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Why Do We Still Commute?

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Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#261

Post by moxious »

twoquestions wrote: post #98

We commute because businesses can push off the cost of commuting to their employees. I'd personally be in favor of a "congestion tax" or somesuch for companies that force their employees to come in rather than work remotely. Commuting takes up energy and resources, and the congestion incurs costs on third parties (car accidents, higher gas prices, and the like). While it's debatable whether remote works for businesse…

How is it that the business is pushing the costs off?

If you have a job, you're selling your labor. The commute is part of what you have to do to get your goods to market. Are you, as a purchaser of bananas, "pushing off the costs of transport" on to the seller? That seems silly considering the transporter prices that into the bananas, just like workers can price in longer commutes. Don't accept less money to travel further each day.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#262

Post by qyv »

jimmaswell wrote: post #244
codingdave wrote: post #81

I worked from home for five years, and just this week started back into a job where I commute to an office. I don't love the commute, but I also don't agree that working from home is a universally better answer for me on a personal level. Everyone knows the benefits of working from home, but there are downsides as well. Fixable downsides, but they exist nonetheless -- it is easy to become a hermit. Easy to over-work.…

>And when your entire company works from home, as mine did, you develop a culture of acting like there is no better choice, and the benefits of your personal flexibility at home outweigh any problems at work... causing people to not fight very hard to fix problems, and to stay in those jobs longer than they should because of how comfortable the working situation is. On the flip side, when your entire company works fr…

One key difference being that, when you see people every day, it is much easier to measure, manage and mitigate this behavior.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#263

Post by wambotron »

jablan wrote: post #219
blunte wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe your "commute" constitutes a commute in the sense of what this article is about. Your commute is just a walk. People traveling for 30-90 (or more!) minutes to and from work, particularly the ones driving in traffic, are the commuters. And the ones I know that fall into that category hate it. Good for you that you have such a nice situation, though!

Any commute is a commute. And if the only possible commute is driving 60+ minutes, citizens should seriously consider changing their city (in both meanings of the verb), rather than pretending a virtual workspace is as good as real one.

This is an extremely naive view of living situations and how "easy" it is to just move somewhere.

I worked for a company in NYC for years and lived 8 miles from work. It took me a minimum of 90 minutes to get to work.

You seem to think I can either just uproot my family and move to some sort of utopia city with short commutes, good public schools, and well-paying jobs; OR I can just change New York City itself.

The fact is that most people in the US have commutes of 25+ minutes. Folks who walk to work are not the norm, and city schools across the US are a complete failure and joke. Don't assume your situation applies to everyone.

* According to the US Cencus Bureau: https://project.wnyc.org/commute-times-us/embed.html

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#264

Post by kenpomeroy »

twoquestions wrote: post #98

We commute because businesses can push off the cost of commuting to their employees. I'd personally be in favor of a "congestion tax" or somesuch for companies that force their employees to come in rather than work remotely. Commuting takes up energy and resources, and the congestion incurs costs on third parties (car accidents, higher gas prices, and the like). While it's debatable whether remote works for businesse…

Why don't you just find a new job if you aren't happy with your company's employment conditions? Why resort to blanket government intervention instead of just addressing your concerns on an individual level?

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#265

Post by BeetleB »

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #259
BeetleB wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And that they probably are also not afraid to use that 'full bandwidth', disrupting everyone workflow, repeatedly, like calling an hour long team status update meeting for a communication that could have perfectly occurred in a 2 line email message. To be frank, people using IM to communicate with me disrupt my flow a lot more. They start a thread/conversation/request, and then are slow to respond, or disappear. You…

>They start a thread/conversation/request, and then are slow to respond, or disappear. That's the primary benefit of qorking remotely IMO. Not having to immediately stop everything im doing allows me to stay in flow state. It also improves the quality of my responses and solutions since i can let the request percolate in my head. Usually, I come up better answers when Im not actively thinking

So what's the benefit over just sending an email? If I do not need to respond immediately, why do I need an immediate notification (sound + popup/flashing window) that you've sent me an IM? Let it go to my email and I'll think about it after reading the email.

>Not having to immediately stop everything im doing allows me to stay in flow state.

So is it OK in remote work for me to turn off IM for 2-4 hours to remain in flow state? If not, then there will be no flow state for me.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#266

Post by Spivak »

PeterStuer wrote: post #169
tbrownaw wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When people say that they can't communicate as well with someone who isn't in the same room that doesn't necessarily mean that a remote setup doesn't work. It could simply mean they're just lazy and not willing to adjust to a different kind of work environment. It could also mean they actually have sufficient social skills that they're able to make full use of the higher bandwidth available face-to-face, and aren't w…

And that they probably are also not afraid to use that 'full bandwidth', disrupting everyone workflow, repeatedly, like calling an hour long team status update meeting for a communication that could have perfectly occurred in a 2 line email message. Which you'll also receive. Oh yeah, who's taking the minutes by the way?

Being remote doesn't fix that. They'll just initiate a video call or start a conference.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#267

Post by qyv »

swat535 wrote: post #151
codingdave wrote: post #81

I worked from home for five years, and just this week started back into a job where I commute to an office. I don't love the commute, but I also don't agree that working from home is a universally better answer for me on a personal level. Everyone knows the benefits of working from home, but there are downsides as well. Fixable downsides, but they exist nonetheless -- it is easy to become a hermit. Easy to over-work.…

I too have both in office and remote and I agree with all your points regarding working from home. However I must confess that the downsides of working from the office majority outweighs the other. I can no longer focus. I am constantly pulled into meetings. I have 120 minutes of commute everyday. When I get home I am too tired and can no longer spend quality time with my partner like I did when I was working from ho…

> I can no longer focus. I am constantly pulled into meetings.

If this behavior changes solely because you start working remotely it may not necessarily be to your advantage. Yes, in the short term you may maintain the ability to focus. However, in the long term you may find yourself being excluded and and diminished within the organization. These meetings, etc. don't stop when you work remotely, only those attending them do.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#268

Post by chrisdbaldwin »

crdoconnor wrote: post #247
maxsilver wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if city centers were more affordable to live in, many fewer would choose to live so far away from work. Myself included. I agree, and would personally do the same too if possible. But I've watched us artificially inflate property values for literally my entire life. Even in my tiny US Midwest city in the middle of nowhere, city center prices have never been remotely affordable. We should take it for granted that it…

Making city centers affordable would just require once again turning occupying / owning land into a tax liability rather than a rentier asset that grants you an effective right to tax others.

Rent certainly makes it more affordable to live somewhere until you suddenly never own your home and the rent was higher than the potential mortgage the whole time. I understand home ownership has a lot of hidden costs, but I think the rent situation is a festering cancer preventing the growth of a middle class especially in cities.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#269

Post by pessimizer »

jimmaswell wrote: post #244
codingdave wrote: post #81

I worked from home for five years, and just this week started back into a job where I commute to an office. I don't love the commute, but I also don't agree that working from home is a universally better answer for me on a personal level. Everyone knows the benefits of working from home, but there are downsides as well. Fixable downsides, but they exist nonetheless -- it is easy to become a hermit. Easy to over-work.…

>And when your entire company works from home, as mine did, you develop a culture of acting like there is no better choice, and the benefits of your personal flexibility at home outweigh any problems at work... causing people to not fight very hard to fix problems, and to stay in those jobs longer than they should because of how comfortable the working situation is. On the flip side, when your entire company works fr…

I believe the parent comment was referring to actual material problems with work tasks, not a lack of "evolution," nor a theoretical obsolescence of the overwhelmingly dominant form of workplace organization.

Re: Why Do We Still Commute?

#270

Post by pascalxus »

imgabe wrote: post #107
twoquestions wrote: post #98

We commute because businesses can push off the cost of commuting to their employees. I'd personally be in favor of a "congestion tax" or somesuch for companies that force their employees to come in rather than work remotely. Commuting takes up energy and resources, and the congestion incurs costs on third parties (car accidents, higher gas prices, and the like). While it's debatable whether remote works for businesse…

I've thought about this in the past. What if companies had to pay for the time you spend commuting? They'd have an incentive to hire people as close as possible, and support local policies that make it easier to live closer to work. On the other hand, employees would have an incentive to try to stretch out their commute as much as possible, to get extra pay for time "not working". I don't know how rampant that would…

It's a good idea in principle, but...

Also, you have to remember, in places like the bay area, you can't just pick up and move closer to work. People have enormous incentives to never move: Proposition 13 means you get 5 times lower property taxes by staying put. Not to mention the enormous imbalance between housing and jobs. All the jobs are on the peninnsula and all the housing is in the east bay. All these problems would just be amplified.

I think we're miss-stating the problem. The problem isn't that employers are forcing us to commute long distances with poor company placement. The problem is, we as employees don't have enough power to choose/demand where we want to work. There's simply too much labor supply and too little demand. So, if a worker demands to work remotely, the company can just say: we'll fire this guy and hire one of the countless others willing to commute 2 hours or more.

Just to prove my point: Here in the bay area, companies still place themselves on the penninsula where there's a 4 to 1 ratio of jobs to residential places to live. By that math, they shouldn't be able to hire anyone. And yet, they're having absolutely no problem filling positions, because workers are extremely desperate for money. So desperate, they're willing commute 2 hours or pay 60% of their paycheck to live closer. These are all symptoms of labor oversupply and too little labor demand.

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