Danuser explains why he left Blizzard

Community General Discussion
21

You do understand that making companies have commute time as working hours is the most ridiculous thing that I think I’ve ever heard on these forums, that’s not game related.

If governments/companies were to introduce such a thing, you would exclude every single person who lives outside of every major city. Companies would only hire people who live within a 10 minute walking distance (like you said) from that company. Every person who must commute for 30 minutes or an hour, who is three to four times more qualified would not get that job because that company doesn’t want to waste an hour or two of actually work time, so they only work six hours within the office.

We can all agree that working from home has a lot of benefits. I like waking up in the morning, getting a coffee, sitting from the computer, still wearing my PJS an not having to, you know, get changed to go into work. I can just sit down with my coffee in my comfy clothes and get to work. But on the flip side, I’m also someone who really enjoys going into an office to work. It’s just being in that environment, you’re able to think purely about work, whereas if you’re at home and you have family, you’re always being distracted.

22

Why shouldn’t I be paid for time I’m spending to benefit work, after all going to the office is for the benefit of work. Further my commute has costs that should be compensated for, as my WFH salary is the same as those who are WFO, it’s clearly not being compensated for.

This a legitimate reason why not, but it doesn’t make the idea of being compensated for my time “ridiculous”.

Further it wouldn’t be 6 hours in the office, it would be more than 8 hours pay per day.

My WFH package includes on top of my salary a small payment to cover the energy bills increase that follows from being at home more often, as well as allowing me to claim fuel if I have to go the office for any reason, so why is it crazy to request similar for commuters?

23

OK, so I understand your point of view. I really, really do. Again, I’m not someone who is against working from home or work in the office. I enjoy both equally, they both have benefits and they both have there negative side effects to that.

Each employer is different based upon how many employees you’ve had in your lifetime. You’ll have some who will pay for your fuel expenses, some who will provide you half your money back if you have to buy a monthly pass for the train or for other forms of public transport. But I do not see any employer paying you to have your time commuting to work as part of your working hours. It’s never going to happen.

You say that your work from home package, your employer provides a small payment towards energy bills. That’s very nice, that’s great that employers are doing that for people who want to work from home. But if you look at it from the outside point of view, the reason that they can do that is because they themselves have reduced the amount of money that they need to spend regarding having people in in the office. So for them it’s actually cheaper to pay you to work from home. Paying a small amount towards your energy bills than to have you in the office paying more money to their energy bills, which are far more expensive.

But when it comes to applying for a job, having the interview, you know that you will have to commute. The employer knows that you know this because they know where you live because on your resume has your home address. So, be it public transport or their own vehicle, you may get compensation regarding the cost for travel. Employers will never give compensation in relation to the amount of time you’ve taken to get to work and remove that from your overall actual working hours. It’s never going to happen.

People have been commuting to work for centuries and it will continue to be like that until all work is home based. But again, that’s never going to happen because of all the real estate in the world that is taken up by companies. So while those buildings still exist, commuting to work is still going to exist.

24

This sadly is the million dollar answer. The main reason that WFH is not exploding massively is because companies fear losing the value of their giant offices.

You seem stuck on this, nowhere did I say people world work less hours in this scenario. You seem to have invented this idea that people wouldn’t be paid for 10 hours rather than 8, to factor in commute time.

This would be a fair compromise in lieu of commuting being considered working hours, for example if the employer paid for a season train / bus ticket, or allocated the same amount to a fuel card for drivers.

25

Can you please avoid going so OT.

I can even understand your complaints, but there is also a lot of people that don’t have the luxury to work from home.

26

I do apologise, if I was making the assumptions based upon people working less but getting paid the same, I probably got caught up in the actual the moment.

My previous employer. Would pay its employees a percentage of their expenses for commuting. So if you paid, say €50 for your monthly bus pass, you would get €25 back, for example. And then when it came to people using their vehicles, you would provide the receipts from the fuel, and they would go ahead and reimburse you the money for that. But if I remember correctly, there was a cap on how much money they would reimburse. To avoid, you know, people going a bit crazy saying, “Oh yeah, I basically travelled, you know, 50 extra miles today because I had to do a diversion of this road”. So, there was always caps in place to avoid people exploiting that system.

But I have to say though that working from home is far more beneficial to the employer financial wise because they’re making more money by spending less, so it does promote. Employers to kind of encourage people to work from home. For example, since the COVID restrictions ended whenever it was, I’ve noticed there’s a lot more employers who are offering jobs which are work from home. There are other employers who are now doing a 50/50, where you can work from home half that week and then be in the office for the other half. So, in part It has created a new employment opportunity for a lot of people.

It’s not the choice words that I would use. That working from home is a “luxury”. It’s more of a comfort thing. You don’t have to worry about spending 30-40 minutes getting ready to go to work and then the pain in the butt situation of being stuck in traffic.

For me personally, I like to work in the office and that for me is a luxury. Why? Because I have a family and being away from the family, being able to work in an office, it’s a whole new level of relaxation. It’s like going on vacation daily! :grinning:

But again, everyone is different. Some people might like to spend time home with their families while working. Some people may not have a family that they live with, so they can just relax even more!

27

Irony is, I’ve travelled 100s of miles for work from time to time, and never claimed because I’ve saved so much by not commuting daily.

It’s insane to me that it’s considered reasonable to cover irregular commutes, yet not enforced ones.

28

Thank you, Steve Danuser, but why did you leave before fixing the lore you used to lead to this state, which makes people sad and disappointed?

Now I am curious how much time it will take to unmake this tragic state of the retail Lore. Or all of this is just Metzen’s problem now?

What a nasty legacy if true.

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29

Sure sure or
When it’s not my way it’s no way so i’m gone :smiley:

30

Maybe now we can get some badass moments in Warcraft again.

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31

I think he didn’t leave :face_with_diagonal_mouth: he got the boot :hiking_boot:
The moment he said I quit if I can’t work from home was the moment the administration said “aight”

32

Guess the forums need a new scapegoat

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33

New? New??? :rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

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34

After what he did with Arthas and Garrosh
Good riddance

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35

guilty as charged .i have been using it for the past 15 years . :raising_hand_woman:

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36

the man burned through 3 expacs worth of antagonists in a single one to deliver us what I can only describe as an acid induced fever dream with Shadowlands
Each and every individual of those 3 antagonists had the potential to be more then Shadowlands was

And this very much reads like a message for the outside world

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37

boomers :roll_eyes:

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38

Nzoth and azshara were always gonna be the same expac or one leading into the other. Who’s the third? Sylvanas?

39

Faction war which just got written off because they labelled their own failure of writing it as a general tiredness from the playerbase for faction conflict.

And while I do agree that N’zoth and Azshara would be a paired narratively, they are both big enough in the lore in their own rights to make seperate expansions with them as the final antagonist as and that would’ve been the only way to give them the attention they deserved if you ask me.

40

In a way I find these explanations and goodbyes completely pointless, even if I understand it’s the correct thing to do when you want to/were forced to wrap it up. It hardly ever reflects the truth and reality of what happened, or why. And that’s not our business anyway. But all in all I can only shrug.

I hope he finds a good place for him and the way he likes to write.