> A vast subset of our economy depends on parasitically feeding off of people commuting to work. 1. Building rents
2. Transportation
3. Parking
4. Eating out/beverages
Building rents are the craziest. The company I worked for doubled their area in December just before the pandemic, for more people to be packed in. The job was inherently easy to make remote, but they hated remote. When remote happened, they were holding a multi-million dollar bill on rents gone to nothing.Companies that realize they can get 1/10 or less the area, and still have co-working areas and a few offices can save enormous amounts of money and be more *agile* than the in-person companies can be. But having companies reduce their rentals down 90% scare the landlords. Transportation exerts a LARGE cost on workers. We're not paid for this lost time. And even at 30m drive, represents 5h a week lost to nothing. Well, not nothing. Gas prices are expensive, as is vehicle maintenance. So we're *paying* for the right to get paid at our jobs. And if your work is easily-remotable, then this shows a cost (at 30m/oneway) 5h + $.56/mi that you're wasting. Parking is usually a perk. But regardless who its coming out of, still represents a significant cost for dozens or hundreds of vehicles to be stored somewhere. In big cities, that's upwards of $50/day. In my smaller city, the company was paying $300/yr in a terrible condition 4 story parking garage. Didn't even have guaranteed spots either. That was just "permit" to get in. Again, someone's paying it, and it's not cheap. But it is needless. Food/beverage costs are also much higher, due to not being within vicinity of your kitchen. If I wanted coffee prior, it was going down to the coffee shop and getting one. However, I had the equipment and matewrials to make them at home, but being in an office prevents me from that. Same with food... although I could take my own lunch. Now, instead of costing $15/lunch, it's costing me like $3/lunch. I brew my own coffee. I eat leftovers or make food I want to eat during lunch. I can also do things like make (chicken, beef, duck, turkey) stock on the stove while working. I can also now do more complex recipes that take time (like Pho) with only being present in the kitchen... There's no way I could leave the stove on going to a workplace. For those of you that says I'm stealing time doing long cooking - I'm not. Being present is just to make sure that a fire or other bad doesn't happen. And I'm only looking at monetary costs. We also have a magnitude of environmental costs I never discussed. And that also percolates down to health benefits of less pollution and less injuries on the road. There's dozens of 1st and 2nd derivative effects. But in the end, it's a bunch of technophobes that believe workers MUST be 'supervised' in an active panopticon manner so they work. (And as a corollary, that's also why open offices and hot desks are a thing. Same reason) |