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Maybe companies could build semi-permanent barracks near their offices or something? :p Take a page from the US Army, they know how to rapidly set up living qu

by itmag 15y ago

Maybe companies could build semi-permanent barracks near their offices or something? :p Take a page from the US Army, they know how to rapidly set up living quarters for large numbers of people. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Military_camp_at_Bagram,_Afghanistan.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Military_... Would it be nice to live in such a place? Maybe not, but it would eliminate rent and the commute time. Also, living in a code-tent seems pretty bad ass (at least after it's over). A more humane version might be to just rent a large villa and stuff all the programmers in there. Aren't there a lot of abandoned McMansions in the US? Point is: from an operations perspective, there should be a more optimal solution than pissing away $50k a year on single-bedroom apartments. If a company were to come up with a smarter solution, the programmers could make more net money while being paid a lower gross income.

apaprocki 15y ago
The latest Economist special report touches on this in Russia, where companies needed to support workers in the middle of nowhere: A visit to the headquarters of Russian Railways can feel a bit like a voyage back in time. The guards wear the peaked hats and gruff manners of the Soviet era. A display shows the children of railway workers triumphing in chess and athletics. Vladimir Yakunin, the company’s boss, started his career with the KGB. He concedes that his company is a giant of an organisation: it has 1.2m employees, 20,000 stations, 86,000km of track, a network of schools and health clinics and even an equestrian school. ... He also points out that some of the oddities of his company, such as its schools and clinics, have been around for a century and derive from the difficulties of running a railway in the middle of nowhere. There is no such thing as pure capitalism or pure socialism, he argues; only more or less sensible solutions to practical problems. http://www.economist.com/node/21542929 http://www.economist.com/node/21542929

by itmag 15y ago

apaprocki 15y ago

The latest Economist special report touches on this in Russia, where companies needed to support workers in the middle of nowhere: A visit to the headquarters of Russian Railways can feel a bit like a voyage back in time. The guards wear the peaked hats and gruff manners of the Soviet era. A display shows the children of railway workers triumphing in chess and athletics. Vladimir Yakunin, the company’s boss, started his career with the KGB. He concedes that his company is a giant of an organisation: it has 1.2m employees, 20,000 stations, 86,000km of track, a network of schools and health clinics and even an equestrian school. ... He also points out that some of the oddities of his company, such as its schools and clinics, have been around for a century and derive from the difficulties of running a railway in the middle of nowhere. There is no such thing as pure capitalism or pure socialism, he argues; only more or less sensible solutions to practical problems. http://www.economist.com/node/21542929 http://www.economist.com/node/21542929