731–740 of 1001 posts
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I commuted 1.5 hours each way, bike in summer and public transit in winter both took the same time. I loved biking but public transportation sucks. Why? Rent was triple what I was paying to be close, or double to cut the commute in half. And I had no job security.
I'm sure you did but again, that is not an average case. You've evidently chosen a different trade-off.
Speaking with the point of general economy, it probably makes more sense to reopen office spaces as part of consumer business runs due to office goers. An example would be coffee/breakfast sales post work from home and in-office. This could help revive this part of economy which mostly runs in the background.
I work for another company that is going to do a partial return to office. I will be looking at options for companies that offer full in person office (or 90% in person office) after things settle down. I have worked full remote for a total of 5 years of my career, and I believe working in the office is a competitive advantage. * Overhearing hallway conversations (and joining them) helps spawn invocation. * I often d…
> I save money by spending less on food, drinks, and electricity. For those of us who have to commute, it's not exactly the norm to be saving money while commuting. Commutes are responsible for a 10% drop in hourly wages[1], and the median commute time results in spending 10 full days commuting a year. The average commuter in one of the largest metro areas in the country will spend over 13 full days commuting a year:…
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I commuted 1.5 hours each way, bike in summer and public transit in winter both took the same time. I loved biking but public transportation sucks. Why? Rent was triple what I was paying to be close, or double to cut the commute in half. And I had no job security.
Ebike next time. Mod the motor. You can still pedal and sweat if you want.
Still ride a bike for transportation though! Love it.
My previous job was door to door for me in 20-25 minutes. I could hop on the Q train on the Upper East Side in NYC and be at Union Square that quickly. Did I do it? Almost never. I took a walk through Central Park before hopping on a train in Midtown, and I loved it.
We’ve been back in the office since September 2020 with masks. We are now a mask free workplace as of two days ago if you are vaccinated. Any delay to return to normalcy at this point is absurd.
One could argue that spending 2 hours a day in traffic or $1.75M+ for a modest house is more absurd.
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Jesus Christ. I eat well and spend maybe $400 a month on groceries and food. I’ve heard that Google recruiters attempt to con potential employees into some ridiculous assessment of the “free” food as a compensation benefit with numbers like those that you posited above. I can’t imagine valuing daily meals that highly.
Consider a significant number of Googlers are upper middle class kids, possibly on the spectrum, who go straight from the ivy league to google’s cafeteria. These made up numbers seem reasonable and accurate to them because they never had to take care of themselves in the real word.
I work for another company that is going to do a partial return to office. I will be looking at options for companies that offer full in person office (or 90% in person office) after things settle down. I have worked full remote for a total of 5 years of my career, and I believe working in the office is a competitive advantage. * Overhearing hallway conversations (and joining them) helps spawn invocation. * I often d…
> I save money by spending less on food, drinks, and electricity. For those of us who have to commute, it's not exactly the norm to be saving money while commuting. Commutes are responsible for a 10% drop in hourly wages[1], and the median commute time results in spending 10 full days commuting a year. The average commuter in one of the largest metro areas in the country will spend over 13 full days commuting a year:…
If everyone remote worked half the week, I’d expect the metros to be half as full during rush hours. So it’s be a lot more enjoyable for everyone: space to sit and space to read a book.
I think the best of both worlds would be working at the office on average 2 to 3 days a week (on average; so I’d like to be able to work remotely for a week or two at a time).
This would also allow couples to alternate being home which would be nice for kids. If both parents work late at the office, who takes care of the kids, a nanny ? Expensive and doesn’t help the proximity between parents and their kids. My girlfriends mom stopped working when her kids started calling their nanny « mom ». That means that her career stopped. And that scares my girlfriend.
Finally, remote working would reduce traffic jams and hence help with our whole global warming situation.
So the 5 day at the office work week for everyone is: - not hygienic (metros more packed == greater chance of spreading the common cold, flu, stomachs etc == more money spend on healthcare == more sick leaves) - not green (why travel everyday when we do not have to) - not family friendly (who takes care of the kids when no one’s at home 60 hours a week?) - wastes everyone’s time (stand still doing nothing in the metro for an hour to work and back).
I’m all for the partial work at the office for the reasons mentioned by the grandparent comment, but go to hell companies that will bring the five days at the office back !!
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I'm obviously an outlier, but I live an 8 minute (peaceful) bike ride from work. I hate commuting, so I optimized for that for this job, and working from home last year was absolutely a net negative for me. Distracting kids, poor work-life balance, more expensive (AC, food, water, etc). I think the lesson here is, some companies can be remote-first, some companies can be in-person, and different employees will prefer…
I don’t think you’re an outlier. I think online comment sections in general attract people whose preferred communication and socialization style is digital. That’s why at times HN comment sections feel like everyone unanimously agrees that in-person work universally bad. It’s great that we have more remote work opportunity post COVID, but it was never realistic to expect every company or even most company to abandon…
You mean it actually requires management. Office work is easy to manage with butts in seats. I had someone ask me once, if we were remote, how would we know people are working. I asked, how do we know they are working now?
Communication overhead with in person only appears lower. I've been a part of many meetings where people talk in circles, think they make a decision and then a week or 2 later wonder what was talked about. Of course, you might be unique and have a dedicated person who takes copious notes every meeting and sends them around afterwards. Remote pushes written communication as the first step, which I have found to be much better to build ideas from.
One thing that does not work is a company trying to do both. If anyone is remote, then the company needs to be remote first.