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Comment by wkdneidbwf | Hacker News Reader

i’ve been working remotely for a decade and i’ve never been happier. i also suspect that the population being happier is no doubt bad for corporate profits.

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Happy people typically don’t spend as much money trying to drown their sorrows in consumer crap, food, and drugs.

No, but hungry people who don’t want to get dressed and leave the house will order a quick meal on Uber Eats at twice the cost of getting it in-person.

Or they prepare something at home

Both are true, it definitely depends on how many spoons I have when lunchtime rolls around and what the leftover situation looks like. For <$20 I can get some real food to my door async and that wins very often compared to canned/frozen.

That's too lazy. No need to get dressed. You can drive to the closest point. You can collect both Lunch and Dinner. People who order Uber Eats at twice the cost are privileged (or maybe in a particular situation but these don't make the economy).

There is also that pesky problem, particularly in North America, of the shopping district being far away from the housing. At the office, shopping may be no more than a block away. At home, you're in for a big hike (or more likely a car ride) to get to places to buy things. That extra hurdle means you won't take the time as frequently.

That s where european cities have an accidental advantage

I don’t think the advantage is really accidental. It’s more a failure of zoning laws if every-day shopping requires a long(ish) trip.

Probably back then it was considered an advantage because "in the future everyone will use cars for everything".

I am also curious when did north america start planning like that. Probably after modernism

This is somewhat situational. I live downtown, but my employer (fortunately I am remote) built their office complex miles outside of town, surrounded by approximately nothing.

I think you should consider more than your own happiness, we're talking about the economy, this includes local markets, hairdressers, restaurants, municipal areas, parks, etc.

There is a pull that cities have, that includes being in close proximity to people who earn a bit more, greater foot traffic, activities, and shops, among millions of other things

I guess if you want to sum up everyone else who was a part of the economic impact you used to have on them as corporations, then we have nothing to talk about

Uhh... nobody stops going to the barber just because they work from home.

Not only that, who goes to a barber during work hours? That's something that one would assume would happen closer to home regardless, such as on a weekend.

People go to lunch at work. I went to the barber. I am salaried and not paid by the hour and am measured by my performance. I see no problem with getting your hair cut at work. In fact at Goldman Sachs they have a barber in the building the CEO goes to.

I do?

Usually have a haircut either 8:30 or 9:30 am, and it’s just a few blocks walk from the office.

To me, it’s a must to shower after a haircut. Getting a haircut before work would leave me with hairs on my neck or in my clothes: Always after work or on weekends

Anyone who works from home? One of the perks is you can run errands during working hours when less people are doing it

Right?! Are people not actually using the perks of WFH? I can just tell my team, "hey I'm gonna step out for an hour, I have a hair appointment" and it's no big deal at all. When I hit a block, I can clean the apartment, start dinner, play videogames. And let me tell you, things you actually wanna do are infinitely more refreshing than "work Reddit." My productivity and energy levels have never been so well managed.

I don't understand how WFH makes this different, if you can step out and go to the barber while WFH why can't you do it while you're in the office?

I stopped going to the barber, not because of WFH, but for the same reasons that caused widespread WFH. After barbers were closed for months during lockdown I couldn’t take it and started cutting my own hair. I’ve never gone back to the barber since that point.

I did, so that's not true

To be fair I did. I got a flobee (or the modern equivalent, a battery powered clipper with a vacuum) and do my own hair since I started w@h about 10 years ago. I did that because I had more time at home to do it. Before I was so rarely home I had to go to a barber next to the office. I also did it because I hate having to have uncomfortable conversations with someone I don’t know merely because my head excretes too much keratin.

When I went remote, the markets, hairdressers, restaurants close to my office lost a customer, and the markets, hairdressers, restaurants close to my home gained a customer. So no net impact to the overall economy.

There's an assumption you're making, which is the current model of cities, ie. a dense downtown area, is the right model.

This wouldn't be the case if we optimized for the right set of constraints - all of the places you mentioned being in walking distance. If there were more restaurants in the neighborhood, I'd eat out thrice a week at the very least.

“You should care about the economy more than your happiness” is absurd.

I don't think I said those words, so sure?

“I think you should consider more than your own happiness, we're talking about the economy”

Did I misinterpret this?

A generous interpretation would be: when making policy decisions we should maximize the happiness of many people, not specific individuals.

Perhaps but I didn’t see any discussion of policy, just what you should be considering as a person. The article wasn’t about policy either, just whether this personal choice is good for the economy or not. I’m not sure there’s a policy decision that can be made to reverse what’s inevitable. Companies that eliminate or reduce their real estate footprint will improve EPS and given data thus far improve productivity, making them structurally more competitive than “collocate bags of carbon water for fun.” Work from home is the lowest energy state for a company and worker, and nature prefers low energy states. So, in the absence of any policy context I’m just left with the admonition, that read more generously, is: “you should think about more than just yourself, there’s others that depend on you.” But as written it’s an absurdism - you should never make individual choices that exchange your bliss for GDP. Even rewritten to be generous, while perhaps you should think about it, you definitely shouldn’t spend less time with your family so Subway branches near your office don’t have to relocate to near your home.

It could've been all you wanted and more, but you decided to twist my words and quote something that literally was not there.

I don't really enjoy having my words twisted like you did, but since you are appearing to be more reasonable after the fact, I'll leave this comment for you

No, me saying "You should consider more than your own happiness" is not saying "The economy matters more than your own happiness", that is you completing the thought inside YOUR head, the thought that says 'YOUR HAPPINESS DOES NOT MATTER, GDP DOES'. Thinking even just a bit beyond your own 'happiness' and considering the impacts of your choices is far from saying 'reconsider your entire life'.

But none of that matters now. This thread is 2 days old, and I don't really care for your opinion since I fear that you will just discount mine even more, and argue with some strawman you built in your head instead.

With remote work I find myself with a little more time to go to lunch, or out to dinner, or other things that involve spending money in the community around me I didn't have time for when I was commuting.

My co-workers and I don't live near each other so we don't meet up for lunch when we work remote. And it seems like other people skip their lunch so they can sign off early.

When I go into the office, I just eat a bowl of instant spicy noodles (there are few people there these days), and at home I just eat something from the fridge.

why should I care if city restaurants and hair dressers get my money? There are local restaurants and hair dressers in my small town "satellite" city that need the work as well.

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