My ‘pay me’ philosophy also extends FWIW to working from home arrangements.
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@StryderNotavi @virtualwolf but this is accounting that comes from your time, not the firm’s. They don’t care where you live. The firm doesn’t compensate you for the travel you don’t do, you’re still effectively turning home space into workspace.
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@liamvhogan It's tax deductible, so in a way, you're paying for it.
But yeah, I'll be the idiot who is already at his destination and is not sticking it to the man 10 hours a week by… commuting against the machine, or whatever it is you're advocating for here.
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@liamvhogan @virtualwolf I'm not sure why you'd think that getting time back is somehow less valuable because that time is unpaid.
I can not get paid to spend 2+hours commuting or I can not get paid to spend time with my kids.
And I already had a home office because I'm the kind of nerd who likes to tinker with things.
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@daedalus at a macro scale, encouraging WFH arrangements shifts production out of centres and across the whole of sprawled cities (and regional centres). It works against the kind of smaller city agglomeration, and densification, which would make for less commuting for everybody.
It’s been a noticed effect in small regional towns. Lots of white collar workers tree-changed in 2020-2021, but those towns just aren’t big enough to support the kind of economic life that white collar high-income workers expect. So they’re moving back to cities, because life near economic centres is good and desirable
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@liamvhogan My boss gets a timeshare of a corner of the desk I also use for personal use, and some bench space to put my work laptop/notebooks when I’m not at work. I think that getting to get up 45 minutes later is adequate rent for that.
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@acb see what you’re describing is something you created, that your work is monetising, and the trade off you feel justifies it is something your boss never would have paid for. It’s a false economics.
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@liamvhogan @daedalus wait so your argument in favor of "back to office" is, if we don't force everyone to work downtown we won't have cute downtown businesses that people like, and hip people will move away and into other downtowns that still have cute businesses?
I'll admit I'm mostly confused about why a primary source of fossil fuels is worth keeping, and the reason being "but what about brunch spots"
The Doomsday Glacier is collapsing, we should all be staying home for humanity's survival
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@wilbr @daedalus disaggregating economic production from centres means *greater* dependence on cars.
It makes sprawled suburbs viable (for work, at least) in a way that they’re not when commuting inconvenience is in play; it changes the rent-curve for outer suburban and peri-urban areas. To be clear, I think this is a bad thing.
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@liamvhogan I simultaneously want to support much more midrise and highrise development near me so people can walk to downtown instead of take cars, and also live in the woods barely in touch with society subsistence farming. I don't think any of that involves suburbs. Suburbs are pretty universally understood to be soulless real estate scams that guarantee that you'll have to hop in a car any time you want dog food or a jug of milk.
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@wilbr and here’s the thing. If you want those two—which are very widely shared urbanist goals—then the first is a city where dwelling sizes are very small, residential space is at a premium, and it becomes extremely important that if people use some of it for working, that their boss pays them appropriately
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Actual Dr Buttocksreplied to Liam :fnord: last edited by
@liamvhogan @daedalus if they're moving back, then the "problem" is solving itself. No need to worry.
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Liam :fnord:replied to Actual Dr Buttocks last edited by
@drbuttocks @daedalus depends. Are they being compensated in wages for the higher costs of housing in cities compared to regional towns, or are workers once again effectively subsidising firms? I know what I think
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Actual Dr Buttocksreplied to Liam :fnord: last edited by [email protected]
@liamvhogan @daedalus that's a different problem from the one you just brought up though. Are you concerned for the effect WFH has on communities, or was that a distraction from the point about the commute being an entirely miserable experience?
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Liam :fnord:replied to Actual Dr Buttocks last edited by
@drbuttocks @daedalus my main point is that WFH is effectively an outsourcing of costs by firms onto their workers, and of a work practice that encourages sprawl. Since work can’t be done nowhere, someone has to pay for the logistical basics of production. People whose preference is WFH tell themselves that they’re ‘saving’ in time, firms are only too happy to have people think that
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@liamvhogan employers should pay me a premium regardless of where I work quite frankly
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Actual Dr Buttocksreplied to Liam :fnord: last edited by [email protected]
@liamvhogan @daedalus I mean, if firms *and* workers are happy with with it, who cares? As mentioned, earlier, nobody is sticking it to the man by rubbing crotches with strangers every morning and afternoon. The solution isn't, then, force people to be miserable and waste a day or so's time every week travelling to and from a location people largely hate being at. It seems to me, a better solution is to have amenities also distributed. I know I'm very lucky in where I live, but (when I was able to work), the only commuting I had to do was to/from $University*, or for special events - everything else was walking distance.
*Hell, this was also the case when I was a roadie, too - I commuted to work because I had to, obviously, but everything else was walking distance from my house. Sprawl matters *significantly* less, if people don't need to travel to one central location to do their shopping/go to the doctor etc.
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Liam :fnord:replied to Actual Dr Buttocks last edited by
@drbuttocks @daedalus what you’re describing are the choices you’ve already made to get the most amenity out of your living arrangements. You’re paying a high premium in rent, same as me, to be close to cool things (because amenities can’t be both distributed and centralised, or else everywhere would be Newtown). People have always made those compromises of proximity vs travel time vs rent. What they haven’t done is effectively donate then the space to a firm’s overheads.
We both pay a very high housing cost and I happen to think that a boss should pay me for the use of that space if they want me to do work in it
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@liamvhogan People started talking about the benefits of WFH (“telecommuting”) *after* suburban sprawl — prior to that it didn’t make a heap of sense (or was already the case for many professions e.g. shopkeepers and doctors). So your alleged direction of causation is completely backwards. You can just say WFH is not to your taste. @drbuttocks @daedalus
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The actual relationship’s a lot clearer when you consider WFH arrangements that aren’t based on white collar computer based work.
Garment out workers, yes would most probably own a sewing machine and overlocker anyway, but their conditions of work, having to donate their *house space as well as their time and labour*, are much more clearly exploitative
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Actual Dr Buttocksreplied to Liam :fnord: last edited by
@liamvhogan @daedalus Cost/benefit of the 15 minute city idea aside, if they're paying a premium for you to WFH because of presumably what you consider an imposition, then should they not also pay a premium for my commute, which I also consider an imposition?