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Just got approved for permanate remote last week. The thought of going back to a multi-hour commute and having my physical location dictated by a job just sound

Just got approved for permanate remote last week. The thought of going back to a multi-hour commute and having my physical location dictated by a job just sounds absurd at this point. Never again.

sydthrowaway 5y ago
Could you share which company?
- ramesh31 5y ago
  Not at liberty to post PII, but we operate many web properties you've heard of. TBH, they've been really fantastic about everything from the very beginning of covid. I think as more large companies get on board with this, we're reaching a tipping point where the B tier organizations are starting to realize they can use remote as a powerful bargaining chip to lure talent away from FAANG. Most companies don't need the "intensive in-person collaboration", or whatever nonsense reasoning that FAANG is using to avoid full remote. They just need skilled efficient engineers to churn out CRUD work and move Jira tickets, which can be done from anywhere with minimal interaction.
  - theshadowknows 5y ago
    That’s one thing that I am so curious about. I’m just not sure what problems Facebook engineers have to deal with. I hear all these stories about the hiring process and people being asked to implement wildcard regex matching or something. The projects I work on are like “here’s seventy five different databases go figure out how to individualize the members from these datasets oh and data x, y, and z must be anonymized before it’s commingled.”
closeparen 5y ago
Multi hour commute is, truly, insane. But that’s more a comment about our collective housing and transportation choices than something inherent to showing up at work.
- hogFeast 5y ago
  Most cities used to have all the industry located in the centre. It led to huge slums (because there was insufficient supply and massive demand) and everyone leaving the city when the slums got cleared. Even if you have great transportation (Tokyo, London, New York), the commute is still pretty brutal. The only real "solution" that was ever presented to this problem was to create smaller garden cities that would have their own industries...this never worked out because everyone had to be in the city (perhaps coincident with more service-based economies, manufacturing did move out of big cities). It is an extremely hard problem (and to be blunt, the solution of most planners has been: make me emperor, I will allocate the resources...it is a huge political/social/everything problem) but remote working is a very legitimate solution...although the response of any company towards better conditions for workers is always suspicion (if the workers are happier, don't we lose...somehow?). (An extremely nerdy comparison is with proto-industry in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution...a lot of the intermediate production in textiles was done in homes by, what we would call today, independent contractors...as the capital intensity of the textile industry increased and new technology was developed so...to put it bluntly...that you could employ children to do the work then you saw industry move into city centres and slums appear. But before this time, you had people working in their own homes and on their own machines, and it was far more decentralised...although these people were often localised geographically as there was a whole supply chain. Definitely indicates that things don't really need to be the way they are.)
  - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
    >the solution of most planners has been: make me emperor, I will allocate the resources...it is a huge political/social/everything problem One thing that I've found absolutely fascinating is looking at the Soviet sphere when it comes to residential housing. A lot of housing got destroyed in WWII, and the soviets realized that the best way to house a lot of people in a hurry was to build apartment blocks. These blocks were designed to have everything one needed, shops, schools, etc, within reasonable walking distance. The commute to work was handled with public transport. Now, I'm not saying everything was perfect, but I do find it interesting as an approach to residential design, mandating a mix of essential services within walking distance of housing is unheard of here in the US, and really only exists in cities that existed pre-car.
pjerem 5y ago
I think it depends on what your commute is. I find that very few people choose their location by taking commuting pleasure (and not only time) into account. Before the pandemic, I chose to live in the countryside but at walking distance from a train station. Coworkers always seem surprised I’m living « that far ». But now I’m equally happy to work from home or to take my refreshing 25min train trip through the countryside. I sometimes have to endure full train, but at least it’s never in the morning. And sometimes I have to exceptionally take my car, and im hating it, but it’s rare enough to have no impact on my well-being.
- llampx 5y ago
  You're lucky, or chose well. For me, I would have to commute 50 minutes, 35 minutes of which is by train, and I have to change once. The rest is walking and waiting time. And 50 minutes is the best case scenario. Add rain, snow and other delays and we're looking at upwards of an hour just so I can get into work. On the other hand I have my desk at home with the coffee machine in the kitchen. I do enjoy going to the office but being forced to do it wouldn't sit well with me.
- ghaff 5y ago
  25 minutes is a pretty short commute though. Especially if you can just walk to the train station. If I were to go into our city office, I'd only have about a 5 minute drive to the train station. But between leaving some slack to park and pay, the train ride, and either the subway or a longish walk on the other end, I'm still more than 90 minutes door to door--and that's with good transport links.

Just got approved for permanate remote last week. The thought of going back to a multi-hour commute and having my physical location dictated by a job just sounds absurd at this point. Never again.

sydthrowaway 5y ago

Could you share which company?

ramesh31 5y ago
Not at liberty to post PII, but we operate many web properties you've heard of. TBH, they've been really fantastic about everything from the very beginning of covid. I think as more large companies get on board with this, we're reaching a tipping point where the B tier organizations are starting to realize they can use remote as a powerful bargaining chip to lure talent away from FAANG. Most companies don't need the "intensive in-person collaboration", or whatever nonsense reasoning that FAANG is using to avoid full remote. They just need skilled efficient engineers to churn out CRUD work and move Jira tickets, which can be done from anywhere with minimal interaction.
- theshadowknows 5y ago
  That’s one thing that I am so curious about. I’m just not sure what problems Facebook engineers have to deal with. I hear all these stories about the hiring process and people being asked to implement wildcard regex matching or something. The projects I work on are like “here’s seventy five different databases go figure out how to individualize the members from these datasets oh and data x, y, and z must be anonymized before it’s commingled.”

closeparen 5y ago

Multi hour commute is, truly, insane. But that’s more a comment about our collective housing and transportation choices than something inherent to showing up at work.

hogFeast 5y ago
Most cities used to have all the industry located in the centre. It led to huge slums (because there was insufficient supply and massive demand) and everyone leaving the city when the slums got cleared. Even if you have great transportation (Tokyo, London, New York), the commute is still pretty brutal. The only real "solution" that was ever presented to this problem was to create smaller garden cities that would have their own industries...this never worked out because everyone had to be in the city (perhaps coincident with more service-based economies, manufacturing did move out of big cities). It is an extremely hard problem (and to be blunt, the solution of most planners has been: make me emperor, I will allocate the resources...it is a huge political/social/everything problem) but remote working is a very legitimate solution...although the response of any company towards better conditions for workers is always suspicion (if the workers are happier, don't we lose...somehow?). (An extremely nerdy comparison is with proto-industry in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution...a lot of the intermediate production in textiles was done in homes by, what we would call today, independent contractors...as the capital intensity of the textile industry increased and new technology was developed so...to put it bluntly...that you could employ children to do the work then you saw industry move into city centres and slums appear. But before this time, you had people working in their own homes and on their own machines, and it was far more decentralised...although these people were often localised geographically as there was a whole supply chain. Definitely indicates that things don't really need to be the way they are.)
- wing-_-nuts 5y ago
  >the solution of most planners has been: make me emperor, I will allocate the resources...it is a huge political/social/everything problem One thing that I've found absolutely fascinating is looking at the Soviet sphere when it comes to residential housing. A lot of housing got destroyed in WWII, and the soviets realized that the best way to house a lot of people in a hurry was to build apartment blocks. These blocks were designed to have everything one needed, shops, schools, etc, within reasonable walking distance. The commute to work was handled with public transport. Now, I'm not saying everything was perfect, but I do find it interesting as an approach to residential design, mandating a mix of essential services within walking distance of housing is unheard of here in the US, and really only exists in cities that existed pre-car.

pjerem 5y ago

I think it depends on what your commute is. I find that very few people choose their location by taking commuting pleasure (and not only time) into account. Before the pandemic, I chose to live in the countryside but at walking distance from a train station. Coworkers always seem surprised I’m living « that far ». But now I’m equally happy to work from home or to take my refreshing 25min train trip through the countryside. I sometimes have to endure full train, but at least it’s never in the morning. And sometimes I have to exceptionally take my car, and im hating it, but it’s rare enough to have no impact on my well-being.

llampx 5y ago
You're lucky, or chose well. For me, I would have to commute 50 minutes, 35 minutes of which is by train, and I have to change once. The rest is walking and waiting time. And 50 minutes is the best case scenario. Add rain, snow and other delays and we're looking at upwards of an hour just so I can get into work. On the other hand I have my desk at home with the coffee machine in the kitchen. I do enjoy going to the office but being forced to do it wouldn't sit well with me.
ghaff 5y ago
25 minutes is a pretty short commute though. Especially if you can just walk to the train station. If I were to go into our city office, I'd only have about a 5 minute drive to the train station. But between leaving some slack to park and pay, the train ride, and either the subway or a longish walk on the other end, I'm still more than 90 minutes door to door--and that's with good transport links.