support these commutes. The stat…

> not to mention the huge cost and environmental impact of the fuel, the emissions, and the additional roads that needed to be built to support these commutes.

Plus a decent chunk of the 43,000 road deaths a third of all spinal injuries and a million days spent in the hospital every year from collisions.

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

#159

Post by lamontcg »

tomtheelder wrote: post #84
nightski wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes no sense. Just go out and bike. I've been WFH for 10+ years and I do this all the time.

Switching from in office to WFH turned biking from one of my favorite parts of the day into a dreaded chore. I still do it, but I hate it now. You can't just discount the psychological impact of having to force yourself to do the activity instead of it being an integral part of your daily life.

> You can't just discount the psychological impact of having to force yourself to do the activity instead of it being an integral part of your daily life.

You're talking about your own subjective preferences and motivations like they're universal constants of the human condition that apply to everyone.

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

#160

Post by [deleted] »

tomtheelder wrote: post #84
nightski wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes no sense. Just go out and bike. I've been WFH for 10+ years and I do this all the time.

Switching from in office to WFH turned biking from one of my favorite parts of the day into a dreaded chore. I still do it, but I hate it now. You can't just discount the psychological impact of having to force yourself to do the activity instead of it being an integral part of your daily life.

[deleted]
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