To think we could make a massive dent in pollution very easily

[Lifeover]

Offices. Everyday millions of people travel to offices, in cars, on trains, on buses. All causing much stress and pollution. Commutes, even short ones take hours out your day.

You get to these big offices, usually in pollution filled cities, massive buildings, usually hot dealing so no where near your colleagues, go out at lunch and buy a sandwich packed in plastic, a drink in a plastic bottle etc.

Spend half the day listening to someone make their promotion case, email someone in India to do admin, phone someone in India to fix your computer remotely, send people sat two desks up an instant message/email so you have something on file.

Meanwhile the company is spending millions on these buildings that are too small to give everyone a desk. People need to live within an easy commute of big cities mAking housing there unaffordable for many.

Wouldn’t it be better for people of say they went into the office once a week or fortnight for a team collaboration day, then work from home where the commuting time could be spent with family and/or working. No need to live so close to cities so would spread out where people lived, take pressure off urban areas inc doctors, schools, roads. And cut down on a lot of pollution. People could live nearer to elderly parents to provide them with more support etc

Technology means o can share anything on my computer with anyone in the world. There’s really no need to be in office every day.

Aibu to think homeworing is the obvious way big office based companies like accountants and lawyers could drastically cut pollution, and have many other social benefits too.

@LifeOver

Most people I know who wfh just sit with their lap top at the dining room table.

That's just not acceptable and in breach of the DSA. Fine if you're self employed but a reputable company can't act like that.

I work from home one day a week, but it doesn't save any petrol, because I walk to work anyway!

My current lifestyle is great though - it's what keeps me in the job. I hotdesk on Mon/Tues, and have a lot of meetings and staff collaboration and work planning, WFH weds (inc a gym session first thing), and have a quiet office Thurs/Fri to crack on with stuff. If I ever consider changing jobs, I wonder to myself where else I could walk to work, be in easy reach of my gym etc, and earn £52k a year? Answer: nowhere!

I do love the idea of working hubs located in the suburbs - there are coworking spaces in my area that do this already, and it would be great if they were more common.

But all these issues assume that people are out to take advantage. 99.9% of people work hard. I think this fear of people not working is what’s stopping this happening. This feeling that fully grown adults can’t actually motivate themselves. If they aren’t motivated at home they’re unlikely to be motivated at work. They want to get the job done. The majority of people would not be trying to provide child care. In an office a lot of the time is taken up trying to deal with politics. Time wasted talking at the coffee machine etc. I’m always so much more efficient working at home.

We live in a city.. Hardly ever use the car, didn't have one for the first 15 years of our marriage. BIL lives in a lovely village. No regular bus service as not economically viable, everything has to be accessed by car from grocery shopping to dentists.

Well, I live in a city, and can walk to all of that stuff. But I'm actually the only one in my office who can do quite so easily. All the rest come from sufficiently far away to do the job that their doctors etc are far away too!

Lots of made-up problems on this thread. I work from home full-time. To enable this, the company I work for allows me to keep the same very compact Corporate laptop at home as I would be using plugged into a docking station at work. Nothing else. I could move to New Zealand and continue doing my job and if I didn't tell them, they wouldn't know the difference. (They have Skype on the laptop for voice communications, whether meetings or person-to-person.)

(OK if I moved to New Zealand they'd find out when my laptop was due for upgrade/replacement, as I do travel into the office for that, once every three years.)

I use my own desk and chair in my half of a home office I share with my wife. I use my own broadband. (The Corporate laptop uses VPN and a security dongle to facilitate its own security.)

When I want to transition between working on my own computer and the laptop, I move a tiny USB dongle that acts as receiver for my own mouse and keyboard from one to the other. Both computers are permanently connected to the same large monitor, mine, which is of a much higher standard than I would have if I went into the office.

I wfh and any additional costs to me still work out less than what commuting was costing me. I have a work supplied laptop, mobile and wifi, but I don't think they have to provide a desk and chair? Mine certainly didn't and I have my own anyway.

I personally get a lot more done at home, I'm not good with the noise in open plan offices and I hated all the distractions. At home I have the motivation to get stuff done as I can then do my own thing, whereas in an office you're stuck there for 8 hours regardless. I don't sleep too well at night at the moment so if I want a nap, I can do it, as I don't have set work hours. So I can just sleep for a while and work later. In the office I'd sometimes be nearly in tears with how tired I was on certain days, and I definitely wasn't productive on those days.

My job is easy for my manager to monitor as I have a set amount of work to get through each week so, if I didn't do it, he would soon notice! I think those types of jobs are good for wfh as bosses can easily see who is working and who isn't.

@iwouldprefernotto I’m sure my company would provide these things if I wanted, I actually find sitting at my dining table or on my sofa much better than sitting at my desk. Most people would not want that set up in their home. My DHs co provided that and it’s in DS s room as DH prefers to sit at the dining room table.

As a pp said most of it is made up problems

I’ve been doing a bit of this for the last 6 years through necessity.
I took a pay cut & moved to a local company. I cut my mileage from 20,000pa to 9,000pa. My car is 9 years old but doesn’t need replacing. I have more time, cook more, fewer takeaways, no need to power dress now so less spent on clothes.
So oddly, 20% pay cut yet I am no worse off, & have two extra hours a day for family.
I am definitely less trendy though

I work from home occasionally.

I would hate to do it every day. I like the socialising aspect of work. Also while you can video call etc,, some aspects of my projects are better face to face. Presentations are better face to face.

Also we work with the US alot and video often. However, sometimes it's better for them to come to us, or us to them.

But I do think working from home 2/3 days a week is better all round.

I agree too! I could do 90% of my job from home. When I first started I needed time in the office due to being trained on using different software etc but after a month I was easily able to do it myself from my computer.

I work from home often now & come in a few days a week for an hour or so at a time to sort files/mail.

Luckily I never 'commuted' to my job as it's in my town and a 10 minute walk from home, used to take my own lunches too. Aside from the plastic issue I have no idea how people can afford to buy lunches, water & coffee's everyday mon-fri!

Oh forgot to say I actually filled a travel to work survey today and recommended it being more acceptable to work from home. Our main office, encourages it. The satilite office I work in doesnt. It's a different culture.

Also our company (a huge employer) is reliving tons of single use plastic. The canteen is healthy home cooked food and costs barely anything and no packaging. No single use cups on site either. You get a reusable one.

If you are taking food out of the canteen they have boxes that are recyclable. And we have tons of recycling bins.

We are retail and removing a lot of single use non recyclable items from sale too.

Sorry my point was a lot of other environmental impacts, mentioned, have been hugely reduced by our employer.

There is no space in our house for dh to work from home. Working at the dining room table doesn't work when there is a child in the house.