This makes more sense to me. One of the things balanced transportation advocates toss out in their powerpoint presentations is that your company is (on some level) subsidizing your car by providing a free parking space for it. It is part of the cost of hiring you and keeping you around, just like salary and benefits, but traditionally it hasn't been identified or discussed. Thus, some companies have begun to pay employees around $100 a month to not drive in, acknowledging the fact that your not needing a parking space saved them money.

I considered the US having lots of space. if it's not directly in the middle of a really big city. I've never heard of this issue here in terms of costs or as a possibility to reduce costs. in berlin, as long as the company is located in the middle of the city it's your problem what you do with your car. because of that most of the employees use public transportation. I know people who live a bit outside and drive to the next s-bahn station, leave the car there.
why would the company serve an amount of parking lots in general and pay the employee to not come by car instead of letting him search a place for the car on his own?

This is more correct than you realize, and is in fact the problem. By way of example, here's the office park where my building is.


Notice the ratio of open asphalt to actual occupiable building space. They didn't build more than 5 stories high here because they couldn't cram any more parking space in without violating the porous / non porous ratios the city makes them maintain (certain % of your land must be able to absorb water, or else ALL of it runs off into the water table with gas and oil and fertilizers in it). The big white thing near the top right is a 4-story parking garage. Also, you can't see the underground parking garages below every building but they're here as well. So this whole area is literally covered in cars every day, completely.

Now look at the area in Cambridge where most companies in this field (inlcuding mine) have their headquarters:



Very few of these property owners had to build parking for their tennants. Most people take the subway, or walk, or bike.


I know the comparison of these two isn't perfect or even incredibly informative, but there is a point here, which is this: If you look at it like a property owner who is going to build something out and lease it to companies, you have a huge up-front cost in all that parking space. Then you have an ongoing massive cost to plow the snow off of it, and re-pave it every 7 or 8 years. They have security patrolling it and stickering "abandoned" vehicles, and they carry liability insurance for car damage due to hail, storms, or theft. That costs money. That cost is passed on to the renters. But no one ever talks about it, or is surprised when people eventually run out of parking and have to make commuting decisions.

squirrg's business park setup is pretty much identical to my situation. landlord has two buildings on site, 4 floors each, probably a dozen different business tenants, each with at least several dozen employees. plus lot security, plowing, etc.

also, our situation is a bit atypical, in that we are a tiny island of developers in a sea of call center/sales people who have absolutely nothing to do with what we do, other than being under the same parent company. in a sense, we are a pet project for a wealthy band of investors out west and trying to do things that require lots of careful concentration like code reviewing and the like when there are loud sales calls going on tends to be problematic.

as long as we remain productive, money is saved, space is saved, we're not at risk out driving on the road, and no one on the floor is really gonna miss us.

Notice how between the first and second screen shots I discovered how to turn labels off...

Weeding through 30+ undergrad student resumes right now in my house, while enjoying a double IPA.

naked

Surprisingly clothed, but you do have me questioning it.

i don't have central air, so if i'm still telecommuting by next july, i'd totally

NIFOC?

in front of children?

no, my kids in school

ok thanks everybody for contributing your situation. in fact I'm gonna weave all that into my thesis because there are several intersting differences between the USA and Europe, particularly in Germany.

one last question to all of you with telework arrangements:

is this part of your contract or is it an informal agreement with your company?

informal agreement

current employer: very informal agreement
previous: written policy

That surprises me because it sounded like you don't have a choice.

it depends on what your definition of formal agreement is.

our company had a problem with the facilities, my boss talked his boss into a couple of GoToMeeting accounts and headsets, and away we went.

it wasn't part of any sort of employment contract or what have you.

and this won't be part of your contract in the future? the fact that you don't have any work place in your company?

Informal agreement, and my newest boss is now suddenly not a fan... in winter... when I can't motorcycle (doe to snow, which will be here in a few weeks most likely). I had to call him on it and ask point-blank if my job now depended on me buying a Tercel or some shit, and he assured me it doesn't, but he keeps saying he wants me 40 miles west of public transportation for the next 2 or 3 months. No one seems to know how that's going to happen. Meanwhile corp HQ continues to be a 25 minute bicycle ride from my house, with plenty of open guest offices.

so before this situation you would have worked at that HQ for most of the time in winter? you could find someone to have a fahrgemeinschaft.

If it were actively snowing on a given day, then yes I would stick around HQ so I didn't get stuck in snow traffic on the interstate on the shuttles. But not most of the time, mostly I would catch a shuttle there for an hour out west to where my actual office is. I will do the same this year I guess, but my new boss won't be as relaxed about it, for no actual good reason. It will probably be a source of some friction. But I value my time above that friction on those days, as should my boss quite frankly (I have been stuck on a van in snow on the interstate for 4 hours, it's not fun, and I could've been working somewhere instead.)

Ride shares exist but not to where I now have to go. Very few people work in this building, and none of them live in Boston / Cambridge - they all live west where it's cheaper to have half an acre of yard and a swingset and a dog.

i'm worried about change of pace mid-course, too. i've made the commute for three years, rain or shine or blizzard. but i'm really hoping to sit this winter out. not that i think it will happen, but we're still in sort of a "see what happens" phase in a way.