[ExI] Gender-Neutral Side Note

[Adrian Tymes]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2025 at 11:48 AM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
> ...> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Gender-Neutral Side Note
> On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 11:33 AM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> > OK so if one is single and ambitious, one is practically living in the
> > office anyway, so why pay all that money for an apartment?  All ya
> > really need at “home” is a bed, a toilet and good high speed internet.
> > Camper vans have the former two
>
> >...They lack the utility hookups for a toilet - or a shower (or some other way to clean one's body), which is also generally necessary...
>
> Of course.  All that is done at the office.  Everywhere I worked had access to a gym, a shower, a locker where business suits could be left.

With two exceptions, I do not recall any office that I worked at ever
having had any of those three amenities.  Neither of the exceptions
would seem to count as the sort of office you mean.

Exception 1 is working from home, including a "home office".
Exception 2 was a nanotech lab - which didn't have a gym, the showers
were generally to be had with bunnysuits on (decontaminating the
bunnysuits before taking them off, to make certain the bad stuff never
had a chance to get to your skin), and the lockers weren't big enough
for business suits (nor were business suits often involved - the
airlock was for getting into and out of bunnysuits, and leaving
anything that shouldn't be on the side of the airlock you were going
to; some people might have donned bunnysuits over business suits, but
those would have been executives getting a one-off tour, not the
general workforce).

> >...(There are also food concerns - going out to eat or getting delivery for every meal gets expensive quickly - but a camper van can have a minifridge and kitchenette installed...
>
> You can do all that, but most bigger companies around here have 24 hour food services, a cafeteria, or something.

Last time I took a tour of Google's main campus, their cafeteria was
not 24 hour.  One could get lunch there, maybe breakfast (depending on
commute), but probably not dinner.  Most people need more than one
meal per day.

> >...Many offices lack such amenities, to the point that most workers won't have access to these at the office and must provide them themselves.
>
> Companies compete for younger workers.  Around here there are many startup companies.  They understand the challenges young people face: this is a crowded area and the price of rent is very high, utility costs are very high.  If the company can supply a gym, a shower, a locker room big enough to hang a few suits, food service, laundry, dry cleaning, a place to dump waste water and refill water tanks, all of which is inexpensive, they can attract single people who will sleep in a ProMaster van or camper, and live in the office.  Then that company can compete.  StarLink makes it practical to live in a van, which helps ease the housing shortage in the area, and reduces rent prices, which reduces homelessness.

That all relies on working for an enlightened company.  Most workers
are not so lucky.  Also, these services are the sort people need on a
daily or weekly basis; they aren't the sort of thing people can wait
around for their employer to maybe (or maybe not) provide in a few
years.

So long as it continues to be the case that many offices lack such
amenities, living entirely out of a camper van is not a practical
option for most young workers.  This could in theory change some day,
of course, but to speak of it as if it was reality today is incorrect.