5 ms·

During my last job change I gave concrete numbers to recruiters on what getting me into an office would cost. In the end I ended up working remote, which is wh

• hospitalJail 3y ago
  For me it was: >Company A is 2.5 hours of drive time >Company B is remote Pay is the same. lol I imagine that Company A will find some sucker, but instead of getting A+ workers that can realize company B> company A, they are going to get the leftover workers, their second choice. To be fair, leftover workers seem to stick around at a company for 10-20 years.
  • miroljub 3y ago
    Why call people suckers? Maybe they don't mind commuting? Maybe their commute is only 15 minutes, and not 2.5 hours? > To be fair, leftover workers seem to stick around at a company for 10-20 years. Even if they were "leftovers", their value to the company they know in and out after 10 to 20 years and their productivity skyrockets compared to the A+ rock stars that left the company after one year.
    • oneplane 3y ago
      I think they would be referred to as 'suckers' because they are spending time for their employer for which they are not compensated in that scenario (two options, both pay the same, but one requires you to sacrifice significant portions of your day for no compensation).
      • pigbearpig 3y ago
        Bill might like a long commute as much as Gladys likes to work from home. Hard to call Bill a sucker in that case.
        • bdw5204 3y ago
          The only reason I can imagine that somebody would genuinely like a long commute would be if they hate their home life and are trying to escape from it. They'd probably be better off just getting a divorce instead.
          • coldpie 3y ago
            My commute is about 40 minutes each way by bus, plus a 5 minute walk on both ends. I love it. I get outdoors for a short walk four times a day, I read books and magazines on the bus, see what's being built or new businesses opening around town, sometimes I get to meet neighbors and other commuters, or help out random strangers with directions or whatever. My commute to work is definitely a benefit to my life.
            • ProjectArcturis 3y ago
              If you had a remote job, would you take a 40-minute round-trip bus ride twice a day just for the enjoyment of it?
              • coldpie 3y ago
                No.
            • mikrl 3y ago
              During the summer when I work from home I take a 20 minute walk at 8:30 (and water my tomatoes) and a 20 minute walk at 12:00 before settling back into my home office with lunch. If I’m feeling up to it, I get another 30-40 minute walk in once it cools off in the evening. I don’t mind driving in during the winter though, because then I don’t have to pay to heat my house (beyond 15C for the cat) for the day.
            • hospitalJail 3y ago
              The human brain is incredible at rationalization.
      • pc86 3y ago
        15 minutes is not significant.
        • zer0tonin 3y ago
          15 * 2 minutes a day 5 times a week is 100h+ by the end of the year
          • Novosell 3y ago
            130h a year, assuming you work 5 days every week and that every commute is exactly 15min.
          • pc86 3y ago
            It's 1.4% of the year (assuming that 130 hours a year is correct I didn't check it). That's less than two ounces out of a gallon of liquid or less than half a centimeter out of a foot. In what other things is 1.4% considered "significant?"
            • dgfitz 3y ago
              Taxes jump to mind. COL adjustments vs inflation for the past few years also comes to mind. Beating some measurable world record by 1.4% is probably a big deal. I'm sure there are more examples if you look for them.
              • helboi4 3y ago
                Bro nobody is spending 100% of their time being productive. we have to have transitional time. time going from one place to another is a net benefit because living in one box is anti-human. for me the cost of the time is so so worth it because i feel so much better seeing my colleagues in person. i become a shell of myself if i don't leave the house so losing the time is something i'm very okay with. its such a small amount of time to make my life 200x better.
          • miroljub 3y ago
            You can read 10 books during that time. It's not like you need to sit there, do nothing and intensively hate your life 2 * 15 minutes a day.
      • Retric 3y ago
        You negotiate compensation before accepting the job and generally have the option to move. If anything it’s people failing to consider commute times when looking for work that’s the issue not company’s requirements. Going they will pay me 10k more per year but I’ll spend X more hours a week commuting is effectively being paid to commute.
        • vidarh 3y ago
          Hence calling them suckers. Doing the commute is fine, but not taking it into account is potentially seeking yourself short(even if you end up feeling forced to take an offer you feel doesn't take it into account - at least then you're aware).
          • sokoloff 3y ago
            Who are these people who are competent enough to hold an engineering position but do so without taking the facts of a commute into account?
            • vidarh 3y ago
              Given the low proportion of people I've extended employment offers to over the years who even try to negotiate terms or drill down into employment terms that might affect the value, I'd assume it applies to most engineers. At some point I got a week more holiday than every other employee in the UK at my employer at the time because I was the only hire who had questioned a contract clause and gotten them to confirm my preferred interpretation of a woefully misleading clause in writing before signing, and when they later wanted to stick to the technicalities of how it was written I was able to just forward them an email from the COO confirming that in my case they'd agreed to my interpretation. Most people seem to only pay attention to the headline amount, and then grumble about the consequences after the fact.
  • DiggyJohnson 3y ago
    Would I be a sucker if I have a 12 minute commute and prefer going into the office with my teammates?
    • hospitalJail 3y ago
      No one lives 12 minutes away from this place. They picked the 'Ohio' of our state to build their HQ. Cheap land.
  • neverrroot 3y ago
    Wow, just wow. Calling someone a sucker for taking a job, without considering anything else. What about the top of the crop who live around the corner and prefer office over WFH for a clear separation between work and personal life?
    • justapassenger 3y ago
      Tech is full of people like OP. You got good paying job (because profession is hot) so you’re obviously smarter than everyone else, and your way of thinking and living is only right one.
      • tveyben 3y ago
        ‘Smarter’ or just ‘different’…?
  • importantbrian 3y ago
    I don't think that's entirely true. I know a few A+ people who enjoy being in the office and hate working from home. I don't know how many of those folks there are, but I don't think company A would be totally stuck with leftover workers.
• pawelwentpawel 3y ago
  Once you add those numbers, the total is usually insane. While I do miss being in the office sometimes (mostly for the social life), it's just too expensive for me as a worker right now. It's not just the time spent on commute, it's also the money that you have to spend to stay within a commutable distance from the office. Also, my profession is being a Software Engineer, not a train passenger. I made a calculator for this a while ago: https://flat.social/blog/get-a-remote-team-back-in-the-office https://flat.social/blog/get-a-remote-team-back-in-the-offic... (scroll a bit down for the inputs).
  • dgfitz 3y ago
    > You spend around 8 hours on travel weekly which amounts to around 45 days of full-time work per year and will sum up to 450 days of full-time work (3600 hours) over 10 years. It's 4 years of full-time work days (9000 hours!) over 25 years. Kind of wish I hadn't looked... :(
    • chatmasta 3y ago
      And if you're driving to the office, that's 450 hours where you can get into a fatal accident, with about half of them in the morning when you might be too sleep-deprived to safely operate a motor vehicle. Driving on four hours of sleep is the equivalent of drunk driving. And if your start time is the same every day, then it's likely you'll have many nights where you fall asleep too late, maybe even because you're preparing a presentation for your morning meeting...
      • pawelwentpawel 3y ago
        Or 450 hours of breathing with polluted air stuck in an outdated underground train system - https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/london-underground-pollution https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/london-underground-pollution
  • wharvle 3y ago
    Yep, I prefer the office. ... but not even close to enough to car-commute more than about 10 minutes to it, given the option. That's roughly the cut-off. Under 1.5 bikeable miles (that's ideal!) or maybe 5 miles by car. And to get that short a commute, I'd need all kinds of other compromises in most cities. Worse schools, more expensive and smaller housing. Is my preference for the office worth hundreds of hours a year lost commuting, thousands of dollars a year in transportation costs, and all the extra micromorts from the commute? LOL. LMFAO. God no, it's not even close. No typical commute is a low enough cost that I'd pay it to be in the office. It's way off. So, though I do in fact prefer working in the office... nah.