2 ms·

Good take! What the comments also show is that people willingly bring themselves in a situation of 3h of commute and then complain. That's not something you'd

Good take! What the comments also show is that people willingly bring themselves in a situation of 3h of commute and then complain. That's not something you'd ever widely see in Europe imho. 3h is insane. I have < 20 minutes and love the reading time, as I travel by public transport. If I'd have a farther commute I would just move. Baffles me that someone would accept this. Maybe your public transport/zoning is fucked up, not your remote/not remote thing?

ElevenLathe 3y ago
It's absolutely true that the real problem in the US is our public transit (and by extension basically all post-WW2 buildings and infrastructure) situation, but if I'm just a guy running a software company, there doesn't seem to be much I can do about that. Hence all the hand-wringing about remote work. I work VERY remote (my employer is in Austin, I live in Michigan), so public transit isn't really an option for that arrangement, but if I'm honest the only real reason I'm doing it is because of Austin housing prices -- I'd much rather live in an urban core within walking distance of work, but that lifestyle is unimaginably expensive in all the places where jobs exist. Instead, I have an aging 1940s tract home in a city 2k miles from work. The housing crisis is also a transit crisis. We built most of our homes and businesses around the cheap automobile and infinite petro-energy, with the predictable result that we can barely afford to live near the places we work.
- RamblingCTO 3y ago
  Also a very good point! We kind of have the same, in the sense that lower income brackets have tend to have a longer commute from the city limits, but in very dense cities like Frankfurt I see no real solution to that. Apart from a few "social housing" offers that need to be built on a quota for a lot of new buildings. Texas -> Michigan is a very long way. Afaict this trend really got started with covid, where people fled to their home towns, right? > I'd much rather live in an urban core within walking distance of work The best. I have 14 minutes by tram from door to door.
  - ElevenLathe 3y ago
    COVID certainly was the thing that made this arrangement possible for me, though it's an open question how sustainable it is. Every all-hands for two years now has started with our CEO telling us how "energizing" it is to be back in the office. Things are a little different for us Linux weenies (sorry, I mean DevOps professionals) but I still kind of see the writing on the wall. That said, the housing situation is such (I brought enough Big City tech-job savings with me that I effectively own it outright, though rates were so low at the time that I do technically still have a mortgage) that I can now easily survive and even thrive with a nonprofessional job.
helboi4 3y ago
Yep very much this. Why on earth would you choose to live somewhere that is a 3 hour commute. DOn't do that to yourself. Move. If your commute is that bad, either you're choosing a stupid place to live, or your town planning is terrible. That's the problem, not working in the office. Everyone should be able to do a few days hybrid comfortably. If you can't, you should have a job in a city closer to you.

ElevenLathe 3y ago

It's absolutely true that the real problem in the US is our public transit (and by extension basically all post-WW2 buildings and infrastructure) situation, but if I'm just a guy running a software company, there doesn't seem to be much I can do about that. Hence all the hand-wringing about remote work. I work VERY remote (my employer is in Austin, I live in Michigan), so public transit isn't really an option for that arrangement, but if I'm honest the only real reason I'm doing it is because of Austin housing prices -- I'd much rather live in an urban core within walking distance of work, but that lifestyle is unimaginably expensive in all the places where jobs exist. Instead, I have an aging 1940s tract home in a city 2k miles from work. The housing crisis is also a transit crisis. We built most of our homes and businesses around the cheap automobile and infinite petro-energy, with the predictable result that we can barely afford to live near the places we work.

RamblingCTO 3y ago
Also a very good point! We kind of have the same, in the sense that lower income brackets have tend to have a longer commute from the city limits, but in very dense cities like Frankfurt I see no real solution to that. Apart from a few "social housing" offers that need to be built on a quota for a lot of new buildings. Texas -> Michigan is a very long way. Afaict this trend really got started with covid, where people fled to their home towns, right? > I'd much rather live in an urban core within walking distance of work The best. I have 14 minutes by tram from door to door.
- ElevenLathe 3y ago
  COVID certainly was the thing that made this arrangement possible for me, though it's an open question how sustainable it is. Every all-hands for two years now has started with our CEO telling us how "energizing" it is to be back in the office. Things are a little different for us Linux weenies (sorry, I mean DevOps professionals) but I still kind of see the writing on the wall. That said, the housing situation is such (I brought enough Big City tech-job savings with me that I effectively own it outright, though rates were so low at the time that I do technically still have a mortgage) that I can now easily survive and even thrive with a nonprofessional job.

helboi4 3y ago

Yep very much this. Why on earth would you choose to live somewhere that is a 3 hour commute. DOn't do that to yourself. Move. If your commute is that bad, either you're choosing a stupid place to live, or your town planning is terrible. That's the problem, not working in the office. Everyone should be able to do a few days hybrid comfortably. If you can't, you should have a job in a city closer to you.