[nth]

I am curious if anyone know how to even tackle this question to come up with a number.
If people are allow to telecommute and only industrial workers who operate manually must be on site, how much gasoline does US save?

This does not include vacation or chores or driving for fun.

How much gas does US use to commute for office jobs that do not require one to really go into office as they can get their work done at home with internet?

[pup55]

Imperial College

The Imperial College in London seems to have worked on this issue. They estimate possibly 8.5% total fuel consumption savings, if adopted 100%, and 4.4 if adopted at some likely level.

This is dependent on peoples' ability to use common sense and/or change what they are currently doing, and here in the USA this is limited, as you know, unless there is a catastrophe that forces people to do something different. But if you did this, put in some kind of mandatory car pooling, and got some of the junkers and SUV's off the road, this might add up to some significant savings, if our backs got up against the wall for some reason.

[nth]

Pup55,

Thanks.
It looks like 58% of the jobs can telecommute.

[lutherquick]

Well, if you can telecommute 50 or 100 miles, then why not just telecommute 12,000 miles to India?

That's what IBM does.

A friend of mine was making $80 /h for 5 years, did well... As a computer admin... next he lost his job... couldn't find one for 18 months... Finally IBM offered, at $35 / h, work at home...

Just before the contract was signed, he was told, you are great, but the job just went to India...

Telecommuting... sounds great, but America is not designed for that... First, bosses will not TRUST you. Why because THEY themselves are a reflection of Ken Lay, or Ebbers or Bush, all America management LYING like wet carpets... So lairs don't trust anyone... Telecommuting is out because they need to WATCH you.

So what little telecommuting does become, it will go 12,000 miles.

[ubercynicmeister]

So...airlines pilots can telecommute?

And train drivers?

And bus drivers?

And truck drivers?

And supermarket checkout operators?

And lumber mill operators?

And coal miners?

And school teachers?

And Food sellers?

And plumbers?

And TV repairmen?

And Electricians?

And ship's crews?

And fishermen?

And crane-drivers?

And farmers?

And Garbage collectors?

And just-about-everyone-who-actually-keeps-the real-economy-going?

Really? They can all telecommute, can they?

Goodness...I didn't know that! I learn something new, EVERY DAY!

[MattSavinar]

So...airlines pilots can telecommute?

And train drivers?

And bus drivers?

And truck drivers?

And supermarket checkout operators?

And lumber mill operators?

And coal miners?

And school teachers?

And Food sellers?

And plumbers?

And TV repairmen?

And Electricians?

And ship's crews?

And fishermen?

And crane-drivers?

And farmers?

And Garbage collectors?

And just-about-everyone-who-actually-keeps-the real-economy-going?

Really? They can all telecommute, can they?

Goodness...I didn't know that! I learn something new, EVERY DAY!

Exactly.

The only people who can telecommute are the upper middle class office workers who manage and promote the distribution and sales of things purchased with disposable income, something we are unlikely to have much of in the future.

Telecommuting is basically the hope that we can email our way out of catastrophe. Kind of silly when you think about it.

Best,

MATT

[IslandCrow]

Before I started telecommuting my weekly driving to work was about 300 km (mostly on country roads - about half on earth roads). I then moved over 300 km away. The result was that if I visited the offices once a month I would save about half the km driving....but with better fuel effeciency for longer drives (and time to warm up the car in winter) I cut my fuel consumption to less than half. [actually I only made 4 trips last year so fuel saving was significant]

But ... then I am the only one in the work that can have the luxury of telecommuting - in this case 1 out of about 20 people]

BTW - do I get any award, I've been telecommuting for 12 years (or do I get committed as some sort of anti-social nutcase who can not relate to people in real life any more )?

[IslandCrow]

So...airlines pilots can telecommute?

.......


And just-about-everyone-who-actually-keeps-the real-economy-going?

Really? They can all telecommute, can they?

Goodness...I didn't know that! I learn something new, EVERY DAY!

Interestingly some of this is being done. Take teaching....in more remote areas there are special programs set up to handle teaching over a distance, with computer/internet hook-ups from small classes to a teacher who may be in a bigger city school.

But just how many people are involved in the "real economy" or how many are office workers?. Having seen the London rush hours I guess that there are more people who could telecommute than you would imagine. This begs the question if they (and I) are doing any meaningful work.

[garyp]

Imperial College

The Imperial College in London seems to have worked on this issue. They estimate possibly 8.5% total fuel consumption savings, if adopted 100%, and 4.4 if adopted at some likely level.

Be careful with that research. There are quite a few question marks over its methodology, and even they say its 'simple'.

[nth]

I am puzzled. Who claims that all jobs can be done at home?

Also, this is not about feasibility. We all know it is impossible for every company to offer telecommuting much less force everyone to work from home.

Anyways, outsourcing to India is not telecommuting as Indians have to commute to their offices, too. I don't know if that saves a lot of oil or not in the long run. My guess is not too much.

Management concerns over worker productivity is not really an issue. Just because you work from home does not mean managers don't know what you have done. Work will be judged by results and interactions. Just like now.

As for our society degenerated into manual labor society, that is hard to fathom when prior to industrial age, there are many non manual labor bureacrats. I doubt they will ever disappear.

[nth]

In rare cases (perhaps programming) work is measured mathematically and rewarded appropriately. In most cases 'work' is judged politically and personality. Offices are notorious popularity contests. If you are not in the office making face, and back-slapping your superiors, then you are out of the loop.

You are applying stereotypes and generalizing a lot here. I hope you do know that office work actually have physical results like reports and the like that can be used to be judged. Of course, that does not rule out promotions for people who do inferior work, but nevertheless, it points out that there are material things to be judged.

People just don't go to the office and sit around pushing buttons and get paid. They actually write reports or calculate or verify numbers, etc....

Do you really think that there will be office-buildings full of people yapping on the phone and pushing computer buttons when the economy slows. Fuel goes to important things not heating pointless office parks.

YES!
That is exactly my point. Even with 70% of the population in hunger, we will see the wealthy/ruling class hiring people to sit in offices and continue to do these jobs.

It happened in the Great Depression to give an example. Wall Street and bankers did not lay everyone off. Accountants and lawyers are still counting money and filing lawsuits. Analysts were still writing reports. There are a lot fewer of them, but nevertheless, companies continue to function to cater to the wealthy/rulers.

Maybe Communists maybe right and people rise up and rebel against this. But, I have a hard time seeing that happen.

[evilgenius]

It can be done but at least two things will have to happen first. Perhaps the most important thing is the ubiquity of cheap wide bandwidth. The second is software that can take advantage of that bandwidth to work in simultaneous fashion. Software that integrates all of the facets of whatever system the company uses. Software that is a whole lot cheaper than the company running systems like Oracle that exist today! Oh, and no promise backdoor.

[evilgenius]

And don't forget how many jobs are going to be lost to artificial intelligence as well as to the semi-autonomous systems like the supermarket checkout stands that are everywhere you look nowadays.

[dooberheim]

Telecommuting isn't going to work here because of the control freak mentality of most managers. Even computer companies are stopping it.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryn ... 732974.htm

DK

[ubercynicmeister]

I believe that what we call 'work' today is really a form of low-level class warfare.

Yes, I'm sorry to say that you are quite correct in your estimation.

The owners of the company do not like being near the production people. They are gruff and all too willing to point out that the bosess are pompous, smug, and typically full of shit.

Unfortunately, this is also as true of the management as of the "owners". In many ways it's truer of the "management"; most of whom Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) described as the "Adminisphere":

Adminisphere: (noun) That rarefied layer of management that exists above the workers. Most of the decisions and / or advice that falls from the adminisphere is either plainly wrong or profoundly inappropriate for the problems those decisions are supposed to solve.

They are the ones I call the Corporate Psychopaths.

The owners are scared of the populous.

No, I'd say they are not scared so much as utterly contemptuous.

That explains an entire apparatus of low-level job foreman, mid-level functionaries and middle-managers, and upper-end division vice-presidents. This entire structure is designed to seperate the masses from the owners. It is a luxury that the incredibly wealthy might no longer be able to maintain.

Before the Renaiisance that structure did not exist (much)...The Renaiisance allowed the structure to come into being, and evolved into what we have today.

Management concerns over worker productivity is not really an issue. Just because you work from home does not mean managers don't know what you have done. Work will be judged by results and interactions. Just like now.

In rare cases (perhaps programming) work is measured mathematically and rewarded appropriately. In most cases 'work' is judged politically and personality.

Absolutely, I could not agree with you more.

Offices are notorious popularity contests. If you are not in the office making face, and back-slapping your superiors, then you are out of the loop.

It's actually more serious than that: one of the most effective ways of bullying someone is something called Social Articulateness. This has had various names, the modern one seems to be "popularity", but Social Articulateness goes beyond that. It's the ability to be marvellouslly Machievellian, and thus corner, isolate and reduce to powerlessness those in the work-place who have a chance to stand up to you, while getting everyone else to either side with you, or at least take a stand against the isolated ones. Lawyers are often Socially Articulate, as are the Politically Correct and the Economic Rationalists. Social Articulateness may thus be seen, not just as being able to talk a good line, but to have a hidden agenda behind it. Females fall for this one more often than men, I don't know why (think of those girls you know who have rotten partners).

Take team-work: one of the most instructive things I've ever read on team-work and it's so-called benefits is in The Art Of Demotivation (link). In truth, the team-members are usually beset by problems of which the saying "We Keep Minutes But Waste Hours" is a neat encasulation.

Firstly: time-wasting through Enthusiastic Foolishness. Everyone has been on teams where those who are enthusiastic fools will promote ideas which everyone feels uncomfortable with, but (because the enthusiastic fool is Socially Articulate) cannot come up with objections to there and then.

This leads to the second most common problem with a team: Lucid Passivity. Most people are painfully aware of their own lack of expertise. This means that when someone else talks a good line (Social Articulateness) they might not think the idea good, but they go along with it, as they cannot come up with a good, Socially Articulate objection. So they either remain silent or simply acquiesce.

I'm certain that most people have either witnessed or even served on teams where 70% of the members have said something along the lines of "Works for me..." or "Sounds Good..." or "I don't have any questions..." or any number of equally worthless expressions knows how frustrating this can be.

To quote from the book:

Interviews done with 569 employees who had disengaged from their team's decision-making process yeilded a variety of reasons. The three most common causes in descending order were:

(1) There was present on the team someone who they beleived was an expert (Social Articulateness);

(2) They were silenced by "compelling" but inadequate ideas;

(3) They lacked the confidence in their ability to make a contribution.

Clearly, the first and third reasons are evidence of Lucid Pasivity, while the second is evidence of Enthusiastic Foolishness. Team Members who are technically competent are unlikely to have any of these responses. They are aware of what they know and there is no reason for passivity. Consequently they lend their expertise to the team. Similarly, they know enough not to be duped by compelling inadequate ideas and they check the errors of the enthusiastic fools.

As for our society degenerated into manual labor society, that is hard to fathom when prior to industrial age, there are many non manual labor bureacrats. I doubt they will ever disappear.

Do you really think that there will be office-buildings full of people yapping on the phone and pushing computer buttons when the economy slows. Fuel goes to important things not heating pointless office parks.

I don't doubt there will be still some self-appointed busy-bodies who will try to keep up appearances. And everyone else will then have the luxury of ignoring them, totally. Barking orders into a telephone may look good now, but it loses it's effect when everyone knows the telephone does not work.

[Kingcoal]

In the past, a good, experienced software developer could work from home making good money working from home, but as Lutherquick as pointed out, India has spirited away a lot of those jobs, but not all. The key is to work as a contractor who goes on site and deals with customers, they havent figured out how to export that to India yet, but give them time.

I read the link about HP, they guy who it doing away with telecommuting is from walmart, figures.

[basil_hayden]

We'd need to burn more coal to make more electricity to create telepresence instead of telcommuting, like doctors (or coal miners, etc, etc) that do remote operations. It'll be safer and we won't need as many telepresenters.

To save us gasoline. Yeah, that'll work.

I'm positive all of this video gaming skill will eventually come in handy operating hovertanks through the plains of Saudi Arabia in one of many resource wars.

[JPL]

In the past, a good, experienced software developer could work from home making good money working from home, but as Lutherquick as pointed out, India has spirited away a lot of those jobs, but not all. The key is to work as a contractor who goes on site and deals with customers, they havent figured out how to export that to India yet, but give them time.

My main problem as a developer (even in an IT company, maybe 10% of the workforce) is dealing with the other 90% of the company that knows all about software and how it should be done, but can't actually write the stuff ;o)

Now outsource all of THEM off to India and just let me get on with my job, and I would be one happy guy )

JPL