Up until very recently, I have been going into the office every day since they let us in post covid. I have a very hard time staying focused at home. I also really enjoy having friends at work. Once you have a family, it is really nice to have adult relationships outside of the home, and frankly it's really hard to maintain hobbies outside of work with all the kids activities and house tasks.
For personal reasons I've moved remote this year and it's hard, but I can manage for a while I guess. It is really nice to walk out of my home office and be instantly home, but I find that I have to work longer hours to get the same amount of work done at home.
As for layout, my office had open seating areas for talking, quiet areas, and a dozen or so phone booths for more privacy. I usually just worked in the open collab areas and used my headphones when needed. This has been the way for the last decade prior to covid.
I'm a host for a cabin on airbnb and vrbo and I can say that it is remarkable that airbnb has achieved such a horrible reputation amongst hosts and guests alike. The truth is that the product is pretty great, until something goes wrong... Airbnb will refund a guest their money for seemingly any unverifiable accusation. I greatly prefer bookings from Vrbo despite their horrid tech simply because they are more reasonable when a guest sees a ladybug and wants a refund.
I grew up in Florida in the late 80's/early 90's and now have 2 children under the age of 7. Their days are almost exactly as you describe your children's days (and in public school). I think you need to take anything coming from US news with a healthy dose of skepticism. I do think it's healthy to discuss these topics to help remind us of its importance, but it's not as bad as everyone would have you believe in the online world.
That makes sense to me. I had the exact opposite experience. Growing up in Florida, everyone went to waffle houses on the weekends, and the only whataburger closed down and turned into some other chain restaurant. After living in Texas for a few years, the locals are fiercely loyal to whataburger, but I still don't share the enthusiasm. I assume it's more about being a part of your personal identity and childhood memories than it is really about food quality.
I also dropped out of a PhD program in CS after I realized that my advisor had incentives to keep me in the program and no incentives to help me complete my dissertation in a timely fashion. Imagine having a highly-educated, native english speaking computer scientist that you paid $30K / year. Compared to the 150K+ / year that person would make in the private sector.
That's an example that hits close to home as 2 close family members are Nurse Practitioners. This is a flawed example because Registered Nurses do not do the same job as a physician and are legally not allowed to learn how to do it. What if the nurses were allowed to shadow the physicians for 4 years? That would be called residency.
What if you have Nurse Practitioners with a Nursing BS, 4 years of nursing experience, a Masters degree in NP, and 4 years of experience diagnosing, managing complex conditions, etc.?
I personally know of several examples of Nurse Practitioners who are a drop-in replacement for an MD and that was achieved through work experience.
I absolutely think this is at least one factor. Just look at how parents treat their first baby. Myself and all of my friends obsessed over the sleeping schedule and eating and fear of every little illness. Then child #2 comes along and you're less worried about everything.
One of my friends has 3 children and we were just talking yesterday about how he manages, and he and his wife basically laughed and said that they try their best and just make sure the children are fed and clothed. There's only so much time available, you can't micromanage every detail and still have a healthy marriage and personal life.
I almost always assume on forums, discussion threads, and social media, that no one has made an honest attempt to understand the thing that they are disparaging.
Partially because they felt they could gain some advantage by owning the client side of what is powering a lot of their data center chips. Investing in modem tech and trying to get into mobile phones, they could have a completely integrated story from the phone, modem, cell tower (see Axxia acquisition), to the data center. I think they also were hoping the Intel Security story would be compelling from an end-2-end perspective.
You are right that round Rock is not Austin. The point is that the radius from the city center that is acceptable to commute from is rapidly shrinking in austin. People are flocking here and the only option is to drive on mopac or 35.
there is one light rail line, and it runs like once every 30 mins. I can't speak for the bus system, since it doesn't make sense for me living in North Austin. It took me 15 mins to drive to the train station, 40 mins train ride into Austin, and then 15 min walk to my office downtown. The drive into town is half that if you come in early, so I opt to drive.
while I don't disagree that many cities have worse traffic, your vague example of "South Austin to North Austin" isn't very convincing. All I can say is that I live 12 miles north of my office downtown, and it routinely takes me an hour to get home.
For personal reasons I've moved remote this year and it's hard, but I can manage for a while I guess. It is really nice to walk out of my home office and be instantly home, but I find that I have to work longer hours to get the same amount of work done at home.
As for layout, my office had open seating areas for talking, quiet areas, and a dozen or so phone booths for more privacy. I usually just worked in the open collab areas and used my headphones when needed. This has been the way for the last decade prior to covid.