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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

#161

Post by shawnb576 »

RestlessMind wrote: post #127
Johnny555 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To ship any complex groundbreaking product, you have to collaborate closely with a big group. My company shipped several ground breaking projects during COVID enforced WFH where there was not even the possibility of getting together in person. And now as we've grown we've added teams all over the globe (3 offices in the USA, one in Canada, 2 in Europe and one coming online soon in Australia), so collaboration on a co…

During COVID, we relied on the existing relationships and the shared context to get things done. In fact, it was a once in a century event and was easy to rally troops, the same way it is easy to unify a society when there is a war. Now that most of the team is churned, I am observing a steep drop in productivity. New members have neither any shared context nor any meaningful bonds between them. If I were to bet, I w…

This is exactly right.

At the start of the pandemic, my company (a large well known Bay-Area tech company) saw improvements in our developer productivity metrics.

Over 2020, they faded.

I'm at a new company now, we have done a lot of hiring, seen a lot of churn, and it is really hard to get "think big" projects running.

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

#162

Post by greedo »

ansible wrote: post #151
wolverine876 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Beancounters gonna bean count. Our company feels that contributing $20/month for a mandatory smartphone plan is generous. They pretty much laughed when people wanted to be comped for Internet, or be able to take their work chairs home during COVID.

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

#163

Post by greedo »

baq wrote: post #7
tetraca wrote: post #4

If you live more than 30 minutes away from the office, and it's self-evident that your physical presence isn't necessary to accomplish your day to day, I don't see why someone wouldn't refuse to come back excepting a few days here and there for a fun communal activity with your team. Especially if they have children.

obviously they wouldn't refuse if they want to keep their job... return to office will be a very convenient way of laying off people without saying you're laying off people. remember an economic slowdown is underway for 2 quarters and will last for quite a bit more.

Unemployment rates in the US are at very low levels. In my state, it's under 2%.

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

#164

Post by fatnoah »

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…

>I have lived in rural, suburban, and dense urban settings, and my quality of life was by far, by far, the highest in the city. Almost every aspect of my life was improved when I moved to a dense urban center.

Same here, and the other families that lived in the dense urban center with us would agree. In fact, when we were thinking of moving from suburb back to city, we literally stopped families at parks in the city and asked them. Literally every one of the 10+ families we asked told us we should absolutely move!

Yes, we didn't have a driveway or big yard, but we did have a nearby park which became our yard, and most of our adventures didn't require a car, anyway. We'd simply walk out the door and go to one of the parks, restaurants, museums, etc. within a short walk. We'd bike or take the subway for longer distances. Without a yard or house to take care of, I had both weekend days available.

I could go on and on. My family and I found the energy of the city invigorating and I'm totally cool with the fact that others may not, or that going out and about all the time is not their idea of awesome.

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

#165

Post by ericmay »

weberer wrote: post #152
ericmay wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yea they're big no doubt. If we were starting from scratch I think we'd have lots of Portsmouth, New Hampshires and only a few New Yorks (you need that level of density for certain specializations - think quantum physics or neurosurgery).

So imagine the US, but maybe 5 New York level dense cities, and the rest of the country like Portsmouth.

Unfortunately though, I think we can't really undo the damage that's been done so far, so the best we can do is try to heal these cities and make them dense in a nice way. Hong Kong is an anti-pattern, and so is Houston. IMO.

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

#166

Post by tomtheelder »

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? Do you have examples? I really don't think that's something that actually happens on here.

Frequently you get people pointing out that highly dense areas require different approaches to planning and transportation, but that's hardly pushing some lifestyle on anyone who isn't interested in it.

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

#167

Post by tomtheelder »

lamontcg wrote: post #159
tomtheelder wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's an incredibly uncharitable interpretation of what I said. I'm just saying that that the impact something being part of your routine can be a real thing as it is for me, and that the comment I replied to might have missed some of the reason that the commenter they replied to misses their bike commute.

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

#168

Post by kibwen »

criddell wrote: post #115
kibwen wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up with one parent in the burbs and the other in the boonies, and today I live in a city and I'll never go back to anywhere that isn't eminently walkable. I don't value space, I value proximity to lots of people. I'm happy that WFH allows people who value the opposite to vacate the cities that make them miserable in order to free up room for people who crave density.

For me, what I want has changed a lot over my life. In my 20's I craved density. I loved the energy and options of cities. 30 years later, I'm the opposite. I live in the suburbs in a house big enough to give me a home gym, workshop, office, etc... but if I had a self-driving car and could get great internet, I'd move way out of the city. I want a little more space and a lot less noise.

Regarding noise, I've told this story before on HN, but the loudest place I've lived was the aforementioned house in the boonies, where the noise from passing trucks and motorcycles at all hours of the night was intolerable. My place in the city is far quieter, ironic given that it's literally a hundred yards or so from a turnpike and a rail line (never once heard the train passing in all these years, somehow).

As for the gym, the workshop, the office, I'd personally rather share those with the community. As mentioned, I'm in the city because I enjoy being around people, which isn't to say that I want to work in an office (hell no), but I do want to work in public among people doing their own work (and who, unlike co-workers, won't be constantly pestering me with questions).

Which is to say, my riposte is that the older I get the more I realize that community is what I crave, and that I was dissatisfied with the community that I found in my rural and suburban lives: finding a community in the city is harder, because you actually have to try, but much more fulfilling IME.

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

#169

Post by wolverine876 »

colin_mccabe wrote: post #155
wolverine876 wrote: post #147

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. 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.

That is a good point. Sorry that I leapt to the other interpretation.

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

#170

Post by urthor »

Ataraxic wrote: post #69
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 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…

I agree, but it depends on a few factors.

A hot desking setup where you can't sit next to your colleagues like OP described is a total waste of time.

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