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I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

salon.com

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Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#41

Post by mikelat »

peter303 wrote: post #21

I read a couple of essays from googliers who did this. Google provides nearly all your needs in office- free food, recreation, laundry- save a many hour sleep spot. And people work and hang out 12, 15 hours then. So why pay high rent only to sleep and put up with terrible commute traffic. In the open office environment of new techs finding sleep spots is harder. But many sleep in their vehicles in a climate rarely fr…

I'm surprised this isn't already a perk at working at some of these companies, but then again I'm assuming they'd be subjected to a whole swarm of regulations regarding living conditions.

Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#42

Post by greggarious »

waps wrote: post #28
melling wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Maps says Koreatown and Venice Beach are 15 miles apart. Some time late in the 21st Century or early 22nd Century humans will realize that great mass transit can really make life more enjoyable, and that'll be a 15 minute commute. It's pretty amazing how bad things have to get before people wake up.

Having commuted to work in Brussels, a city often described as having great mass transit (and when it's not busy, that's absolutely true) Here's my observations : 1) despite not paying for itself (the state pays hundreds of millions yearly to make up for the losses of the public transport system) it's a little bit more expensive, per kilometer, than taking a car (train + metro vs gas). Even for longer distances, plan…

Out of curiosity, where were you commuting from? Just the suburbs of Brussels or another city?

(I have met people who, for example, might commute from Berlin to Dresden daily and it always boggled my mind)

Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#43

Post by logfromblammo »

dghughes wrote: post #16
rafaelnonato wrote: post #5

I wonder what would happen if this form of housing became more popular. Maybe soon we'll be reading accounts about two office-overnighters who inevitably found about one another.

It sounds like something Japanese people would do since apparently the commutes in Japan are horrifying long. Those capsule hotels in Japan have been around for quite awhile. I've thought of creating an apartment building of pod apartments it seems to be a Millenials thing to couch surf or share apartments.

A capsule 2.2m high by 2.2m wide by 5.2m long will fit one to a 20' standard container, two to a 40' standard container, and three to a 53' road trailer. This is important to remember if you intend to build where manufacturing is cheap and transport to where land and rent is expensive.

Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#44

Post by crucifiction »

sliverstorm wrote: post #40
bigtunacan wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't get this attitude. It's not for everyone, but it's a great way to save money. Do this for awhile and you can save up to purchase a home outright or at least have a sizable down payment. I interviewed for a job in Chicago with a company where one of the employees lived in the office. Unlike the Salon article, this employee openly asked if he could live in the office to save himself the cost of rent. The…

I think it boils down to "work now, play later" vs. "work now, play now" philosophies. On the one hand you have the people who give 100% of their day to work, with the goal of building up F-U money and never working again. On the other hand you have the people who make less & save less and plan on working longer, but take more of their day for themselves. I don't think I can say either philosophy is wrong, but they d…

If cumulative happiness over your life is the goal then the first one is clearly the wrong approach. The probability that you will die/become incapacitated/have health issues before you can either build up or enjoy for a long period of time that F-U money puts a discount on the entire end state.

Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#45

Post by rpcope1 »

netman21 wrote: post #3

I used to do this when I was an executive at a software firm in Boulder, Colorado. I maintained a home in another state but commuted to Boulder every week. For a while I had a great deal on a shared condo but when the owner sold it I was faced with staying in hotels or... sleeping in my cubicle under the desk. There was a shower for employees so I would just get up early and be ready to go by 6 am. No one ever discov…

It's funny, for a lot of us, affording living in most of Boulder County (bar Longmont) is unfeasible even on a decent engineering salary. It's still crazy to me that housing prices and affordability near Denver/Boulder are starting to go the way of the Bay Area.

Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#46

Post by sologoub »

jacalata wrote: post #26
dghughes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like something Japanese people would do since apparently the commutes in Japan are horrifying long. Those capsule hotels in Japan have been around for quite awhile. I've thought of creating an apartment building of pod apartments it seems to be a Millenials thing to couch surf or share apartments.

Seattle has aPodments - http://apodment.com/

Cursory look on Craigslist showed a bunch of apartments for less than $900 in Queen Anne area, with ~$600 around Freemont. Not sure I see the need for "pods".

Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#47

Post by waps »

greggarious wrote: post #42
waps wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having commuted to work in Brussels, a city often described as having great mass transit (and when it's not busy, that's absolutely true) Here's my observations : 1) despite not paying for itself (the state pays hundreds of millions yearly to make up for the losses of the public transport system) it's a little bit more expensive, per kilometer, than taking a car (train + metro vs gas). Even for longer distances, plan…

Out of curiosity, where were you commuting from? Just the suburbs of Brussels or another city? (I have met people who, for example, might commute from Berlin to Dresden daily and it always boggled my mind)

About 35 kilometres from another city.

Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#48

Post by hellbanner »

One day I got into work much earlier than usual. I didn't think anyone else was there until I started typing. A programmer who had fallen asleep in his chair awoke with a startle, then started typing himself.

Funnily, he always left early in the day and was lauded by his teammates for doing the hard work in the morning when no one was around so he could concentrate.

Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#49

Post by ldd »

shanemhansen wrote: post #15

I've heard people who live with their parents proclaim how great it is. They don't have to pay rent or do their own laundry or anything us terrible materialistic people do. It's great for saving money. For reasons that I hope would be obvious I'm not interested in that sort of "lifestyle choice". This guy is worse because at least people who are mooching off their parents aren't literally stealing from them.

I live with my mom and my sister and do the cleaning, cook daily for our lunch and dinner, sweep and mop the floor, buy groceries, handle bills, etc.

Most of the people that I know that live at home do the same. How exactly are we mooching off our parents?

Re: I secretly lived in my office for 500 days

#50

Post by crimsonalucard »

pestaa wrote: post #27
geomark wrote: post #14

Some years ago I worked at a large aerospace firm in the L.A. area. 20,000 people worked there and with that many people there are bound to be a few odd ones. Several lived in their cars in the parking lot. But the weirdest one was the guy who was living in the ceiling above his office. The story goes that one night a security guard noticed some movement in a hallway and went to investigate. He saw some wet footprint…

What a sad way to waste your life. I'm sure he had other options considering he worked in an office at a "large aerospace firm," right?

Wasting money on rent is the bigger tragedy.
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