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you can't put a price on the feeling I get when 5-530 hits, and I step outside my home office to see my family and start unwinding for the evening. No wasted ti

you can't put a price on the feeling I get when 5-530 hits, and I step outside my home office to see my family and start unwinding for the evening. No wasted time on commute and the options for places to live are endless. Not to mention I eat my own food on my lunch break. I miss some interaction/bonding with coworkers and certainly acknowledge that "hallway talk" helped clear up requirements but the pros of work from home life are incomparable to the cons. I will never go back to an office

hnlmorg 5y ago
It's a very personal decision though. For example, if I may offer up some counterarguments: > I step outside my home office to see my family and start unwinding for the evening. No wasted time on commute I find the commute (by train, I'm lucky enough to get a seat) far more effective for unwinding to be honest. And once I'm home, I'm far more engaged with the family due to having that buffer time between work and home. > the options for places to live are endless. That never actually stopped me before. Hence the commute > Not to mention I eat my own food on my lunch break. the biggest thing I miss about not commuting into London is the food. The variety, the quality, and above all, not having to cook it myself. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind cooking. But a lot of eateries do a lot better job of their signature meal than I could. That all said, I'm in no rush to go back. And when I do, it'll be a hybrid approach. Some days in and some days from home. edit: why am I getting heavily down voted for discussing personal reasons why I enjoyed working in the office? It's not like I'm telling you your opinions are wrong or that you should go back to the office. All I'm doing is voicing that there are some who do enjoy travelling into the city most days. Is it really that offensive a view point to read? Some people on here don't deserve to have moderation privileges.
- bboylen 5y ago
  So this shows why flexibility is important, so you can satisfy the different preferences of employees. From the article, it sounds like the CEO wanted to get rid of remote work all together.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    Indeed. I've seen some companies say they want people back in 100% of the time but I've seen others close their office and have all their employees work remotely 100% of the time. I feel both are toxic policies to place on your entire workforce and the best approach is flexibility because different employees will have different preferences and needs. Thankfully there are a good number of companies (in the UK at least) who are allowing their employees to make this decision themselves.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      I've been thinking about this and perhaps the most appropriate solution is to not have onsite companies vs remote companies, and also not companies with a random mix of the both; but having a company consist of onsite teams and remote work teams - so both preferences can work well, but you can optimize the day-to-day work process (which usually happens within a team) to the very different needs of in-office vs work-from-home environment.
      - hnlmorg 5y ago
        I disagree. I think the best solution is giving your employees flexibility. People who want to travel into the office can do so. People who want to work remotely can also do so. And people are able to come in as often or infrequently as they want. There will always be instances where fully remote people might still want to come in (eg someone leaving social). And there will be reasons why people who normally like to come in every day might chose not to (eg a doctors appointment at lunch time).
        PeterisP 5y ago
        I agree that this is what employees would prefer; however, I'm not certain that full flexibility is the most effective way of achieving results for the business. My (totally unverified) assumption is that giving employees a choice between a remote team and an on-site team captures most of the value that the employees care about in that choice, while still allowing teams to choose a reasonably effective remote or on-site work process.
- rewma 5y ago
  > why am I getting heavily down voted for discussing personal reasons why I enjoyed working in the office? My guess is that there has been chatter on how discussions on WFO, specially in tech forums, are brigaded by shills to sell the illogical idea that getting back to the office is fantastic and awesome, and the hallmark of these shills is the fact that their arguments in favour of returning to office are simply unbelievable. And quite frankly you post reads like that. I have to say that I found it very weird, and outright unbelievable, that someone was arguing that commutes were "far more effective for unwinding". To me that makes no sense at all, because when working from home you are free to pick whatever you'd like to do with that time, instead of being forced to sit in a car or public transportation and waste away your life while you endure traffic. I mean, if suffering commutes is something you enjoy then if you work from home nothing stops you from hopping into your preferred means of transportation and go anywhere you'd like. But you can also do any other thing. Is driving to/from the office during rush hour the most pleasurable and relaxing thing possible? I quite doubt it. So why claim that being forced to do something is more effective at unwinding than actually pick whatever you'd like to do? It makes no sense.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    I commute by train. I'm lucky enough to be guaranteed a seat. And it is a very comfortable ride. That time can be spent meditating with my favourite music playing in my earphones. There isn't a rats chance in hell I'd get that same quality time at home with two noisy kids running rampant throughout the house. Have you considered that perhaps people making comments like mine are not shills, they just have different personal circumstances that you hadn't encountered before?
    - wdb 5y ago
      I wish commute by train would work in London. I had to commute for years out of London (living in Zone 1) and most of the time I didn't had a place to sit. Trains are also crazy loud in this country, and not really reliable and quite expensive. They charge pricing here that could get me a year country-wide travel first class card in Switzerland.
- hahajk 5y ago
  For those who are worried that they’ll miss the commute, you should consider ending the work day with exercise. You still get the alone/unplugged time but combined with endorphins and a general feeling of wellness. And it’s way better for you than sitting in a car!
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    The commute was a form of exercise, I'd clock up several miles each day (most people don't drive into London. They usually take the train). However I do completely agree with you about going for a run. That was the one commute replacement activity which I did find worked for me. Unfortunately the UK's weather often discourages one from non-mandatory forms of exercise. When it's raining, it is far easier to be motivated to walk home from the train station than it is to leave the house to go running. This is obviously a poor excuse but it is still the pragmatic truth of the matter.
- pengaru 5y ago
  It's not like you don't have the option of burning $duration_of_commute on personal time when you're already at home. You set the boundaries, enforce them.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    That's one of those things that's much easier said than done. It's also not always about personal time, sometimes it's just catching up on sleep on the train. Without wanting to go too much into personal circumstance, that sleep was really valuable in a way that trying to have a nap at home isn't. And that energy went directly back to the kids. While I might have gained an hour during the week by not commuting, in practical terms that hour doesn't always translate into more engagement with the kids -- much as I'd love it if it could (again, not wanting to go too much into personal circumstance here). Anyhow, I'm not trying to paint the picture that I'm better off commuting. I'm definitely better off working from home. I'm just trying to illustrate that some people do extract value from their commute.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      There is a group of people who a 5 hour commute would be preferable because they hate their homelife. There are always people better off working more or staying out longer would make life easier. Trading 10 hours of commuting time for 10 hours of naps is something that could be addressed by going to sleep earlier and now those 10 hours can be family time. We shouldn't be going into offices for these secondary effects.
      - hnlmorg 5y ago
        > something that could be addressed by going to sleep earlier Please don't make bullshit assumptions like this when I've already said I didn't want to go into personal circumstances. In my case, the problem is medical, not motivational. And that's all I want to discuss because it's personal and, frankly put, none of your fucking business why I'm tired on an evening. > We shouldn't be going into offices for these secondary effects. I'm not advocating that people should be going into offices. What I'm advocating is that people should be allowed to decide for themselves if they want to go in. Having someone like yourself tell me I should work from home is just as toxic as any discussions arguing that employees should go in. What I'm suggesting is companies should offer flexibility because people will have different preferences. Also you've just latched on the sleep thing as if that's the only benefit I get from going into the office. That's simply not the case. It was just a detail this tangent zeroed in on.
- Sanguinaire 5y ago
  I have been 100% remote for years and am content to continue to be so, but I totally see where you're coming from. I was never thrilled by my train journey into London, but the short walk I had on the home end was some of my best "thinking" time. One of the ways my mental health has suffered most since moving on from that time in my life is a steady decline in enforced personal time, and a lack of willpower to re-introduce it. Not made easier by our shitty weather discouraging impromptu walks.
  - eCa 5y ago
    > impromptu walks Make them non-impromptu. Since the pandemic started I have made a 20 minute lunch walk, and a longer (30-90 minutes) walk part of my work-from-home routine. I have maybe skipped one if them five days the last 18 months. This evening I walked 7k in 12C and a light drizzle, so the weather isn’t great here either. On the other hand, I live alone and enjoy walking so I realize that it is perhaps nit as easy for everyone.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > I find the commute far more effective for unwinding to be honest No one is stopping you from unwinding after work if you work from home. Hop in the car when you're done with work and enjoy a relaxing "commute" on your own terms.
  - hnlmorg 5y ago
    I should have specified that my commute is a train ride. Taking the train somewhere for no reason and back again wouldn't be particularly relaxing. But if you have to take the train (and you're fortunate enough to get a seat like I can) then you do find ways to make the most of that commute. But the real point I'm trying to make isn't that everyone should commute. No. What I'm saying is I'm as entitled to enjoy my commute to work as you are to enjoy working from home. A good company will offer flexibility rather than applying the same rule to everyone universally.
    - CameronNemo 5y ago
      This is an important detail. A huge proportion of those in the US are going to be commuting by car (which is really unpleasant for me personally), or paying a lot of money to live somewhere with good transit options.
      - hnlmorg 5y ago
        And an even larger proportion of those who work in technology don't live in the US. I know this is a very SV orientated forum but discussion companies are having with their employees regarding remote work is happening right across the globe.
        CameronNemo 5y ago
        Okay, but Blue Origin is in the US and is not in Silicon Valley. It is in Kent, Washington, which despite being <20 miles from downtown Seattle, takes an hour to get there via bus. Even longer if you live up in Fremont, or god forbid Bellevue (1h40m by bus, again for <20 miles).
- the_gipsy 5y ago
  > I find the commute far more effective for unwinding to be honest. And once I'm home, I'm far more engaged with the family due to having that buffer time between work and home. I’ve found myself taking the car for a quick drive downtown where the grid locks, after I finish working from home. Can’t wait for it to be mandatory again!
- felipellrocha 5y ago
  Because, like everything else in this country, this discussion is super polarized. I am with you in that i actually enjoy my commute. Without it, the days blend in a very unsettling way. But there is a vocal minority of people who do not want to go back to the office and they consider our position to be threatening. There are benefits to the hybrid model, which is what I’ll be pursuing.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Well, many companies do actually take employer feedback. So it’s not unreasonable that people who want to come into the office regularly and may in fact want to live or have already moved somewhere they can’t do so, at least react to pushes for environments that don’t accommodate them.
- tinyhouse 5y ago
  This is so true. Sometimes when I WFH I feel depressed after realizing I haven't been out for like two days.
- oarsinsync 5y ago
  > > the options for places to live are endless. > That never actually stopped me before. Hence the commute There's a lot of miles (literally) between endless options of places to live, and places that are within commuting distance to the office.
- mullingitover 5y ago
  > I find the commute far more effective for unwinding to be honest. Nobody's stopping you from going for a couple hour-long drives on your own dime before and after work, if that's what you're really into. The pandemic has really shown everyone how absurd it is to take on the risk, expense, and uncompensated time consumed by commuting when it's been proven to be unnecessary in most cases.
kiba 5y ago
The article isn't about remote work, but about Blue Origin's utter failure to thrive.
- rewma 5y ago
  From the article's summary: > The central sticking point, and cause cited by many people who recently left, was Smith’s strong push this year for all Blue Origin employees to return to the office. This is without a doubt about Blue Origin's call to return to office.
  - downrightmike 5y ago
    RTO is just so 20th century
kgwgk 5y ago
You can definitely put a price, or you would have never wasted time on commute, etc.
- ziftface 5y ago
  I think a lot of people hadn't seriously considered the option of working from home before. Now that a lot more people have done so, they are starting to weigh the pros and cons as the parent comment is doing.
  - kgwgk 5y ago
    Sure. And one of the cons of working from home may be lower pay/increased competition. So if they are told to go back to the office and they don't want to they may need to put a price on it.
codezero 5y ago
Ditto. I’ve been doing a lot of managery stuff during the pandemic and the main things I miss are the water cooler talk that greased a lot of wheels and filled in a lot of gaps, as well as helped new people onboard with many to many learning, but we will cope. What I would like, as a manager who had to do quarterly planning would be a week a month or a week per quarter for cross functional in office planning. It would help with a lot and probably be enough time in office to fill many of the real gaps being remote has left without being required full time.
- basisword 5y ago
  That required office time means everyone still needs to live within a short distance of the office though. For a lot of people that defeats some of the main benefits of remote.
  - Swizec 5y ago
    For a quarterly 1 week meeting the company can just fly everyone in who needs to be there. They already do this for board meetings so why not important plannings? Hell, put it in a fun location and call it a retreat.
    - basisword 5y ago
      I still think that’s a big ask. I’d bet that the group of people that want full remote also includes a large number of people who hate the idea of company retreats. I’d rather finish work at 5pm and have fun on my own terms than a week of proscribed company “fun”.
      - Swizec 5y ago
        Sure it’s a big ask but if the planning is important and you are important to the planning and it is deemed a sufficient quality of planning can only happen in person … business travel seems far too common to be worthless. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Nobody said anything about work activities after 5. You can go do whatever. But hanging out with coworkers when you’re all seeing each other for a rare or even first time seems like a pretty common whatever.
BobbyJo 5y ago
> the pros of work from home life are incomparable to the cons The pros are mostly yours, and the cons are mostly your employers. The labor market is finally shifting to the laborers having the leverage :)
- jbhouse 5y ago
  "the cons are mostly your employers" I'm not sure I would even agree with this. I have a better monitor setup at home, a quieter place to work and think, and I'm spending less of my day in pointless conversations for the sake of politeness. My employer simply gets more out of me when I work from home AND turnover is reduced. I think the pros outweigh the cons for employers, even if they don't care at all about their employees and even if we weren't in a tight labor market
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    You're measuring the cons in terms of labor productivity, which I am no longer convinced is what is driving executive behavior. Frankly, I think that executives get a big ego boost seeing hundreds of workers working in an office of their design, and they miss that. I think that's why their arguments for returning to the office come across as ... strange and unpersuasive; they don't actually have a productivity based argument for returning to the office and they're trying to shoe horn one in anyways.
- gpm 5y ago
  > and the cons are mostly your employers. This sounds like nonsense to me. If there are cons to the employer, that means I'm worth less and can demand less salary - the market might take a bit to adjust for that, but probably not long. It means that I'm going to be working for a less successful company, which is a lot less fun. Employers and employees are usually in a mostly cooperative relationship, this adversarial view of it just strikes me as wrong. (And no, before someone accuses me of being biased, I do not and have never run a company or anything like that)
  - rewma 5y ago
pavlov 5y ago
I feel the opposite and would gladly go back to the office. It’s hard to keep working after five when the kids are home and making their usual racket. But it’s also hard to disconnect because the line between work and home is nonexistent. The free breakfast and lunch at the office were much better than anything I can make or buy myself. Talking to random coworkers during the breaks made me feel more like part of something. I didn’t even mind the “standing in a packed subway car” part that much. That’s just city life; I want more of it again.
shapefrog 5y ago
Sure, but your job isnt Astronaut and the "office" isnt meant to be Space rather than what used to be the guest bedroom and is now the "home office".
datavirtue 5y ago
This. I don't know any senior engineers who want to work in an office. They know that the second they go back it is going to suck one way or other. I watched office space last night and was reminded of all the little tics and annoyances of being in an office. I had some good times in the office, but they will remain just good memories.
hellbannedguy 5y ago
I'm with you 100%. You would think CEOs would might notice the bump in productivity in awake workers? Spending 2-3 hours going to an office most people despise, and listening to that clueless middle manager yap must alienated a lot of workers? An alienated worker gets back in weird ways. I was thinking the genie is out of the bottle, and they will never bring us back, but no. They can't wait until they can bring us back though. (Maybe using Global Warming as an excuse to stay home? Not commuting must be better for the earth? It will be decades before we see 90% electric.)
SergeAx 5y ago
I don't know. When I changed work, first thing after passing a probation I rented a nice place 20 minutes by walk from the office (10 minutes by taxi in case of hurry or a bad weather). And I am totally okay with eating catered food. It is not haute cuisine, but it's free and readily available, so I may have two 15-minutes breaks instead of one hour lunch and call it a day half an hour earlier.

hnlmorg 5y ago

It's a very personal decision though. For example, if I may offer up some counterarguments: > I step outside my home office to see my family and start unwinding for the evening. No wasted time on commute I find the commute (by train, I'm lucky enough to get a seat) far more effective for unwinding to be honest. And once I'm home, I'm far more engaged with the family due to having that buffer time between work and home. > the options for places to live are endless. That never actually stopped me before. Hence the commute > Not to mention I eat my own food on my lunch break. the biggest thing I miss about not commuting into London is the food. The variety, the quality, and above all, not having to cook it myself. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind cooking. But a lot of eateries do a lot better job of their signature meal than I could. That all said, I'm in no rush to go back. And when I do, it'll be a hybrid approach. Some days in and some days from home. edit: why am I getting heavily down voted for discussing personal reasons why I enjoyed working in the office? It's not like I'm telling you your opinions are wrong or that you should go back to the office. All I'm doing is voicing that there are some who do enjoy travelling into the city most days. Is it really that offensive a view point to read? Some people on here don't deserve to have moderation privileges.

bboylen 5y ago
So this shows why flexibility is important, so you can satisfy the different preferences of employees. From the article, it sounds like the CEO wanted to get rid of remote work all together.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  Indeed. I've seen some companies say they want people back in 100% of the time but I've seen others close their office and have all their employees work remotely 100% of the time. I feel both are toxic policies to place on your entire workforce and the best approach is flexibility because different employees will have different preferences and needs. Thankfully there are a good number of companies (in the UK at least) who are allowing their employees to make this decision themselves.
  - PeterisP 5y ago
    I've been thinking about this and perhaps the most appropriate solution is to not have onsite companies vs remote companies, and also not companies with a random mix of the both; but having a company consist of onsite teams and remote work teams - so both preferences can work well, but you can optimize the day-to-day work process (which usually happens within a team) to the very different needs of in-office vs work-from-home environment.
    - hnlmorg 5y ago
      I disagree. I think the best solution is giving your employees flexibility. People who want to travel into the office can do so. People who want to work remotely can also do so. And people are able to come in as often or infrequently as they want. There will always be instances where fully remote people might still want to come in (eg someone leaving social). And there will be reasons why people who normally like to come in every day might chose not to (eg a doctors appointment at lunch time).
      - PeterisP 5y ago
        I agree that this is what employees would prefer; however, I'm not certain that full flexibility is the most effective way of achieving results for the business. My (totally unverified) assumption is that giving employees a choice between a remote team and an on-site team captures most of the value that the employees care about in that choice, while still allowing teams to choose a reasonably effective remote or on-site work process.
rewma 5y ago
> why am I getting heavily down voted for discussing personal reasons why I enjoyed working in the office? My guess is that there has been chatter on how discussions on WFO, specially in tech forums, are brigaded by shills to sell the illogical idea that getting back to the office is fantastic and awesome, and the hallmark of these shills is the fact that their arguments in favour of returning to office are simply unbelievable. And quite frankly you post reads like that. I have to say that I found it very weird, and outright unbelievable, that someone was arguing that commutes were "far more effective for unwinding". To me that makes no sense at all, because when working from home you are free to pick whatever you'd like to do with that time, instead of being forced to sit in a car or public transportation and waste away your life while you endure traffic. I mean, if suffering commutes is something you enjoy then if you work from home nothing stops you from hopping into your preferred means of transportation and go anywhere you'd like. But you can also do any other thing. Is driving to/from the office during rush hour the most pleasurable and relaxing thing possible? I quite doubt it. So why claim that being forced to do something is more effective at unwinding than actually pick whatever you'd like to do? It makes no sense.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  I commute by train. I'm lucky enough to be guaranteed a seat. And it is a very comfortable ride. That time can be spent meditating with my favourite music playing in my earphones. There isn't a rats chance in hell I'd get that same quality time at home with two noisy kids running rampant throughout the house. Have you considered that perhaps people making comments like mine are not shills, they just have different personal circumstances that you hadn't encountered before?
  - wdb 5y ago
    I wish commute by train would work in London. I had to commute for years out of London (living in Zone 1) and most of the time I didn't had a place to sit. Trains are also crazy loud in this country, and not really reliable and quite expensive. They charge pricing here that could get me a year country-wide travel first class card in Switzerland.
hahajk 5y ago
For those who are worried that they’ll miss the commute, you should consider ending the work day with exercise. You still get the alone/unplugged time but combined with endorphins and a general feeling of wellness. And it’s way better for you than sitting in a car!
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  The commute was a form of exercise, I'd clock up several miles each day (most people don't drive into London. They usually take the train). However I do completely agree with you about going for a run. That was the one commute replacement activity which I did find worked for me. Unfortunately the UK's weather often discourages one from non-mandatory forms of exercise. When it's raining, it is far easier to be motivated to walk home from the train station than it is to leave the house to go running. This is obviously a poor excuse but it is still the pragmatic truth of the matter.
pengaru 5y ago
It's not like you don't have the option of burning $duration_of_commute on personal time when you're already at home. You set the boundaries, enforce them.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  That's one of those things that's much easier said than done. It's also not always about personal time, sometimes it's just catching up on sleep on the train. Without wanting to go too much into personal circumstance, that sleep was really valuable in a way that trying to have a nap at home isn't. And that energy went directly back to the kids. While I might have gained an hour during the week by not commuting, in practical terms that hour doesn't always translate into more engagement with the kids -- much as I'd love it if it could (again, not wanting to go too much into personal circumstance here). Anyhow, I'm not trying to paint the picture that I'm better off commuting. I'm definitely better off working from home. I'm just trying to illustrate that some people do extract value from their commute.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    There is a group of people who a 5 hour commute would be preferable because they hate their homelife. There are always people better off working more or staying out longer would make life easier. Trading 10 hours of commuting time for 10 hours of naps is something that could be addressed by going to sleep earlier and now those 10 hours can be family time. We shouldn't be going into offices for these secondary effects.
    - hnlmorg 5y ago
      > something that could be addressed by going to sleep earlier Please don't make bullshit assumptions like this when I've already said I didn't want to go into personal circumstances. In my case, the problem is medical, not motivational. And that's all I want to discuss because it's personal and, frankly put, none of your fucking business why I'm tired on an evening. > We shouldn't be going into offices for these secondary effects. I'm not advocating that people should be going into offices. What I'm advocating is that people should be allowed to decide for themselves if they want to go in. Having someone like yourself tell me I should work from home is just as toxic as any discussions arguing that employees should go in. What I'm suggesting is companies should offer flexibility because people will have different preferences. Also you've just latched on the sleep thing as if that's the only benefit I get from going into the office. That's simply not the case. It was just a detail this tangent zeroed in on.
Sanguinaire 5y ago
I have been 100% remote for years and am content to continue to be so, but I totally see where you're coming from. I was never thrilled by my train journey into London, but the short walk I had on the home end was some of my best "thinking" time. One of the ways my mental health has suffered most since moving on from that time in my life is a steady decline in enforced personal time, and a lack of willpower to re-introduce it. Not made easier by our shitty weather discouraging impromptu walks.
- eCa 5y ago
  > impromptu walks Make them non-impromptu. Since the pandemic started I have made a 20 minute lunch walk, and a longer (30-90 minutes) walk part of my work-from-home routine. I have maybe skipped one if them five days the last 18 months. This evening I walked 7k in 12C and a light drizzle, so the weather isn’t great here either. On the other hand, I live alone and enjoy walking so I realize that it is perhaps nit as easy for everyone.
heavyset_go 5y ago
> I find the commute far more effective for unwinding to be honest No one is stopping you from unwinding after work if you work from home. Hop in the car when you're done with work and enjoy a relaxing "commute" on your own terms.
- hnlmorg 5y ago
  I should have specified that my commute is a train ride. Taking the train somewhere for no reason and back again wouldn't be particularly relaxing. But if you have to take the train (and you're fortunate enough to get a seat like I can) then you do find ways to make the most of that commute. But the real point I'm trying to make isn't that everyone should commute. No. What I'm saying is I'm as entitled to enjoy my commute to work as you are to enjoy working from home. A good company will offer flexibility rather than applying the same rule to everyone universally.
  - CameronNemo 5y ago
    This is an important detail. A huge proportion of those in the US are going to be commuting by car (which is really unpleasant for me personally), or paying a lot of money to live somewhere with good transit options.
    - hnlmorg 5y ago
      And an even larger proportion of those who work in technology don't live in the US. I know this is a very SV orientated forum but discussion companies are having with their employees regarding remote work is happening right across the globe.
      - CameronNemo 5y ago
        Okay, but Blue Origin is in the US and is not in Silicon Valley. It is in Kent, Washington, which despite being <20 miles from downtown Seattle, takes an hour to get there via bus. Even longer if you live up in Fremont, or god forbid Bellevue (1h40m by bus, again for <20 miles).
the_gipsy 5y ago
> I find the commute far more effective for unwinding to be honest. And once I'm home, I'm far more engaged with the family due to having that buffer time between work and home. I’ve found myself taking the car for a quick drive downtown where the grid locks, after I finish working from home. Can’t wait for it to be mandatory again!
felipellrocha 5y ago
Because, like everything else in this country, this discussion is super polarized. I am with you in that i actually enjoy my commute. Without it, the days blend in a very unsettling way. But there is a vocal minority of people who do not want to go back to the office and they consider our position to be threatening. There are benefits to the hybrid model, which is what I’ll be pursuing.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Well, many companies do actually take employer feedback. So it’s not unreasonable that people who want to come into the office regularly and may in fact want to live or have already moved somewhere they can’t do so, at least react to pushes for environments that don’t accommodate them.
tinyhouse 5y ago
This is so true. Sometimes when I WFH I feel depressed after realizing I haven't been out for like two days.
oarsinsync 5y ago
> > the options for places to live are endless. > That never actually stopped me before. Hence the commute There's a lot of miles (literally) between endless options of places to live, and places that are within commuting distance to the office.
mullingitover 5y ago
> I find the commute far more effective for unwinding to be honest. Nobody's stopping you from going for a couple hour-long drives on your own dime before and after work, if that's what you're really into. The pandemic has really shown everyone how absurd it is to take on the risk, expense, and uncompensated time consumed by commuting when it's been proven to be unnecessary in most cases.

kiba 5y ago

The article isn't about remote work, but about Blue Origin's utter failure to thrive.

rewma 5y ago
From the article's summary: > The central sticking point, and cause cited by many people who recently left, was Smith’s strong push this year for all Blue Origin employees to return to the office. This is without a doubt about Blue Origin's call to return to office.
- downrightmike 5y ago
  RTO is just so 20th century

kgwgk 5y ago

You can definitely put a price, or you would have never wasted time on commute, etc.

ziftface 5y ago
I think a lot of people hadn't seriously considered the option of working from home before. Now that a lot more people have done so, they are starting to weigh the pros and cons as the parent comment is doing.
- kgwgk 5y ago
  Sure. And one of the cons of working from home may be lower pay/increased competition. So if they are told to go back to the office and they don't want to they may need to put a price on it.

codezero 5y ago

Ditto. I’ve been doing a lot of managery stuff during the pandemic and the main things I miss are the water cooler talk that greased a lot of wheels and filled in a lot of gaps, as well as helped new people onboard with many to many learning, but we will cope. What I would like, as a manager who had to do quarterly planning would be a week a month or a week per quarter for cross functional in office planning. It would help with a lot and probably be enough time in office to fill many of the real gaps being remote has left without being required full time.

basisword 5y ago
That required office time means everyone still needs to live within a short distance of the office though. For a lot of people that defeats some of the main benefits of remote.
- Swizec 5y ago
  For a quarterly 1 week meeting the company can just fly everyone in who needs to be there. They already do this for board meetings so why not important plannings? Hell, put it in a fun location and call it a retreat.
  - basisword 5y ago
    I still think that’s a big ask. I’d bet that the group of people that want full remote also includes a large number of people who hate the idea of company retreats. I’d rather finish work at 5pm and have fun on my own terms than a week of proscribed company “fun”.
    - Swizec 5y ago
      Sure it’s a big ask but if the planning is important and you are important to the planning and it is deemed a sufficient quality of planning can only happen in person … business travel seems far too common to be worthless. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Nobody said anything about work activities after 5. You can go do whatever. But hanging out with coworkers when you’re all seeing each other for a rare or even first time seems like a pretty common whatever.

BobbyJo 5y ago

> the pros of work from home life are incomparable to the cons The pros are mostly yours, and the cons are mostly your employers. The labor market is finally shifting to the laborers having the leverage :)

jbhouse 5y ago
"the cons are mostly your employers" I'm not sure I would even agree with this. I have a better monitor setup at home, a quieter place to work and think, and I'm spending less of my day in pointless conversations for the sake of politeness. My employer simply gets more out of me when I work from home AND turnover is reduced. I think the pros outweigh the cons for employers, even if they don't care at all about their employees and even if we weren't in a tight labor market
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  You're measuring the cons in terms of labor productivity, which I am no longer convinced is what is driving executive behavior. Frankly, I think that executives get a big ego boost seeing hundreds of workers working in an office of their design, and they miss that. I think that's why their arguments for returning to the office come across as ... strange and unpersuasive; they don't actually have a productivity based argument for returning to the office and they're trying to shoe horn one in anyways.
gpm 5y ago
> and the cons are mostly your employers. This sounds like nonsense to me. If there are cons to the employer, that means I'm worth less and can demand less salary - the market might take a bit to adjust for that, but probably not long. It means that I'm going to be working for a less successful company, which is a lot less fun. Employers and employees are usually in a mostly cooperative relationship, this adversarial view of it just strikes me as wrong. (And no, before someone accuses me of being biased, I do not and have never run a company or anything like that)
- rewma 5y ago

pavlov 5y ago

I feel the opposite and would gladly go back to the office. It’s hard to keep working after five when the kids are home and making their usual racket. But it’s also hard to disconnect because the line between work and home is nonexistent. The free breakfast and lunch at the office were much better than anything I can make or buy myself. Talking to random coworkers during the breaks made me feel more like part of something. I didn’t even mind the “standing in a packed subway car” part that much. That’s just city life; I want more of it again.

shapefrog 5y ago

Sure, but your job isnt Astronaut and the "office" isnt meant to be Space rather than what used to be the guest bedroom and is now the "home office".

datavirtue 5y ago

This. I don't know any senior engineers who want to work in an office. They know that the second they go back it is going to suck one way or other. I watched office space last night and was reminded of all the little tics and annoyances of being in an office. I had some good times in the office, but they will remain just good memories.

hellbannedguy 5y ago

I'm with you 100%. You would think CEOs would might notice the bump in productivity in awake workers? Spending 2-3 hours going to an office most people despise, and listening to that clueless middle manager yap must alienated a lot of workers? An alienated worker gets back in weird ways. I was thinking the genie is out of the bottle, and they will never bring us back, but no. They can't wait until they can bring us back though. (Maybe using Global Warming as an excuse to stay home? Not commuting must be better for the earth? It will be decades before we see 90% electric.)

SergeAx 5y ago

I don't know. When I changed work, first thing after passing a probation I rented a nice place 20 minutes by walk from the office (10 minutes by taxi in case of hurry or a bad weather). And I am totally okay with eating catered food. It is not haute cuisine, but it's free and readily available, so I may have two 15-minutes breaks instead of one hour lunch and call it a day half an hour earlier.