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Like you, I am genuinely baffled by "WFH 4 days a week" arrangements (as compared to "WFH when you have errands that make it necessary", which is pretty common)

Like you, I am genuinely baffled by "WFH 4 days a week" arrangements (as compared to "WFH when you have errands that make it necessary", which is pretty common). If I have to come into the office 1 day a week, then I still have to foot the bill for a home office within driving range of the office, which sucks. I think at once a quarter you're starting to look at the ability to live on the other side of the country and fly in when necessary, which I think is much more price efficient.

ryandrake 6y ago
If your office is in SF, WFH 4 days a week doesn't let you live in ultra-low-cost rural Iowa but it could let you at least work in slightly-lower-cost Modesto or even Redding. Not ideal but better than a $4K/mo SF apartment. I think I'd be willing to live with a 4 hour commute once a week (or get your private pilot's license and you're about 1.5 hours away). Not convenient but do-able.
- h327 6y ago
  The idea of flying to work is fun, and I have seen it pop up in a lot of these WFH discussions. But even if you have your GA license, you'll need to rent or own the plane, pay directly or indirectly for hangar space and fuel, and deal with the air traffic congestion that would arise from more than just a handful of people trying this trick. In my opinion these barriers make private flying too dissimilar to driving a car to make it a feasible commute comparison.
  - ryandrake 6y ago
    Totally agree. I've got my ticket and I wouldn't do it unless I actually lived on an airpark with a hangar at my house, and I'd have to get my instrument rating to be able to rely on it for commuting.
  - jermaustin1 6y ago
    I was looking into it for commuting from Pueblo, CO to Denver. The place I was interviewing was a short walk and bus ride from an air field, and Pueblo is about 20-40% the cost of a similar commutable home in Denver, the flight (which I have done a dozen times in MSFS) is only 55 minutes. So round trip with commuting to and from the airports/fields, doing preflight, and parking, was only 3 hours which is about the time it takes one way by car assuming normal traffic.
sib 6y ago
I think coming in to the office 1x / week would let you live quite a bit further away than coming in 5x / week. At least for me, I could do a 60-90-minute drive to work 1 day per week, but would not want to 5 days.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I had a job for a bit over a year where I commuted 90+ minutes door to door many days. Even though I could take the train if I wanted to (after driving to the station), it still got old and I wouldn't have wanted to do it long term. I'm about the same to go into my company's Boston office now--I'm technically out of our suburban office and in practice I've been remote for a few years--and it makes for a long day but one day a week would be pretty doable.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  But for what benefit? Will the office be full sized (forfeiting the cost savings to the business), or will teams have to negotiate which days they’re supposed to come in (forfeiting a large amount of the team building benefits). It just seems like a lot more work and hassle than being fully colocated or fully remote.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Teams schedule conference rooms. Even fully remote, teams will presumably get together physically a few times a year. Whether you're "fully remote" (and maybe have to fly to a get-together) or schedule weekly/biweekly office time will be a function of how a team/company wants to operate.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      There’s a huge difference between a few times a year and once every 1-2 weeks, both on the company and the employee. At once a quarter we can just rent a coworking space and fly in, but at once a week everyone needs to live within ~90min of the office and the company needs to maintain some level of excess office capacity in order to seat these workers 1x a week. To my eye remote 4x a week forfeits most of the benefits of full remote purely for the sake of a vestigial habit. It seems superior to me that either the team either goes full remote, or reverts to a “remote work when errands require it” arrangement.
nullsense 6y ago
WFH when you have errands when it's necessary is all the balance I need!
lambdasquirrel 6y ago
It's like when you were in college, and you do assignments at home, and then get together with your study group, your TA, your professor, or your project buddies, in the computer clusters... See? Totally makes sense.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I don’t want my company to treat me like a college student.
dheera 6y ago
Hypothetical question: What if it was WFH 4 days a week but the company foots (a) the difference between your rent and the median rent for the square footage of your living space in the country you live in, upto some reasonable limit, AND (b) all of your home office equipment and furniture?
- eru 6y ago
  That sounds pretty complicated and bureaucratic. Why not just draw a salary?
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I feel like tying work to the cost of your apartment is a distressing step towards company towns and company stores. Let labor and capital negotiate for rates based off what the cost of the labor is and the value it provides the company rather than coming up with Byzantine formulas that imply that a workers housing cost is the business of the company.
quicklyfrozen 6y ago
A home office sounds a lot cheaper then a place close enough to the office to reasonably commute every day to me. Spending an hour or two commuting 1 or 2 times a week is manageable, but 5 times is not.

ryandrake 6y ago

If your office is in SF, WFH 4 days a week doesn't let you live in ultra-low-cost rural Iowa but it could let you at least work in slightly-lower-cost Modesto or even Redding. Not ideal but better than a $4K/mo SF apartment. I think I'd be willing to live with a 4 hour commute once a week (or get your private pilot's license and you're about 1.5 hours away). Not convenient but do-able.

h327 6y ago
The idea of flying to work is fun, and I have seen it pop up in a lot of these WFH discussions. But even if you have your GA license, you'll need to rent or own the plane, pay directly or indirectly for hangar space and fuel, and deal with the air traffic congestion that would arise from more than just a handful of people trying this trick. In my opinion these barriers make private flying too dissimilar to driving a car to make it a feasible commute comparison.
- ryandrake 6y ago
  Totally agree. I've got my ticket and I wouldn't do it unless I actually lived on an airpark with a hangar at my house, and I'd have to get my instrument rating to be able to rely on it for commuting.
- jermaustin1 6y ago
  I was looking into it for commuting from Pueblo, CO to Denver. The place I was interviewing was a short walk and bus ride from an air field, and Pueblo is about 20-40% the cost of a similar commutable home in Denver, the flight (which I have done a dozen times in MSFS) is only 55 minutes. So round trip with commuting to and from the airports/fields, doing preflight, and parking, was only 3 hours which is about the time it takes one way by car assuming normal traffic.

sib 6y ago

I think coming in to the office 1x / week would let you live quite a bit further away than coming in 5x / week. At least for me, I could do a 60-90-minute drive to work 1 day per week, but would not want to 5 days.

ghaff 6y ago
I had a job for a bit over a year where I commuted 90+ minutes door to door many days. Even though I could take the train if I wanted to (after driving to the station), it still got old and I wouldn't have wanted to do it long term. I'm about the same to go into my company's Boston office now--I'm technically out of our suburban office and in practice I've been remote for a few years--and it makes for a long day but one day a week would be pretty doable.
ashtonkem 6y ago
But for what benefit? Will the office be full sized (forfeiting the cost savings to the business), or will teams have to negotiate which days they’re supposed to come in (forfeiting a large amount of the team building benefits). It just seems like a lot more work and hassle than being fully colocated or fully remote.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Teams schedule conference rooms. Even fully remote, teams will presumably get together physically a few times a year. Whether you're "fully remote" (and maybe have to fly to a get-together) or schedule weekly/biweekly office time will be a function of how a team/company wants to operate.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    There’s a huge difference between a few times a year and once every 1-2 weeks, both on the company and the employee. At once a quarter we can just rent a coworking space and fly in, but at once a week everyone needs to live within ~90min of the office and the company needs to maintain some level of excess office capacity in order to seat these workers 1x a week. To my eye remote 4x a week forfeits most of the benefits of full remote purely for the sake of a vestigial habit. It seems superior to me that either the team either goes full remote, or reverts to a “remote work when errands require it” arrangement.

nullsense 6y ago

WFH when you have errands when it's necessary is all the balance I need!

lambdasquirrel 6y ago

It's like when you were in college, and you do assignments at home, and then get together with your study group, your TA, your professor, or your project buddies, in the computer clusters... See? Totally makes sense.

ashtonkem 6y ago
I don’t want my company to treat me like a college student.

dheera 6y ago

Hypothetical question: What if it was WFH 4 days a week but the company foots (a) the difference between your rent and the median rent for the square footage of your living space in the country you live in, upto some reasonable limit, AND (b) all of your home office equipment and furniture?

eru 6y ago
That sounds pretty complicated and bureaucratic. Why not just draw a salary?
ashtonkem 6y ago
I feel like tying work to the cost of your apartment is a distressing step towards company towns and company stores. Let labor and capital negotiate for rates based off what the cost of the labor is and the value it provides the company rather than coming up with Byzantine formulas that imply that a workers housing cost is the business of the company.

quicklyfrozen 6y ago

A home office sounds a lot cheaper then a place close enough to the office to reasonably commute every day to me. Spending an hour or two commuting 1 or 2 times a week is manageable, but 5 times is not.