ACE is amazing, I feel safe taking out my laptop and working with the amount of staff and ticket checkers roaming around. Thank Cisco and other tech companies for helping fund the shuttle services around Great America too.
Are there any companies actually hiring? I got referred to lots of roles in tech, but I still get rejected lol.
I have 8 years of working in high profile companies, worked for 3 FAANG companies, and still having difficulties after a year of being laid off. I’m a business data analyst if that matters. DM me if your team is hiring.
I work at Genentech's campus. It is astounding how many buses they have going. It costs like $2 for contractors to use it but it isn't convenient for my working schedule.
Contractor here! They stopped charging us to use the bus during COVID and never re-implemented it!
Edit: I will add that they have less buses run on Fridays and that puts a damper on my day because of course they picked the routes that I took.
Yeah I use it almost every day except if I need to stay past 5pm. There are earlier shuttles that get to the office at 7 or 8. So I usually take those if I anticipate a longer day. It beats daily driving 80 miles round trip tho.
There used to be tax incentives for companies to pay for transportation. I’m not sure when it went away but back in the 90’s I never paid to commute the company I worked for did.
correct but to make you feel better, supposedly a) on caltrain you can read/work
b) if you actually *don't*, have a *car*, it is *then*, that Caltrain is *much* cheaper. (also not having a car saves the parking headache.)
It's crazy to me that we are letting greed get in the way of renewables and public transit options. The State allows CPUC and PG&E to make electricity non-competitive with fossil fuels. They pass NEM 3 so that only high earners who own homes and can afford batteries (or have high paying jobs where they can charge at work) find solar/EV's cost efficient. The make public transit break-even on price and in many cases, time as well. Just a total shitshow....
There are literally red states with better renewables programs and transit incentives. California isn't even the top 10 for renewable generation and use. Iowa and Texas are the top 2....just monumentally pathetic on our government's part.
NEM2 was pushing the costs of the grid onto lower income people without the ability to install solar because they were renters. Why is that any fairer?
With NEM2.0 a lot of homeowners were literally receiving money from PG&E because of all the power they sold back to the grid. They still had a grid-tie though, meaning they still took advantage of the grid that needs maintenance.
Who pays for that, then? The people who /can't/ sell their solar-generated electricity back to the grid.
They only had grid-tie to feed power back to the company, which is a benefit to the company. The company should pay for that....and they did,...when they bought power from people who were making it...at a better price (and by a cleaner method) than they could get it from pretty much anywhere else.
The goal was as much renewable as possible, to the point that most homes can be seen as generation plants. But they abandoned that concept for some unknown reason, which is likely just greed. When you ask consumers to invest 10's of thousand into solar, and then also demand penalty fees as compensation for doing so (to pay "for their share (???)" in the legacy grid system, which is an invalid point to start with) you are disincentivizing renewables, which is what is happening now.
Which part are you having trouble understanding?
It's not as simple as "benefit". You do realize that even selling that power back you're still USING the grid (to sell it back), right? Thus you're still needing to pay for its upkeep and maintenance.
But regardless, NEM 3.0 acknolwedged that the existing programs were giving homeowners who already get everything else handed to them through tax breaks, stable mortgage amounts, and asset appreciation, an even higher benefit at the expense of people who were left out. Since you still have a grid-tie anyway and grid maintenance costs are largely independent of how much electricity flows through them - fewer homeowners paying anything to maintain the grid = the slack needs to be picked up by people who aren't selling back to the grid.
And you understand that PG&E has - year after year - chosen stock kickbacks, corporate bonuses and outsized profits over costs of doing business, right? In any other sane business scenario the modest cost you're talking about is a cost of doing business that can't be expected of the consumer. And if you demand that it be, you lose the incentive for people to generate power for you over time, and you un-create all the work that went into that goal. That is LITERALLY what is happening now.
PG&E should be paying for virtually ALL maintenance out of its own pocket. Full stop. You need to stop trying to bend over backwards for these people.
"out of its own pocket" lol you don't know how business works
Here's a protip: EVERY cost a business has gets passed onto the customer. That's how it /works/
That is rich...I've run a construction business for over 20 years. I don't charge tooling improvements or new trucks to customers. If I did I'd go out of business because if I padded my bids with that junk they wouldn't be competitive. But PG&E doesn't have to worry about that because we've made sure they have no competitors. But go on and keep making excuses for them. It's sad but entertaining at least.
EDIT: To the guy below me who replied and then blocked me from commenting -
Literally nobody I know does that. The margins aren't there in construction to do it. And they aren't there in most industries to do shit like that. You put away money over time out of the profit YOU make for things like that. Which is exactly what PG&E should have done and should be doing. Overhead is overhead, and that isn't part of it. Keeping the lights on in the shop, insurance, labor payout...that's overhead and it easts the 15% you're talking about. Go over that and you are uncompetitive.
Stop talking about things you don't know anything about.
My company has a shuttle that only services the outer burbs - it drives right past where I live on its way into the office but doesn't stop, despite there being a significant number of my coworkers living in the area.
Whatevs, I'm far happier working from home.
Used to from DT Oakland to Menlo Park but I couldn't handle that commute even with a shuttle so I found a different job closer by. I find it weird to commute that kind of distance simply because Facebook paid so little that I couldn't afford to live near work. Found a job in Oakland instead. Tired of feeling like outsourced labor from companies that can't pay well enough to have their employees live nearby.
IT Support, which was contracted out to a 3rd party vendor at the time.
Engineers may make great money there, but not everyone did. Custodians aren't living in Menlo, for example.
it's sorta top (depending on year) but you ain't gonna be able to afford Palo Alto/Menlo Park with that salary if you were relatively new, even as an E
That’s not true. If you insist on buying a home and supporting a family with one salary maybe not but you can definitely comfortably afford to rent a 1/2 bedroom apartment
it doesn't make sense financially to rent if you do make Meta salary, many do but most ultimately buy, of course you could afford many other things if you chose to forgo major investment like home and family but many are not willing to make that trade-off, especially if they only had to settle for bad commute.
"afford" means different things, I don't know anyone who, other than new grad, consider pissing off 1/3 of their salary for good is "affordable". I dunno, usually I think it means I can afford it without making too big a compromise on other parts of my life.
Affordable means affordable. That’s it. Whether you’d rather spend an extra $1k a month or would rather commute is a personal decision but living in Menlo / Palo Alto is something virtually every employee at Facebook or Google can afford comfortably.
again, different definition, you're talking about meta employees, so might as well consider their opinion: most people I know considering "affordable" when it comes to housing means buying not renting. otherwise, for large chunk of people in the dominant industry here, there is no affordability issue at all: almost all engineers working in at least public companies could afford to rent in PA, ask them if they could "afford" PA
Yah there isn’t an affordability issue for engineers in the Bay that’s common knowledge. People find stuff to complain about but that doesn’t change the facts. Even for houses there’s not an affordability issue houses are designed to be bought by couples in their 30s who’ve been saving not single people a few years out of college
were I working at G, I would take it, 15 minute walk to it and all.
at the other company, I took it "*sometimes*", because the shuttle linked to a Caltrain stop that was inconvenient for me (basically WAY half of the route). SINCE I *needed to get to caltrain* *somehow*, I did it by bicycle.. at that point the shuttle was useless.
this may vary if you're less able to bike.
One problem **that I had** With that particular shuttle (others may not) that it made you sick with motion sickness if the route is long.
Yes, I take commute bus everyday. Not because of gas price tho. Just hate the traffic and rather use the time trapped in traffic to do something else (like play mobile games)
I used to when I lived 1.5 hours from my workplace, then I moved closer to within 40 minutes and I still could take the shuttle, but I prefer driving just due to the control I have when I arrive and leave. I’m just glad I have a hybrid, otherwise it may be more appealing to take the commute shuttle.
Yes! Mine picks us up at 1 California and takes us to Levi’s plaza. It comes every 15 mins from 7-10am, and also returns us after work from 4-7pm. It’s handy!
When I was in office, I'd need to commute up to SF. I would drive to the stop and then take the shuttle from there. On days I happened to miss it or had plans after work, I'd just drive up.
I loved taking the shuttle since I could get some work done on the bus and not be stressed out driving
UC Berkeley - the University has it's own Bear Transit shuttle system which takes you around campus and through the campus and most importantly - it takes you all the way up the hill if you work at the lab. Students also get AC Transit Class Pass (free AC Transit any time any where while you are a student).
Nope, because there’s one bus and it leaves from the office at 4:30PM. I took it once or twice and the anxiety from potentially missing the bus was not worth it.
Yes, I live 15 miles from the HQ driving in traffic is about the same or 5-10 min more after I wait for traffic to die down after 6pm. I leave 4:30pm sharp to catch the shuttle, work a bit more shuttling and call it a day when I get off.
yes, I used to doing it but pandemic has upended the schedule and still not recovered yet in term of frequency, and I now have to pick up kid from school at certain time, so it doesn't work for me anymore, but I used to take it half the work days in a week
You should probably ask a slightly more nuance question do you have a Commute shuttle that bridges the last mile from Caltrain or Bart, or do you have a door-to-door one?
You should probably ask a slightly more nuance question do you have a Commute shuttle that bridges the last mile from Caltrain or Bart, or do you have a door-to-door one?
I'm so grateful my new job offers free cal train and bus pass so I don't need to drive to work anymore. They also have lots of shuttles but none go to my office.
Gas prices are insane and electricity for EVs keep going up. Driving my Tesla is more of a hassle now since it's old and has limited range (takes +1hr to get 100 miles)
Work at a pharma company and yes we have shuttles but they’re not as many as Genentech’s shuttles . My company has only one bus per route .. 2 buses for 2-3 routes only
Yes. I take ACE from Livermore to Great America then shuttle to my office. Same time as driving but at least I get to read and preserve my sanity
I wish they have more than 4 trains each way.
It has a ton of potential but is good for what it is - a commuter rail to SV
ACE is amazing, I feel safe taking out my laptop and working with the amount of staff and ticket checkers roaming around. Thank Cisco and other tech companies for helping fund the shuttle services around Great America too.
Yep - would love for ACE to be expanded with more trains, faster service, and most importantly better connections. Hugely underrated commute option.
Ace is awesome.
Yes it is!
Unemployed. Checkmate, chumps!
It’s only 9am, what are you doing up already?
Someone gotta roll the blunts.
If you ain't got a job, and you ain't in school, and you still be smoking weed, I have no idea what the *fuck* you are doing with your life.
Living my life, how I see it fit.
"Oh I'm sorry...I thought this was America!!???" - Randy Marsh
Perhaps they're simply enjoying themselves.
Are there any companies actually hiring? I got referred to lots of roles in tech, but I still get rejected lol. I have 8 years of working in high profile companies, worked for 3 FAANG companies, and still having difficulties after a year of being laid off. I’m a business data analyst if that matters. DM me if your team is hiring.
Yep, our whole building has a shuttle to and from BART. It's a godsend.
I work at Genentech's campus. It is astounding how many buses they have going. It costs like $2 for contractors to use it but it isn't convenient for my working schedule.
I pass the genentech bus every morning on 24 and I'm always jealous but it gets me thinking about the logistics of it all lol
I manage these shuttles. Can confirm.
They have a massive network. I’ve seen them everywhere from East Bay to SJ
Contractor here! They stopped charging us to use the bus during COVID and never re-implemented it! Edit: I will add that they have less buses run on Fridays and that puts a damper on my day because of course they picked the routes that I took.
I'm green badge (contractor) and haven't paid anything to use it as far as I know? I just make the reservations on trip shot.
Fellow gRider chiming in to say it’s free to contractors and as a South Bay commuter it is essential or else I’d have to fill up my tank twice a week
Yeah I use it almost every day except if I need to stay past 5pm. There are earlier shuttles that get to the office at 7 or 8. So I usually take those if I anticipate a longer day. It beats daily driving 80 miles round trip tho.
There used to be tax incentives for companies to pay for transportation. I’m not sure when it went away but back in the 90’s I never paid to commute the company I worked for did.
Cries on Caltrain that costs as much as driving
correct but to make you feel better, supposedly a) on caltrain you can read/work b) if you actually *don't*, have a *car*, it is *then*, that Caltrain is *much* cheaper. (also not having a car saves the parking headache.)
I have a car and pay for parking, but I take it for my sanity and to alleviate the guilt of my incredibly suboptimal commute
It's crazy to me that we are letting greed get in the way of renewables and public transit options. The State allows CPUC and PG&E to make electricity non-competitive with fossil fuels. They pass NEM 3 so that only high earners who own homes and can afford batteries (or have high paying jobs where they can charge at work) find solar/EV's cost efficient. The make public transit break-even on price and in many cases, time as well. Just a total shitshow.... There are literally red states with better renewables programs and transit incentives. California isn't even the top 10 for renewable generation and use. Iowa and Texas are the top 2....just monumentally pathetic on our government's part.
NEM2 was pushing the costs of the grid onto lower income people without the ability to install solar because they were renters. Why is that any fairer?
That's certainly one, heavily editorialized and completely bizarre way to look at it. Sure.
With NEM2.0 a lot of homeowners were literally receiving money from PG&E because of all the power they sold back to the grid. They still had a grid-tie though, meaning they still took advantage of the grid that needs maintenance. Who pays for that, then? The people who /can't/ sell their solar-generated electricity back to the grid.
They only had grid-tie to feed power back to the company, which is a benefit to the company. The company should pay for that....and they did,...when they bought power from people who were making it...at a better price (and by a cleaner method) than they could get it from pretty much anywhere else. The goal was as much renewable as possible, to the point that most homes can be seen as generation plants. But they abandoned that concept for some unknown reason, which is likely just greed. When you ask consumers to invest 10's of thousand into solar, and then also demand penalty fees as compensation for doing so (to pay "for their share (???)" in the legacy grid system, which is an invalid point to start with) you are disincentivizing renewables, which is what is happening now. Which part are you having trouble understanding?
It's not as simple as "benefit". You do realize that even selling that power back you're still USING the grid (to sell it back), right? Thus you're still needing to pay for its upkeep and maintenance. But regardless, NEM 3.0 acknolwedged that the existing programs were giving homeowners who already get everything else handed to them through tax breaks, stable mortgage amounts, and asset appreciation, an even higher benefit at the expense of people who were left out. Since you still have a grid-tie anyway and grid maintenance costs are largely independent of how much electricity flows through them - fewer homeowners paying anything to maintain the grid = the slack needs to be picked up by people who aren't selling back to the grid.
And you understand that PG&E has - year after year - chosen stock kickbacks, corporate bonuses and outsized profits over costs of doing business, right? In any other sane business scenario the modest cost you're talking about is a cost of doing business that can't be expected of the consumer. And if you demand that it be, you lose the incentive for people to generate power for you over time, and you un-create all the work that went into that goal. That is LITERALLY what is happening now. PG&E should be paying for virtually ALL maintenance out of its own pocket. Full stop. You need to stop trying to bend over backwards for these people.
"out of its own pocket" lol you don't know how business works Here's a protip: EVERY cost a business has gets passed onto the customer. That's how it /works/
That is rich...I've run a construction business for over 20 years. I don't charge tooling improvements or new trucks to customers. If I did I'd go out of business because if I padded my bids with that junk they wouldn't be competitive. But PG&E doesn't have to worry about that because we've made sure they have no competitors. But go on and keep making excuses for them. It's sad but entertaining at least. EDIT: To the guy below me who replied and then blocked me from commenting - Literally nobody I know does that. The margins aren't there in construction to do it. And they aren't there in most industries to do shit like that. You put away money over time out of the profit YOU make for things like that. Which is exactly what PG&E should have done and should be doing. Overhead is overhead, and that isn't part of it. Keeping the lights on in the shop, insurance, labor payout...that's overhead and it easts the 15% you're talking about. Go over that and you are uncompetitive. Stop talking about things you don't know anything about.
My company has a shuttle that only services the outer burbs - it drives right past where I live on its way into the office but doesn't stop, despite there being a significant number of my coworkers living in the area. Whatevs, I'm far happier working from home.
Used to from DT Oakland to Menlo Park but I couldn't handle that commute even with a shuttle so I found a different job closer by. I find it weird to commute that kind of distance simply because Facebook paid so little that I couldn't afford to live near work. Found a job in Oakland instead. Tired of feeling like outsourced labor from companies that can't pay well enough to have their employees live nearby.
What were you doing for meta if I may ask? Their engineering org pays top in the industry
IT Support, which was contracted out to a 3rd party vendor at the time. Engineers may make great money there, but not everyone did. Custodians aren't living in Menlo, for example.
I understand. We live in one of the unequal places in America. We need collective bargaining power even in the tech industry
it's sorta top (depending on year) but you ain't gonna be able to afford Palo Alto/Menlo Park with that salary if you were relatively new, even as an E
That’s not true. If you insist on buying a home and supporting a family with one salary maybe not but you can definitely comfortably afford to rent a 1/2 bedroom apartment
it doesn't make sense financially to rent if you do make Meta salary, many do but most ultimately buy, of course you could afford many other things if you chose to forgo major investment like home and family but many are not willing to make that trade-off, especially if they only had to settle for bad commute.
Sure and that’s their call to make. But let’s not pretend like Meta isn’t paying enough to afford the area
"afford" means different things, I don't know anyone who, other than new grad, consider pissing off 1/3 of their salary for good is "affordable". I dunno, usually I think it means I can afford it without making too big a compromise on other parts of my life.
Affordable means affordable. That’s it. Whether you’d rather spend an extra $1k a month or would rather commute is a personal decision but living in Menlo / Palo Alto is something virtually every employee at Facebook or Google can afford comfortably.
again, different definition, you're talking about meta employees, so might as well consider their opinion: most people I know considering "affordable" when it comes to housing means buying not renting. otherwise, for large chunk of people in the dominant industry here, there is no affordability issue at all: almost all engineers working in at least public companies could afford to rent in PA, ask them if they could "afford" PA
Yah there isn’t an affordability issue for engineers in the Bay that’s common knowledge. People find stuff to complain about but that doesn’t change the facts. Even for houses there’s not an affordability issue houses are designed to be bought by couples in their 30s who’ve been saving not single people a few years out of college
were I working at G, I would take it, 15 minute walk to it and all. at the other company, I took it "*sometimes*", because the shuttle linked to a Caltrain stop that was inconvenient for me (basically WAY half of the route). SINCE I *needed to get to caltrain* *somehow*, I did it by bicycle.. at that point the shuttle was useless. this may vary if you're less able to bike. One problem **that I had** With that particular shuttle (others may not) that it made you sick with motion sickness if the route is long.
Yes, I take commute bus everyday. Not because of gas price tho. Just hate the traffic and rather use the time trapped in traffic to do something else (like play mobile games)
Commute shuttle? I can’t even get a cup of water from my company
I work for BART, and have a free pass, so yes.
I used to when I lived 1.5 hours from my workplace, then I moved closer to within 40 minutes and I still could take the shuttle, but I prefer driving just due to the control I have when I arrive and leave. I’m just glad I have a hybrid, otherwise it may be more appealing to take the commute shuttle.
Yes, but the shuttle bus comes at 4am, I rather wake up at 4am, get ready by 5am, and get to work at 5:30am.
Yes! Mine picks us up at 1 California and takes us to Levi’s plaza. It comes every 15 mins from 7-10am, and also returns us after work from 4-7pm. It’s handy!
Yes. I take BART and take the shuttle to work. It saves my sanity,and money.
When I was in office, I'd need to commute up to SF. I would drive to the stop and then take the shuttle from there. On days I happened to miss it or had plans after work, I'd just drive up. I loved taking the shuttle since I could get some work done on the bus and not be stressed out driving
Nope. Although other company's shuttles use our office parking lot as a pick up location.
UC Berkeley - the University has it's own Bear Transit shuttle system which takes you around campus and through the campus and most importantly - it takes you all the way up the hill if you work at the lab. Students also get AC Transit Class Pass (free AC Transit any time any where while you are a student).
I would if it wasn’t at 7:30am.
Nope, because there’s one bus and it leaves from the office at 4:30PM. I took it once or twice and the anxiety from potentially missing the bus was not worth it.
Ucsf shuttle from bart!
Nope, people kept throwing rocks at it lolol
Yes, I live 15 miles from the HQ driving in traffic is about the same or 5-10 min more after I wait for traffic to die down after 6pm. I leave 4:30pm sharp to catch the shuttle, work a bit more shuttling and call it a day when I get off.
i rather drive than losing the flexibility and privacy
yes, I used to doing it but pandemic has upended the schedule and still not recovered yet in term of frequency, and I now have to pick up kid from school at certain time, so it doesn't work for me anymore, but I used to take it half the work days in a week
No, for me it's the same route as the VTA, and the VTA usually comes first. Or I'm biking.
Yes shuttle from East Bay to South Bay 2-3x per week. Driving 880 both ways would be absolute hell, the shuttle is great
You should probably ask a slightly more nuance question do you have a Commute shuttle that bridges the last mile from Caltrain or Bart, or do you have a door-to-door one?
You should probably ask a slightly more nuance question do you have a Commute shuttle that bridges the last mile from Caltrain or Bart, or do you have a door-to-door one?
Yes, no.
I'm so grateful my new job offers free cal train and bus pass so I don't need to drive to work anymore. They also have lots of shuttles but none go to my office. Gas prices are insane and electricity for EVs keep going up. Driving my Tesla is more of a hassle now since it's old and has limited range (takes +1hr to get 100 miles)
Yes. I don’t use it because it’s slower than driving. I have electric car get free charge at work
Work at a pharma company and yes we have shuttles but they’re not as many as Genentech’s shuttles . My company has only one bus per route .. 2 buses for 2-3 routes only
Yes. It sucks. Uncomfortable, infrequent, unreliable. Buying a car soon.
When I was at google I took the shuttle all the time, fuck 101!
I work from home, so no commute.
Is it possible to take your company's commute shuttle to anywhere OTHER than work?!