Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is remote work bad for the economy?

fractional.work

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 363 posts

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#191

Post by atraac »

doublerabbit wrote: post #172
atraac wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Remote work is great for: - People who want more quality time with family I'd argue it's great for people. In general. I don't have family, I can spend more time with my dog, I can make morning or afternoon walk longer, I can get better at cooking cause I have more time, I have more time for hobbies, to deal with personal stuff, I can go to public institution or a doctor if I have to, without taking a day off since…

I'll argue it's not and that the better alternative would be to have your own chosen days off. I've just started a new job for an enterprise company. It is proving insanely hard getting in contact with folk. Myself having to introduce myself every-time. Trying to find someone to give me basic mentoring, even trying to understand the hierarchy. Not only does communications break down over email, messenger, people get…

> better alternative would be to have your own chosen days off.

Sure, I'll just let my dog sit for 10 hours straight on those other days. It might be a better alternative for YOU, but I doubt it's true for most peole who want fully remote work.

> It is proving insanely hard getting in contact with folk. (...) Trying to find someone to give me basic mentoring, even trying to understand the hierarchy.

Sounds like a company issue, not a problem with WFH in particular. I work remotely while my whole team is hybrid in another country, we're doing perfectly fine, hell they even praise me for actually getting in touch all the time. You need a certain type of personality to be able to thrive in remote work. You need to be able to get people to talk and point you in the right direction, get the information you need yourself. Most people are not like that, most people need someone standing over their head to show them the way.

> Not only does communications break down over email, messenger, people get the wrong intention of the email, if I wish to add input I have to encounter where it doesn't feel like I'm the bulldozer. Many skills are lost WFH.

Sounds like a YOU issue. Emails are meant to be purely async. Messaging like Teams/Slack are meant to be more of an actual conversation. If people get wrong intentions from your emails or messages then you should work on your writing, not sure what does this have to do with WFH. They'll have the same bad impression from your emails even if you write them while sitting at the office.

> Code reviews suck over webcam

Who on earth does code review while calling with webcams? The whole idea of code review is for it to be asynchronous so you don't bother other people with context switching. If you meant pair coding, then yes, it's a bit more of a hassle. Still never an issue for me, we either whip out vscode/Rider, or simply share screen. Worked ok so far, but sure, sitting next to each other is always going to be better.

> sharing knowledge is insanely hard

Again, organizational issue, remote work encourages actually documenting stuff, not just saying openly in a meeting room "I will X because of Y" and proceeding to write meaningless code because "well... everyone noded in the room". I almost forced people at my new company to write comments both in code and Jira tasks, describe what was talked through during meetings or one on one calls. Everyone loves it after a while, refining tasks is much easier, finding a reason for why certain decisions were made is also suddenly much easier.

> The trip to and from work allows me to break work mode and have my own freedom without having a work laptop stashed underneath the desk.

Great for you, but I don't have to stash anything. If you work fully remotely you learn to divide business and pleasure. I do work and play from the same desk, my work laptop is gone after the day. Organizing your workplace is another issue that is more of a 'you' rather than WFH-bad.

Again, remote work is not suited for everyone, but your arguments don't really explain why WFH would be bad. They just explain why you or your org is not suited for remote work. I started full remote fairly recently, I get paid much more because I can pick from many more offers(central EU), I have much more time for myself, my SO and my dog, I do many more things during the day that I otherwise wouldn't. It's amazing and at this point I will rather switch careers than go back to the office, especially since at current rate I will be mortgage free by the time I'm 35.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#192

Post by KronisLV »

sokoloff wrote: post #168
KronisLV wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Working from the office they spend that money on fuel, indirectly spend on road maintenance, directly spend on vehicle maintenance where the shop in turn spends on parts and tools and so on. It's arguable whether all of this is needed everywhere in the world, to such a degree as is presently done. In the cities, the transportation needs of most folks can be covered by public transportation (depending on the country…

I live in Cambridge, MA (a city for sure) and used to work in an office near the Waltham/Lexington line. Not some out in the rural woods places at all. I looked up and wrote up my “what if I tried to commute on public transit to make a 9AM meeting?” It’s ugly to the point where no one would voluntarily choose it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31723197

It probably depends a lot on your circumstances, location and other factors!

In my case, in Rīga (the capital of my country, Latvia), it was approximately:

  - leave apartment at 7:45
  - walk to stop in around 5 minutes
  - wait 5 - 10 minutes for a trolley bus
  - ride in it for 20 - 30 minutes
  - walk from stop to work for 10 minutes
I think it averaged out to around 40 minutes per trip, and 1 euro per day, given a monthly ticket: https://www.rigassatiksme.lv/en/tickets-and-e-ticket/types-a...

With a car, the same trip would be around 20-40 minutes.

For comparison's sake, walking would mean upwards of 100 minutes for that trip.

Regardless of whether in a car, or using public transportation, coming home in the evening often included waiting in traffic jams for close to an hour. In comparison, when coming home before 4-6 PM, the streets were relatively empty and there were no such traffic issues. Fewer cars, fewer issues of that sort.

But what holds here true doesn't hold true elsewhere and vice versa. Once you go past a certain scale of the city in question, transfers and other complications become unavoidable. Just how much of an issue it is, depends on many other factors as well (car ownership cost, possibility of accidents, the disadvantage of not being able to easily transport things when not owning a car and so on, lack of freedom without a car, especially when you want to visit less popular rural areas).

Neither beats rolling out of bed at 8:45, turning on the computer and brewing some coffee or tea, doing a morning shower and "being at work" 10 minutes later, though.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#193

Post by 988747 »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #107
satoru42 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is said that in many cities in China the governments actually did something similar. They broke parts of the roads repeatedly so that they could rebuild them later.

That's how local corruption works in Eastern European cities. New mayor gets elected, so good streets get torn up and re-paved, so that his friend who runs a local construction company gets a lucrative government contract above market rates. Rinse and repeat every time we get a new mayor. It's a tried and tested way of legally shoveling public taxpayer money into well connected private pockets. I've seen similar corr…

Yes, and it's also funny that they will re-pave the street, and then few months later it turns out that some water pipes need to be replaced, so the freshly re-paved street is torn up again. Then, few months later, new fiber cables needs to be put in the ground, so guess what?. Re-paving becomes one of the best businesses in such town :)

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#194

Post by kwhitefoot »

mannerheim wrote: post #27

'We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to ours for the production of light that he absolutely inundates our national market with it at a price fabulously reduced. The moment he shows himself, our trade leaves us — all consumers apply to him; and a branch of native industry, having countless ramifications, is all at once rendered com…

The Petition of the Candlemakers by Frederic Bastiat, (1845).

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#195

Post by carlosjobim »

landemva wrote: post #133
geysersam wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The purpose of the economy is to fulfill human desires. The only question we have to ask to understand which situation resulted in higher economic output is: which situation resulted in satisfying more human desires. It's clear that the pointless burning of fossil fuels didn't satisfy any human need. Then the question becomes: is the distribution of currency caused by the buying and burning of the fuels preferable to…

> the pointless burning of fossil fuels didn't satisfy any human need. That sentence would have a different meaning if the conclusitory (looking for real word here) word "pointless" was not there. Abundant reliable on-demand energy has enormously improved the human condition. I'm also glad the Dutch no longer dig up peat bogs for dirty fuel.

He or she didn't mean that burning of these fuels is pointless, it was a response to a poster suggesting to pointlessly burn these fuels in order to stimulate the economy.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#196

Post by mejutoco »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #46
latency-guy2 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I said those words, so sure?

“I think you should consider more than your own happiness, we're talking about the economy” Did I misinterpret this?

A generous interpretation would be: when making policy decisions we should maximize the happiness of many people, not specific individuals.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#197

Post by carlosjobim »

KronisLV wrote: post #120
friendzis wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wellllll.... debatable. This argument of expense rerouting is a bit flawed. Suppose working from home saves one some money that they spend elsewhere. Working from the office they spend that money on fuel, indirectly spend on road maintenance, directly spend on vehicle maintenance where the shop in turn spends on parts and tools and so on. The money one spends circulates in the economy much longer and reaches more act…

> Working from the office they spend that money on fuel, indirectly spend on road maintenance, directly spend on vehicle maintenance where the shop in turn spends on parts and tools and so on. It's arguable whether all of this is needed everywhere in the world, to such a degree as is presently done. In the cities, the transportation needs of most folks can be covered by public transportation (depending on the country…

Having your own vehicle is an enormous benefit in quality of life, why would anybody want to take that away? Why should we then eat nice food when we can survive on dull rations? There is so much more to the use of personal vehicles than just "transportation needs", but yes - some places build their infrastructure too much catering to cars.

The best way to beat traffic right now without having to wait for anybody else to change is to get a motorcycle - if the climate where you live permits.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#198

Post by carlosjobim »

badpun wrote: post #132
chii wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This obviously is a financial loss for the economy it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? The replacement is gonna cause huge growth!

> it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Not neccessarily, people have less costs now, so some people can now just choose to work less - which would shrink the economy.

Working less is the purpose of the economy.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#199

Post by chii »

f6v wrote: post #123
chii wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This obviously is a financial loss for the economy it's not, because the money that was otherwise spent (wasted) can now be deployed else where. Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? The replacement is gonna cause huge growth!

> Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? Starting wars to fuel arms industry worked just fine so far.

The war in afghanistan (and to a degree, iraq 2nd invasion) was largely a waste, but these are not the same as the broken window fallacy.

Re: Is remote work bad for the economy?

#200

Post by pokepim »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #190
f6v wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Otherwise, why not increase the GDP and economy, by periodically just breaking every window? Starting wars to fuel arms industry worked just fine so far.

The distinction is breaking someone else’s windows. Plus you need to win, not just start the war, and extract some resources from the someone else.

[dead]
Post reply on HN