10 ms·
I would think that the argument could be made that, if the commute is not necessary for the job, but the commute is required by the employer, then the commute s
by coreyp_1 4y ago
I would think that the argument could be made that, if the commute is not necessary for the job, but the commute is required by the employer, then the commute should be considered part of the hours worked.
If you have a 2-hour commute to work, and a 2.5 hour commute after work, then you should only work 3.5 hours that day, with the remaining time being the 4.5 hours that you are forced to make an unnecessary commute.
It would be a nice way for companies to evaluate whether or not you actually need to be in a specific location in order to do your job.
Of course, companies wouldn't like it... it would have to be mandated either by law or by union. But I can dream, can't I?
- kristjansson 4y agoThis has been litigated in the past, and rejected on the theory that the employer doesn't mandate where you live, so they length of commute is effectively the employee's choice.
- rrrrrrrrrrrrr 4y agoThis however always has been on the basis that a job couldn’t be done from anywhere
- lbrito 4y agoI love these interpretations. They're at the same time literally true, but completely out of touch with reality. I guess a minimum wage worker at a fast food joint in Manhattan is free to choose to live right next to his job, am I right?
- WheatMillington 4y agoThe counterpoint gets far more absurd. Should you expect to be able to move to a different state and have the employer fly you to work and back each day, or would that be entirely unreasonable?
- Volundr 4y agoThe employer could choose not to employ anyone who lives more than X distance away. Many already do.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Brendinooo 4y agoIt's not an unsolvable problem. Free bus passes for people who live close enough to ride a bus, and some kind of sliding scale beyond that. Or look up the national average or industry average or metropolitan area average commute time/distance, and build something around that. Or give a $1000 stipend to every employee to either spend on gas for daily commutes or two flights a year to come visit. Could certainly figure something out if there was sufficient motivation to do so. I don't think it'd be one-size-fits-all either. There might be some situations where you need to cast a wider net and incentivize people to travel more to your job. There might be other situations where you want people to be living closer to where they work.
- mym1990 4y agoLive right next to their job in Manhattan as in being homeless, I guess.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoYou understand that you don't actually have to live in Manhattan if your career goal is to work in a fast food joint, right? Contrived hypotheticals don't actually address the issue under discussion.
- Kerrick 4y agoThere are, in fact, fast food restaurants in Manhattan.
- throwaway049 4y agoAnyone know if they pay better than ones elsewhere? Or what other things enable them to recruit staff?
- Turing_Machine 4y agoGlassdoor.com suggests that McDonald's in NYC pays crew members and cashiers about $36-37k/year and managers around $129k/year. The national minimum wage of $7.25/hour works out to about $12k/year, so that's about three times as much. New York State has a higher minimum wage, $14.20/hour. That works out to about $24k/year, so NYC McDonalds is still paying considerably more.
- throwaway049 4y agoWow. For contrast, central London McDonalds is paying about 10 GBP per hour for crew - which is the UK legal minimum wage and as of today equivalent to 12 USD.
- gumballindie 4y ago> the employer doesn't mandate But employers do mandate where you live by not allowing you to live in their office. Therefore commuting is not a choice it’s a requirement. Even if you live across the road you still need to spend time going to work and back.
- nixgeek 4y agoTwitter actually tried to provide accommodations in their offices recently and ran into issues because of zoning and permitting. Some occupations (i.e. firefighters, doctors) do have short-term accommodation on the premises. It's complicated and may not be entirely down to decisions by the employer is my overall point. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/07/twitter-san-francisco-investigating-offices-converted-bedrooms https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/07/twitter-s...
- WWLink 4y agoIt is not complicated at all, if you do it during the construction stage. The thing is, you can't just randomly turn office suites into bedrooms like that. Commercial buildings have different structural integrity, plumbing requirements, accessibility requirements, fire defense requirements, and so on compared to residential housing. A space that might be deemed safe to have 100 people working inside of, may not be deemed safe to have 10 people sleeping inside of for those reasons.
- AlgorithmicTime 4y agoAnd that is to some degree also fair. Both sides have a point in this discussion.
- ortusdux 4y agoOn top of this, Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk (2014) found that employers do not need to compensate workers for time spent waiting in line for security screenings. At the time, some workers were spending 2.5hrs/week in lines before and after their shifts. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-supreme-court-wages-nlrb-amazon-20141209-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-supreme-cou... https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/integrity-staffing-solutions-inc-v-busk/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/integrity-staffi...
- gnicholas 4y agoThose cases are about a decade old, and I believe they would have been overturned (at least in CA) by a recent CA Supreme Court case: https://shawlawgroup.com/2020/02/california-supreme-court-apples-employee-bag-checks-are-hours-worked/ https://shawlawgroup.com/2020/02/california-supreme-court-ap...
- ProjectArcturis 4y agoBut the law could be changed. Or unions could negotiate those policies.
- Arubis 4y agoI love this idea generally. How, though, do you account for different people with the same job description living at different distances? As a thought experiment, Alice and Bob are both security and network engineers that work in the server cage. Alice lives with three roommates next door to the office; Bob has a spouse, three children, and a dog, and the only place he can afford to live imposes a four-hour commute each way. Alice is thus able to spend eight hours each day on her defined job duties, while Bob expends his entire workday driving. Come time for performance reviews, Alice will (presumably) appear to have had much greater efficacy than Bob, despite Bob having expended the same amount of time on the job. How does Bob avoid being fired for living somewhere more affordable? (That Bob’s life is a road-bound living hell is not intended to be in scope for this argument.)
- voisin 4y agoYour argument is exactly why WFH will fail. Bob and Alice share the same manager, Carl. When Carl needs Bob, he has to send a slack message and arrange a time for a call. When Carl needs Alice, he turns his head and calls across the aisle to her desk. How is Bob expected to ever be top of mind or as relevant to Carl as Alice? Fast forward and anyone with ambition to get ahead will recognize this dynamic and opt to be in the office, and anyone else will WFH and be high on the list to cull when the economy turns. Easier to fire the talking head on your screen than the real person you see every day.
- EMM_386 4y agoI have worked remotely in IT in multiple positions for over a decade, far pre-dating the pandemic WFH transition. I have never had a problem with communication or feeling noticed. Everything I do is tracked, and I am at my desk during work hours, the same as if I was in an office. When someone Slacks me, I generally will get back to them either instantaneously or within a few minutes, the same as if I was in an office. I'm not sitting around watching Netflix or going for an hour walk at 10 AM. I'm expected during certain hours to be doing my job, no matter where it is. I don't see this as a reason that "WFh will fail', it's been working fine for me.
- 4y ago
- felistoria 4y agoI agree with this but I have a feeling the result would be corporate housing and they would require that people either do the commute on their own time or live in corporate housing...very Cyberpunk
- twiddling 4y agoCyberpunk? Nah, it's called the company town and being paid in scrip
- moomoo11 4y agoOr in the real world, they could just fire them all in June and thousands of people would send in their resumes so they can have the chance to work at Amazon and commute. Two years and leave at least they have Amazon on their resume. This is Amazon and Amazon tier workforce we are talking about. Let’s be real these companies are only as good as their people and Amazon is a pretty toxic place. And people are willing to work there and be toxic to “move up” whatever that means.
- throwaway22032 4y agoAs someone who thinks WFH is cancerous, this sounds excellent. I live about 15 minutes cycle from most jobs in my city. So according to your rule, I can work almost a full 8-hour day, whereas people who prefer to live in the middle of nowhere can only work 4-6 hours. I wonder who's going to get hired.
- unshavedyak 4y agoI imagine the 15min commute (by bike! lol) is why you enjoy it. Commute was always my driving force for hating in-office. These days i want land, some chicken, a few goat, etc. By your assertion i would likely have to find a new career, because there's basically no way i can afford 5-10acre and have a sane commute. But i've been WFH for coming on 10 years now. I don't judge office people, but if i can help it i'm done spending 3h of my day commuting on I5 every time there's a wreck (which happens easily 3 times a week in my area, ugh).
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago>As someone who thinks WFH is cancerous A bit provocative, don't you think?
- throwaway22032 4y agoI think that it's negative to society but that it has enough short-term desire behind it that absence of intervention it'll continue growing. Virtual interactions will replace physical interactions as time goes on because there are all of the right pressures there. For example, basically every conference now has the lazy backstop of "just go virtual". Venue fell through? Never mind reducing the size and trying to find somewhere else, just go online because then you can pretend it's not cancelled in all but name. Cancerous is a pretty accurate term for it, I think. It'll kill what it means to be human. Already has in my career, hence me leaving.
- gumballindie 4y agoThey probably mean there’s little to no cure for it, so wfh is likely to stay.
- ejb999 4y agoIf I live 4 hours away from the office, I don't need to show up at all and still get paid for 8 hours?
- taeric 4y agoI mean, if you go many days without actually producing anything, then presumably you will be let go from the company. This is already a de facto advantage for people that are closer. Lack of commute often means lack of stress, which leads to more productivity, which leads to promotion. Clearly none of it is guaranteed, but that general markov chain works surprisingly well. If the company can't pay enough for you to live close, that is already a drain on the company. Whether they realize it or not.
- coreyp_1 4y agoYes. This. :)
- sekh60 4y agoNo, you have to swipe your timecard at the office when you arrive and then get going on your commute back home.
- adversaryIdiot 4y agoknowing upper management, theyd be happy with this