7 ms·

I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to

I don't think there is anything else more illogical in modern society than waking up in building A, hopping in a car and fighting traffic for an hour to get to building B just to sit in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there), then commute back to building A 8 hours later. Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both being heated/cooled for 24 hours. The employee wastes 2 of their 16 available waking hours in the non-productive commute while incurring significant financial costs (lease/insurance/fuel/energy) in order to support this patently absurd activity. Similarly the employer wastes time and energy negotiating leases, re-arranging offices, purchasing AV equipment for meeting rooms in building B, etc.,etc., in addition to paying the likely enormously expensive lease itself. The impacts on the environment, the number of hours of human life wasted in commute, the pointless buildings and associated costs to employers as well as the public infrastructure to support it (roads, trains, busses, etc.) are all incredibly wasteful. Surely, all of this could only be justified if physical presence had a dramatic impact on productivity. Yet, we cannot tell one way or the other if it actually improves outcomes.

aikinai 4y ago
A huge assumption in your story is that everyone has to have a one hour commute in a personal car between their home and office.
- EugeneOZ 4y ago
  You can safely omit this part without losing the gist.
- LeChuck 4y ago
  Not to mention the assumption that everyone "sit[s] in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there)".
- TrackerFF 4y ago
  Even minutes add up. I only have a 5 min commute, but with my 260 workdays, that comes to 2 x 5 mins x 260 = 2600 minutes, or 43.3 hours. That over one work-week of lost time. But I do work with people that have one hour commutes, each way. For them, that's 520 hours a year - or almost 3 MONTHS worth of working hours, just to sit in a car. And not all are blessed to have public transport - so that two hour commute means eyes on road and hands on the wheel. We haven't even touched on things like fuel, tollbooths, vehicle maintenance, etc.
  - rajman187 4y ago
    When I was working north of DC there were people commuting from West Virginia (couldn't sell their houses to relocate), so 2.5+ hours each way so that's about 32 work-weeks of lost time. And they would come in by 7am to leave at 3pm to avoid the insane traffic during rush hour.
    - tentboy 4y ago
      i work remote but live in the northern dc area. i occasionally have to head up to the harpers ferry area after work (northwest of DC by about 60-70 min without traffic, for non locals) and the afternoon rush hour literally starts by 3pm, especially on thursdays the days i usually have to go up there. its funny cuz so many people think "oh ill leave early and beat traffic" that you are often better off waiting until like 6pm. i still cant believe how many WV plates i see on 270 on any given work day. i hope i never end up in a commute like that
- theshrike79 4y ago
  I have a 30 minute commute in comfy air conditioned public transport. I'd rather spend that time home. But I'm willing to do it 1-2 times a week if there is need. Some things are just better and faster to do in person. Brainstorming and onboarding new employees being the two big ones.
- dbbk 4y ago
  I personally have always had a hard rule of never commuting more than 30 minutes and it's worked nicely so far.
stevage 4y ago
>Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both being heated/cooled for 24 hours. Don't know where you live and work, but that's not the case for me. In most buildings I've worked in, aircon/heating switches off around 6pm. And I certainly don't leave my home heated while not in it. Of everything wrong with modern society, the inefficiency of having separate home and office buildings ranks pretty low imho.
- BossingAround 4y ago
  > Of everything wrong with modern society, the inefficiency of having separate home and office buildings ranks pretty low imho. Another way to look at this inefficiency is to imagine how much cheaper (and, on average, bigger for an individual) housing could be if we had no need for offices. The inability for the young people to buy their own place seems to be universal in (at least most of) developed world (Australia, Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, EU, NZ, Japan, urban China, ...). The cultural impacts of that change are pretty interesting as well, though that sounds like a thesis topic to me.
  - fergal 4y ago
    I can definitely say that for us, going from a company which was 95% in the office to 95% remote, the culture has been negatively impacted. Productivity might be on par or even slightly up but overall I believe most people are less happy.
    - pas 4y ago
      IRL meetings are definitely important. Both for workshops, design and planning sessions, and least but even more importantly for social get togethers.
      - taylodl 4y ago
        IRL meetings are important - but you don't need them 3 days per week. My team has found meeting once per month, or even once per quarter is highly effective. We get together all day, have plenty of whiteboards, and even some team games. We make it fun and productive. It has been working extremely well. We even fly in the folks who are truly remote - they don't live in the same metro area or even the same state. It's still a lot cheaper and more energy efficient than commercial real estate.
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
it really is bizzare and cruel, when you break it down in the cold light of day.
adiffview99now 4y ago
In the short term, kinda curious what would happen to all the people who are sustained by the economic activity of the things you deem superfluous. Someone works those jobs. Provides lunch, cleans the offices, sets up the furniture and AV, maintains the building, etc... The pure fact that it provides increased economic activity and therefore is able to support different jobs and the second/third order consequences of those makes perfect sense to me. In your stay at home model, what would all those people do instead?
- joaonmatos 4y ago
  The short term will obviously be problematic for those people. However, in the mid term they can move some of those service activities to residential areas instead of business districts (provided that zoning regulations become less senseless than they are now), and in the long term those demographics can be redirected to more productive endeavours (by the combination of the appearance of new industries that leverage increased workforce availability and a general decrease in working hours).
- hgsgm 4y ago
- taylodl 4y ago
  I didn't realize it was my responsibility to find these people employment. I especially didn't realize I needed to keep paying for a car, consuming gasoline and destroying Earth's biosphere, contributing to smog, and wasting my time so that these people will stay employed. Maybe, just maybe, our system needs a top-down reevaluation and maybe we can find other ways to house, clothe, and feed people who don't have jobs. Or maybe we realize there's other, more important work, for these folks to be doing.
  - carlivar 4y ago
    Who's going to conduct the top-down reevaluation?
    - 4y ago
pwinnski 4y ago
Given that description, it's completely illogical. You've described no differences at all between buildings A and B! In reality, though, building A might be poorly-suited to work because of children, pets, or other people, or it might be located in an area that's very noisy during the hours in question, or it might be maintained to a different standard of cleanliness, one not conducive to focus, or it might have poor connectivity options available, or... In reality, building B is the destination for many people working on the same or related projects, so people focused on the same thing can focus and share information easily, and people focused on similar or related things can focus and share information easily. The single-use environment is oriented entirely toward the work expected, without having to support any other uses. Equipment failures can be easily handled because of onsite spares. Connectivity is assured. Comfort is assured. There are likely more meal options in the vicinity, given the nature of office buildings vs residential areas. And so on. Personally, I prefer to work from home, and I have a dedicated workspace with a 1GB fiber connection and no pets or young kids underfoot, so I don't have a commute, which averages 30 minutes where I live. But it doesn't seem ridiculous or illogical for companies to expect employees to show up at work, and many people seem to prefer separating the two.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  I just remember, I've got a friend and former coworker who lives a few blocks from me, and he chooses to drive into the office a couple of days a week to work by himself, echoing in an mostly-empty building, because his wife is a real estate agent, and both of them working from home disrupt each other. She doesn't have an office outside the home, so he drives 20 minutes each way (no need for rush hour), and finds the location much preferable to either staying home or working from a coffee shop. Different people have different life experiences, for sure, but it turns out that there are many, many logical reasons why people might work from offices given a choice.
- osigurdson 4y ago
  I’d suggest that on balance, Building A is more conducive to productive work than Building B.
  - 4y ago

aikinai 4y ago

A huge assumption in your story is that everyone has to have a one hour commute in a personal car between their home and office.

EugeneOZ 4y ago
You can safely omit this part without losing the gist.
LeChuck 4y ago
Not to mention the assumption that everyone "sit[s] in front of a computer for 8 hours (perhaps with a few minimally productive meetings here and there)".
TrackerFF 4y ago
Even minutes add up. I only have a 5 min commute, but with my 260 workdays, that comes to 2 x 5 mins x 260 = 2600 minutes, or 43.3 hours. That over one work-week of lost time. But I do work with people that have one hour commutes, each way. For them, that's 520 hours a year - or almost 3 MONTHS worth of working hours, just to sit in a car. And not all are blessed to have public transport - so that two hour commute means eyes on road and hands on the wheel. We haven't even touched on things like fuel, tollbooths, vehicle maintenance, etc.
- rajman187 4y ago
  When I was working north of DC there were people commuting from West Virginia (couldn't sell their houses to relocate), so 2.5+ hours each way so that's about 32 work-weeks of lost time. And they would come in by 7am to leave at 3pm to avoid the insane traffic during rush hour.
  - tentboy 4y ago
    i work remote but live in the northern dc area. i occasionally have to head up to the harpers ferry area after work (northwest of DC by about 60-70 min without traffic, for non locals) and the afternoon rush hour literally starts by 3pm, especially on thursdays the days i usually have to go up there. its funny cuz so many people think "oh ill leave early and beat traffic" that you are often better off waiting until like 6pm. i still cant believe how many WV plates i see on 270 on any given work day. i hope i never end up in a commute like that
theshrike79 4y ago
I have a 30 minute commute in comfy air conditioned public transport. I'd rather spend that time home. But I'm willing to do it 1-2 times a week if there is need. Some things are just better and faster to do in person. Brainstorming and onboarding new employees being the two big ones.
dbbk 4y ago
I personally have always had a hard rule of never commuting more than 30 minutes and it's worked nicely so far.

stevage 4y ago

>Building B sits empty for 16 hours a day while Building A sits empty for 10 with both being heated/cooled for 24 hours. Don't know where you live and work, but that's not the case for me. In most buildings I've worked in, aircon/heating switches off around 6pm. And I certainly don't leave my home heated while not in it. Of everything wrong with modern society, the inefficiency of having separate home and office buildings ranks pretty low imho.

BossingAround 4y ago
> Of everything wrong with modern society, the inefficiency of having separate home and office buildings ranks pretty low imho. Another way to look at this inefficiency is to imagine how much cheaper (and, on average, bigger for an individual) housing could be if we had no need for offices. The inability for the young people to buy their own place seems to be universal in (at least most of) developed world (Australia, Canada, USA, UK, Ireland, EU, NZ, Japan, urban China, ...). The cultural impacts of that change are pretty interesting as well, though that sounds like a thesis topic to me.
- fergal 4y ago
  I can definitely say that for us, going from a company which was 95% in the office to 95% remote, the culture has been negatively impacted. Productivity might be on par or even slightly up but overall I believe most people are less happy.
  - pas 4y ago
    IRL meetings are definitely important. Both for workshops, design and planning sessions, and least but even more importantly for social get togethers.
    - taylodl 4y ago
      IRL meetings are important - but you don't need them 3 days per week. My team has found meeting once per month, or even once per quarter is highly effective. We get together all day, have plenty of whiteboards, and even some team games. We make it fun and productive. It has been working extremely well. We even fly in the folks who are truly remote - they don't live in the same metro area or even the same state. It's still a lot cheaper and more energy efficient than commercial real estate.

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

it really is bizzare and cruel, when you break it down in the cold light of day.

adiffview99now 4y ago

In the short term, kinda curious what would happen to all the people who are sustained by the economic activity of the things you deem superfluous. Someone works those jobs. Provides lunch, cleans the offices, sets up the furniture and AV, maintains the building, etc... The pure fact that it provides increased economic activity and therefore is able to support different jobs and the second/third order consequences of those makes perfect sense to me. In your stay at home model, what would all those people do instead?

joaonmatos 4y ago
The short term will obviously be problematic for those people. However, in the mid term they can move some of those service activities to residential areas instead of business districts (provided that zoning regulations become less senseless than they are now), and in the long term those demographics can be redirected to more productive endeavours (by the combination of the appearance of new industries that leverage increased workforce availability and a general decrease in working hours).
hgsgm 4y ago
taylodl 4y ago
I didn't realize it was my responsibility to find these people employment. I especially didn't realize I needed to keep paying for a car, consuming gasoline and destroying Earth's biosphere, contributing to smog, and wasting my time so that these people will stay employed. Maybe, just maybe, our system needs a top-down reevaluation and maybe we can find other ways to house, clothe, and feed people who don't have jobs. Or maybe we realize there's other, more important work, for these folks to be doing.
- carlivar 4y ago
  Who's going to conduct the top-down reevaluation?
  - 4y ago

pwinnski 4y ago

Given that description, it's completely illogical. You've described no differences at all between buildings A and B! In reality, though, building A might be poorly-suited to work because of children, pets, or other people, or it might be located in an area that's very noisy during the hours in question, or it might be maintained to a different standard of cleanliness, one not conducive to focus, or it might have poor connectivity options available, or... In reality, building B is the destination for many people working on the same or related projects, so people focused on the same thing can focus and share information easily, and people focused on similar or related things can focus and share information easily. The single-use environment is oriented entirely toward the work expected, without having to support any other uses. Equipment failures can be easily handled because of onsite spares. Connectivity is assured. Comfort is assured. There are likely more meal options in the vicinity, given the nature of office buildings vs residential areas. And so on. Personally, I prefer to work from home, and I have a dedicated workspace with a 1GB fiber connection and no pets or young kids underfoot, so I don't have a commute, which averages 30 minutes where I live. But it doesn't seem ridiculous or illogical for companies to expect employees to show up at work, and many people seem to prefer separating the two.

pwinnski 4y ago
I just remember, I've got a friend and former coworker who lives a few blocks from me, and he chooses to drive into the office a couple of days a week to work by himself, echoing in an mostly-empty building, because his wife is a real estate agent, and both of them working from home disrupt each other. She doesn't have an office outside the home, so he drives 20 minutes each way (no need for rush hour), and finds the location much preferable to either staying home or working from a coffee shop. Different people have different life experiences, for sure, but it turns out that there are many, many logical reasons why people might work from offices given a choice.
osigurdson 4y ago
I’d suggest that on balance, Building A is more conducive to productive work than Building B.
- 4y ago