another Bring Your Laptop to Work day
Raise your glass to the SF Commuter. She or he spends two-and-a-half days per year going nowhere in traffic while commuting to work. In the car, on the freeway, motionless.
The silent cost of workers sitting still in cars, burning gas, focusing on the bumper ahead, is borne by their employers, mostly, along with various custodians of the highway systems that act as parking lots during commute hours.
A huge percentage of these workers commute for one reason only: to drive their laptops to work. This is a true statement. For if they should leave home without their work-issued laptop, they'll turn the car around and retrieve it. The cell phone or the wallet they can go without, but there is no point walking into work without the laptop. (Do you work at a technology company? Tell me I am lying.)
When the commuter arrives at the office, with laptop (and perhaps headphones on), they may nod a few greetings in the breakroom before sitting down, plugging the laptop into the network, and beginning work.
While in the office -- that time between commute events that bookend the worker's day -- there is no guarantee the commuter will have a meaningful 1:1 interaction with a co-worker. It is commonplace to work entirely virtually while in the office, using laptop to chat, surf, send emails, collaborate online, like we do when working from home.
Why dedicate dozen of hours/year to sitting motionless in traffic, just to work virtually from work? It seems illogical. Laptops are meant to be used remotely, so workers can be productive remotely, and save gas! Here's why: Either (a) worker feels obligated to maintain a visible presence (butts in seats policy) or (b) worker needs to be available physically when the boss needs someone to blame, or (c) both.