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Comment by sam0x17 | Hacker News Reader

I hate that people keep framing it as a "preference" issue. There are HUGE economic and environmental costs that go along with working in and (often) commuting to an office. Not to mention the consistent 20-30% productivity drain working in an office seems to have across the board at most tech orgs.

We don't need to destroy our planet, dramatically increase costs, and dramatically lower productivity just to appease the minority of people that prefer playing office space, and I think more and more people are starting to see it that way.

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Well, there are also huge human costs that go along with working alone all day, and in the same environment as the rest of your life.

For example, commuting, while not nice most of the time, has one great impact on life: it allows you to break from work, which is not happening when you have sleep/work/hobbies/life at the same place. I'm not saying you should spend 1h in traffic or subway, but 20min and walking would be a great way to change thoughts and separate work from life.

Also seeing your colleagues for real, and spending some time with them, as they are humans, is a great way to have better empathy and better work relations: using only remote tools doesn't provide such a human behavior.

Completely agree. I'm actually working full time in the office just so I have a working environment that's actually optimised for focusing on work, even though it's primarily empty. There's no way I'd work for a company that insisted I work in the same space I live in.

I cycle in and my commute is one of the highlights of my day. When some colleagues are occasionally in the office they all comment on how much being back in the office makes them realise what they missed about it.

I don't think anyone is advocating for a position in which companies insist you work in the space you live in. The dichotomy here is between a) company forcing you to work in specific building and b) company giving you some say in the matter. People want different amounts of 'say', of course, but even a fully-remote company isn't going to prevent you from, for example, working from a shared office that's local to you.

This sounds like a business opportunity for WeWork.

I often go to coworking spaces around while working remotely: it really helps to "go" somewhere and to have a different space from sleep/eat/relax

Many people who work remotely will go to a coffee shop or WeWork. But my point is this -- people who have this urge to be in person and can't be placated reasonably are both in the minority and are essentially a problem when what they want is much more expensive and damaging.

Absolutely agree here - although I'm plenty productive working from home, I find I have to go out for a 20/30 minutes walk afterwards, otherwise I never really 'turn off' and my brain is stuck in work mode for the rest of the day. While commuting isn't always fun, it does help provide that 'switch off' - I'm lucky enough to have a relatively short (~20 min) commute though, so I can see how this would be more frustrating for someone with 1hr+ commute.

Seeing colleagues in person is also vital for me - I wouldn't have the working relationship with them that I have if we were fully remote. I think the hybrid model is the best way - it's what works best for me, at least.

One of the nicest work environments I've had (in these specific terms only!) was when I worked 15-20 minutes away from where I lived. In summer months, I could walk in — and it helped that there was a park on the way. In the winter, or if I was really in a hurry, I could take local transport. That short commute was perfect to clear the head and prepare for the day. Unfortunately, it's a very difficult setup to achieve and my last commute — nearly 2 hours there and back — was the final straw before I decided to wfh pretty much full time.

As someone who worked in an office for 5 years and has now worked remotely for 5 years, I have to say, this just isn't true. I get the same "peaceful reflection time" from simply walking my dog that I used to get from commuting.

You can also go walking/running if you WFH, which I do. At any time I want. If I'm stressed of work mid day I'll just go running for an hour and will feel super. Couldn't properly do that if I worked from office.

Why not? What's stopping you?

Honestly, it's just too much of a hassle for me to be able to actually enjoy the running activity itself.

1. I have to prepare for the weather, organise proper clothes. Fine.

2. I sweat really hard. After a run I'm totally wet and I'd rather be indoors as little as possible, since sweat is dripping all over. And to get to a work shower I would have to go through an elevator and some other places. I'd feel people judging me if I'm sweating all over the place before getting to shower.

3. I'd prefer to not shower at work. I will have to also bring so much stuff along like changing clothes and must find a place to dry my sweaty clothes since they are dripping through. I must remember to not leave them there and I'm quite forgetful about things like that.

Depending on where your office is (typically some sort of city) this can actually be pretty dangerous (hit+run, crime, breathing very unhealthy air). Conversely if you work remotely, you can live in the suburbs or even somewhere more remote.

Additionally, I know in many in-person orgs leaving to go outside and smoke is super frowned upon and seen as a productivity drain. I assume "going for a quick run" would have the same effect at your off-the-shelf toxic org. In a remote org, no one is going to be breathing down your neck while you take 15 mins to go for a walk to collect your thoughts. Especially if we keep passing privacy legislation that limits the ability of the Amazons of the world to install spyware on worker machines.

I work from home... but I'm not alone.. I've got as much, if not more access to co-workers whilst at home as I do in the office. We use teams extensively so if you are needing to concentrate, simply flip your status to busy. We've got a group set up for the developers where we chat, swap stories, ask technical questions or just complain about the poor management. No different than if we were in the office.. In fact probably more social.

About the only thing that I have noticed, is that having the ability to immediately communicate and that communication method being text, it is very easy for complaints about the organisation to get a little more heated than would happen if we were in person.

If you are working from home and you feel alone, then just reach out to your co-workers and spend some time just chewing the fat.

Text, voice, even video is not the same as a live human being: even-though it is communication in all cases, and I do agree we can have great tools, the tools can't replace the interactions you can have with a real human.

That's true. In person you also have to worry about COVID and other communicable diseases. Can't beat that!

But no in all seriousness, some of the most in-depth conversations I've had in my life have been in video call 1:1s. The intentionality of sitting in a call with someone for 30 mins is enormous. It's equivalent to going to someone's office and sitting right in front of them and talking for 30 mins. That almost never happens in office environments -- instead you have lots of fleeting encounters, passing people in hallways, etc. With remote you get this extremely intentional person to person experience every time.

I'm sure you can have a 20 minute walk after working from home..

I do 40 minutes, personally. It's great!

It might work, but it is difficult to walk just for walking: I know people who walk their dog, which works, but just going out around doesn't seem like a good motivation

If you don't find that sufficiently motivating, then you don't care about it enough to use it as an argument for why we should all have to commute.

Before I had a dog, I would intentionally go for walks to think over an algorithm or endpoint I'm writing. People who work in an office do the same thing, often intentionally.

Depends on your neighborhood, but this sounds like a personal preference issue; walking just for the sake of being outside is a liberating experience in of itself. Walk for the sun and for the breeze and the sounds of nature. Or go for a jog.

> For example, commuting, while not nice most of the time, has one great impact on life: it allows you to break from work

Is that worth 29 lbs of carbon emissions and 20% productivity drain? What kind of home do you have where you can't go for a walk and take a break?

Yeah, I go for a walk or a run or a bike ride after work. Unless the weather is shit.

That's the great part, I get to choose instead of being forced to the same regular pollute every day.

> Not to mention the consistent 20-30% productivity drain working in an office seems to have across the board at most tech orgs.

I don't think it's so clear cut.

In less collaborative environments, nobody interrupts you and you can bang code all day, close many tickets, etc etc.

In highly collaborative environments, people will talk to each other all the time. You'll me interrupted and you will write less code and close less JIRAs but you're more likely to find issues with code, design and requirements earlier in the process, solve misunderstandings easier and faster, and you get that free flow of information where everyone knows what is going on and share knowledge easily.

So you might have lesser "productivity" but you're more likely to deliver high-quality product.

Now saying that, both WFH and hybrid and office can be both highly collaborative and not. But WFH makes is really easy for people to check out of the information flow (even by accident) and be angry they're not getting informed, or promoted or whatever.

If you want WFH to work out, you need to come up with a strategy how to make that highly collaborative.

You are correct about the problem, but your solution is backwards. The solution is not for us to retreat to the suburbs and WFH forever. The solution is to build dense, walkable cities with good public transit, allowing for sustainable in-person work and strengthening local communities.

Dense cities with public transit: maybe not the best in times of pandemics

They clearly aren’t that bad. China has very dense cities and has not had much issue controlling spread. Masks and a respectful society seem to be highly effective at stoping viruses.

Not in London, or the tech hotspots of the US, I'm sure. I bet it's a free for all. It's a big reason for my apprehension of a return to the office. In London, at least, it's very common to find significant numbers of people on buses and trains without a mask.

Yes, just rebuild society instead. Simple.

In my opinion this is an argument fallacy.Almost any economic activity causes pollution and spike in environmental and economic costs.

Moving to WFH will not do anything to reduce emissions and it could actually lead to an opposite outcome due to increased consumption as people would have more time to travel longer distances.

At face value:

There won't be increased consumption at 7 AM and at 5 PM on a weekday if less people commute. I just don't see it happening. Additionally the tech industry isn't exactly a groundswell of people either -- if all tech workers stop commuting, that isn't going to have enough of an impact to change traffic conditions except literally in silicon valley. There just aren't that many workers in tech.

But let's examine the flipside... The average commute distance in the U.S. is 16 miles. The average tech company is located in a densely populated metropolitan area, and the average passenger vehicle in the U.S. emits 411 grams of CO2 per mile. Commuting two ways that's 32 miles * 411g = 13.152 kg (~29 lbs) of carbon emissions for your daily commute. The average American household in total has around 39.8 kg/day (~88 lbs) of C02 emissions. Reducing that by 29 on weekdays is a 1/3 reduction in emissions. That's huge. Also consider that the average person in the U.S. drives 36.9 miles per day. For working people cutting this by 32 miles on weekdays is an enormous change.

Consumption isn't going to increase proportionally because everyone is still going to be too busy working. The people who were already "consuming" during the day are going to continue to do so, but that population isn't going to increase. It's fixed. Maybe some will drive more, but it's not going to have the same effect that the people no longer driving 32 miles / weekday no longer having to do so will have.

I'm also ignoring the significant environmental and monetary costs of keeping an office running, and the increased work that needs to be done because of the (being charitable) at least 15% production drain of working in an office.

No one (save school trips) wants to pack into the bronx zoo at 8 AM on a tuesday. At best this would have diminishing returns -- the benefit of the roads being less crowded vanishes once the same number of people start driving for consumption reasons. There's no way it would exceed the original footprint of people commuting, because the motivation wouldn't exist once you approach commute levels of congestion. And this is ignoring the fact that there is an essentially fixed population of people who are able to consume during the workday.

>There won't be increased consumption at 7 AM and at 5 PM on a weekday if less people commute. I just don't see it happening. Additionally the tech industry isn't exactly a groundswell of people either -- if all tech workers stop commuting, that isn't going to have enough of an impact to change traffic conditions except literally in silicon valley. There just aren't that many workers in tech.

There's a delayed consumption.Time and money saved will inevitably turn spending time and money later. Also not only tech workers work in the offices.A lot of other people might demand to work from home (and they already did).That's a lot of people.

>But let's examine the flipside... The average commute distance in the U.S. is 16 miles. The average tech company is located in a densely populated metropolitan area, and the average passenger vehicle in the U.S. emits 411 grams of CO2 per mile. Commuting two ways that's 32 miles * 411g = 13.152 kg (~29 lbs) of carbon emissions for your daily commute. The average American household in total has around 39.8 kg/day (~88 lbs) of C02 emissions. Reducing that by 29 on weekdays is a 1/3 reduction in emissions. That's huge. Also consider that the average person in the U.S. drives 36.9 miles per day. For working people cutting this by 32 miles on weekdays is an enormous change.

I dont think you can make an equation like this.People instead of walking to their favorite restaurant might decide to order more or make longer rides to go to "the better restaurants" instead of just consuming what is withing the walking distance from their apartments / office.

>Consumption isn't going to increase proportionally because everyone is still going to be too busy working. The people who were already "consuming" during the day are going to continue to do so, but that population isn't going to increase. It's fixed. Maybe some will drive more, but it's not going to have the same effect that the people no longer driving 32 miles / weekday no longer having to do so will have.

Except a lot of people will gain time and money to spend later.And that's usually one of the main arguments in these discussions that people hate to spend time and money to commute.

>I'm also ignoring the significant environmental and monetary costs of keeping an office running, and the increased work that needs to be done because of the (being charitable) at least 15% production drain of working in an office.

I was under the impression that offices generally are environmentally speaking better buildings than your average condos and houses.They have to follow specific sustainability standards.

> I was under the impression that offices generally are environmentally speaking better buildings than your average condos and houses.They have to follow specific sustainability standards.

The house/apartment you live in is still there (because you still live in it) regardless of if you WFH. The difference is if you WFH, it's actually being utilized 100% of the time instead of just at night and on weekends. Conversely, the office literally doesn't need to exist in the first place if everyone does WFH. So we have to compare having your apartment + having an office, to having just your apartment. The office situation is a net negative no matter how environmentally friendly it is unless it is actually carbon neutral or carbon negative. And that's ignoring the commuting aspect. If we were to abandon all offices tomorrow and let nature re-claim them, it would have a massively positive effect carbon footprint wise. And it's not like offices turn off the AC at night.

> Except a lot of people will gain time and money to spend later.And that's usually one of the main arguments in these discussions that people hate to spend time and money to commute.

By this logic, we should keep everyone poor because god forbid they consume something. Consumption isn't negative across the board. And overwhelmingly these days it's digital anyway. If I stay at home and watch Netflix, I have a much smaller carbon footprint than someone who goes and drives somewhere. You can see from the statistics above, the average person drives ~39 miles per day. I'm saying reduce that by 32 on weekdays and you're saying "oh no, what if they replace that with other consumption???". I think it is borderline impossible people would consistently do something _worse_ than their commute (carbon wise) across the board. It's like saying "oh no, if we ban unhealthy deserts in schools people will buy them and eat even more unhealthy deserts outside of school". They won't -- on average kids would be healthier. It's a no brainer.

> I dont think you can make an equation like this.People instead of walking to their favorite restaurant might decide to order more or make longer rides to go to "the better restaurants" instead of just consuming what is within the walking distance from their apartments / office.

There is no reason to suspect this would happen. If you work from 9 AM to 5 PM, and you cut out your commute, you have _more_ time to for example make a home-cooked meal. If anything people will order out less. All the statistics on WFH (and I've done contracting for a meal planning company so I can guarantee this one specifically) support this. People order out less when they work remotely, across the board.

Regarding the "taking longer rides thing" -- people aren't going to do that so much that it becomes as demanding as their commute. Then it would be annoying.

>The house/apartment you live in is still there (because you still live in it) regardless of if you WFH. The difference is if you WFH, it's actually being utilized 100% of the time instead of just at night and on weekends. Conversely, the office literally doesn't need to exist in the first place if everyone does WFH. So we have to compare having your apartment + having an office, to having just your apartment. The office situation is a net negative no matter how environmentally friendly it is unless it is actually carbon neutral or carbon negative. And that's ignoring the commuting aspect. If we were to abandon all offices tomorrow and let nature re-claim them, it would have a massively positive effect carbon footprint wise. And it's not like offices turn off the AC at night

I am pretty sure most office buildings adhere to strict sustainability standards as opposed to residential housing.Only more luxurious condos are just as good as your average modern office space.

I am pretty sure most modern office buildings turn off the AC at night or have a mechanism to keep it cool by other means (external blinds).

>By this logic, we should keep everyone poor because god forbid they consume something. Consumption isn't negative across the board. And overwhelmingly these days it's digital anyway. If I stay at home and watch Netflix, I have a much smaller carbon footprint than someone who goes and drives somewhere. You can see from the statistics above, the average person drives ~39 miles per day. I'm saying reduce that by 32 on weekdays and you're saying "oh no, what if they replace that with other consumption???". I think it is borderline impossible people would consistently do something _worse_ than their commute (carbon wise) across the board. It's like saying "oh no, if we ban unhealthy deserts in schools people will buy them and eat even more unhealthy deserts outside of school". They won't -- on average kids would be healthier. It's a no brainer.

I am not arguing against WFH.I am arguing against your argument that going WFH would bring net positives for the environment.People with more disposable resources do things that cause more pollution because they participate in economic activity.That's just a fact.

Americans tend to consume much more regardless of whether they drive a car or not.

>There is no reason to suspect this would happen. If you work from 9 AM to 5 PM, and you cut out your commute, you have _more_ time to for example make a home-cooked meal. If anything people will order out less. All the statistics on WFH (and I've done contracting for a meal planning company so I can guarantee this one specifically) support this. People order out less when they work remotely, across the board.

Regarding the "taking longer rides thing" -- people aren't going to do that so much that it becomes as demanding as their commute. Then it would be annoying.

I think things like Jevons paradox beg to differ.Cooking a meal at home is an option many would not choose.

I think the environmental factor could go either way. It's much better for the environment if people are clustered in dense cities versus spread out in rural areas. If the result of the work-from-home boom is a massive exodus from cities, that's quite clearly going to be bad for the planet.

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