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Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

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Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#601

Post by petsfed »

ghaff wrote: post #415
vladvasiliu wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may be right, but as a personal anecdote, I totally agree with the sentiment you're responding to. I don't particularly enjoy working from the office and much prefer doing so from home, but I can tolerate it. I like my colleagues and shooting the breeze with them, but they're not my friends. But boy do I absolutely hate my commute, to the point that it shadows whatever positives there are when working from the of…

In the US, I have about a five minute drive to the nearby train station and then I'm something over an hour by train and subway into the city depending upon where I'm going. Aside from not being able to actually walk to the train station, I'm not sure how you improve on that given the distance no matter what country you're in. And having done that commute about 3 days a week for over a year, it was pretty bad even th…

I think the way to improve that is to somehow lower the cost of housing, such that workers can afford to live close enough to the office to minimize the time cost of commuting.

When I was commuting in the Bay Area, I'd walk half a mile to the local BART station (a walk I rather enjoyed), then I'd spend the next 90 minutes on a bus or train until I arrived at work. If I got to BART after 6am, I'd stand on the train for the first 60 minutes. Then I'd reverse the whole thing on the way home, although I typically got on the train early enough that I could sit the whole ride home. All of that, because that is what I could afford to do. The funny thing is, if I was paid at my hourly equivalent for all of that time spent commuting, I could afford to live closer to the office.

I don't know that I like working from home per se, but I definitely hated that I spent 1-3 hours a day, every day, traveling, when I could be doing something I wanted to do. My ability to have hobbies, or spend meaningful time with my family, is basically blunted by the fact that I can't afford to house my family close to where I work. Its better now that I'm out of the Bay Area, but it's still a problem, and will be a problem, for the foreseeable future.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#602

Post by chernofool »

dxscorp wrote: post #369
dont__panic wrote: post #340

Most of my distaste for WFO comes from two places: - the USA's failure to provide even a single city that's pleasant to live in and travel around without a car - tech company insistence on open office layouts that are not conducive to deep work The first one sounds like a commute problem... but it manifests in more ways than you think. When you have to travel around in a car, everything is expensive. Parking is a pai…

Check out Boston/Brookline, I have a car to go see family / go north for nature but rarely use it!

Hush, the city is unaffordable enough already without a surge of VC valley types.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#603

Post by ozarker »

Zezima wrote: post #457
dont__panic wrote: post #340

Most of my distaste for WFO comes from two places: - the USA's failure to provide even a single city that's pleasant to live in and travel around without a car - tech company insistence on open office layouts that are not conducive to deep work The first one sounds like a commute problem... but it manifests in more ways than you think. When you have to travel around in a car, everything is expensive. Parking is a pai…

You've described Brooklyn and NYC at large... if you're anti-car then consider the city. Boston is a good second choice. I've lived in both. NYC comes with the normal downsides of the biggest city in the US: expenses, limited space, crowding, and noise. But this is true of all large cities in the world: Paris, London, Tokyo, etc. But it comes with the immense upsides of a functioning metropolitan transit system, whic…

Awesome username :D

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#604

Post by uhtred »

For me (I hate working in an office -- it has a very serious negative impact on my mental health) I think you listed the exact reasons I hate it (there are many more):

- "Discussing our team's latest Python problems over a coffee" -- the problems I have to work on at work I am not at all interested in talking about. They are boring.

- "Looking over at their screen and then asking them why they look like they want to beat someone over the head with their keyboard repeatedly." -- I'm sure you are a lovely person, but I would find that very annoying. I am socially anxious and don't like attention being drawn to me in an open office

- "Grabbing dinner with a few colleagues after a long workshop meeting in the evening" -- holy shit, workshop meetings suck. I don't want to be stuck in a tiny, smelly, windowless room with 5 other guys for 3 hours, and then also spend my free evening time with them.

- "Have a lot of people realized they don't actually like being among other people" -- for 8+ hours a day, in an open office with no respite from them? YES!

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#605

Post by neilv »

BaseballPhysics wrote: post #180
bodge5000 wrote: post #118

With all due respect, this is mostly my problem with the "work-from-office" (WFO for ease) crowd. Generally, the stance of the WFH crowd is that each individual should get a choice of what makes that individual happy. Very few, if any, of the WFH crowd want mandatated WFH, it would make no sense. But then the WFO crowd often says no, I don't care what makes you happy, because you being in makes me happy. That doesn't…

I'd also add that comments like this: > Now, I am fully aware that there's a low of people for whom the horror of commute doesn't make up for the gains of socializing and others that just abhor having to talk to real-life people. Then there are people who work mainly to get paid and do not care to invest themselves beyond what is necessary. Are remarkably condescending. Folks opting for a better work-life balance, wh…

If a US person made those "Now, I am fully aware" comments you quoted, I think one likely interpretation is that they are generalizing from anecdotes from personal experience (possibly including conflating distinct properties), and resent that.

Another possibility is that, although the English is excellent, there are probably implicit cultural values and ideas that are unfamiliar to me.

(Incidentally, though I don't think it's the case here, I've also sometimes seen tone like that slip in when someone is astroturfing, or writing a persuasive piece around misrepresenting their real position, but is not good at it. It's a bit like Fellow Kids.)

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#606

Post by closeparen »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #566
teawrecks wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if I can't fit in a shoebox and can't afford anything larger? What if I have a dog and want them to have a yard that doesn't require me to leash them every time they want to go outside? I don't mind sharing a yard with neighbors, heck I would even share a kitchen space if I knew it would be maintained well and available when I need it. But none of that is even an option. I don't buy the idea that only hyper-dens…

You can't have walkable if each person has a lot of space.

Elevators are fast.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#607

Post by knowledge-clay »

listenallyall wrote: post #429
criddell wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> improve housing policy so people can live closer to work Or, improve labor policy so work becomes a much smaller part of most people's lives.

Come on... people work far less than they ever did before, that should be pretty obvious if you just think about it. Further, tons of "work" is done with zero physical strain, lots of those "work" hours are the in-between stuff -- travel, meetings, calls, lunches -- meaning that actual hours laboring are even less. https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours

> people work far less than they ever did before

Sure, if you look at the last 150 years, but the data you linked is basically flat since 1980: over the last 30 years in the United States, working hours are down 2%.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#608

Post by BaseballPhysics »

z9znz wrote: post #581
samuel_backend wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your comment 100% but the closing line is ridiculously beside the point. I also really don't get how anyone reads into my post that I want to force everyone to come back to the office all the time. My whole point was that I sometimes feel like I'm the only one missing certain things about working in a co-located manner and, you're absolutely right there, I forgot to factor in some very import background…

The last line of my comment was "OP likely doesn't factor this in and comes to the naive conclusion that it must mean we don't like talking to people". Your post did say, "others that just abhor having to talk to real-life people". Not me, but others did take that to suggest that many of us were antisocial or incapable of social interaction. I don't take offense because I will easily admit to not being interested in…

> Don't feel alone though -- you are not the only person wanting to come back into the office. About 1/3 of my colleges at my previous gig this year were asking for this. 1/3 of us were thinking, "wtf, hell no, we don't want to come in". And 1/3 were not publicly commenting :).

Random aside, but it's fascinating to me that, when we ran a survey at our company, we had literally the exact same results.

I'm kinda jealous of sociologists and economists, because there's some fascinating research papers that will come out of all of this.

Re: Ask HN: Why don't I see gold at the end of the remote working rainbow?

#609

Post by trap_goes_hot »

bodge5000 wrote: post #118

With all due respect, this is mostly my problem with the "work-from-office" (WFO for ease) crowd. Generally, the stance of the WFH crowd is that each individual should get a choice of what makes that individual happy. Very few, if any, of the WFH crowd want mandatated WFH, it would make no sense. But then the WFO crowd often says no, I don't care what makes you happy, because you being in makes me happy. That doesn't…

Both sides have their points, but fundamentally, to me, it makes no sense to join a company with an office, and then fight to not go to that office.
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