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If companies had to pay even part of the externalities of commuting they'd have stopped this antiquated modus operandi long ago. As it stands I feel like we're

If companies had to pay even part of the externalities of commuting they'd have stopped this antiquated modus operandi long ago. As it stands I feel like we're going to have to wait until all Silent Generation/Boomers retire before we can see real progressive change in this area. Honestly it really speaks to poor management in general. If your only measure for project progress is "butts in seats," then you have no idea what is going on below you. It isn't like slacking off while physically at work isn't basically a meme already. Companies would actually be more efficient if they communicated progress/expectations in a trackable way, telecommuting just forces that issue, but it is an issue regardless of where people are.

chrisseaton 6y ago
> If companies had to pay even part of the externalities of commuting I don't know how much a parking lot costs in terms of real estate but I'd guess it's absolutely massively expensive. Also, property taxes don't they pretty directly pay for roads which are used for commuting?
- ticviking 6y ago
  >Also, property taxes don't they pretty directly pay for roads which are used for commuting? Basically the answer to this is no. Often roads are paid for out of grants to build infrastructure in the next ring of suburbs. https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme This impacts the cost of parking lots, and basically because we tax property rather than land value, parking lots are generally pretty cheap if you already own the ground, but expensive enough that buying new land to meet a parking minimum is one of the single largest line items in many development projects.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Property taxes contribute to local road building and maintenance at most. They do not (here at least) contribute to roads located in other towns or states that an employee may commute on.
akhilcacharya 6y ago
They do though, they pay me around $180 a month for an unlimited transit card (that I can’t use) and a transit debit card for Uber (that is currently capped because I also cannot use it). For most other folks that pays for parking.
after_care 6y ago
> If companies had to pay even part of the externalities of commuting they'd have stopped this antiquated modus operandi long ago. I personally lost money by working from home. My transportation costs were negligible, but I lost access to free food/drink and have to consume much more electricity at home.
- deathanatos 6y ago
  I'd say it heavily depends where you are. When I was in CA, it was ~$300/mo for Caltrain+gas, ~3 hours of my time per day, plus neither lunch nor coffee was free, so ~$60/wk for that. The pandemic would have been a net benefit to the wallet there, I think. As it was, I moved before the pandemic, because I got tired of fighting that very commute, tired of fighting to get CA to see the light on housing. So my commute was ~2 hours and ~$80/mo and lunch and coffee was paid prior to the pandemic, and I'm definitely in your bucket, since the loss of lunch significantly outweighs not paying for the commute. (And my commute was optionally biking, and I miss getting that in as much, too.)
- DaedPsyker 6y ago
  I don't know where you live but is it possible to write at least the electricity off as a work expense? Sure it won't offset it but at least dull the cost a little.
sneak 6y ago
There are plenty of boomers at companies that aren't last-century-model worshippers like Apple and Amazon that have recognized the insanity of offices. I think this is more of a failure to adapt to the internet than anything related to one's age.
adolph 6y ago
It seems like that externality would be relatively straightforward to identify and de-incentivize. Just change the rules to allow workers to expense travel to their regular reporting location and then tax companies based on the total number above a certain floor.
- bluefirebrand 6y ago
  It's more than just travel, it's also the cost of owning and maintaining a vehicle, the space to park it both at home and at work, the cost of insuring a vehicle. Or the cost of a bus pass/transit at least. But the time cost of transit is generally higher than the time cost of commuting by car. And the time cost of commuting in general is pretty high and will never, ever show up on an expense report. It's silly how much of our lives we give up for a full time job and kind of a lot of it isn't compensated in any way.
  - zikzak 6y ago
    Also: maintaining a work wardrobe (more important for some than others), dealing with meals (packing, transporting, etc), forced social interactions that have no work value (Larry stops by every morning 15 minutes after you are in the zone and won't leave), pets being left alone for 8-10 hours a day (again, many people won't have this), traveling to the office when roads are icy, and so on.
- clairity 6y ago
  to internalize those costs for most workers, as most workers are hourly, you can just make the regular commute part of work time (perhaps using average commute time to exclude abnormal variances). that avoids using tax law, which can convolute incentives and create unintended loopholes.
pandem 6y ago
I'm 28 and can't wait until I get back to the office. A lot of people like the social aspect of the job and not everybody decides to live a miserable commute away from their office
- regularfry 6y ago
  I'm 41 and glad to see the back of it. My commute was never miserable, but it was always wasted time. A lot of people also don't like the social aspect of the job, and the fact that it's been the default since basically forever has meant that those people have been under what I might call (somewhat hyperbolically) the tyranny of extroversion. I've been noticeably less stressed since I noped out of the office last year. It's also worth bearing in mind that if you do want to be social, you can be social outside office hours no matter whether the job's in-person or remote. I can't choose not to be social in a face-to-face environment without suffering professional consequences.
  - packetlost 6y ago
    Depending on the job, team building and social trust are important aspects of a well functioning team. If you truly do work alone, fine. But most people don't.
    - regularfry 6y ago
      I don't work alone. Most of what I do involves getting other people to change what they're doing. It's high-interaction work, for the most part. And it works just fine remotely.
- almost_usual 6y ago
  Not everyone is in their 20s in an unfamiliar city.
regularfry 6y ago
It's not an unreasonable assumption that innovation, specifically, thrives in a face-to-face environment, because the opportunities for random circumstantial collisions of ideas are higher by default. That would explain the emphasis on office-based work without appealing to the terribleness of management. For most companies, most of the time, though, that's not what matters, no matter how much they might wax lyrical about it. What most companies need most of is competent execution of ideas they already have, and that's perfectly possible in a fully-remote setting in a large proportion of orgs.
kps 6y ago
You're right about commuting but could skip the ageism. Members of the Silent Generation and Boomers invented online collaboration and the Internet.

chrisseaton 6y ago

> If companies had to pay even part of the externalities of commuting I don't know how much a parking lot costs in terms of real estate but I'd guess it's absolutely massively expensive. Also, property taxes don't they pretty directly pay for roads which are used for commuting?

ticviking 6y ago
>Also, property taxes don't they pretty directly pay for roads which are used for commuting? Basically the answer to this is no. Often roads are paid for out of grants to build infrastructure in the next ring of suburbs. https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme This impacts the cost of parking lots, and basically because we tax property rather than land value, parking lots are generally pretty cheap if you already own the ground, but expensive enough that buying new land to meet a parking minimum is one of the single largest line items in many development projects.
sokoloff 6y ago
Property taxes contribute to local road building and maintenance at most. They do not (here at least) contribute to roads located in other towns or states that an employee may commute on.

akhilcacharya 6y ago

They do though, they pay me around $180 a month for an unlimited transit card (that I can’t use) and a transit debit card for Uber (that is currently capped because I also cannot use it). For most other folks that pays for parking.

after_care 6y ago

> If companies had to pay even part of the externalities of commuting they'd have stopped this antiquated modus operandi long ago. I personally lost money by working from home. My transportation costs were negligible, but I lost access to free food/drink and have to consume much more electricity at home.

deathanatos 6y ago
I'd say it heavily depends where you are. When I was in CA, it was ~$300/mo for Caltrain+gas, ~3 hours of my time per day, plus neither lunch nor coffee was free, so ~$60/wk for that. The pandemic would have been a net benefit to the wallet there, I think. As it was, I moved before the pandemic, because I got tired of fighting that very commute, tired of fighting to get CA to see the light on housing. So my commute was ~2 hours and ~$80/mo and lunch and coffee was paid prior to the pandemic, and I'm definitely in your bucket, since the loss of lunch significantly outweighs not paying for the commute. (And my commute was optionally biking, and I miss getting that in as much, too.)
DaedPsyker 6y ago
I don't know where you live but is it possible to write at least the electricity off as a work expense? Sure it won't offset it but at least dull the cost a little.

sneak 6y ago

There are plenty of boomers at companies that aren't last-century-model worshippers like Apple and Amazon that have recognized the insanity of offices. I think this is more of a failure to adapt to the internet than anything related to one's age.

adolph 6y ago

It seems like that externality would be relatively straightforward to identify and de-incentivize. Just change the rules to allow workers to expense travel to their regular reporting location and then tax companies based on the total number above a certain floor.

bluefirebrand 6y ago
It's more than just travel, it's also the cost of owning and maintaining a vehicle, the space to park it both at home and at work, the cost of insuring a vehicle. Or the cost of a bus pass/transit at least. But the time cost of transit is generally higher than the time cost of commuting by car. And the time cost of commuting in general is pretty high and will never, ever show up on an expense report. It's silly how much of our lives we give up for a full time job and kind of a lot of it isn't compensated in any way.
- zikzak 6y ago
  Also: maintaining a work wardrobe (more important for some than others), dealing with meals (packing, transporting, etc), forced social interactions that have no work value (Larry stops by every morning 15 minutes after you are in the zone and won't leave), pets being left alone for 8-10 hours a day (again, many people won't have this), traveling to the office when roads are icy, and so on.
clairity 6y ago
to internalize those costs for most workers, as most workers are hourly, you can just make the regular commute part of work time (perhaps using average commute time to exclude abnormal variances). that avoids using tax law, which can convolute incentives and create unintended loopholes.

pandem 6y ago

I'm 28 and can't wait until I get back to the office. A lot of people like the social aspect of the job and not everybody decides to live a miserable commute away from their office

regularfry 6y ago
I'm 41 and glad to see the back of it. My commute was never miserable, but it was always wasted time. A lot of people also don't like the social aspect of the job, and the fact that it's been the default since basically forever has meant that those people have been under what I might call (somewhat hyperbolically) the tyranny of extroversion. I've been noticeably less stressed since I noped out of the office last year. It's also worth bearing in mind that if you do want to be social, you can be social outside office hours no matter whether the job's in-person or remote. I can't choose not to be social in a face-to-face environment without suffering professional consequences.
- packetlost 6y ago
  Depending on the job, team building and social trust are important aspects of a well functioning team. If you truly do work alone, fine. But most people don't.
  - regularfry 6y ago
    I don't work alone. Most of what I do involves getting other people to change what they're doing. It's high-interaction work, for the most part. And it works just fine remotely.
almost_usual 6y ago
Not everyone is in their 20s in an unfamiliar city.

regularfry 6y ago

It's not an unreasonable assumption that innovation, specifically, thrives in a face-to-face environment, because the opportunities for random circumstantial collisions of ideas are higher by default. That would explain the emphasis on office-based work without appealing to the terribleness of management. For most companies, most of the time, though, that's not what matters, no matter how much they might wax lyrical about it. What most companies need most of is competent execution of ideas they already have, and that's perfectly possible in a fully-remote setting in a large proportion of orgs.

kps 6y ago

You're right about commuting but could skip the ageism. Members of the Silent Generation and Boomers invented online collaboration and the Internet.