I would love to live closer to work, but it's hard to find an OK job here as a developer.
Let’s talk about vacation. Going to neighbor warm country costs 200€ by car, 180€ by plane (plus rental car) or 540€ by a night train. I’ll take night train once to experience this, but other times I’ll take the car.
My factor now for choosing a new job is days I can work from home and 99% time it is zero. Companies suffer heavily from “general wants to see his army” syndrome (in Germany?). Home office could reduce driving easily by at least 20%, but companies have no benefit from it. Office rent will be paid anyway.
Can confirm this. But I've usually been able to get 1 day working from home a week. (I think home office is a Denglish word btw, not sure if others will understand)
Native English speaker here: Generally `home office` would refer to the actual office room rather than the concept of working from home.
That said, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until you pointed it out, it does feel like a natural way to say it. I think people will understand fine.
For example, there are tax advantages to having a home office (the room), versus having the entire value of your house be considered personal non-business consumption.
I literally have never driven as short a distance as 2 miles. It would never occur to me - I'd automatically walk or cycle. I think this comes from having come to car use relatively late in life. I relied on public transport or hitch hiking until my late '20s, and using my body to get around still feels much more natural to me than driving.
Another part is just having the guts to ask for a remote job straight away and accept getting turned down dozens of times.
a lot of fatalities on the road are pedestrians, though. Even if you don't drive you subject yourself to the risk of being hit by a car pretty much every single time you go out.
One was a woman pushing a baby carriage down the road. I stopped and asked her what if I hit her? She replied she'd sue me. I replied that wouldn't help her or her baby much if she was dead.
It's amazing.
Occasionally a car will be parked in a driveway such that it blocks the sidewalk where the sidewalk crosses the driveway. That's illegal but it happens sometimes.
Why not stop and ask if she needed a ride somewhere? You might even have made the world a better place than stopping to hurl abuse at a mother and child.
For bonus points, try slowing down and passing pedestrians when it is safe to do so.
I hope if you have kids you tell them not to play in the road, even if it would be the car's fault if they were hit.
I recall a public service commercial from the 1960s where they suggested that all parties on the road pay attention, even when they have the right-of-way. The catchphrase was "don't be DEAD right".
Yup. On the other hand, I did some foolish things on the road myself when I was younger, and got an angry lecture from a stranger. I didn't take it well at first, but eventually realized he was right and I changed my ways.
> your chances
Maybe. Or maybe offering her a lift would have raised her suspicion that I had something other than her welfare in mind, and my point would have been lost. As it happened, when I said that suing me wouldn't have helped if she was dead, her look of surprise at that indicated I had made a point.
I imagine the people who need a lecture in public are the same ones who do not receive feedback/advice very well.
This is a problem on the receiving end.
> "hey, this is a dangerous road to walk on, would you like a lift to the end?"
You are advising an adult male to offer a ride to an adult female who he is a stranger to? She doesn't know him from Adam and should NOT accept that offer.
Not walking in the middle of the road and not accepting rides from strangers are things people should be taught as children.
Besides, a world where well intentioned people self-censor themselves from being kind to strangers is a bit self-fulfilling isn't it?
Driving your 2 ton metal box in a way which doesn't endanger the lives of others, especially children, would also be a good lesson to teach to children. In fact since it is a vastly more real danger than "stranger danger" it probably do more good.
The situation was not dangerous, her actions were dangerous.
> Driving your 2 ton metal box in a way which doesn't endanger the lives of others, especially children, would also be a good lesson to teach to children
Absolutely. And this is NOT the case here.
> In fact since it is a vastly more real danger than "stranger danger" it probably do more good.
Why not both?
A situation cannot be simultaneously dangerous and not dangerous. Perhaps her actions caused the situation to be dangerous but surely you wouldn't hold that against her child?
I say this as someone who rides motorcycles, drives a car and even a Japanese import campervan, the driver of a vehicle is the one in charge of a potentially lethal machine. One of the first lessons you should learn as a driver is to be able to stop in the distance you can see to be clear ahead, if you do that then the chances of having to swearve to avoid people walking in the lane or having to think about the consequence of killing a mother and child are practically nil. That is what I mean by driving responsibly.
Anyway, I fear the cultural gulf here is too great.
You can get a ticket for "creating a hazardous situation" and judged as partially at fault even if the accident is technically the other party's fault. For example, behaving unpredictably like arbitrarily slamming on your brakes and getting rear-ended. I know this for a fact because it happened to a friend - she slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a dog, was rear-ended, and was shocked to be assigned 50% of the liability. The other 50% was assigned to the vehicle behind her for not keeping enough distance.
I don't think you'll find judges very sympathetic to that, nor to a person who wanders onto a freeway daring traffic to dodge him.
Besides, it simply is stupid to tempt fate, whether you're right or not. Being DEAD right is not a happy outcome.
I didn't say that. I said her actions were dangerous. It was in response to your comment: > If I felt it was so dangerous that I needed to stop and offer unsolicited advice to someone I didn't know, I would feel responsible for their safety if I didn't offer them a lift.
If there is a sidewalk she can safely walk on, that is a not-dangerous situation, and and there is no need to offer her a lift. If she chooses to instead walk in the middle of the road, that changes the situation.
> the driver of a vehicle is the one in charge of a potentially lethal machine
Agreed. Again, there is nothing in this thread stating otherwise.
My point is that pedestrians need to walk responsibly as well.
> the chances of having to swearve to avoid people walking in the lane or having to think about the consequence of killing a mother and child are practically nil.
I think you are being too optimistic here.
How can you possibly call "I stopped and asked her what if I hit her?" abuse?
He didn't threaten her at all. He informed her that her previous actions could have gotten her and her child killed. Hopefully she listened and will be more careful in the future.
Studies have shown that pedestrians should wear helmets when walking to increase their rate of survival, but good luck getting that to happen.
My instant reaction to that is negative, because it feels like treating the symptoms, not the cause.
Person A: people keep slipping and hitting their heads on this oily floor
Person B: studies have shown people should wear helmets if they want to increase their rate of survival
But you are right, I'll gladly help advocate public transportation to everyone so I can drive in peace on the roads.