Comment by gspencley | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gspencley | Hacker News Reader

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> Employees have realised we are equally as effective working from home and simply do not want to waste 2+ UNPAID hours of every day travelling to a corporate building for the sake of it.

Not only is it unpaid, it actually costs the employee money. In the worst case you need a car + the insurance, fuel and maintenance costs associated. In the best case you still need to pay for public transportation.

> Nor do people want to spend £10+ a day on food and drinks which they have in their fridge, at home.

Eating out regularly is also hazardous to your health. In my experience and opinion there is no such thing as a healthy dining option. There are varying degrees of poisonous; some options are certainly better than others; but if you're trying to be strict with your diet then forget eating out daily.

Then add the stress of a commute, workplace hazards, risks associated with commuting (I have a ZERO chance of getting killed in a car accident when I'm not travelling in a car), risks associated with communicable diseases and there is a case to be made that working in an office is actually hazardous to your health.

When I switched to WFH, it was amazing suddenly finding an extra 5 figures annually in my pocket.

Commuting is also the most dangerous thing the average person does.

My wife only commutes in 4 days a month, and we still have dashcam footage from multiple close calls.

Recently a pickup truck cut someone off and hit their car, then proceeded to flee during rush hour. In traffic doing about 20MPH he swerves though a hair away from my wife at over 60MPH. She asked me to check the footage because the wind force was so strong she wasn't sure he didn't graze her.

Everyone looks at you crazy if you want to do an extreme sport, or even something like dirtbiking, but on my old commute there'd be 2-3 major accidents a week, a death every week or two, and nobody bats an eye. All so I can log into a data centre in North Virginia, that's nowhere near me.

A recent HN comment on another post highlighted the irony of corporate messaging:

“Come back to the office”

“We’ll be resuming periodic Active Shooter drills”

Best part is when the employer's advice for an active shooter is hope they don't shoot you while you hide and wait. Most handbooks don't permit weapons.

My home's policy is the active shooter gets shot immediately until they are no longer a threat.

Wow. Sounds dystopic over there.

It really is. Leftists want people to live on top of each other, de-fund police, de-enforce safety and criminal laws, and take away your ability to defend yourself, and prosecuting anyone who does so, while parroting how dangerous school and workplace shootings are so we all need gun control.

It really is a weird reality we live in. You can't have all of the above and not be subjecting innocent people to violent criminals.

EDIT: In other words, you want dense cities? Then you need exemplary policing (both in terms of respecting citizens and keeping them safe).

You don't want police? Then people need to defend themselves and protect themselves.

You don't want people defending themselves in urban areas? Then you either have to have exemplary policing or less urban areas.

Don't want endless rural/suburban sprawl of people trying to escape crime? Then let people defend themselves or guarantee their safety through exemplary policing.

You can't have it all.

That's all fair, though there is one clear advantage that commuting has (via certain modes of transport) and that is exercise.

I say this as someone that loves working from home, but before I did so I would get thousands of steps in every day running towards the tube in London and around all the platforms. Dunno, maybe the positive health benefits of the steps are outweighed by how polluted the air in London (and likely even more so the tube) is.

But getting less steps in every day due to WFH is a real problem.

This will depend on how you commute. I agree that exercise is important but if I were commuting within the city that I live, I would be driving to work and walking maybe 10 steps to my car and 20 steps to my desk. In a large urban centre where you are dependent on public transit then this might be a benefit.

Edit: I will also point out that, in my opinion, when I'm choosing my own "WFH" arrangements, the onus is on me to make whatever choices suit my health and lifestyle. The employer has no obligation or responsibility to actively promote and encourage any lifestyle choices in my opinion (I actually get really annoyed when employers try to do this - just let me do my job and stay out of my personal life). But they sure as hell have a responsibility to reduce risk and hazards while on the job to every reasonable extent.

> But getting less steps in every day due to WFH is a real problem.

It is! The solution is to walk more and everyone gets to decide how, we're all grown ups.

As someone recovering from a back injury, I was excited as hell to work from home.

6-8 weeks later, I wondered why my back hurt so damn much.

I had no idea how much my office’s slow elevators and 5 flights of stairs had been helping, had to manually add that back into my life.

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