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Comment by Cpoll | Hacker News Reader

> Because in the United States, we should be working even while we are getting to work, because we don't work enough?

No, because if you work-day was originally 8hrs of work + 2hrs of commute, it's now just 6hrs of work + 2hrs of work.

Exactly. Although I don't think work in the car would be the same quality - if you use that time to handle emails it could be a big boost to get most emails addressed before you get to the office. I live about 12 miles from my office and going to the office removes about 1.5-2 hrs per day. Getting ready, 30 mins each way. I try to schedule phone calls for my commute but I don't always have calls to handle. I've worked with people with families who commuted 1.5 hrs each way every day. So yes, self-driving cars would impact a lot of people in a positive way if they optimize their workflow.

I don't know. I've got a 2 hour commute each way. There's no way a company would accept my rolling in at 10AM and leaving at 4PM just because I'm working from 8-10 and 4-6 in my self-driving car. More than likely, self-driving cars will mean workers are still expected to get their 8-to-6 on-premesis face time, and then use their self-driving time to catch some shut-eye.

I feel like getting to your job should be part of the job, especially when it becomes possible to do your job on the way.

> I feel like getting to your job should be part of the job

I agree:

I put 200,000+ miles on each of three cars, mostly commuting to work. Soooo, that was a lot of money, all after tax -- buy the car, usually on time so that there was interest, pay for insurance, fuel, maintenance, tolls, parking. All those expenses should have been pre-tax money, "unreimbursed business expenses" like, say, professional text books at least long were.

Except you chose to live that far away. I live right next to my office and it takes me less than 10 minutes to get to work.

Should I be compensated for my high rent that comes with living downtown?

We have this exact argument at my company.

The parking is insufficient and costs money, so the drivers would like cheaper more plentiful parking.

The non-drivers catch the bus or pay extra to live in the surrounding suburbs so they can walk in.

Neither side will see the others point of view.

Don't know where you're located, but attempts to handle this have been made via parking cashout laws (https://www.arb.ca.gov/planning/tsaq/cashout/cashout.htm)

When I was brand new in my career I got about $200 a month for not using a parking spot in Santa Monica. It was a nice little bonus.

That would actually work - our company has its own campus and (mostly) controls its own parking.

I pay more in rent so I can live close to my job. I walk to work. Should I be able to expense my rent?

But if jobs that could be remote are not accepted to be allowed to be remote by employers - why would those folks be ok with working during a commute? If anything, if sounds like an employee may not be at 100% focus. I don't even like reading in a car while it's moving.

I mean, I hope this becomes the case but I think employees will need to ask for it more.

That's a good point. It would be a hard sell for most companies. But you could probably take a longer lunch because you got work done earlier. Or I suppose use the time for ongoing professional development instead which has a lot of value.

2h commute each way? I feel like there's ways to "fix" this using pre-21st century "technology". The issue seems to be one of how society is organized, especially geographically, not one of self-driving cars.

Wasn't hard for me. I worked on the bus into the office, and was available online, and it was accepted.

For real. Have people saying this ever tried to work in a moving car? To achieve deep concentration with a laptop on a train? Even in an exceptionally comfortable cabin?

I'm not saying it's impossible. I've done it here and there. But it's definitely a challenge and far from a norm.

Yeah I can't do it although my biz Dev guy cranks out PowerPoints, emails, financial models, etc. He seems to like working in that environment.

I would contend that this kind of work is a lot more possible in a car than coding.

Because company that trusts its workers so much it requires their presence in the office is certainly going to believe them they worked in their cars, right?

To be fair, trust isn't the only reason many companies want workers to be in-office.

Well, yeah, if they are actually working. Requiring people are in the office can be less about trust and more about the belief in the superiority of face to face interactions when solving problems. If you are commuting into the office for long enough to provide time for that, if you do your work on the bus or in your cube it shouldn't matter.

A lot of people would puke of they did a hour of reading email in their car.

Just turn off the windows. Click Voila, no car sickness. ;)

Motion you feel but don't see is the problem. Maybe a translucent display?

Or an active suspension that cancels out all bumps. This is actually my fantasy for self-driving cars; such a suspension is relatively expensive, but if cars are shared and autonomous, each car can be more costly.

It's not just the bumps, though, it's the acceleration. The car is inevitably going to speed up, slow down, and change direction, and I don't think there's any way of canceling that out. I'm almost certain I couldn't read in even a perfectly-suspended car without feeling sick.

Sure there is, just change the gravity vector; this is how motion simulators work.

Actually it's vice versa: you get motion sickness more if there are no outside visual cues on your orientation.

You're describing a longstanding fantasy of many heavy Outlook users ...

Working in a car seems not a bad idea. We already have G-bus where people can read their emails.

Newsflash: People already work in the car, I see it every fucking morning and they are a scourge to safety and insurance premiums. Adding a self-driving car and infrastructure is adding a bunch of overhead you're not even stopping to consider. Zoom out a little bit and Andreessen's vision of the future is the opening sequence to the Lego Movie. Shit you not.

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