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But execs want you to commute because their mindset is to make worker's life miserable, and working from home is seem like a privilege.
by akagusu 5y ago
But execs want you to commute because their mindset is to make worker's life miserable, and working from home is seem like a privilege.
- warning26 5y agoNot everyone loves WFH, you know.
- agumonkey 5y agoAfter covid we have some vague stats and yeah not everybody enjoy full remote. But 1) there's a large pool of people that do, 2) you can have hybrid 3) unless no other colleague goes to the workplace you may enjoy some workplace social context 4) we need to reduce energy expenditure and not commuting seems like a massive gain.
- jdavis703 5y agoUnfortunately, the best remote setups are in low-density places with large homes. People moving from NYC and SF to Wyoming and Austin are going to be living in sprawl. There vehicle miles traveled (VMT) are going to increase: after all it’s not going to be a lockdown where white collar workers stay inside 24/7.
- agumonkey 5y agoSo (honest question), you think people doing remote-friendly jobs are in dense urban areas and don't contribute to car emission much ? so when these guys relocate far away, they're going to switch from public transportation to car ?
- kube-system 5y agoThis is what is happening. Over the past 2 years, people have left cities with solid public transit (SF, Chicago, NYC) and have been moving towards car centric areas in places like Arizona, Florida, Texas.
- spookthesunset 5y agoYup. We are reversing a lot of efforts society put into reducing sprawl. More and more cookie cutter houses built on what was once a forest… taking with it tons of wildlife.
- Apocryphon 5y agoThis was already happening prior to WFH spurred by pandemic. Housing prices were sharply increasing in many major cities, causing people to relocate elsewhere due to lack of affordable supply.
- jdavis703 5y agoThat’s not how supply and demand works.
- jdavis703 5y agoI don’t think this, I know this. Today the Census dropped data showing there was a net population loss in SF and NYC. If you look at a map of energy use by county (e.g. Google image search for “energy by county”) it shows folks leaving places like NYC and SF are going to increase their energy use.
- busterarm 5y agoI expect that over time our use of space will adapt to this new reality but it will probably take a decade. I definitely see older or taller office buildings renovating and rezoning to become mixed co-working and/or living spaces suited to remote work. Not just that but also I could see commercial space be divided up into premium one-person office spaces wired with fast internet and set up for video conferencing.
- eropple 5y agoI hope this is the direction we see, but going from offices/commercial to residential is a much heavier lift than just zoning. Like, just consider the plumbing situation in a reasonably large office building. People living there will require more significant renovations than just putting up new walls. It is fixable, but it isn't cheap, and because it isn't cheap, "will it happen" gets some question marks.
- busterarm 5y agoI'm not discounting any of that. Definitely won't be easy and that's why I say about a decade before we really see a shift.
- oceanplexian 5y agoRight now I do hybrid work and it’s great, it’s easy to get away from the house and work from a nearby city. There’s little-to-no traffic where I live, so the commute is short and enjoyable. If I want after work I can jump in the car and drive to the mountains or go pick something up at the store, or go see a friend. The car operates on my schedule. Moving away from this seems like stepping back into the 19th century. Usually when I hear people complain about cars they live somewhere that’s over-crowded with poor road infrastructure, traffic, and inflated taxes and energy costs. Sure if you live in that scenario maybe commuting sucks, but most of the USA isn’t like that.
- onion2k 5y agoIn my experience, whether or not someone enjoys something is largely irrelevant when it comes to work.
- hn_version_0023 5y agoI don’t mind coming into the office, as needed. What I do mind is being required to be someplace daily to assuage the ego of of some C-suite stuffed suit.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoAnd those people can deal. I dealt with their preferred work environment although I didn't love it.
- mostly_harmless 5y agoand a commercial real estate crash would be bad for the company's bottom line
- MSM 5y agoI see this everywhere but I can't see how it's true. I'm guessing that a company's largest expenses are (probably in order, too): People, Technology, Office space. Most companies, especially smaller companies, do not actually own the office space they are in, they lease it. Commercial real estate crashing would greatly reduce one of their top 3 expenses... how is that bad for the bottom line?
- crent 5y agoYeah exactly. If they signed a multi-year lease, they are still on the hook for the same amount of money but the space won't be used. It might feel bad but it was already budgeted for.
- beiller 5y agoThey are paying for space (sometimes beyond 100,000 per month) that the competition is not paying. Office space is the highest expense.
- Leherenn 5y agoThat sounds weird to me. Our current office can sit 5, with conference room, kitchen, ... It costs about 20% of an engineer's salary. And we're in one of the most expensive place in the world for rent.
- Cd00d 5y agoIs office space really that cheap? That actually sounds like a LOT of space compared to a 2-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn that would cost quite a bit more....
- nikanj 5y agoExecutives work towards a large number of stupid performance goals, but worker misery isn’t one of them.
- hn_version_0023 5y agoCitation needed. I could gesture wildly at everything these days. It sure seems like someone is working towards worker misery.
- grimjack00 5y agoIt only seems like they do.