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>(P.S. Before you go 'but even for knowledge workers nothing beats working together', you can be right, but do we need the 'gold-standard' of collaboration ever

>(P.S. Before you go 'but even for knowledge workers nothing beats working together', you can be right, but do we need the 'gold-standard' of collaboration every working day now that the alternatives are for most business activities more than good enough and still getting better with each year) Probably not, but you also need to consider the second order effects. If it's not expected that you be in the office often, people more often choose to live far away from where they work. This makes it marginally harder to make people come into the office when you do need to pull together for "gold standard" collaboration. If you wanted to mitigate against this, then you'd need to make part of your hiring requirements easy access to the office. But now you're needing to be prescriptive about where your employees should live, shrinking your potential talent pool and encroaching on their personal lives.

PeterStuer 8y ago
Thing is, if you ask your friends why they chose to settle down in the place they are living, it is very rarely 'because it was close to the office'. I think that is a direct consequence of the 'volatility' of work. Your grandparents might have expected the company they joined in their teens to employ them for the rest of their lives. This sounds alien today. Not many people take it to the extreme of working with a laptop and a sat-link from a remote tropical beach, but plenty chose and environment they like, be it a hip bristling city or somewhere more rural for the peace and quiet, and then suffer the commutes that come with accepting a job. Now you are right that there is the potential for abuse, certainly in employer side ruled sectors, an maybe we need some safeguards, but we need to try and stop this madness. Turning some of the costs from employee to employer seems to work. I didn't run into many companies where the devs had 3x4K monitors and a quiet private office, because you know, at times 'you need that extra efficiency'.
- naravara 8y ago
  Part of what makes hip, bustling cities hip is that living there makes you close to many offices. I have a plethora of employment options within a 1 hour commute from me in a major city in a way I would not somewhere far flung. The hipness is nice, but really it's a hedge against being laid off and having to pick up stakes if I am.
  - PeterStuer 8y ago
    Might be, but all city slickers I know just point to 'nightlife' and proximity to cultural venues (musea, cinema, theater, concert venues, ...) when asked about their living preference.

PeterStuer 8y ago

Thing is, if you ask your friends why they chose to settle down in the place they are living, it is very rarely 'because it was close to the office'. I think that is a direct consequence of the 'volatility' of work. Your grandparents might have expected the company they joined in their teens to employ them for the rest of their lives. This sounds alien today. Not many people take it to the extreme of working with a laptop and a sat-link from a remote tropical beach, but plenty chose and environment they like, be it a hip bristling city or somewhere more rural for the peace and quiet, and then suffer the commutes that come with accepting a job. Now you are right that there is the potential for abuse, certainly in employer side ruled sectors, an maybe we need some safeguards, but we need to try and stop this madness. Turning some of the costs from employee to employer seems to work. I didn't run into many companies where the devs had 3x4K monitors and a quiet private office, because you know, at times 'you need that extra efficiency'.

naravara 8y ago
Part of what makes hip, bustling cities hip is that living there makes you close to many offices. I have a plethora of employment options within a 1 hour commute from me in a major city in a way I would not somewhere far flung. The hipness is nice, but really it's a hedge against being laid off and having to pick up stakes if I am.
- PeterStuer 8y ago
  Might be, but all city slickers I know just point to 'nightlife' and proximity to cultural venues (musea, cinema, theater, concert venues, ...) when asked about their living preference.