111–120 of 130 posts
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Once remote working has been around long enough we'll probably see the rise of new social constructs that fill the void the office as the "second place" is leaving behind. The office was a crappy "second place" anyways.
Before office work was the norm, what was this "second place?" Churches, probably? Taverns?
I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later. Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both be…
I have a friend what has a company with ~20 employees. During COVID they all went WFH. After 12 months or so they announced they'd stay WFH forever and closed the office. 9 months later the president and office manager got new office. They realized they were more productive together than separated, more productive at a dedicated work space than at home with all the distractions, family, kids. They were also happier t…
Not only: since we are social animals we need a social life, in most modern society due to the number of worked hours work life is ALSO social life, in a WFH setup we need a local social life apart of the work life.
IOW for a proper, real, scalable, effective WFH model we need to work less, like OR the morning or the afternoon, even for 6 days a week, or just 4 days a week maximum, to been able to have the work life and the local social life. We need homes with an office per human living there etc. With all that and a bit of habit well I'm pretty confident 80% of people with eligible jobs (around 30% of all jobs I imaging) would like to WFH. It's not a thing that can be done quickly simply because we can't reshape the society quickly. Here is the fault.
With enough time we can (re)build a distributed enough society with distributed enough services that cover people needs AND desire, so we can have local schools for children (as before) because for them being physically together is needed, with enough services for elders, for "middle ages" etc. few industrial districts, because certain productions can't be much distributed, and so on. Such cultural shift can probably happen in 25 years minimum, I doubt the society can be quicker than that...
I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later. Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both be…
The point is to keep local economies alive. It's not about us, it's about the guy who delivers lunch, or the girl who owns the bagel shop. However, offices are straight up abelist , if you have mobility issues it's absurdly hard to commute. Commuting isn't really needed here, if I was in a wheelchair I'd take this to court. Full tin foil hat time, if remote work was the norm the entire commercial real estate sector w…
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The point is to keep local economies alive. It's not about us, it's about the guy who delivers lunch, or the girl who owns the bagel shop. However, offices are straight up abelist , if you have mobility issues it's absurdly hard to commute. Commuting isn't really needed here, if I was in a wheelchair I'd take this to court. Full tin foil hat time, if remote work was the norm the entire commercial real estate sector w…
I was born socialist country and since state owned everything, they would keep a factory afloat just so it keeps people employed even if it operates on losses. That is not sustainable. Sooner or later it had to collapse. We don't have classic peasants anymore because society recognized that keeping them in business we had to compromise too much in other areas of society. At some point the mentioned delivery guy and g…
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I find it ok to see and visit coworkers now and then, but work is not meant to replace one's social life. Further, some years back, I attended a couple different "Work at a Startup" and related events. Companies pushing "we are a family", "we hang out after work" typically means they have an unreasonable expectation of how much time they expect you to be around - despite productivity. Do I have colleagues (current or…
> I find it ok to see and visit coworkers now and then, but work is not meant to replace one's social life. Work has been a critical component of social life for many generations now. It is extremely strange to offhandedly dismiss its role like that. > Do I have colleagues (current or former) that are friends? Yes. Do/did I feel a need to be in the office to spend time with them - no. I started my previous job in mid…
Chalk it up as an overreaction to how many startups and large tech companies with imposing corporate cultures alike have tried to foster workplaces designed to keep workers away from home for as long as they could with free dinners and foosball tables.
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It is inherently impossible for most people to walk/bike to an office job, that is not due to a choice of urban design. The point of office jobs, and cities in general, is that agglomerating huge numbers of people lets you choose workers from a larger pool, which leads to more specialization and higher productivity. These huge numbers of people will need to live across a large area, so wherever you put the office, at…
I think it's important to note that it is inherently possible for most people to walk/bike to an office in the US . Many European cities (I live in Copenhagen, for example) make this an extremely viable option. Honestly, if you take your car or the metro to work, it is usually slower, more expensive, and you don't get a nice workout! But many European cities are designed in order to pedestrians to be able to get arou…
I live in Philadelphia and this is true there too. In general the city is dense enough that bike commuting is very viable, but the most direct routes are far too dangerous for most people.
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That’s in a mindset where workers are interchangeable and change employers often, and employers make no effort to cluster together. You could also have a model where workers specialize within either a single company for life (japanese model) or a cluster of geographically near companies doing the same line of work (silicon valley model) and they choose to live near this location. New employers in the same line of wor…
Working in one place for life is very economically inefficient for any intellectual work. Eventually there will be a company that would get more value out of you, and therefore is willing to pay you more, but you won't be able to take the job. Clusters of companies already exist. One is Manhattan where finance jobs are concentrated, another (like you say) is Silicon Valley where tech jobs are concentrated. In both, t…
I wouldn’t say this is that much of a free choice in Silicon Valley, where housing density is highly limited by regulatory means.
It is less the death of the office and more the death of work. We just haven’t come to admit that. Death of work and “cold” relationships and the retreat to home, emotional connection, nurturing, caring. Once employers know it’s more about that and less about work then we will see things turn around.
Found the manager.
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> I miss offices in reasonable locations. Instead they're all in the same 6-8 cities... The majority of the US population lives in the same 6-8 metro areas; so it's "reasonable" to put offices in those metro areas. I've worked at places with offices in downtown areas (short public transit ride or walk), in close suburbs (the extent to where public transit goes), and in remote suburbs (that require driving to get ther…
> The majority of the US population lives in the same 6-8 metro areas; According to [0] that isn't true. The eight most populous metro areas make up less than a quarter of the population in the U.S. You'd need the 48 most populous metro areas, not the 8 most populous. That means including all the way down to... Salt Lake City, Utah, at just over a million people. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=sum+of+the+popula…
I've gone back to "the office" but I've realized that what I've really gone back to is the lab. And the lab is not the office. The lab has a door that closes, big Danger signs, and a flashing red light above the door. I also have a desk in a cubicle, but there have been some chances since the pandemic. Maybe others have alluded to it as well: Work life is a bit more relaxed. Our supervisor moved to his home town, and…
I spent a short time at a place where I had both an office desk and a desk in a lab room. I never figured out why I would ever work from the office desk; the lab was superior in every way. Judging from the people milling about the lab corridors, other people except the most senior ones and/or managers thought the same. And sure enough, if my current workplace had a lab room to offer, I'd be much more inclined to go t…