“The issue of telecommuting I find cute, removed, and academic. The reason why is because I work from home and I largely view telecommuting to be for the sheep and the shepherds that employ them. But as I approach my now 9th year since my last appearance in rush hour traffic, I’m so far removed from it that I see a commute much like an abused wife sees her ex-husband for the irrational, damaging, and ultimately pointless waste that he is. The only question I have is
Why do you guys commute?”
I worked a home based biz for the last 16 years of my career …. I would NEVER commute … that is a huge waste of time and money… wife had a 5 minute commute … so that all worked well. We only needed one car … that is a huge saving right there.
Well, brainiac, some people have to actually work at factories to build actual stuff, others have to go to actual sites to maintain, install and service actual stuff, as opposed to those clowns who think pushing bits around and talking is “work.”
I, too, work from my home … and have done so since 1990 … when I said goodbye to the WASTE of life spent commuting with the WORST drivers in the nation. It is total bliss. My little office cocoon is the pinnicle of efficiency. Everything I do is nimble, quick, and free from unnessecery layers of bureaucratic redundancy. There are no office politics. There are no rumors, recriminations, or regrets. I am truly blessed to be able to sustain this lifestyle. I DO realize how good I’ve got it. Therefore, I work my azz-off for each and every client with a passion and dedication unmatched by any corporate entity.
But there is something else I have come to realize … that my work arrangement is simply imprinted in my DNA. I am not now, nor have I ever been a drone. I am extremely self-confident, independent and free-thinking HUNTER. Putting me into a corporate hive was physically, and medically, debilitating. I was literally ILL and in poor health when subjected to the corporate hive. I am convinced that I would be DEAD, if I hadn’t taken the leap into self-employment. At the least, I would be suffering from chronic health issues. As it is, I get to look out my window and see birds flittering about in the giant shade tree covering my front yard. I sit in my front office, with “eyes on the street” … helping keep my close-knit neighborhood safe (see: Jane Jacobs). I have watched two generations of neighbor kids grow-up, playing in the street. Every ounce of my work energy goes directly into the task at hand … and none of the typical “office” bullshit. This is simply the healthiest, most productive way for me to earn a living.
And when I do have to travel to a jobsite, I manage the timeframe so as to completely avoid commute hours. I control my life … not the hive.
Hahaha … yeah, my wife still has a short commute, however she leaves early-enough to miss the worst of it. And we have ONE decent automobile -hers. My car is a 1991 BMW 325i 5-speed, coupe E30 that I “baby” and service myself. It currently has no AC, no Radio, and a cracked dashboard … but I don’t care, because I rarely travel more than 5 mi. on any trip. Meh. Who cares ? But it runs like a high-powered slot car, with brand new Bilstein sport shocks and new suspension linkages that I personally installed. My little sedan with its 6-cyl. engine kicks ass. But -0- commuting … my car only idles at stop lights … then it’s balls to the wall !!! Wheeeeeee !!! no stop and go for meeeeeee !!!!
Why do we commute?
It’s very simple really.
I find talking to people face-to-face is THE most effective AND efficient way of communicating.
I far, far prefer working with people in person, especially when it comes to critical issues.
If telecommuting is so good, maybe my hair stylist / barber can telecommute my haircut.
People like Aaron Clarey live in a bubble.
“People like Aaron Clarey live in a bubble.”
Indeed.
They don’t seem to understand that the world of actual stuff has to be built and maintained by actual people at the sites where the actual stuff is built or installed.
…and I maintain that going out and facing the day, and all its pitfalls and rigors is healthy, and staying at home all day, every day, is unhealthy.
Honestly, how many of the people working in office buildings today have the kind of work ethic and self discipline necessary to work from home?
Certainly some percentage of them do, but for many of the rest, I suspect that commute is the price they pay for being unable to work from home.
“spent commuting with the WORST drivers in the nation”
So I’m assuming that you used to work in Saskatoon?
Commuters, baby-boomers…. is there any broad-based group that the self-righteous idiot who wrote that doesn’t have contempt for? He named his company Asshole Consulting with a high degree of accuracy, me thinks.
Seriously, my last commute was somewhere between 40 and 50 secs, although I never actually timed it.
Kenji, nothing sucks like big city driving. Left Vancouver for a tiny city a couple of years ago and love driving again. Me, a ’98 Accord Cpe, 5spd with over 300,000 clicks that is geared to light up city streets and it corners dynamically for a FWD. Dead struts combined with performance tires will do that.
But best of all, the streets here are not choked with stressed, angry, unskilled, selfish pricks.
Alyric, you make a very valid point.
Actually it’s you that lives in a bubble. You don’t seem to understand that we need fewer and fewer people to do the work on the physical end of things.
Self-driving cars will make the commute no big deal soon enough though.
You’re right. The systems that replace those people will pay good money for things like self-driving vehicles.
Can you brand a steer, doctor a heifer, plant a canola crop, or fix a tractor tire from your home office Aaron? All your food comes from Safeway right?
I’m sure most of the less critical professions can be done from your basement though.
I would rather slit my wrists than get a LinkedIn account again, so I can’t read that article. BUT I do telework and they will pry it from my cold dead hands. I will NEVER again work full time and have to commute. I would rather take a 50% pay cut.
Soon that meet will be lab-grown, and that Canola crop will be managed remotely and probably grown in a vertical tower. There’s just less and less need for the hands-on.
There are many like The Captain who prefers to not be part of a drone culture. Most people as I have seen, are not that adept at socializing or let’s getting along with others. And remember, ‘everyone seems normal until you get to know them.’
Further, Aaron is talking to those who have something on the ball … who have the brains and balls to do something different ON THEIR OWN.
I am always surprised when I meet people who could easily do better as self-employed, but lack the ambition to do and be better …. thus they ‘drone’ on in their gig hoping for a raise and to not lose the gig before retirement.
Being happy by successfully pursuing one’s dreams, apparently isn’t for everyone.
I think that may be the point aside from tossing some poop at baby boomer bosses … who could use it ….
Looks like more predictions to go along with flying cars. Even self-driving cars are nowhere near reality.
Telecommuting only works for some fields. Nurses, restaurant staff, construction workers and so on still need to go to a worksite, and that will not change anytime soon.
Even if you work in STEM: million-dollar labs will not be located in your basement.
And for those of you who really think robots will do everything, and few people will be left with jobs in the formal economy, you can find that kind of ‘future’ in just about any third-world big city. In big cities like Lagos and Jakarta, few people have jobs. Most hustle in the informal economy, which by nature includes a lot of parasiting and petty crime. For example, expect those driver-less delivery trucks to be pushed off the road by creative hucksters, the content stolen and then peddled on the street. Soon companies will need to place armed guards on those trucks.
All those are labor intensive efforts …. That’s what refugees, immigrants, and Mexicans … apparently are for …. along with the upcoming robot work force the will displace even those groups.
Employers nowadays see employees as a liability and in many cases, their correct.
As things are going along … there will be so little work available for actual humans, the those humans will not have any income to buy the stuff the robots are making … and that includes food.
The only reason governments (mainly liberal) don’t care about this mess is because poor dumb people and newcomers (same thing in most cases) all vote liberal .. that, ladies and gentlemen is their only value as the liberals sees it … those are the only issues they every talk about …. the poor, the disenfranchised, the drug addicts, the muslims, the negros, the homeless, the women who are forced to live in a world with men … and so on.
“Looks like more predictions to go along with flying cars.”
Since flying cars are in fact on the brink of being a reality at least in Dubai, your comment is apt even if you’re inept.
“expect those driver-less delivery trucks to be pushed off the road by creative hucksters, the content stolen and then peddled on the street.”
” the those humans will not have any income to buy the stuff the robots are making ”
Yawn. We’ve been through the ‘automation will ruin us’ panic over a century ago and I see you didn’t learn. Lagos has problems because of lack of rule of law not because of informal markets.
I can’t tell if people are purposely trolling about how this doesn’t apply to blue collar tradesman jobs or if they truly are that stupid to think I wouldn’t know this.
maybe it is because you work from home, but you rub everyone the wrong way.
Dubai is not the whole world. And what does ‘on the brink’ mean? Really close, or ‘on the brink’ like nuclear fusion which is always 50 years away?
And I never said ‘automation will ruin us’. My point is precisely, humans are creative and will find ways to survive around it, if it comes to that. We are a very adaptive species.
Why do you think there is no rule of law in cities like Lagos? Because the government has no money to pay for law enforcement. If there is no middle class there is no tax base. The poor don’t pay tax, the rich can evade taxes through loopholes and/or corruption. Those 5$ a day cops will be easily bought or will simply not care.
So good luck yo you, keep dreaming about the bright future but also keep in mind reality is a b**ch.
I meant ‘now’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbImqlqdozk
“the government has no money to pay for law enforcement. ”
Bullshit. If that were true, rule of law wouldn’t have taken root anyway because chicken-egg. The Nigerian government gets tons of money and has tons of laws; they do not have a decent court system.
“Those 5$ a day cops will be easily bought or will simply not care.”
IOW, no change.
People commute so that they don’t have to reside among minorities. The ride is worth being safe at home.
ah the downside.
telecommutin would never have worked for me for the 1st fifteen years in a mainframe computer room.
or the last 5 years in construction where I was helping build *someone elses* ‘home’ office.
I did however choose cities where the commute didnt require driving skills akin to a formula 1 albeit at 20 km/hr. I have never lived in t.o. I hate the place. everything cost triple except the food.