6 ms·

I miss the office.

by dnndev 4y ago

I miss the office.

acchow 4y ago
same
rhexs 4y ago
I miss offices in reasonable locations. Instead they're all in the same 6-8 cities that all have increasingly bad homeless populations. No, I don't want to live in the Bay, New York City, Boston, Austin, or Denver. Please create small satellite offices in reasonable cities instead of mega campuses in towns that all seem to have public libraries that are now defacto homeless shelters. Tech imports most of the talent these days anyway, so I don't buy the "talent only wants to move to the Bay!" argument.
- mertd 4y ago
  The US tried the suburban office park model. It's horrible.
  - rhexs 4y ago
    Do I have to walk over feces and needles to get to work at a suburban office park model? Can I afford housing? Sure, sounds lame if I'm 23. What if -- crazy idea -- we have a variety of both options?
    - mertd 4y ago
      Urban areas don't have to have lots of petty crime and homelessness. Let's not assume they come as a package. Certain sectors clustering together in a geographic region has nice advantages even for non-23yo non-single folk. One can hop jobs without uprooting the rest of the family.
      - mathgladiator 4y ago
        In Seattle, it became the norm. Honestly, my commute from an island required exiting a ferry terminal. On the way from the terminal to the office, I eventually went dead on the inside after stepping over sleeping homeless and wretched smells.
        hezralig 4y ago
        I used to work in San Francisco and after buying a house on Bainbridge Island, I now work in an office around the Westlake Center. It really isn't that bad mate. After living around the world (central Europe, SE Asia), Los Angeles, the mid west, I can say that people who complain about smells and the homeless are incredibly sheltered. I find they tell on themselves when they complain about seeing homeless people when the crime rate is down across the board from the last 20 years. If you are so offended by seeing someone in distress, who is probably more dead on the inside trying to survive in a world whose upward mobility is strongly diminishing, then perhaps you shouldn't be going into that community to begin with.
        mathgladiator 4y ago
        My solution, at that time, was to stop walking beyond the terminal exit then hailing an Uber to pick me up. That tunnel under the highway was bad. It's perfectly fair to complain whilst having empathy for people. The lack of solutions or even enforcement is a problem, and I voted with my feet to live away from it.
        hezralig 4y ago
        Enforcement of what? Sit-lie laws?
    - mike50 4y ago
      Sorry but any suburb of a real city NYC Boston Miami Washington DC is just as unafordable or needle ridden as the city.
  - jollybean 4y ago
    Horrible ? It works extremely well. It's one of the reasons America is so rich. It's 'horrible' from the '3rd space' perspective, in that it doesn't make for quaint high street shopping ... but it works really well for teams that want to get together every day and do stuff without the fuss of complicated little villages and twisty roads, no space for parking. Kind of like major highways, they're good at what they were designed to do. They just have externalizations. Bad one's depending on how you measure.
  - lizknope 4y ago
    I've worked in suburban office parks for 23 of my 25 years of professional work. They're fine. Nothing great, nothing bad. Just fine.
- thwarted 4y ago
  > I miss offices in reasonable locations. Instead they're all in the same 6-8 cities... The majority of the US population lives in the same 6-8 metro areas; so it's "reasonable" to put offices in those metro areas. I've worked at places with offices in downtown areas (short public transit ride or walk), in close suburbs (the extent to where public transit goes), and in remote suburbs (that require driving to get there), and the further away from city centers they are, the more brutal going to them is unless you already live in or relocate to the sleepy suburb the office is in (and then you still need to spend a not-insignificant amount of time driving, even for going places that are not your office, because suburbs are not, almost by definition, navigable without a car). > Please create small satellite offices in reasonable cities instead of mega campuses Do a lot of large companies have "mega campuses" in city centers? That doesn't make much sense, a campus requires a significant amount of land, land which is not available in city centers. Google's "mega campus" in the Bay Area is in the suburban part of the Bay Area (in as much as the Bay Area is mostly suburban sprawl anyway), and has "satellite offices" in downtown areas because that's where a lot of the employees live. I suppose Salesforce Tower could count as a "campus" if it's heavily populated with Salesforce employees, although I don't think one thinks of Salesforce Tower when the term "campus" comes up. Maybe the handful of buildings around Salesforce Tower that contained Salesforce employees could be considered a campus in aggregate (generally, a single building does not make a "campus"). Going into a small satellite office and interacting with most coworkers remotely is not really much different than working from home and interacting with coworkers remotely. You get the burden of going into an office without any advantages of in-person interaction. However, one of the reasons I miss having a dedicated office is that I have found that having a different place to work than my house does wonders for my general heads-down productivity and work-life balance, but that's independent of the many other advantages and disadvantages of having a communal, shared space where people working on the same thing can congregate.
  - dijit 4y ago
    > The majority of the US population lives in the same 6-8 metro areas; so it's "reasonable" to put offices in those metro areas. Isn’t this self-reinforcing though? I moved to london because there were no jobs for people like me _anywhere_ else near where I came from. Thus, I contributed to the problem. When I broached the topic some years later with a company, they said that they moved to london because that’s where the talent is. It’s surely self-fulfilling.
- ciphol 4y ago
  All the good jobs are in 6-8 cities because large cities have agglomeration effects that make them inherently more productive. The homelessness is simply a result of high housing prices [1] which in turn are the result of restrictive zoning. Remove restrictive zoning laws and most of the homelessness will go away. [1] https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1515774019685036033 https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1515774019685036033
spicyusername 4y ago
Once remote working has been around long enough we'll probably see the rise of new social constructs that fill the void the office as the "second place" is leaving behind. The office was a crappy "second place" anyways.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  Before office work was the norm, what was this "second place?" Churches, probably? Taverns?
  - iamstupidsimple 4y ago
    Those are 'third places'. The workplace was always the second place.
  - yosito 4y ago
    Churches, pubs, town squares
  - giaour 4y ago
    Coffeehouses, clubs (the kind Victorian gentlemen spent all day in), workshops for craftsmen
    - Avicebron 4y ago
      I've always though those victorian clubs were pretty interesting, at least theyre portrayed in things like sherlock holmes, the old "adventure clubs" focused on exploring the world, north pole, antartica..etc
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    The office + factory duo have been around for so long that many societal constructs don't exist anymore. I think the most common "second place" would be called "the neighborhood" nowadays.
  - bell-cot 4y ago
    Fields, pastures, village squares. A small boat if you happened to be a fisherman.
itqwertz 4y ago
Some people rely on their institutions to satisfy their basic socialization needs. Without the office, remote workers need to prioritize socializing as a need. Same deal with college. Once the institution is exposed for what it is, it is up to the participants to fulfill their own needs.
seydor 4y ago
See that is a business opportunity. Soon you will see "Office simulators" opening up in your neighborhood, where you can enjoy a crowded crammed office with endless meetings and chatty employees over your shoulder. Special events such as life coaching, terrorist attacks, christmas parties, and random drama will make it an unforgettable experience for $20/day

I miss the office.

by dnndev 4y ago

I miss the office.

acchow 4y ago

same

rhexs 4y ago

I miss offices in reasonable locations. Instead they're all in the same 6-8 cities that all have increasingly bad homeless populations. No, I don't want to live in the Bay, New York City, Boston, Austin, or Denver. Please create small satellite offices in reasonable cities instead of mega campuses in towns that all seem to have public libraries that are now defacto homeless shelters. Tech imports most of the talent these days anyway, so I don't buy the "talent only wants to move to the Bay!" argument.

mertd 4y ago
The US tried the suburban office park model. It's horrible.
- rhexs 4y ago
  Do I have to walk over feces and needles to get to work at a suburban office park model? Can I afford housing? Sure, sounds lame if I'm 23. What if -- crazy idea -- we have a variety of both options?
  - mertd 4y ago
    Urban areas don't have to have lots of petty crime and homelessness. Let's not assume they come as a package. Certain sectors clustering together in a geographic region has nice advantages even for non-23yo non-single folk. One can hop jobs without uprooting the rest of the family.
    - mathgladiator 4y ago
      In Seattle, it became the norm. Honestly, my commute from an island required exiting a ferry terminal. On the way from the terminal to the office, I eventually went dead on the inside after stepping over sleeping homeless and wretched smells.
      - hezralig 4y ago
        I used to work in San Francisco and after buying a house on Bainbridge Island, I now work in an office around the Westlake Center. It really isn't that bad mate. After living around the world (central Europe, SE Asia), Los Angeles, the mid west, I can say that people who complain about smells and the homeless are incredibly sheltered. I find they tell on themselves when they complain about seeing homeless people when the crime rate is down across the board from the last 20 years. If you are so offended by seeing someone in distress, who is probably more dead on the inside trying to survive in a world whose upward mobility is strongly diminishing, then perhaps you shouldn't be going into that community to begin with.
        mathgladiator 4y ago
        My solution, at that time, was to stop walking beyond the terminal exit then hailing an Uber to pick me up. That tunnel under the highway was bad. It's perfectly fair to complain whilst having empathy for people. The lack of solutions or even enforcement is a problem, and I voted with my feet to live away from it.
        hezralig 4y ago
        Enforcement of what? Sit-lie laws?
  - mike50 4y ago
    Sorry but any suburb of a real city NYC Boston Miami Washington DC is just as unafordable or needle ridden as the city.
- jollybean 4y ago
  Horrible ? It works extremely well. It's one of the reasons America is so rich. It's 'horrible' from the '3rd space' perspective, in that it doesn't make for quaint high street shopping ... but it works really well for teams that want to get together every day and do stuff without the fuss of complicated little villages and twisty roads, no space for parking. Kind of like major highways, they're good at what they were designed to do. They just have externalizations. Bad one's depending on how you measure.
- lizknope 4y ago
  I've worked in suburban office parks for 23 of my 25 years of professional work. They're fine. Nothing great, nothing bad. Just fine.
thwarted 4y ago
> I miss offices in reasonable locations. Instead they're all in the same 6-8 cities... The majority of the US population lives in the same 6-8 metro areas; so it's "reasonable" to put offices in those metro areas. I've worked at places with offices in downtown areas (short public transit ride or walk), in close suburbs (the extent to where public transit goes), and in remote suburbs (that require driving to get there), and the further away from city centers they are, the more brutal going to them is unless you already live in or relocate to the sleepy suburb the office is in (and then you still need to spend a not-insignificant amount of time driving, even for going places that are not your office, because suburbs are not, almost by definition, navigable without a car). > Please create small satellite offices in reasonable cities instead of mega campuses Do a lot of large companies have "mega campuses" in city centers? That doesn't make much sense, a campus requires a significant amount of land, land which is not available in city centers. Google's "mega campus" in the Bay Area is in the suburban part of the Bay Area (in as much as the Bay Area is mostly suburban sprawl anyway), and has "satellite offices" in downtown areas because that's where a lot of the employees live. I suppose Salesforce Tower could count as a "campus" if it's heavily populated with Salesforce employees, although I don't think one thinks of Salesforce Tower when the term "campus" comes up. Maybe the handful of buildings around Salesforce Tower that contained Salesforce employees could be considered a campus in aggregate (generally, a single building does not make a "campus"). Going into a small satellite office and interacting with most coworkers remotely is not really much different than working from home and interacting with coworkers remotely. You get the burden of going into an office without any advantages of in-person interaction. However, one of the reasons I miss having a dedicated office is that I have found that having a different place to work than my house does wonders for my general heads-down productivity and work-life balance, but that's independent of the many other advantages and disadvantages of having a communal, shared space where people working on the same thing can congregate.
- dijit 4y ago
  > The majority of the US population lives in the same 6-8 metro areas; so it's "reasonable" to put offices in those metro areas. Isn’t this self-reinforcing though? I moved to london because there were no jobs for people like me _anywhere_ else near where I came from. Thus, I contributed to the problem. When I broached the topic some years later with a company, they said that they moved to london because that’s where the talent is. It’s surely self-fulfilling.
ciphol 4y ago
All the good jobs are in 6-8 cities because large cities have agglomeration effects that make them inherently more productive. The homelessness is simply a result of high housing prices [1] which in turn are the result of restrictive zoning. Remove restrictive zoning laws and most of the homelessness will go away. [1] https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1515774019685036033 https://twitter.com/aaronAcarr/status/1515774019685036033

spicyusername 4y ago

Once remote working has been around long enough we'll probably see the rise of new social constructs that fill the void the office as the "second place" is leaving behind. The office was a crappy "second place" anyways.

SoftTalker 4y ago
Before office work was the norm, what was this "second place?" Churches, probably? Taverns?
- iamstupidsimple 4y ago
  Those are 'third places'. The workplace was always the second place.
- yosito 4y ago
  Churches, pubs, town squares
- giaour 4y ago
  Coffeehouses, clubs (the kind Victorian gentlemen spent all day in), workshops for craftsmen
  - Avicebron 4y ago
    I've always though those victorian clubs were pretty interesting, at least theyre portrayed in things like sherlock holmes, the old "adventure clubs" focused on exploring the world, north pole, antartica..etc
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  The office + factory duo have been around for so long that many societal constructs don't exist anymore. I think the most common "second place" would be called "the neighborhood" nowadays.
- bell-cot 4y ago
  Fields, pastures, village squares. A small boat if you happened to be a fisherman.

itqwertz 4y ago

Some people rely on their institutions to satisfy their basic socialization needs. Without the office, remote workers need to prioritize socializing as a need. Same deal with college. Once the institution is exposed for what it is, it is up to the participants to fulfill their own needs.

seydor 4y ago

See that is a business opportunity. Soon you will see "Office simulators" opening up in your neighborhood, where you can enjoy a crowded crammed office with endless meetings and chatty employees over your shoulder. Special events such as life coaching, terrorist attacks, christmas parties, and random drama will make it an unforgettable experience for $20/day