> Workers will likely have to leave their families behind for a week every 2 months.

Yes, or they could continue to live locally. It's about more flexibility for what is the right choice for each family. I don't see this as a problem.

> And where will they stay during office-week? Hotel, AirBnb, corporate short-term housing? People travel for work all the time and it's not an issue. If hotel capacity becomes insufficient other solutions will pop up - like furnished apartment rentals. I don't see this as a large issue either.

Well, with all due respect, that doesn't result in me (or I would argue, most workers) being able to live wherever they want. Plus you would still have to live relatively close to a major airport or something (and I don't even know what that's going to look like yet post-covid).

MAYBE it makes things better for a handful of relatively rich, highly paid workers/companies who don't mind spending significant time away from their families/homes, are happy to travel and who are willing to spring for regular accommodation for their workers, but I think for most workers springing for an office at home would be widely preferable.

And I say that as someone who, pre-covid, had to do a couple of nights per couple-of-months away from my family because my employer's work was already distributed around the nation...(honestly, the travel was personally one of the worst aspects of my job, though I know other people loved it).

Now with covid, i'm bitten with the "not enough space at home" problem (though thank god we got an in-built study put in beforehand), but I no longer have to travel long distances or stay overnight at any of the interstate offices, which i personally find a blessing.

But i'd take the all-remote or "two days in" model in preference...

> live relatively close to a major airport

Also not to mention that flying even ONCE per year round-trip across the country will likely emit more carbon than a full year's worth of local commutes. Now multiply that by 6 for every 2 months.

Everything everyone says about greenhouse gas benefits of remote work just went out the window as soon as air travel is mentioned.

>Everything everyone says about greenhouse gas benefits of remote work just went out the window as soon as air travel is mentioned.

Well, but that kind of criticism applies to anything and everything. For e.g. Do you also judge whether to buy a particular computer based on the amount of greenhouse gas or chemical pollutants in the supply chain that were caused due to its manufacture? Or do you also consider the fact that every-time you make a purchase it has to be put on a ship or a truck or a plane so that it gets to you? If you live in a remote area with low pop. density, there is more fuel being wasted bringing things to fewer people, etc, etc. Trying to reconcile Whats good for the planet vs Whats good for me/everyone is going to involve compromises.

Not sure why you’ve been downvoted, you’re absolutely correct.

Would you please not break the site guidelines like this? If you read them to the end, you'll notice that they explicitly ask you not to post this kind of comment.

One reason is that users frequently give corrective upvotes (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=corrective%20upvote&dateRange=...), which leaves a complaint like this dangling as uncollected garbage.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I'm guessing it's a uncomfortable fact for the hackernews crowd who seem to travel a lot and also claim to care for climate change.

Would you please stop posting these off-topic meta complaints? They're pure noise, you've unfortunately been doing it a lot lately, and they're against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Your other comments are great, so it would be nice if you would fix this.

pure noise? because you are always right, of course.

Transatlantic flight generates under 1000kg of CO2 per passenger. Cars generate 0.12kg per km. A short commute is 30 km per day, so about a 1000 kg per year - a wash.

A longer commute will generate more, being stuck in traffic will generate more, building new roads will generate more. A flight that is not cross-Atlantic will generate much less.

It’s not clear which way the balance will tilt, but you can’t just make blanket statement that planes will be worse than cars - you have to show your math.

The average american commute is about 15 miles [0] which is 24 km.

A round trip from JFK to FRA emits about 0.91 t (910 kg) CO2 but if you account for radiative forcing [1] it is equivalent to 1.62 t (1620 kg) [2].

That's not to mention multiplying all these figures by 6 (for every 2 months), so that's 9720 kg.

I don't think it's a wash.

[0] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1006/ML100621425.pdf

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing

[2] https://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx

1. 15 miles one way. 30miles x 1.6km x 1.12kg/km x 250 days = 1440 kg

2. Few people will move form US to Germany. It's more likely someone will move e.g. from Portland to San Diego. 275kg roundtrip, 550kg adjusted for radiative forcing.

So if you fly 3 times per year it's a wash, if you fly 6 times a year it's double the CO2 emission.

If you don't want to leave your family for a couple days every quarter, you can still live close to the office.

But the point is that you are now also flexible to go live wherever you want.

For people who live close, they still have to work from home, thus not avoiding the cost of it (higher utility fee, no company dining, need more space). For them, this is definitely more expensive than work onsite all the time.

> If you don't want to leave your family for a couple days every quarter, you can still live close to the office.

And now, they have to live in a very expensive area and have to work from home except for a week every two monts?

No, if you live in the same region then you can make the trip in less time and not need to be away for a while week at once.

In a hotel? Also, a week every couple of months isn't a bad trade off at all. Many people who drive trucks or are in sales or consulting travel every week for the whole work week.

What if you're married? A week every 2 months means that you don't see your partner for likely 25% of the time, since your office weeks will likely not coincide.

It's obviously personal to each person, but I think it's quite healthy to spend a little while away from one's partner from time to time.

A bit like working from home helps with "deep work" away from the office, being at home with partner off on some travel helps with "deep home", to really appreciate a quiet place, and be full of love and welcome when they come back.

> I think it's quite healthy to spend a little while away from one's partner from time to time.

I fully agree with this, though I'd prefer it be more on a voluntary basis, e.g. by travelling alone from time to time, having a couple of hobbies separate from your partner, and friends that you hang out with. Not forced upon you by work.

Being forced to be away from your partner 25% of the time by work is a bit much, unless you're a travelling consultant or flight attendant or something.

Compared to a daily commute, 1 week every 2 months seems great. I commute 2 hours each way, plus 8 hours of work = 12 hours of each 24 hour day away from my family, in other words 50% of the time. I'd accept 1 week every 2 months in a heartbeat.

It sucks, but there's a lot of people that have a lifestyle like that - the military, long-distance truckers, airline staff, people that travel internationally for their job, etc. It works for a lot of people.

> It sucks, but there's a lot of people that have a lifestyle like that - the military, long-distance truckers, airline staff, people that travel internationally for their job, etc

Yes, and its generally considered one of the most unappealing aspects of those jobs. Its one thing when the job requires it, as is the case with the examples you gave. When it is completely avoidable as it would be with many of the white collar jobs that are the focus of this thread, it's a weak justification that long-distance truckers also have to put up with it.

Or people just accept it - I knew a lot of people in the area I grew up who were fishermen and were away from Sunday evening to Friday most weeks or worked on the North Sea rigs and were working two weeks on and two weeks off. Nobody seems to regard that as unusual and families coped.

As it was said above: it is a requirement of the job. But making it a requirement without actually being one, that's bogus.

Do you mean 12.5% ?

No, the poster means 25%. 2 months is approximately 8 weeks, and they are presuming that you and your SO's "week" don't overlap, which is likely, so there will be 2 weeks every 2 months where you don't see each other: the week you travel, and the week your SO travels. 2 weeks / 8 weeks is 25%.