I think the lesson here is, some companies can be remote-first, some companies can be in-person, and different employees will prefer different environments based on what's going on in their lives and the choices they make.
It should not be the case that one "tribe" should try to impose their preference on the other, which was the case pre-COVID (e.g. almost everyone was forced to be in-person), and I suspect fear of a return to that status quo is what is driving a lot of these discussions.
Or are these people working for companies that provide food or something. I just don't get it.
It's simple. I work at Google, but this answer works for many other companies as well. Prior to COVID I would eat an average of 13 meals per week (and snacks) at the office. Now that I'm eating all of those at home, my grocery bills have shot up.
Also, I’m busy working, so I don’t actually have time to cook my lunch, so it’s either eating something frozen, which is unhealthy and gets old, or get delivery, so that $30 for a meal.
Also, my commute is a fifteen minute walk, because I absolutely optimized for not having to drive anywhere. The only benefit to wfh was seeing my kid more often, but that had its own caveats because it is hugely distracting. So, it’s cheaper and more productive for me to be in the office.
The only reason I’d want to work from home was if I wasn’t actually working, and my bet is many people see it as exactly that.
It's this. Companies started offering food to keep their employees in the office longer. That people here are saying they prefer eating at work due to the cost shows it worked.
Preparing food means getting ingredients, tracking expiration and making and storing leftover food.
In some ways this is wonderful, in others it is a huge time and energy sink compared to eating at work.
Spoiled food wastes more than money and it happens easily.
You can buy prepared food for home via takeout or frozen but those have their own problems.
Totaling up gas and mileage and food and tolls, commuting to the office is going to cost me on the order of $500-1000 a month that I'm not spending now. Just the extra time that I'd need to spend getting ready to go to work and then commuting works out to an entire extra work week of time over the course of a month.
It’s be cheaper out in the suburbs, but even then it might be another few hundred a month.
I’m surprised that people are talking about things like electricity costs when real estate costs are so much higher.
At the office, maybe, but definitely not working.
For dinner, the set times provide natural day boundaries with a strong incentive to wrap up by a certain time. During lunch, it may be saving some time that people wouldn't work by doing away with the need to get to and wait for a restaurant (if the company wouldn't provide any cafeteria at all; every place where I worked had one, usually paid and lunch-only though).
I believe that companies provide food because it's a relatively cheap perk providing a lot of value that simply cannot be replicated.
If I have to make my own food, I have to grocery shop, cook, and do dishes, all of this done inefficiently at small scale and out of my own time. At a buffet-style cafeteria, you just walk in, grab food, eat, drop off your dishes, done. The real value isn't the free food. It's the convenience that comes with it.
At the same time, it doesn't cost the company that much. Raw ingredients aren't that expensive, and neither is running a cafeteria if everything is prepared at scale.
Even if you ignore the cost, restaurants (including buffet style ones) can't replicate that convenience: They aren't at a place where you are anyways, and payment adds extra friction. A la carte restaurants are right out because of the wait. And even if the food actually did make people stay longer - I bet that time is made up by not having to do chores to feed yourself.
Well that's where you live now. Average worker changes jobs 12 times in a career. Is your plan to just move 12 times (and pay the costs associated with that)? Or work at the same job for much longer (and pay the costs associated with that)?
One of the benefits of living in a large metro area is the amount of job opportunities, but it you put an 8 minute circle around your residence and only look for jobs within that, that negates those benefits.
https://www.census.gov/topics/population/migration/guidance/...
It’s great that we have more remote work opportunity post COVID, but it was never realistic to expect every company or even most company to abandon in-office work and all of the benefits that come with it. Maintaining a remote team is significantly more management and communication overhead than simply having people in one place.
You mean it actually requires management. Office work is easy to manage with butts in seats. I had someone ask me once, if we were remote, how would we know people are working. I asked, how do we know they are working now?
Communication overhead with in person only appears lower. I've been a part of many meetings where people talk in circles, think they make a decision and then a week or 2 later wonder what was talked about. Of course, you might be unique and have a dedicated person who takes copious notes every meeting and sends them around afterwards. Remote pushes written communication as the first step, which I have found to be much better to build ideas from.
One thing that does not work is a company trying to do both. If anyone is remote, then the company needs to be remote first.
No, I mean it requires more management. It’s not about butts in seats, it’s about communicating and keeping people on the same page.
Anecdotally, when shifting to remote work we often saw managers struggle with a tendency to micromanage and check in too frequently with remote employees. I know “butts in seats” is a common trope but in practice it was easier for people to get away with doing nothing at the office because managers assumed that in office meant they were working.
Communication overhead is absolutely higher in remote companies. It sounds more like you were describing a broken company culture that you managed to distance yourself from by going remote, but the culture is still broken.
A team that communicates properly in person will have more overhead to communicate remotely.
Not sure what inspired you to make a claim from a position of ignorance. Definitely an outlier. The vast majority of people have commutes that are not within 8 minutes by any means. 1 Google search and see the US - https://blog.batchgeo.com/commute-times-and-transportation/ or Europe - http://ftp.iza.org/dp12916.pdf
I’ve managed both types of teams and haven’t found this to be the case at all. In fact, quite the opposite. Asynchronous communication as the norm is a lot less demanding on ICs and managers. In person meetings are rarely an effective use of time or energy.
Besides this factor, in person meetings can often be less effective than email or a group chat.
If coworker A prefer digital communication, and coworker B prefers in person communication, then there is no way A and B can both be happy. A can stay at home, and B can go to office, but B is now far from home (commuting) but still over zoom. The only way to not waste people’s time is for All remote, or for A to completely not get their way and get dragged in person.
“Imagine the hallway conversations that could start the next…” it will make up for your 2 hour commute and 3000 one bedroom apartment!
Because statistically it would be representative.
Also because even if the office is next door, you need to get dressed properly, prepare, etc., which eats at least half hour every morning.
And another key benefit is that, even for those who don't shower, nobody else is hurt...
"only 45 minutes each direction!? you're lucky!"
or
"that's a reverse commute! you're lucky!" spoiler alert, there is no reverse commute, everyone is driving every direction
Once I realized the collective delusion I quit
Most of my career has been 10 minute walking commutes at trendy companies in trendy neighborhoods in the middle of a city, max of 20.
Statistically this is not possible as others are priced out or the units to live in just don't exist.
Very few of those people have kids. Unless you're making L8 comp, raising a few kids within bicycle commute the major tech campuses is financially unobtainable. The cost of a backyard, good schools, and safe streets is astronomical in tier one urban cores.
And that’s all just in the US. It’s even more obtainable in other countries with better urban planning.
* 2000 square foot house * 7500 square foot lot for backyard * 7/10 or higher GreatSchools * Built after 1980 (older houses have much higher lead content which is terrible for young children) * 3 bedrooms/2 bathrooms * 30 minute commute to Amazon or Microsoft HQ
I couldn't find a single home under a million. Central Austin is pretty similar, and Boulder is even worse. Portland's slightly more affordable, but homicides in Portland have also quintupled from last year, so families aren't exactly running there.[1]
By comparison I can find a house meeting those criteria in Gainesville, FL for under $400k. That's why remote is such a better deal than commuting for people with families.
[1]https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/anarchists-and-an-in...
I lived in Seattle for a long time and know plenty of large families living in comfortable homes close to work on regular non-FANG salaries. They don't live in estates, but they don't need to. The people who do want that either need to be rich or drive an hour; there are a lot of those people too. And I'm sure the ones who drove an hour are thrilled with work-from-home.
It'd be nice if an outcome of this pandemic is a political change toward ending absurd commutes by building cities better, but doesn't really seem like people are putting two and two together
WhyTF are so many people commuting for so long in the first place? solve for this the rest follows
I think some see work as a vacation from home and others see home as a vacation from work. If employees are spoiled with many benefits in the office like gourmet lunches, famous speakers, entertainment, and free massages, It makes sense to prefer working at work when your office is a luxury spa - but most offices are not like that at all.
This isn't just some unimportant whining. It's the source of a large chunk of your carbon footprint. And electric or autonomous cars won't make that go away.
Why?
Rent was triple what I was paying to be close, or double to cut the commute in half. And I had no job security.
Still ride a bike for transportation though! Love it.
Compared to commuting (car+gas) and time-to-commute opportunity costs (to use for personal house tasks, side projects, self health)? I seriously doubt it.