4 ms·

If nothing else, it's because people like to separate their living space from their working space. For reasons ranging from Easier To Get Into Work Mode, to No

by Swizec 10y ago

If nothing else, it's because people like to separate their living space from their working space. For reasons ranging from Easier To Get Into Work Mode, to No Screaming Toddlers. It turns out renting office space or a big enough apartment/house to have an extra office is expensive. Wouldn't it be nice if somebody else paid for that? Perhaps somebody who also pays you and can then recuperate this cost with scale by putting multiple people together in the same area. If everyone had their own home office, how much would salary have to increase? Take San Francisco for example. Renting a 2-bedroom apartment instead of a 1-bedroom would increase my and my girlfriend's rent by about $1,000 per month. This would give one of us a good home office. The startup I work for pays about $10,000 to rent a big-ish office space. There are 15 of us working in it pretty comfortably. That's a lot cheaper than everyone paying an extra $1,000.

aidos 10y ago
I might be misunderstanding your parent's comment but I think the question wasn't, "why are people still doing their work from offices?" and more, "what are all those people in offices still working on?" There's a lot of work that feels like it should have been automated out of existence and yet there are still lots of people working on it.
- douche 10y ago
  This always comes up, so I'll just leave this here: http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
  - ashark 10y ago
    Nothing new. The protagonist of the 1961 novel Revolutionary Road[1] by Richard Yates works a job that's mostly just figuring out ways to send stuff from his INBOX to other people with the right kind of notes on it to either delay its coming back for another day or two, or, ideally, result in someone else (many, many note-added forwards later) having to deal with it, and to look busy the rest of (most of) the time. Most of the people in his company apparently work this way. Much of the work itself seems to be generated by people trying to find something to do so they seem busy, rather than for any useful purpose. This doesn't come off as parody, either, but as depicting a situation very close to common reality for office workers at that time, with little or no exaggeration. (incidentally, the novel is great, still reads fresh, and is not primarily about work life in the 1950s/60s) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Road
    - bobsil1 10y ago
      Sounds like the military bureaucracy in "Catch 22."
SilasX 10y ago
I think the idea is that if people didn't have to come to the same office, they could live where it's cheap; thus, they wouldn't have to get that bigger apartment in an expensive area.
- Retra 10y ago
  People really don't communicate as well when they aren't collocated.
  - ldehaan 10y ago
    that's an uninteresting opinion. I've been communicating solely with people for years, from home, using chat and sometimes video, but usually just text. I don't forget what someone just told me. I have a trail of requests and ideas from clients and coworkers. if necessary I will jump on a phone call for faster data transfer. the office is great for talking to coworkers, which is almost always about non work stuff, vs when I'm at home working and all my conversations are about work. I rarely get interrupted when I'm in the zone unless it's an actual emergency. I could go on.
    - Jtsummers 10y ago
      Similarly, in my office too many people try to communicate tasks and plans to me verbally. I've had to tell them to send me emails (or put in a JIRA entry or whatever). I cannot incorporate something into my task list that's undocumented, and text (email or JIRA preferred, chat is sufficient for small things but can't be a priority item) is a fantastic way to ensure that it makes it into the queue.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Indeed. Hell, I apply it to life in general (and I wish people would do less talking and more e-mailing). I often get friends and family make random requests in the middle of me doing something, and at some point I started telling everyone - if you want something important, write me a goddamn e-mail. Otherwise there's a good chance I forget. ... aand since people think it's weird and antisocial to communicate via e-mail, I end up abusing org-capture. I.e. I have a quick hotkey (C-c c t) to input and save a task directly to the self-organizing system I use, so if people absolutely refuse to send e-mail, they get an "uh, ok, thanks; I've noted it down and will deal with this later" from me, and I don't spend even 5 seconds thinking about it until the time is right.

by Swizec 10y ago

aidos 10y ago

I might be misunderstanding your parent's comment but I think the question wasn't, "why are people still doing their work from offices?" and more, "what are all those people in offices still working on?" There's a lot of work that feels like it should have been automated out of existence and yet there are still lots of people working on it.

douche 10y ago
This always comes up, so I'll just leave this here: http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/ http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
- ashark 10y ago
  Nothing new. The protagonist of the 1961 novel Revolutionary Road[1] by Richard Yates works a job that's mostly just figuring out ways to send stuff from his INBOX to other people with the right kind of notes on it to either delay its coming back for another day or two, or, ideally, result in someone else (many, many note-added forwards later) having to deal with it, and to look busy the rest of (most of) the time. Most of the people in his company apparently work this way. Much of the work itself seems to be generated by people trying to find something to do so they seem busy, rather than for any useful purpose. This doesn't come off as parody, either, but as depicting a situation very close to common reality for office workers at that time, with little or no exaggeration. (incidentally, the novel is great, still reads fresh, and is not primarily about work life in the 1950s/60s) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Road https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Road
  - bobsil1 10y ago
    Sounds like the military bureaucracy in "Catch 22."

SilasX 10y ago

I think the idea is that if people didn't have to come to the same office, they could live where it's cheap; thus, they wouldn't have to get that bigger apartment in an expensive area.

Retra 10y ago
People really don't communicate as well when they aren't collocated.
- ldehaan 10y ago
  that's an uninteresting opinion. I've been communicating solely with people for years, from home, using chat and sometimes video, but usually just text. I don't forget what someone just told me. I have a trail of requests and ideas from clients and coworkers. if necessary I will jump on a phone call for faster data transfer. the office is great for talking to coworkers, which is almost always about non work stuff, vs when I'm at home working and all my conversations are about work. I rarely get interrupted when I'm in the zone unless it's an actual emergency. I could go on.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    Similarly, in my office too many people try to communicate tasks and plans to me verbally. I've had to tell them to send me emails (or put in a JIRA entry or whatever). I cannot incorporate something into my task list that's undocumented, and text (email or JIRA preferred, chat is sufficient for small things but can't be a priority item) is a fantastic way to ensure that it makes it into the queue.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Indeed. Hell, I apply it to life in general (and I wish people would do less talking and more e-mailing). I often get friends and family make random requests in the middle of me doing something, and at some point I started telling everyone - if you want something important, write me a goddamn e-mail. Otherwise there's a good chance I forget. ... aand since people think it's weird and antisocial to communicate via e-mail, I end up abusing org-capture. I.e. I have a quick hotkey (C-c c t) to input and save a task directly to the self-organizing system I use, so if people absolutely refuse to send e-mail, they get an "uh, ok, thanks; I've noted it down and will deal with this later" from me, and I don't spend even 5 seconds thinking about it until the time is right.