New Silicon Valley Extreme: The 2:30 a.m. Tech Bus From Salida (protocol.com) 160
In search of affordable housing, tech employees move all the way into the Central Valley. Private tech shuttles follow. From a report: It's 2:30 a.m. in the Central California farm town of Salida, and the only sound is the tech bus pulling into an unmarked lot surrounded by barbed wire. Men and women in work boots board in the moonlight. Next stop is 11 miles away in Manteca, and then it's another 55 miles to Fremont on the San Francisco Bay, where -- an hour and a half hour later -- the 4 a.m. shift at the Tesla factory starts. Welcome to life on Silicon Valley's new frontier. When tech companies first introduced private shuttles for their employees more than a decade ago, they served the affluent neighborhoods in San Francisco and the Peninsula. Now the buses reach as far as the almond orchards of Salida and the garlic fields of Gilroy.
Tech companies have grown tight-lipped about the specifics of their shuttle programs in the wake of high-profile protests in San Francisco. But Protocol was able to locate enough stops for company shuttles to confirm that some tech shuttles now drive all the way out to the Central Valley, an agricultural hub once a world away from the tech boom on the coast. "That just tells you the story of the Bay Area," said Russell Hancock, president and CEO of regional think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley. "We're going to be in these farther-flung places, and that's our reality because we're not going to be able to create affordable housing." Tech shuttle sprawl speaks to the unique pressures that the industry has put on the region. High tech salaries have driven up housing prices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and the East Bay, forcing white- and blue-collar workers alike to move farther away from their jobs. The crisis is compounded by anti-development politics that make it hard to build new housing and patchwork public transit systems that make it difficult for commuters to get to work without driving.
Tech companies have grown tight-lipped about the specifics of their shuttle programs in the wake of high-profile protests in San Francisco. But Protocol was able to locate enough stops for company shuttles to confirm that some tech shuttles now drive all the way out to the Central Valley, an agricultural hub once a world away from the tech boom on the coast. "That just tells you the story of the Bay Area," said Russell Hancock, president and CEO of regional think tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley. "We're going to be in these farther-flung places, and that's our reality because we're not going to be able to create affordable housing." Tech shuttle sprawl speaks to the unique pressures that the industry has put on the region. High tech salaries have driven up housing prices in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and the East Bay, forcing white- and blue-collar workers alike to move farther away from their jobs. The crisis is compounded by anti-development politics that make it hard to build new housing and patchwork public transit systems that make it difficult for commuters to get to work without driving.
Consider moving your business to a sane state (Score:4, Interesting)
Someplace your workers can actually afford to live close to where they work. Like, say, Texas.
Bonus: No homeless drug addicts defecating in the streets [battleswarmblog.com]! (Well, at least outside Austin [battleswarmblog.com].)
Extra bonus: This guy [forbes.com] will pay you to move out of California.
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No no no no no. No more Californians in Texas. The problem is, they bring their contagion with them. They want to change everything to how it was in California. Then they say it sucks now. Look at what Austin used to be in the 70s/80s/90s before SXSW put them on the map. It was a sleepy hippie/university/government town. Now? Hipster hell.
Today they have these bumper stickers that say "Keep Austin Weird." Back then, you never saw a single one. You know why? We didn't need 'em.
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somehow your arguments also resonate for national level migration.. but it's racist to say so.
really makes you think.
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I think that in the medium run, and certainly the long run, Texas will regret encouraging a ton of Californians move there. What made Texas Texas is changing
Yeah! Pretty soon we won't be able to be unrepentant racist fuckwits without getting called out by our idiot California neighbors!
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I have seen companies do this, move from a rational to irrational because they think the employees want it and because they want a more desirable address. But in this case, as already mentioned, t
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You a damn lie, and you know it.
Grandma doesn't chew. It ain't lady like. She dips snuff.
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But then, maybe if they ALL move here, I can sell this house and afford to move to SoCal...
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That this site still has people who can't get it through their skulls what's figurative and what's literal.
That would be you, actually. Everyone else immediately understood that Cid's use of "literal" was figurative. Only the pathologically pedantic get stuck on such trivial points.
More a commentary on shift times... (Score:5, Insightful)
The headline makes it sound far worse than it really is, considering that you're doing it for a 4AM shift, not a 9-to-5. A 90-minute commute might be pretty long by US standards, but it's by no means something unheard of... couple that with how you're riding a shuttle bus, not driving yourself, you save the wear on your own vehicle, can do something else on the way (catch a nap, maybe), and leave the responsibility of the schedule to the driver.
I'd take it over my own commute for my last job, which was about 70 minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic.
Re:More a commentary on shift times... (Score:5, Insightful)
My commute in the Puget Sound region is roughly 90-100 minutes each way - and I’ve been doing it for a few decades now.
But it was my (well, our) choice because of where and how we wanted to live.
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So you are looking at 1000 minutes a week, or 16.6 hours. If you do a standard 40 hour week it's actually 56.6 hours. It's like having a second job.
If you take public transport it's a little less bad as say 80% of that time you can do you own thing like read a book or watch Netflix, but it's still way more than I would be willing to tolerate.
I hope they pay well.
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A 90-minute commute might be pretty long by US standards, but it's by no means something unheard of...
I heard of people commuting from Richmond, Virginia to Washington D.C. back in the 90s. When the industry you work in is centralized into a small space, this sort of thing happens.
I imagine we would hear complaints from people tied to Wall Street, but they make enough money to live closer to work.
Re:More a commentary on shift times... (Score:5, Insightful)
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You get up, you get dressed, you get out in all kinds of shitty weather, you make your way to the bus stop, you wait for the bus to arrive, you get on the bus, you probably don't go back to sleep.
Fixed that for you. Whether you walk, bike or drive to the bus stop most people are done waking up by the time they get on the bus. If you start out tired enough to fall back to sleep on the bus, the rest of the day will be hell even with the extra nap. At least that's been my experience with early morning commutes, people may try to zone out but few can actually fall asleep. Between the shake and rattle of the bus driving and the flow of passengers entering or leaving you have to be pretty immune to get an
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It's central valley CA. The worst you'll get is a light drizzle and you might need a jacket.
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I don't agree.
I got into the habit of leaving home at about 4:00 am, getting to the airport about 90 minutes later, then getting on a flight at about 8am. I would fall asleep for most of the short flight (1 1/2 hours).
If I can do it on a plane after a longer journey to get to my transportation, people can do it on a bus.
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Whether you walk, bike or drive to the bus stop most people are done waking up by the time they get on the bus.
I see you've never done shiftwork before. You'd be amazed at what you can learn to sleep through.
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An hour and a half a day exercising, or playing with your children is a significant thing, now think 3 hours total. 3 hours of your life every day being wasted by sleeping in god damn bus because you live in a place that's like that. That's the only reason. That's how it works THERE.
From the comments I see up, most of you are doing it, and the worst part is you guys think it's t
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An hour and a half a day exercising, or playing with your children is a significant thing, now think 3 hours total. 3 hours of your life every day being wasted by sleeping in god damn bus because you live in a place that's like that. That's the only reason. That's how it works THERE.
This is in the middle of the night. You know when most people are sleeping anyway.
These people are home in the afternoon, and if they have kids, probably get to spend more time with them than you do with you regular 9 to 5 job.
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Staggering shift times was actually done
Extreme? (Score:5, Insightful)
1:30 hour commute, while bad, certainly isn't "extreme" by most definitions. The shift starts at 4 a.m. Sure that's early, but early shifts have been around forever.
An hour and a half commute can regularly been seen just between SF, and the South Bay. That amount of time can probably be seen on the tech shuttles all around the SF Bay area at peak times.
There's nothing really new to report here is there?
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1:30 hour commute, while bad, certainly isn't "extreme" by most definitions of people living in California
Most other people think it is freaking insane.
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1:30 also isn't extreme for Atlanta, if you have to take 285 at the wrong time. There's probably other places too. So while "most other people think it is freaking insane" is still probably accurate, "of people living in California" is unnecessarily restrictive.
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Everything about the story is clickbait bullshit. It's not an "extreme" commute, Fremont isn't "Silicon Valley" and Tesla isn't a "Tech Company".
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https://www.siliconvalleyhisto... [siliconval...orical.org]
Fremont is considered part of Silicon Valley these days.
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Fremont is considered part of Silicon Valley these days.
It is certainly part of the San Francisco Bay Area, seeing as how it touches the San Francisco Bay. All the other definitions (including "Silicon Valley") are pretty much meaningless.
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Many blue collar workers live in rural areas. Travel between two towns is easily 30-60m, having a job one town over can easily get you to 90m, through snow, through national forests with deer.
I traveled between NY and PA for a while - 2h41m; within PA 1h39m; and one town over within PA; 1h04m. It's rare that you can just go and move closer every time you get a new job. One of my employees currently travels 1h30m and there are many others that do similar routes because of where they live.
That should be on the clock time and under CA OT (Score:2, Interesting)
That should be on the clock time and under CA OT laws that may be big pay outs.
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.Should everyone that has to do a long commute to work be on the clock also? Just look up the stats for L.A., San Fran, or any other major city in the U.S. Where people do the commutes and drive, paying for their own gas and wear and tear. These people are getting free rides where they can sleep the whole time.
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I do not think so. My understanding is the employer has to pay from the time the worker is "on site" (with wiggle room within reason for things like getting the time card punch). This bus stop is not "on site" but a free benefit to help the worker get to the place of work.
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That should be on the clock time and under CA OT laws that may be big pay outs.
Why? Those people chose to live there. Just because the company provides a shuttle service doesn't make it on the clock to anyone other than the driver.
Why not build more housing in San Francisco? (Score:5, Informative)
The short answer is that the city's far left political establishment won't let it be built [battleswarmblog.com].
The longer answer involves California state policy as well...
Re:Why not build more housing in San Francisco? (Score:5, Insightful)
The short answer is that the city's far left political establishment won't let it be built [battleswarmblog.com].
The longer answer involves California state policy as well...
Why does a manufacturing facility need to be right on the Bay? If you want to put the designers, HQ, etc there fine; they are more likely to be able to afford it. But put the actual manufacturing out in the sticks where the real estate is cheaper and your lower paid employees putting the things together can actually have reasonable commutes.
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This particular Tesla factory was bought at bargain basement prices when the GM/Toyota collaboration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] folded. So that's why it's there instead of out in the middle of nowhere (like all the other Tesla factories).
Also, that area of Fremont wasn't always a high-tech area. Up until just a decade ago, it was mostly a industrial area.
Also, historically, these things are near the Bay because that's where the ports are to ship supplies and finished products in/out.
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2 reasons: The manufacturing facility was pre-existing and back when it was built it *was* in the sticks. And there's some real benefit to having designers engineers and whatnot close to the manufacturing facility.
Your lamentable inability to follow a hyperlink... (Score:2)
...has been noted.
Here, let's try again [battleswarmblog.com].
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...has been noted.
Here, let's try again [battleswarmblog.com].
Linking to your own site to prove a point (as if it were some kind of credible citation) is the very definition of bullshit.
Had me worried. (Score:2)
This is just an 1 1/2 commute each direction, sucks if you miss the bus but other than that done by lots of others every day.
It is an hour more than the nation wide commute time, 2 hours a day. So going by averages they are probably getting paid between $15,000 - $20,000 more per year to make the commute. So going by the low numbers they are making around $28 per hour for those two extra hours.
Interesting that people would do that
Re:Had me worried. (Score:5, Informative)
The factory was already there when Silicon valley used to be cheap land. Tesla got the factory cheap from GM as GM no longer wanted to run a factory in Silicon Valley but could not repurpose the land due to Union agreements.
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Toyota, not GM.
GM went bankrupt, pulled out of the factory, which became Toyota's by default, then Toyota sold it to Tesla.
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Actually NEMMA was a GM and Toyota joint venture
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Actually NUMMI was a joint venture, but then GM dropped out first, leaving Toyota holding the site.
If you had just done a little searching you would realized that your correction just a re-statement of your incorrect assertion.
GM pulled out of the venture in June 2009 due to its bankruptcy, and several months later Toyota announced plans to pull out by March 2010. [wikipedia.org]
More reading:
Find out more about the new Tesla Factory, formerly a Toyota plant, inside. [motor1.com]
Tesla la [engadget.com]
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At least with a bus you can do stuff during the commute. Read a book or the newspaper, catch-up on some tasks if you need to.
It's a cult thing (Score:4, Funny)
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At this point the average person and company wants to be in Silicon Valley because it's fashionable.
You're not from 'round here, are you?
I stumbled over an article a few months back explaining the math behind why Silicon Valley exists. Basically it turns out to be a "the sum is worth more than the sum of the parts" argument. It turns out I'm more productive when I'm on a team filled with competent people. They are too and it's non-linear. Double the competence of each team member and the team productivity more than doubles. Put a million of us together, easily bouncing from company to company, and you get
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No, it's self-perpetuating because Silicon Valley is where the tech jobs are. People flock to where the jobs are, and companies follow because that's where the people are. And so on.
You can move out to the sticks and offer jobs, but people will realize that if you're the only one offering jobs, th
4AM shift (Score:5, Insightful)
They are catching a Bus at 230 for a 4 AM shift. Even if they lived in Fremont they would still be leaving home at 330 AM. This is not a story of mega commutes rather that Tesla is running shifts like all factories do.
Would the story have had the same impact if they had written it as workers catch a bus at 1130 AM for there 1 PM shift?
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I have gone jogging my peninsula neighborhood at 6ish in the morning to see maids/housecleaners sitting in their car, waiting to be allowed to get into the home at 7:00a or 7:30a after the employing family is awake and has had breakfast. The effective commute time for them could easily be greater than 90 minutes.
It is all very nice to make a clickbait headline to foster criticism of a Big Evil Corporation, but there are a lot of local Little Evil Employers out there you call your next door neighbor. Or pe
Old as the Hills. (Score:2)
Wth do you put the factory in San Francisco if it's so expensive?
For that matter, do you like rewarding local politicians who, a few years later, are now threateing to break up your corpo...oh, I get it.
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Except that Fremont is just outside San Jose, another major city. It's right in the bay area metropolis.
I agree the whole bay area is a crappy place to build factories. Way too expensive.
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Except that Fremont is just outside San Jose...
Well, there's Milpitas in between but that's picking nits.
...another major city.
Hey! San Jose is the capital of Silicon Valley! It says so on the road signs.
I agree the whole bay area is a crappy place to build factories. Way too expensive.
Well, the name Silicon Valley came from all the semiconductor fabs which used to be here. Along with aerospace and fruit canneries. They all left when software firms would pay more for the land. There's a Corning factory on my commute home. They make fiberglass insulation. Not all the industry has fled. Come to think of it, there used to be a Ford assembly plant in Milpitas
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When the site was established in 1961, it would have been surrounded by vinyards and orchards. It wasn't particularly expensive then.
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....and Fremont is, itself, not a small city. It's huge - lots of land and increasingly dense.
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The problem with building up on the coast of CA is the faults. Where Tesla is located, the Hayward runs nearby, and it's way overdue for a major quake - when it happens, Tesla is going to be in a world of hurt (along with the rest of the East Bay). East of the hills, there's the Calaveras fault, which has been a little odd lately, with lots of little quakes. So going up is way hard, as it subjects a lot of people to unacceptable levels of risk.
But there's up and there's up - a lot of the new condo comple
The sad thing is .... (Score:2)
These Tesla workers are building cars that drive themselves when the driver is asleep, and they could very much use such self driving cars to commute to work from the Central Valley ... but they can't afford the product they are making ...
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That's a pretty weak argument.
Do you apply the same standard to workers at Boeing making aircraft? Or yaht manufacturing?
What about the diabetic at a candy factory? Or a insulin-normal person at at diabetic supply company? They can't use what they make.
Dude, every Tesla except the Model 3 has been aimed at the luxury crowd. OF COURSE the average worker can't afford it. These things aren't built for median income households.
Your China shoe factory is just as weak. Is the local plant paying at or above local
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Note to self: Don't give up the day job to become a comic.
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Also a Tesla isn't necessarily out of the price range for their employees either. One website pegged the average salary at $35k per year, and although I have no idea if that's accurate, is about the cost of a Model 3. If y
What a shitty life (Score:2)
Are you sure there's a town named Salida? (Score:3)
In the official language of California, salida just means 'exit.' It's like when you drive through Germany for the first time and wonder why all the offramps lead to Ausfahrt.
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I'm guessing that these aren't coding jobs.
Men and women in work boots
Probably cleaning crews, gardeners or other facilities jobs. Unless I've missed something and flip-flops are out and Doc Martens are back in style.
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The problem is that they are going to need to use their competitors technology, to achieve this.
A lot of the big name SV companies focus on consumer devices. Which work fine for small businesses and individuals but to use such features in your companies you are probably going to need to use a product from your competitor who competitive edge is around B2B markets.
I once got in trouble with Cisco who I was partnered with. Because to demo the product I brought up we should probably have a Citrix connection to
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The "vast majority" of workers don't live outside commuting distance. I'd wager (based on personal anecdote of my immediate team) that only ~30% live more than 30 min away.
Stories like this make it seem like everyone commutes long distances. That's not the case.
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Get out Now you should be at least X2 that to live there and be working in tech.
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Perhaps the tech companies should invest in their local governments to offer better public transportation.
I feel in the large scale there is a lot of waste in resources going on limited to private buses for a company.
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Who says they haven't. On top of the local taxes (paid by both company and employees).
The lack of infrastructure is not due to lack of money. It's due to logjamming by NIMBYs.
Re:It is worth it (Score:4, Informative)
As a guy who earns $50,000 in IT in Silicon Valley (plus Christmas bonus), I can only say: it is totally worth it.
Adding a point of perspective, I'm 56, debt-free and financially-independent. I live in Virginia Beach, I'm a systems programmer and systems administrator and was laid off from a large defense contractor in June 2017. I'm currently "retired" and make about $55k from investment dividends alone -- which is more than my expenses. (I've given about $130k to friends in need and $30k to charities over the past 14 years.) I'm currently doing some part-time work for a friend at another large defense contractor (for the Air Force) at my previous full-time pay rate of $63/hour -- not because I need the money, but to help him out and because I was a little bored.
On the other hand, after 20 years together, my wife Sue [tumblr.com] died in January 2006 and I'd give everything to have her back.
Spending 3-4+ hours/day in the car/bus/train seems like a lot of lifetime being wasted, but I understand that you do what needs to to be done -- or if that's how you want to spend your life.
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The only people left on slashdot these days are basically monsters from the Id. I'm very sorry for you loss.
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The only people left on slashdot these days are basically monsters from the Id. I'm very sorry for you loss.
Thanks. Sue and I were very close and actually did spend a lot of time together, but still... We were together for about half my life with her and I had never lived alone until she died -- and now it's in the home we made together, filled with memories that are nice, but sometimes still make me sad even though I'm happy I have them. Sometimes I remember the little things -- like making the bed together -- and they trip me up emotionally. And then there are things that make me feel stupid. She use to te
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I'm sorry that you lost Sue. That was a very touching memorial for her.
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Thank you; She was wonderful.
The last few years of her life, she had about 390 students in the Gifted program at her high school. One of the hardest things I've had to in the years after she died is when I bump into a former student (or teacher) and they ask me how she is and I have to tell them she died. The look of disbelief and their tears (guys and girls) break my heart. I carry cards I made in my wallet with the Remember Sue URL printed on it to give them -- on the same business-card paper she used
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Not everyone lives around DC and has cushy defense related jobs funded by taxpayer money.
I worked for other companies during my career, including the New York Times and at the NASA Langley Research Center on their super-computer network. I have some pretty good and wide-ranging skills and experience. I've been a systems programmer/admin on just about everything from PCs to a Cray-2 and just about every version of Unix, many versions of Linux and Windows client/server from NT through present. I also worked my own way through college. Perhaps there have been several times when I was in the ri
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Yeah, I get it. There are a zillion guys like you around DC who are retired at the beach after being defense contractors sucking off the public teat. Not sure what your point is. Most Americans don't have that luxury.
Actually, no. My wife was a teacher, who was 19 years older than me (we met in 1985 when I was 22 and she was 41), and we lived under our means and saved knowing she would retire way before me. We had two incomes and no kids, which helped. We both worked hard, but she died before she could retire. I invested our savings aggressively after that. We didn't retire at the beach, I've lived in Virginia Beach since high school -- the NYT has a business unit in Norfolk and NASA LaRC is in Hampton, both about
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Yeah right.
"I'm currently doing some part-time work for a friend at another large defense contractor (for the Air Force) at my previous full-time pay rate of $63/hour "
Better get back to your $63/hour "work". You are seriously out of touch. Virginia Beach/Norfolk/Hampton is DC. That is why they exist. The vast majority of Americans aren't getting $63/hour from some bloated defense contractor. And yes, I am bitter because I have to pay taxes every year to support guys like you.
First, I pay those same taxes, probably more than you.
Second, Virginia Beach is the largest city in Virginia and "exists" because it's a prime vacation city in this area.
You are correct that there is a military component and benefit in the area. Virginia Beach hosts Naval Air Station Oceana, one of the largest Naval Air bases in the US, Hampton has the NASA Langley Research Center and Langley Air Force base and Norfolk has several Naval stations and depots, and there are ancillary job opportunities be
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I'm not uninformed, asshole. I know dozens of guys like you and know all about Norfolk and the Hampton area. What kind of jerk goes on an article about shift workers commuting and talks about his cushy $63/hour defense job. Jesus Christ.
I wasn't commenting about shift-workers, I was commenting about your comment, being in IT, making $55k and implying that long commutes are "totally worth it". I have money, but I don't have Sue. She was the really important thing and now she's gone. I've spent time commuting -- NASA is 30 miles away through the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel and I spent time literally sitting on the hood of my car reading a book because of an accident in the tunnel. If I had known I would lose her so soon (even after only
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My mistake and I apologize.
Me too. I probably wasn't clear enough about the point I was trying to make and the compare/contrast I used to make it. Best wishes.
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On the other hand, after 20 years together, my wife Sue [tumblr.com] died in January 2006 and I'd give everything to have her back.
Please tell me you've been getting laid since then.
If you fast, get on Keto/Paleo, lift, and get plenty of cardio, then there's no reason [at age 56] you shouldn't be able to score plenty of early-30s-ish chicks with whom you could start a new family. Maybe even some 20s-ish ... [if you have strong Game].
Nope, haven't dated. I'm keep fit but am still thinking about what I want and want to do. I actually like older women -- I met Sue in 1985 when I was 22 and she was 41, and only dated a few women younger than myself before that -- but that may become something to reconsider now. Sue will be a tough act to follow.
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That isn't what is happening here. These guys are taking a 2:30AM bus to get to a 4:00 AM shift. Lots of people do shift work.
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If they do a 4:30 AM shift, they'd be headed home by 1 PM (half hour for lunch).
They'd beat the traffic in both directions. A two hour commute is tolerable, especially if you're on a bus. It's not as bad as it sounds and they'll get a higher wage in SiValley.
Re:1.5 + 1.5 = 3 hours (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think you get it. These are shift workers. They assemble cars, sweep floors, whatever. They get on the bus, fall asleep and then an hour and a half later they get off the bus and go to their shift. Not sure what this has to do with our "ancestors". They can't "telecommute". They actually do real work.
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The question is, "Why would anyone build a plant where shift workers would be forced into a 1.5hr commute?" There used to be factory towns, where you'd walk down the street to your job.
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The serious answer is having a manufacturing line near your engineers is valuable to the engineers being effective. Other manufacturing lines are built elsewhere, where the location makes more sense.
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The problem is that factory towns become impoverished post-industrial meth towns after the one big employer goes out of business/offshores labor/moves away for a small tax break. And then the people who live there become bitter racists who will vote in the first fascist conman who panders to them.
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Better question is how much more are they being paid for working in Silicon Valley in comparison to their hometown?
They're getting the Bay Area wage premium in all likelihood but not having to pay the high price of housing.
It's a good deal but the price is working a very early shift (and beating traffic in both directions).
When I worked in Santa Clara, we had a guy there that lived in Manteca for the low housing costs. They commuted daily and guess what? They left early in the morning and were headed ba
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The question is, "Why would anyone build a plant where shift workers would be forced into a 1.5hr commute?" There used to be factory towns, where you'd walk down the street to your job.
Because people don't want to live in factory towns.
Re:1.5 + 1.5 = 3 hours (Score:5, Insightful)
Because Toyota was selling the plant and laying off the workers at about the time Musk needed a plant and some workers, and while the Fremont plant was more than he needed at the time he apparently decided it was worth buying that instead of building his own somewhere else.
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Also, the head of Toyota sold him the plant for basically what Elon could pay for it, which was almost certainly less than it was worth.
Citation [sfgate.com]
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Our ancestors [farmers, blacksmiths, butchers, bakers, candlestick makers] would wake up in the morning and walk out the back door of their houses straight into their jobs.
I think you are viewing the lives of our ancestors with rose-colored glasses. Romanticizing the past is rarely useful or accurate.
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at least they got beer at work. Getting any modern office to install a kegerator is just not possible due to those HR flunkies.
Is the Pharoah is hiring?
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Kegerators really have to be installed under cover of darkness, without HR approval.
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If you're getting up in the middle of the night to commute to your cubicle-monkey wage-slave job, then you are not living a life.
Only if you drive yourself. Let me guess, you're posting on Slashdot from a desk like some chump. This other guy was multitasking moving at speed while posting.
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I'm convinced I am a Russian troll who is making you vote for Trump. At least that is what I have been told.
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Also be that you are not driving, where you can relax, read a book, browse the web on your phone... The extra travel time isn't as bad.
Even a 20 minute commute at the end of the day often takes more out of you then the day of work.
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I used to leave the house at 6:10AM to get to the commuter rail station at 6:30 for the 6:45 train (the parking filled up at around 6:40, so I had to get there earlier and wait for the train). A 55 minute train ride would bring me to Boston for a 20 minute subway ride; including waiting for the subway and the 10 minute walk to the office meant I got into work usually around 8:20.
I'd have loved to have a free work provided shuttle that brought me right to the office. It could have left at 7AM and I'd still
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Not just for the Bay Area, in most places a 30 minute by car (1-2h by bus) commute isn't uncommon. 1h30 sounds awesome if you're ever in Europe, my first tech job had a 3h commute on public transportation.
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San Francisco is further away from the Tesla factory than Legoland is from Tijuana. This is not a story about San Francisco.
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Why do people who obviously know nothing about San Francisco feel compelled to pull up a soap box and lecture everyone about San Francisco?
Oh, wait. This is slashdot. That's why.