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Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

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Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#41

Post by troon-lover »

timr wrote: post #36
Johnny555 wrote: post #6

That's one reason for sure, but even if my house was a 10 minute walk from the office, I'd still rather only go in for meetings. At home I have my own private office with a nice view. I have a nice set of speakers and can play any music I like. If I want to go for a walk, I'm in a quiet suburban neighborhood with hiking trails nearby. The kitchen is always stocked with snacks I like plus freshly prepared healthy lunc…

> My commute is less than 30 minutes (one-way) and is a pretty pleasant drive.... it takes an hour out of my day, but it's not the primary reason I don't want to go to the office. Focusing on "reasons why I don't like the office" is missing the point, IMO. A lot of folks are betting on the long-term results of a short-term dislocation, but ignoring why things were as they were before the dislocation. It's sort of lik…

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Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#42

Post by MrPatan »

timr wrote: post #36
Johnny555 wrote: post #6

That's one reason for sure, but even if my house was a 10 minute walk from the office, I'd still rather only go in for meetings. At home I have my own private office with a nice view. I have a nice set of speakers and can play any music I like. If I want to go for a walk, I'm in a quiet suburban neighborhood with hiking trails nearby. The kitchen is always stocked with snacks I like plus freshly prepared healthy lunc…

> My commute is less than 30 minutes (one-way) and is a pretty pleasant drive.... it takes an hour out of my day, but it's not the primary reason I don't want to go to the office. Focusing on "reasons why I don't like the office" is missing the point, IMO. A lot of folks are betting on the long-term results of a short-term dislocation, but ignoring why things were as they were before the dislocation. It's sort of lik…

"being in the office will be how you get noticed and advance in your career. "

In every job I had working from the office I didn't have to get noticed before quitting for a better job and advancing my career.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#43

Post by weberer »

ericmay wrote: post #12
dfxm12 wrote: post #10

Employee opposition to commuting ... may require investing in housing, highways, public transportation and other infrastructure necessary to reduce commute times. Yet another benefit for investing in housing and public transportation. Based on my proximity to public transportation, too, I have many job options close by, so I'm not likely to get stuck in a bad spot.

Agreed, and look at how fragile we are when gas prices go up. If we just built medium-density, mixed use development with appealing architecture and sensible transit options (walk, bike, ride street cars or light rail) with the option of still owning a car (ideally around 1 per family) we'd be in such a better place.

Sounds like you're describing towns or small cities. And now that people can work remotely, that may be more viable, since we're no longer forced to migrate to tech hubs for competitive salaries. Maybe cramming in to huge cities will become a thing of the past.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#45

Post by Johnny555 »

rndmize wrote: post #25

No shit. As far as the Bay goes, it feels like decisions about office placement are made with things like management or prestige in mind, rather than the average worker. For all the growth in the East Bay and Tri-Valley area, it seems like most office buildings continue to be built on the peninsula. Hayward is one of the most central locations in the bay and is largely used for... logistics and distribution? I miss t…

>it feels like decisions about office placement are made with things like management or prestige in mind

Our company made that management focus explicit - our main office is on the Peninsula and before COVID hit we opened an east bay (Pleasanton) office, which happened to be close to the homes of the CEO, CFO and a couple other C-level execs.

Employees that lived in the East bay thought "Great! We can go to that office and avoid that long cross-bay commute", but no, "Finance and Marketing are moving to the East Bay Office along with senior leadership, it is not available for drop-in by other employees". Which didn't please a lot of people that had organized their life around the Peninsula commute and now have to go to the East Bay

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#46

Post by tristor »

bobthepanda wrote: post #24
swader999 wrote: post #15

Child care, clothing, dry cleaning, car insurance & maintenance, parking, gym membership, eating out all add up. Oh yeah, gas too.

You need to pay for a gym membership to return to office?

For a lot of people, their companies don't pay for a gym membership or don't have an office gym, and if the gym is part of their lifestyle not working from home means needing a gym membership in the city near the office.

The logic is pretty simple, if you are going to be stuck in rush hour commute home for 2 hours or you can walk to a city gym and work out for an hour, then jump into your commute and be home in an hour and 45 minutes, so it costs you 45 minutes of total time for 1 hour of gym time + you arrive home to take a shower and get ready for the evening vs trying to work out after the drain of a commute.

Meanwhile if you work from home, you can afford the space to have a home gym that you can use whenever you have time and don't need the drain of the commute at all, because you live farther from the city.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#47

Post by timr »

MrPatan wrote: post #42
timr wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My commute is less than 30 minutes (one-way) and is a pretty pleasant drive.... it takes an hour out of my day, but it's not the primary reason I don't want to go to the office. Focusing on "reasons why I don't like the office" is missing the point, IMO. A lot of folks are betting on the long-term results of a short-term dislocation, but ignoring why things were as they were before the dislocation. It's sort of lik…

"being in the office will be how you get noticed and advance in your career. " In every job I had working from the office I didn't have to get noticed before quitting for a better job and advancing my career.

The exception makes the rule. If you're truly working a job where you only advance by leaving, then you likely aren't in a position where you can advance at all. Or you are in such a job, but you've neglected the value of visibility to your career growth (PSA: this is far too common amongst programmers).

It certainly happens, but it's not a counterargument to what I'm saying.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#48

Post by ericmay »

weberer wrote: post #43
ericmay wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, and look at how fragile we are when gas prices go up. If we just built medium-density, mixed use development with appealing architecture and sensible transit options (walk, bike, ride street cars or light rail) with the option of still owning a car (ideally around 1 per family) we'd be in such a better place.

Sounds like you're describing towns or small cities. And now that people can work remotely, that may be more viable, since we're no longer forced to migrate to tech hubs for competitive salaries. Maybe cramming in to huge cities will become a thing of the past.

In America, yea. I think the issues we face with other American cities, like Columbus, or Austin, or Nashville, etc. is that they're not built like small cities - in that they try to be a New York City, when they should instead model after Copenhagen or perhaps Amsterdam.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#49

Post by Johnny555 »

wollsmoth wrote: post #33
Arcanum-XIII wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The magic of open space is the same for me... but without the "perks" (food is pretty horrible from the comment I have, and it's 1 hour of traffic jam to get there). All that to do Teams meeting at my desk, with the noise of my other colleagues also in call. That's, to put it simply, hell. And then you have to be under constant surveillance, "why do you leave so early?" (I've been there for 8 hours already, so, fuck…

There aren't any meeting rooms at your office? I think every place I've been, even the startups had some kind of conference call mic setup on the table, although I don't think every place had a cam. It's possible for the "room" to join the call and those who must join over video.

We have a number of those rooms and a greater number of one or 2 person "phone rooms", even now without everyone back in the office, those are fully booked at some times. It was a big problem before COVID too -- we'd usually do 1:1 meetings outside because it was easier than trying to find a conference room -- you'd have to find an open spot in each person's schedule and an open room at the same time, which was hard to get.

Re: Dreaded commute to the city is keeping offices mostly empty

#50

Post by MrPatan »

timr wrote: post #47
MrPatan wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"being in the office will be how you get noticed and advance in your career. " In every job I had working from the office I didn't have to get noticed before quitting for a better job and advancing my career.

The exception makes the rule. If you're truly working a job where you only advance by leaving , then you likely aren't in a position where you can advance at all. Or you are in such a job, but you've neglected the value of visibility to your career growth (PSA: this is far too common amongst programmers). It certainly happens, but it's not a counterargument to what I'm saying.

I'm not the exception, I'm the rule.
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