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Comment by alaskamiller | Hacker News Reader

Everything in the valley back in the day was 15 min away.

Now that same 15 min takes 1.5 hrs. Because everyone's now here.

Who pays for that?

You can move Google out of Mountain View to Bumfuck, Idaho. Then you lose the centralization and plugging into the network.

Who pays for that?

But to be honest, most prefer it this way. This crazy doo-dad lifestyle of fighting that 3 hour traffic. Because the thing is, if you work hard to win (or more likely you're just fortunate enough to win), then you get to enjoy central networking, get to enjoy the year over year growth of your property, get to enjoy the convenience of job hopping, get to enjoy that the smartest and the brightest all want in on this action.

So I don't know. I paid for my own uniforms in the marine corps. Someone should be sending me checks!

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Not sure where the heck you're living in the Bay Area, but I haven't had a 3 hour commute here...ever. I've lived in areas with true traffic nightmares (NY & DC), Bay Area doesn't compare at all in my experience here the past 3 years.

I know multiple colleagues who have 1.5 hour commutes each way. For example live in San Francisco and commute to Mountain View, or live in Oakland and commute to Mountain View.

I did the SF -> Google commute from 2011 through 2014, and it was usually 1.5 hours each way, up to 2 hours on a bad day. I assume it has only gotten worse.

My commute (Livermore to south bay) is 2+ hours each way. From the folks I know/work with, this seems like a fairly average commute, maybe a little on the high side.

Well the company gets to enjoy having employees, because they tolerate them working from home. They get to make all the sweet sweet profit. They see their revenues increase, etc. Your whole perspective can be framed the exact other way as well. At the end it's a negotiation. Who wins that is a matter of perspective. It's a privilege to have talented employees just as it's a privilege to work for a good company.

Right. And every time one hits up hackerne.ws it's wage theft as well. Cuts both ways.

I'm doing that in the office right now, has nothing to do with location.

Measure productivity, don't police time.

If you as an employer are getting less results from telecommuting (while also not being able to attract better talent, which you should) then of course it's a loss, but I would like to see those numbers. I for one produce better results at home, even if I were to spend 2 hours on hn.

That's not wage theft?

Usually it's more like free training and networking and sales opportunities, but whatever helps you lick boots better I guess...

You paid for your own uniform but you were provided a uniform allowance unless you were an officer, correct? Well line employees are like enlisted except no ones getting an allowance here

Way deep in the thread here but is this being down-voted because of the comparison of tech employees to enlisted? If so, cool.

But - if it's downvoted for the allowance part, somebody is sending checks... eventually. I totally got the OP's intention with the phrase - well taken - but for folks that are interested:

$1900 initial for the Marines (following actual activation so you'd have to do the initial out of pocket) then ~$633 / yr after. http://www.military.com/benefits/military-pay/allowances/clo...

The job of line employees, especially developers at companies in Silicon Valley, are in no way, shape, or form comparable to the job of enlisted soldiers/marines. Don't even try.

Try and go against your managers orders and see how well it goes. Developers like to imagine we are in the upper class of society now because of how we are treated and the intellectual effort our work takes, but that's not the case. We happen to be in demand now but we have more in common with blue collar workers a hundred years ago than we would with the professional class of the same time

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