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Plus the cost of commuting itself, be it a monthly transit pass or the cost of a vehicle, maintenance, wear and tear, fuel, insurance, parking etc. So it's a m

Plus the cost of commuting itself, be it a monthly transit pass or the cost of a vehicle, maintenance, wear and tear, fuel, insurance, parking etc. So it's a massive cost to workers. Paying to work.

ghaff 5y ago
Of course, there's also the counterargument that WFH means you're paying to provision your own office space. To be fair, that argument mostly applies only if people don't have the option to come into an office. Otherwise, they're forced into paying to buy/rent a suitable workplace, pay any incremental utilities, etc. For people with houses, it's mostly not a big deal but if someone lives in a small studio it may be. Early on in the pandemic, this is what a fair number of people were complaining about.
- BlargMcLarg 5y ago
  This begs the question how effective remote work would be if society actually catered to it, rather than catering to mass transit to the city. Most arguments rely on the status quo of western society as a whole, and many still rely on the pandemic situation.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I'm not sure what "society" catering to it means exactly. To the degree that individuals can do their jobs remotely and they can reliably find companies willing to pay them to do so--which seems to be widely though hardly universally the case for "knowledge worker" roles today--they have the choice to move somewhere cheaper. Of course many, especially younger, folks like living in a larger city and that's a tradeoff they need to make. It's hard to predict how things will play out. My guess is that there will be more remote and 3/4 days a week in office than there was before. But probably not the sort of radical transformation some people were predicting/hoping for. (To be fair, most surveys I saw, all along, suggested that 3 days or so in office was going to be the most common mode.)
- bluefirebrand 5y ago
  > Otherwise, they're forced into paying to buy/rent a suitable workplace, pay any incremental utilities, etc I view this as just the opposite side of the coin of being forced to live physically near where you work, so you can come into the office. Remote gives you more freedom here, though. I think part of the reason people choose to live in overpriced studio apartments is to live closer to their workplaces. The pandemic was an unusual circumstance for forced remote work. Normally people would have a lot more options for where they choose to do that work, be it at a cafe or coworking space or at a library or wherever else. As for utilities, Canada at least is providing tax breaks for people working from home to help cover internet, electricity, etc. I've never gotten a commute subsidy from my government.

Plus the cost of commuting itself, be it a monthly transit pass or the cost of a vehicle, maintenance, wear and tear, fuel, insurance, parking etc. So it's a massive cost to workers. Paying to work.

ghaff 5y ago

Of course, there's also the counterargument that WFH means you're paying to provision your own office space. To be fair, that argument mostly applies only if people don't have the option to come into an office. Otherwise, they're forced into paying to buy/rent a suitable workplace, pay any incremental utilities, etc. For people with houses, it's mostly not a big deal but if someone lives in a small studio it may be. Early on in the pandemic, this is what a fair number of people were complaining about.

BlargMcLarg 5y ago
This begs the question how effective remote work would be if society actually catered to it, rather than catering to mass transit to the city. Most arguments rely on the status quo of western society as a whole, and many still rely on the pandemic situation.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I'm not sure what "society" catering to it means exactly. To the degree that individuals can do their jobs remotely and they can reliably find companies willing to pay them to do so--which seems to be widely though hardly universally the case for "knowledge worker" roles today--they have the choice to move somewhere cheaper. Of course many, especially younger, folks like living in a larger city and that's a tradeoff they need to make. It's hard to predict how things will play out. My guess is that there will be more remote and 3/4 days a week in office than there was before. But probably not the sort of radical transformation some people were predicting/hoping for. (To be fair, most surveys I saw, all along, suggested that 3 days or so in office was going to be the most common mode.)
bluefirebrand 5y ago
> Otherwise, they're forced into paying to buy/rent a suitable workplace, pay any incremental utilities, etc I view this as just the opposite side of the coin of being forced to live physically near where you work, so you can come into the office. Remote gives you more freedom here, though. I think part of the reason people choose to live in overpriced studio apartments is to live closer to their workplaces. The pandemic was an unusual circumstance for forced remote work. Normally people would have a lot more options for where they choose to do that work, be it at a cafe or coworking space or at a library or wherever else. As for utilities, Canada at least is providing tax breaks for people working from home to help cover internet, electricity, etc. I've never gotten a commute subsidy from my government.