I couldn't get over the amount of time lost to commuting. Not saying that OP is living their life wrong or anything, to each their own of course, but I prefer working from home precisely because of how much more _life_ I get to live as a result. The time most people spend commuting, I spend going on hikes with my dog in a forest or working out. For those who lack social activities as a result of working from home I suggest making friends to go out with or join activities that are positively minded towards strangers chatting, like indoor bouldering, which is my workout of choice, and every workout session is always filled with great conversations and fun.
I would have agreed with this a few years ago but it's more nuanced than that.
Commute time is built-in decompression time that can be very valuable. For example we have small kids and it's just not going to happen that I am going to tell my wife on a given morning or evening "take care of them while I go on a hike" or whatever.
So on days they I decide to go to the office - I get about 2 hours (one hour each way) of reading time (or podcast time, if I were driving in) which realistically would not materialize any other way.
I think many dads that are my fellow commuters see the commute as a sort of sacred solo space that's hard to maintain otherwise (eg the unspoken etiquette is if you see someone you know on the train you don't sit next to them so they can have their peace and quiet)
I understand your point completely, as I used to feel the same way in the past. Then I realized it's just that being forced to do a commute for work makes it OK to potentially put extra load on your spouse, or to leave your kids with some other caretaker, but this doesn't have to be this way. It should be fine to take some time if you need it even if there's no job-related reason behind it.
So now both my wife and myself take time for ourselves to get that decompression time when needed.
> Commute time is built-in decompression time that can be very valuable.
That assumes you can meaningfully decompress. In a car, it's almost impossible (or at the very least, reckless) if you are the driver, and on most crowded stop-and-go routes even as a passenger. In any kind of public transit you have to deal with anything from rowdy children over beggars, drunks, thieves and other undesirables to keeping up with the latest construction BS and delays. Basically the only thing left is biking or walking, but that only works out on specific routes (i.e. well built sidewalks and separate, wide bike lanes)...
I am materially not a morning person. I will push until the last second in the morning to get ready. Forcing myself to wake up an hour earlier to drive in, get my coffee and let it percolate did wonders for my morning productivity. WFH lacks that so instead I got a dog which makes me get up at the ass crack but it's still not like a good mental workout of commuting in rush hour on i95 in a 80's sedan
I did the math during COVID. I was putting in about 30% more hours when I had to go to an office, and all of them were unproductive. I wasn't being paid any extra to do that - which was especially unfair since I also had additional wear and tear on the car, lunches out, fancier clothes to buy, etc.
I may go back to the office someday if I'm forced to, but I won't do it for free. Companies need to compensate in office employees not just for the extra work, but for the expense.
Now I use some of those extra hours for the company, and some to work on my side projects. It's glorious. I'm both more productive at work and happier than I've ever been. I also don't get sick when all the cube-dwellers do a few times per year.
For me, I take the bus to work, so my commute time is spent on pleasant things like reading library books, or working through Chinese lessons on my phone, or just looking out the window, or occasionally chatting with other commuters. I actually enjoy my commute, it's some nice time set aside entirely for myself each day.
If I had to be stuck in a car for my commute, I'd definitely resent it.
I think the quality of a commute is very different depending on whether it's by car or by train, since you can actually read / write / program / draw on a train.
Obviously I'm still pretty glad when I get to work from home and sleep in a little and make some good coffee though.
> Not saying that OP is living their life wrong or anything, to each their own of course, but I prefer working from home precisely because of how much more _life_ I get to live as a result.
They have to find a job that allows them to do that, and such jobs are increasingly difficult to find.
Where I'm based, even though it might be the smallest startup that could save a good bit by getting rid of their office costs if they gave people WFH, they won't.
Yeah, I'm more like you. I also agree with "to each their own" and like that we're so different that someone like the author enjoys going to an office and struggles with phone/device usage when working from home, and others like us prefer remote work.
To me, it's not just the commute. I actually prefer working from home. I enjoyed his description of Miyazaki greeting the ghosts though, I think I could work from an office if it was my studio, but I'd want it to be very close to my home.
Remote work also makes it possible for me to follow my natural "productivity cycle," which means I often get to work until late in the evening while still being able to have dinner with my family and then just have a short commute to my bedroom when they're (usually) already asleep. I did late-night (and even all-night) work too from offices when I was young, but it's one thing to do that in your very early 20s and with only your parents as family, than as an almost 50 with a spouse and kids.
As for enshittification defenses, besides having a family (including cats, used to have a dog too), having musical instruments within reach is great for when I need a quick break. Some breaks can also involve devices and still not be about dopamine, like when I reach out for my personal laptop to open renoise. Lately I've also taken up drawing a bit. I suck at it, but I still enjoy the activity.
I agree on the benefits of social activities. My workout of choice is weightlifting and I do have regulars that I talk to (plus for some exercises you really do need someone around if you want to safely get to your breaking point).
The one thing I miss from my youth days is social music playing. I hope I'll get back to that someday, but everybody's life is busy in different ways and, unlike getting together for coffee or beer, getting together to play music does require a bigger logistical effort and time budget. While I wait for the opportunity to arise, playing along to records is an OK way to get by.
This was a very pleasant read. There's (justifiably) a lot of debate about AI prose on this forum, which has become tiring. It's refreshing to read something so grounded. Doubly so while looking at a packet of Belvita breakfast biscuits on my own desk.
As far as lo-fi goes, I must recommend Leavv. Mind Garden and Tales of a Flowing Forest. Both pre-AI music albums that are lovely to work/study to.
To each their own of course, but I personally don’t get the point of avoiding AI music when what you’re listening to (lofi beats) is essentially elevator background tier noise anyway. I listen to various types of it all the time and I honestly couldn’t tell you the difference between AI or not in this genre.
Listening to Tokyo Echo Sounds right now, is it AI? Probably, but how tf would I even know if I did care?
There’s the chance that you notice patterns emerging that become quite grating after listening to it for awhile, in the same way that LLMs tend to have subtle but eventually noticeable patterns in writing. Some people care, some don’t.
Will that be the case for the music that you are listening to that’s generated by AI, maybe? Maybe not?
By highlighting that the music predates generative AI, at least that’s something that you won’t have to think about.
At least, that’s how I read it. It’s like a ‘no artificial sweeteners’ label on a drink.
Couldn't it just be a moral thing? Ie "This thing was trained on the work of people it's now replacing and I think that sucks". (NB I'm not looking to get into an argument about the actual impact of these kinds of small moral stances)
For one, I think AI music is ontologically evil and have extreme opinions on the matter.
More than that though, I completely disagree that anything I'd ever choose to listen to is elevator tier / background noise. Just because it is playing while other things are happening does not mean it never receives focus or active listening.
I agree if it's clearly labeled. I like lofi or vaporwave or neo 80s beats for a while. But I definitely don't want it mixed with any genre that has vocals or mixed with human produced music.
AI music makes my head feel like I'm wearing noise cancelling headphones. That sort of weird 'pressure' sensation. It's as if even the silent bits are still pushing on my eardrums. I can spot it instantly and I hate it.
Gemini speculated that it might have to do with the AI not mimicking the audios phase properly.
Yeah starting to feel the need to play Defense here too. Especially on YouTube. Even with a subscribe driven flow of known creators it’s getting bad. Everything is about something negative with emotive thumbnails and clickbait titles even from the better creators. And Google has now crammed their unwanted “relevant for you” along with shorts into the top of the subscribe feed. So now even that last trick to get a non algo feed is infested.
It’s rapidly getting unusable even with Adblock etc
There's a nice extension called unhook which blocks a ton of the YouTube trash, you can configure it to hide different things. At this point, they only thing I see on YouTube is a search box and my subscriptions.
It's interesting that this article is mostly focused on the merits of living a simple / predictable life, whereas I get the impression that the main improvement here might be just not working from home anymore (I guess the author agrees since they link to this older post: https://mrmarket.bearblog.dev/remote-work-is-bad-for-you/).
> These exercises in slight discomfort tolerance throughout the day increase my defense against going full vegetable...
As much as I absolutely wanted to veg out doing full WFH, I saw the light and was inevitably forced to do the same.
I was enjoying a social life that revolved around drinking and staying out late. It caught up with me in the form of some mild health symptoms, but it caused significant anxiety.
I was suddenly hyper aware of the damage I was doing and had to drop the bad habits. I'm doing much better now, but can only wonder in horror what that very well-traveled road looked like. Many generations before me would have grit their teeth and suffered under that inescapable inertia for decades.
The symptoms that come with obesity, drinking, and a terrible diet like an elevated A1C, high cholesterol, hypertension, etc. are easy to ignore when you are stuck running the hamster wheel to earn a living. I had to admit they weren't just temporary from the hangover anymore and could become permanent.
I'm very thankful I got to turn things around in private without the office peer pressure.
I have a "rich" life outside of work - guitar, gardening, prairie restoration, gym 3 times a week, dogs, and I work security or bartend 1 event per week (typically music).
I can only have this "rich" life outside of work because I don't commute to an office daily.
But we're all different. Kudos to the poster for a good read and for finding something that works for them.
I want to work at a company like that someday. All I've known are factory equipment call-outs, temporary container offices, bosses threatening to kill me if the equipment stops, and clients saying they'll bankrupt me if the code fails. I wonder what it feels like to work in a proper downtown office.
What I experience is being sent as a contractor to good companies, writing the code that generates their core revenue, but then eating at cheap restaurants nearby with my own money. I wonder when I'll ever get to feel those small everyday happinesses.
It's a rarer and rarer thing. Most people's experience of work is nothing like this, just a desperate struggle to stay employed at all, ideally in an industry where their skills give them some kind of leverage.
Don't glamorize it too much in your head, the modern downtown office isn't too great in my opinion
Big open office spaces crammed with people working elbow to elbow. Very noisy. The problem of bosses threatening to kill you still might exist, asshole bosses exist in every work setting
It's probably still a better workplace than factories but probably not as much better as you're imagining
Edit: My favorite workplace ever was located at an industrial building. We had our own secured parking lot we didn't have to pay for, we had actual cubicles, and lots of space between people and teams. It was awesome not having to spend all day with headphones in to block out the sound of people on sales calls. We had a gym that was just for people at the company! It was awesome
Then they moved us downtown and it sucked. My commute got so much longer and my workspace got so much worse
If you find yourself starting to glamorize it just remember what it's like to share toilets with 25 strangers, some of whom have poor habits. In exchange for the shared toilet experience you get to be constantly distracted by noise because they did away with grown-up offices but still expect you to focus like you weren't in a room full of people making zoom calls.
> The floor plan of my office is basically glass doors along the perimeter with private offices for executives and cubicles throughout for the rest of us. Highly normcore.
It’s normie these days to have cubicles, instead of being in an open floorplan? Not in Silicon Valley, I don’t think.
I couldn't get over the amount of time lost to commuting. Not saying that OP is living their life wrong or anything, to each their own of course, but I prefer working from home precisely because of how much more _life_ I get to live as a result. The time most people spend commuting, I spend going on hikes with my dog in a forest or working out. For those who lack social activities as a result of working from home I suggest making friends to go out with or join activities that are positively minded towards strangers chatting, like indoor bouldering, which is my workout of choice, and every workout session is always filled with great conversations and fun.
I would have agreed with this a few years ago but it's more nuanced than that.
Commute time is built-in decompression time that can be very valuable. For example we have small kids and it's just not going to happen that I am going to tell my wife on a given morning or evening "take care of them while I go on a hike" or whatever.
So on days they I decide to go to the office - I get about 2 hours (one hour each way) of reading time (or podcast time, if I were driving in) which realistically would not materialize any other way.
I think many dads that are my fellow commuters see the commute as a sort of sacred solo space that's hard to maintain otherwise (eg the unspoken etiquette is if you see someone you know on the train you don't sit next to them so they can have their peace and quiet)
Yeah there's nothing like that sweet hour of zen decompressing while fighting my way through rush hour traffic.
I understand your point completely, as I used to feel the same way in the past. Then I realized it's just that being forced to do a commute for work makes it OK to potentially put extra load on your spouse, or to leave your kids with some other caretaker, but this doesn't have to be this way. It should be fine to take some time if you need it even if there's no job-related reason behind it.
So now both my wife and myself take time for ourselves to get that decompression time when needed.
So, the same thing plus excuses and being stuck in a train?
It's interesting that the only way your wife will let you have some time to yourself is if you're spending it commuting.
> Commute time is built-in decompression time that can be very valuable.
That assumes you can meaningfully decompress. In a car, it's almost impossible (or at the very least, reckless) if you are the driver, and on most crowded stop-and-go routes even as a passenger. In any kind of public transit you have to deal with anything from rowdy children over beggars, drunks, thieves and other undesirables to keeping up with the latest construction BS and delays. Basically the only thing left is biking or walking, but that only works out on specific routes (i.e. well built sidewalks and separate, wide bike lanes)...
I am materially not a morning person. I will push until the last second in the morning to get ready. Forcing myself to wake up an hour earlier to drive in, get my coffee and let it percolate did wonders for my morning productivity. WFH lacks that so instead I got a dog which makes me get up at the ass crack but it's still not like a good mental workout of commuting in rush hour on i95 in a 80's sedan
Ooo which 80's sedan? I had an E28 20 years ago that I still think about
I did the math during COVID. I was putting in about 30% more hours when I had to go to an office, and all of them were unproductive. I wasn't being paid any extra to do that - which was especially unfair since I also had additional wear and tear on the car, lunches out, fancier clothes to buy, etc.
I may go back to the office someday if I'm forced to, but I won't do it for free. Companies need to compensate in office employees not just for the extra work, but for the expense.
Now I use some of those extra hours for the company, and some to work on my side projects. It's glorious. I'm both more productive at work and happier than I've ever been. I also don't get sick when all the cube-dwellers do a few times per year.
For me, I take the bus to work, so my commute time is spent on pleasant things like reading library books, or working through Chinese lessons on my phone, or just looking out the window, or occasionally chatting with other commuters. I actually enjoy my commute, it's some nice time set aside entirely for myself each day.
If I had to be stuck in a car for my commute, I'd definitely resent it.
I think the quality of a commute is very different depending on whether it's by car or by train, since you can actually read / write / program / draw on a train. Obviously I'm still pretty glad when I get to work from home and sleep in a little and make some good coffee though.
> Not saying that OP is living their life wrong or anything, to each their own of course, but I prefer working from home precisely because of how much more _life_ I get to live as a result.
They have to find a job that allows them to do that, and such jobs are increasingly difficult to find.
Where I'm based, even though it might be the smallest startup that could save a good bit by getting rid of their office costs if they gave people WFH, they won't.
Yeah, I'm more like you. I also agree with "to each their own" and like that we're so different that someone like the author enjoys going to an office and struggles with phone/device usage when working from home, and others like us prefer remote work.
To me, it's not just the commute. I actually prefer working from home. I enjoyed his description of Miyazaki greeting the ghosts though, I think I could work from an office if it was my studio, but I'd want it to be very close to my home.
Remote work also makes it possible for me to follow my natural "productivity cycle," which means I often get to work until late in the evening while still being able to have dinner with my family and then just have a short commute to my bedroom when they're (usually) already asleep. I did late-night (and even all-night) work too from offices when I was young, but it's one thing to do that in your very early 20s and with only your parents as family, than as an almost 50 with a spouse and kids.
As for enshittification defenses, besides having a family (including cats, used to have a dog too), having musical instruments within reach is great for when I need a quick break. Some breaks can also involve devices and still not be about dopamine, like when I reach out for my personal laptop to open renoise. Lately I've also taken up drawing a bit. I suck at it, but I still enjoy the activity.
I agree on the benefits of social activities. My workout of choice is weightlifting and I do have regulars that I talk to (plus for some exercises you really do need someone around if you want to safely get to your breaking point).
The one thing I miss from my youth days is social music playing. I hope I'll get back to that someday, but everybody's life is busy in different ways and, unlike getting together for coffee or beer, getting together to play music does require a bigger logistical effort and time budget. While I wait for the opportunity to arise, playing along to records is an OK way to get by.
Lol - I should have read your post before writing mine.
This was a very pleasant read. There's (justifiably) a lot of debate about AI prose on this forum, which has become tiring. It's refreshing to read something so grounded. Doubly so while looking at a packet of Belvita breakfast biscuits on my own desk.
As far as lo-fi goes, I must recommend Leavv. Mind Garden and Tales of a Flowing Forest. Both pre-AI music albums that are lovely to work/study to.
To each their own of course, but I personally don’t get the point of avoiding AI music when what you’re listening to (lofi beats) is essentially elevator background tier noise anyway. I listen to various types of it all the time and I honestly couldn’t tell you the difference between AI or not in this genre.
Listening to Tokyo Echo Sounds right now, is it AI? Probably, but how tf would I even know if I did care?
There’s the chance that you notice patterns emerging that become quite grating after listening to it for awhile, in the same way that LLMs tend to have subtle but eventually noticeable patterns in writing. Some people care, some don’t.
Will that be the case for the music that you are listening to that’s generated by AI, maybe? Maybe not?
By highlighting that the music predates generative AI, at least that’s something that you won’t have to think about.
At least, that’s how I read it. It’s like a ‘no artificial sweeteners’ label on a drink.
I listen to a lot of ambient and other genres that are AI-amenable. I still try to avoid listening to AI generated music.
Knowing I'm sitting there consuming the uncaring out of a machine just makes me feel sad and alone and I'd rather avoid that feeling.
Couldn't it just be a moral thing? Ie "This thing was trained on the work of people it's now replacing and I think that sucks". (NB I'm not looking to get into an argument about the actual impact of these kinds of small moral stances)
For one, I think AI music is ontologically evil and have extreme opinions on the matter.
More than that though, I completely disagree that anything I'd ever choose to listen to is elevator tier / background noise. Just because it is playing while other things are happening does not mean it never receives focus or active listening.
I agree if it's clearly labeled. I like lofi or vaporwave or neo 80s beats for a while. But I definitely don't want it mixed with any genre that has vocals or mixed with human produced music.
AI music makes my head feel like I'm wearing noise cancelling headphones. That sort of weird 'pressure' sensation. It's as if even the silent bits are still pushing on my eardrums. I can spot it instantly and I hate it.
Gemini speculated that it might have to do with the AI not mimicking the audios phase properly.
You’re hearing the wave form of the load-bearing emdash
A web app for blind testing this would be an interesting project
Yeah starting to feel the need to play Defense here too. Especially on YouTube. Even with a subscribe driven flow of known creators it’s getting bad. Everything is about something negative with emotive thumbnails and clickbait titles even from the better creators. And Google has now crammed their unwanted “relevant for you” along with shorts into the top of the subscribe feed. So now even that last trick to get a non algo feed is infested.
It’s rapidly getting unusable even with Adblock etc
There's a nice extension called unhook which blocks a ton of the YouTube trash, you can configure it to hide different things. At this point, they only thing I see on YouTube is a search box and my subscriptions.
It's interesting that this article is mostly focused on the merits of living a simple / predictable life, whereas I get the impression that the main improvement here might be just not working from home anymore (I guess the author agrees since they link to this older post: https://mrmarket.bearblog.dev/remote-work-is-bad-for-you/).
Dissing Biscoff cookies in the opening paragraph? Not sure I can read the rest...
This was well written and easy to read. I will have to look into Miyazaki now.
Other than the NHK World documentary series, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness was quite good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24wViGZKVu8
> These exercises in slight discomfort tolerance throughout the day increase my defense against going full vegetable...
As much as I absolutely wanted to veg out doing full WFH, I saw the light and was inevitably forced to do the same.
I was enjoying a social life that revolved around drinking and staying out late. It caught up with me in the form of some mild health symptoms, but it caused significant anxiety.
I was suddenly hyper aware of the damage I was doing and had to drop the bad habits. I'm doing much better now, but can only wonder in horror what that very well-traveled road looked like. Many generations before me would have grit their teeth and suffered under that inescapable inertia for decades.
The symptoms that come with obesity, drinking, and a terrible diet like an elevated A1C, high cholesterol, hypertension, etc. are easy to ignore when you are stuck running the hamster wheel to earn a living. I had to admit they weren't just temporary from the hangover anymore and could become permanent.
I'm very thankful I got to turn things around in private without the office peer pressure.
I have a "rich" life outside of work - guitar, gardening, prairie restoration, gym 3 times a week, dogs, and I work security or bartend 1 event per week (typically music).
I can only have this "rich" life outside of work because I don't commute to an office daily.
But we're all different. Kudos to the poster for a good read and for finding something that works for them.
I want to work at a company like that someday. All I've known are factory equipment call-outs, temporary container offices, bosses threatening to kill me if the equipment stops, and clients saying they'll bankrupt me if the code fails. I wonder what it feels like to work in a proper downtown office. What I experience is being sent as a contractor to good companies, writing the code that generates their core revenue, but then eating at cheap restaurants nearby with my own money. I wonder when I'll ever get to feel those small everyday happinesses.
It's a rarer and rarer thing. Most people's experience of work is nothing like this, just a desperate struggle to stay employed at all, ideally in an industry where their skills give them some kind of leverage.
Don't glamorize it too much in your head, the modern downtown office isn't too great in my opinion
Big open office spaces crammed with people working elbow to elbow. Very noisy. The problem of bosses threatening to kill you still might exist, asshole bosses exist in every work setting
It's probably still a better workplace than factories but probably not as much better as you're imagining
Edit: My favorite workplace ever was located at an industrial building. We had our own secured parking lot we didn't have to pay for, we had actual cubicles, and lots of space between people and teams. It was awesome not having to spend all day with headphones in to block out the sound of people on sales calls. We had a gym that was just for people at the company! It was awesome
Then they moved us downtown and it sucked. My commute got so much longer and my workspace got so much worse
> Don't glamorize it too much in your head
If you find yourself starting to glamorize it just remember what it's like to share toilets with 25 strangers, some of whom have poor habits. In exchange for the shared toilet experience you get to be constantly distracted by noise because they did away with grown-up offices but still expect you to focus like you weren't in a room full of people making zoom calls.
> The floor plan of my office is basically glass doors along the perimeter with private offices for executives and cubicles throughout for the rest of us. Highly normcore.
It’s normie these days to have cubicles, instead of being in an open floorplan? Not in Silicon Valley, I don’t think.