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> I know not everyone is as sapped for energy as I am after work, but I leave work and sit in an hour of traffic. My energy is just sapped from me by the time I

• tombert 7y ago
  I live in NYC, and I have a roughly 1 hour commute each way, but I just take the train everywhere. Of course I can't speak for anyone else, but I find that taking a train to work is a lot less stressful than driving every day. At least on the train, I can read, or pull out my laptop, or just play a video game.
  • TuringNYC 7y ago
    I’m born and raised in NYC and took subways and trains to work everyday for over a decade in NYC. I mostly agree with you...but...I found the past several years of subway outages worse and started driving/ridesharing more and more. I’ve had times where subways constantly get rerouted, suddenly go express, skip stops, run on different lines, etc. it became so maddening.
    • wpasc 7y ago
      Not sure what GP meant but in NYC I find NJ Transit, Metro North, LIRR style to be much more relaxing and reliable. Subway is just a different beast
      • tombert 7y ago
        I take the Subway virtually every day. On weekdays it's not perfect, but generally good-enough.
        • Wowfunhappy 7y ago
          To some extent it likely depends on which subway you're on. Some lines are rough, especially at the outskirts. But I agree. For all that New Yorkers complain about the subway, it's my favorite thing about New York.
          • davchana 7y ago
            Bad Subway is better than no subway; I wish we had that or any public transport in Northern California.
        • gen220 7y ago
          It depends a lot on your origin and destination. In my 6 years, I’ve found the optimal corridor to be Downtown Brooklyn to Midtown, with a slight bias for west manhattan over east. Anything outside that corridor has a high potential to be the Wild West (the G, L, JZM, etc) with kafkaesque reroutes and delays and express running local and no trains after 9pm on random 5 days every 9 weeks.
    • twox2 7y ago
      All it takes is one time being stuck in the tunnel for 1.5 hrs in crowded train car and you have pretty much permanent PTSD. I have a panic attack every time the train comes to a premature stop even for a minute.
      • mcny 7y ago
        > All it takes is one time being stuck in the tunnel for 1.5 hrs in crowded train car and you have pretty much permanent PTSD. I have a panic attack every time the train comes to a premature stop even for a minute. I used to take the Path trail from Jersey City and then transfer to the F trail to Queens. I let my boss think I love my job so much that I arrive at work pretty early on most days when in fact, I was just trying to account for the inevitable delays on some days. I understand worker safety is important. Even if we didn't care about the workers, accidents can get very expensive and budget is tight. However, there has to be a better way than slowing ALL tracks to a crawl every time there is track work on ANY of the tracks.
      • qiqitori 7y ago
        That really sucks, but I don't think this applies to a lot of people.
  • tialaramex 7y ago
    Yup. Being on a train is only a location not an activity. Like any other location it can be made more or less comfortable, I've been on a train where the heating failed; and one that was so crowded you could hardly breathe (last train home for the night so nobody was willing to miss out) but I've also been comfortably asleep in bed; eaten a decent (not award winning, but certainly reasonable even for a restaurant that wasn't hurtling though the countryside at a hundred miles per hour) meal; and watched some good movies on Netflix.
  • joegahona 7y ago
    I lived in NYC from 2001-2012 and much prefer my 20-minute car commute now to any amount of time in a jam-packed rush-hour subway. Nothing like being 5mm from a stranger's face while both of you pretend you're not 5mm from a stranger's face. The LIRR is more comfy obv but at $250/month still not worth the aggravation, and unless you happen to work at Penn Station, you still have to walk through rain/snow/95-degree humidity or buy _another_ pass for a subway/bus.
    • porknubbins 7y ago
      I agree the average American 20 min house to office drive is much less stressful than rush hour subway (and god help us if we get coronavirus going around). Driving to work in NYC or SF doesn’t even make sense unless there was parking.
  • kempbellt 7y ago
    I had the same experience when I lived in NYC. A 45 minute commute on the subway was a lot less stressful than the 45 minute bumper-to-bumper driving commute I do now (in Seattle). I would usually play mindless puzzle games and listen to music on my commute. Other people mention the train delays being stressful, but my company had a standing "subway delays ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" attitude about showing up late. People would show up between 9:30 and 10:30 I don't ever recall feeling comfortable pulling out a laptop on the train though. Not even for fear of someone stealing it. I'd be worried about a subway monkey doing some spinning dance move and destroying the screen, or some hipster spilling coffee on it when the train slows down. Fond memories...
    • tombert 7y ago
      Well, as someone who pulls out their laptop pretty frequently on the train, I can say I've never had anyone spill coffee or kick it, though granted I don't pull it out if the train is at-all crowded. I recently got a GPD Win 2 as well though, so I've been able to do more computerey stuff lately, even when it is crowded.
      • TheSpiceIsLife 7y ago
        The GPD Win 2 looks interesting. Can you tell us more about it.
        • canuckintime 7y ago
          I had the original GPD Win (second revision) and its a quite capable travel computer. I loved the using the two thumb typing grip (which I had perfected from the iPad mini and iPhone 3S ~ 5s landscape) even though the keyboard wasn't so great. My main other gripe was the low screen resolution. The keyboard has been improved in the GPD Win 2 but the resolution stayed the same (I understand why given the target audience but 720p limits it to gamers). I stopped using my GPD Win after the battery swelled up (and Chinese 'warranty' as my third complaint) but despite its flaws I miss it dearly and I'm considering getting a GPD MicroPC soon
  • scrumbledober 7y ago
    My previous job was a 1:20 commute by bike and train up to SF. I got really excited about a new job opportunity only a 20-30 minute drive from my house, but now that I've been at this job for almost a year I often miss the train commute. Commuting by car really is much more stressful.
    • mertd 7y ago
      Caltrain is great as long as it shows up. But it is a single point of failure for many commutes and it does fail a lot.
• mjayhn 7y ago
  Yeah that definitely helps! Unfortunately I think I'd still need a few hours to unwind and get out of "work mode." I've worked jobs where I could actually walk to work and I still went home just drained. TBH, I'm an introvert and I'm not sure going in to the office will ever be really conducive to my personality. I've worked jobs where I had an office to go to when I needed/wanted to be there but could work from home or at a clients office. That was wonderful. I actually showed up to it much, much more often than I expected - by pure choice. If I was having an off day or felt especially introverted and just needed a break from people I could just knock things out at home!
  • chrisweekly 7y ago
    Remote work is increasingly available. Good luck!
  • clarry 7y ago
    I'm still pretty sapped after 8-9 hours, even if I work from home. And yes, it does build up stress from all the errands that would be easiest to schedule during office hours on a weekday with no work.
• kbenson 7y ago
  There are ways to work around the system around metro hubs that tries to push you towards the standard of commuting 2 hours or more each day to get to a higher paying job, but you have to search for them and be flexible yourself in your search for a job that's flexible. These days, it's likely semi-remote work, where you commute 1-3 days a week or in off hours (part of day at home, part at work). For me, I've been lucky enough to always find something that I found interesting and that pays well enough while not having to commute more than 10-20 minutes in the local area, and that's having been born, raised, and lived my entire life 45 minutes North of SF. There's not guaranteed to be something good in the borderlands, but I think people might be surprised what they could find if they can resist the call of the behemoths (and those that congregate in the same area) while being within throwing range of them.
  • Swizec 7y ago
    > push you towards the standard of commuting 2 hours or more each day to get to a higher paying job Crazy question but why not invest some of that higher salary into quality of life improvements like moving closer to work?
    • kbenson 7y ago
      I think you misread some of my comment. But as for why people don't do that, I think it's often because "quality of life" means different things to different people at different times in their lives. For a single 20-something, moving closer to work, and the much higher cost of living that usually entails can be worthwhile. For a 30-something or 40-something with a family, what kind of worth the spouse does (and whether it benefits from that move monetarily or in quality of live) and what it entails for the children can be much more important. For a single (or mostly single) income household, shaving 2 hours off your commute in exchange for double the cost of living is very hard to justify. There's often a reason they live far enough away to need to commute. For me, as I said, I've never had that commute. I've been very happy working in the tech industry an hour or so away from SF and its surrounding area. What I advocated is not moving closer to work, but working closer to where you moved. If you move to a suburb of SF, if you start looking for work in that area instead of focusing on SF, you might be surprised what's there. It won't pay as much, but theoretically cost of living is already drastically reduced by moving to the suburb, so maybe re-examining what's a good job to look is called for if that commute isn't to your liking.
• nickbauman 7y ago
  I changed my life so my work is 6 blocks from home. I will never go back. No realistic amount of money will ever be worth a commute. I consider commuting a form of incarceration.
  • exclusiv 7y ago
    I'm lucky to have a drive that takes me down the ocean for the bulk of it and I use my commute time for phone calls after the best part so even though it's nearly 40 minutes it doesn't bother me at all. But yeah if your commute is just boring traffic it can get to you day in day out.
  • goguy 7y ago
    I have to disagree. Realistically my only job opportunities for good pay are in cities, you couldn't pay me to live in one of those. I'll take the commute for the luxury of living in the countryside away from the noise, overpopulation and dirt.
    • nickbauman 7y ago
      For every person I've met from a small town, half say they'd never want to live there again, half are like you. There has been a 10,000 year trend toward urbanization so far. I'm glad for you, even though I suspect your future is going to get harder as the hinterland continues to empty out.
• tentboy 7y ago
  I think there is a happy medium too, and you don't need to live across the street from your job. I really like my job - which is located in the suburbs outside of DC but I wanted to live closer to the city so I have metro access and can easily bike around the city. I could easily get a nice place walking distance from work but my 30 minute commute (pretty much against traffic so not stressful) allows me to enjoy my time after work and the weekends much more than I would from the extra time from a short commute. I also enjoy driving and listening to music in my car so maybe thats part of it too
• anonsivalley652 7y ago
  Exactly. Work someplace else cheaper/less dense, remotely or get the tiniest, rathole, walkup closet where there's only a refrigerator and a tub, and you can't open the frig to open the door (but at least you can drink OJ from the carton while in the tub;). The people who commute by plane, 1-2 hours each way, or 100-200 miles daily are phreak'n outside of their skulls looking in.
  • lastres0rt 7y ago
    Hey, I commute by train to work (about an hour each way once you factor in trotting to the station, waiting for commuter shuttles, etc.), and I'm happy as a clam because I can draw on my iPad or play on my Switch for much of that time. Now, if you're DRIVING that same hour, then yeah, you're nuts.
    • cylinder 7y ago
      What about all the time that takes? If you have kids you need/want to get home as soon as possible to provide help as well as actually see them. Doesn't matter how many games im playing during that time
  • dev840 7y ago
    I wish that I could find a tiny rathole. Unfortunately, regulations around here with the minimum square footage requirements make that almost impossible.
• werber 7y ago
  I quit my last job because of the commute, gave up driving completely this year, and got a job in walking distance of my home. That part alone has made me a significantly happier person, I was able to stop taking anti anxiety medication, I have time for social activities, I have time for my friends and family again. I could never go back to driving to the office
• fjp 7y ago
  Agreed, the one thing I have promised myself is to never have a commute over 35 minutes. I even found a 35 minute commute to an internship in the suburbs disheartening when it was mostly spent sitting in traffic. It's insane to waste that much of your daily life shuttling to your job (if you have an option, which I hope to remain lucky enough to have).
  • tasuki 7y ago
    The commute is not the problem, the car is. In Amsterdam I commuted 45 minutes by bike and it was great. I really miss it now that I work from home.
    • ihaveajob 7y ago
      This. I used to have a longish commute (about 1h door to door) but I took Caltrain, and that time was never wasted. I could work, connect with friends, or just unwind. The few times when I did that by car I ended exhausted. Throw in a weekly 3h bike ride to work to stay fit and it was quite excellent.
    • Dylan16807 7y ago
      That's better but some days are bad for biking and more than seven hours per week spent on a bike is still a bit much.
    • Nullabillity 7y ago
      Or.. maybe people just have different outlooks? I used to ebike for an hour each way, and it was torture. Now it's a ~20min drive and 30mins of the commuter train. Still pretty miserable, but at least it's not raining directly into my eyes anymore.
    • Broken_Hippo 7y ago
      Truthfully, though, the weather in Amsterdam isn't so bad. And wow, there is some infrastructure for biking! These two things combined would make biking so much better, but then you add in the average style of bicycle you see there: Comfortable seats with some space for traveling with stuff. I have some of the infrastructure where I live in Norway, but I'm not brave enough to bike on the snow and ice in the winter. Walking is perilous enough. When I lived in the states, biking was often dangerous and the fastest routes weren't always available to me. I lived in the countryside for years, close enough to bike by main roads, but it not only wasn't allowed on the best path, but it would have been dangerous. No shoulder, curvy road, and cars going over 55mph (over 80kph). It was illegal to ride on sidewalks, where there were sidewalks, and few cities had bike lanes outside of downtown areas (if that). One job literally had no entrance other than off of a 4-lane divided highway: No biking or walking to that job. Even if I got over those hurdles, there was often no where to safely put my bike while I was at work. Heck, some of these places didn't have anywhere to store cold things for lunch.
• nine_k 7y ago
  I work in NYC. My commute from Brooklyn in now about 30 minutes, 20 of them on a train, the rest is walking and waiting on a station. It's the shortest and least stressful commute I ever had among several cities I lived. Dense cities have upsides when you live inside them.
• thorwasdfasdf 7y ago
  What's crazy is that you see regulation on minimum number of parking spaces for nearly any kind of building type and yet for working buildings, there's absolutely 0 regulations on minimum number of places to live. So, what happens is there's a huge imbalance between number of jobs offered vs places to live, thus driving up the cost of housing unnecessarily. It's almost as if they designed cities to only be driven too without any thought given on how to place living spaces closer to working spaces.
• ratsimihah 7y ago
  I've always prioritized living close to work and making my commute a 10mn walk. It's such a quality of life improvement, but I understand it can't be done by everyone. Since I lived and NYC and London, living near work often meant living in busy and noisy city areas, but it's a compromise I've generally been happy with.
• burnJS 7y ago
  Even if your commute is only 30 minutes, that is 5 hours lost a week roundtrip. An hour commute? Say goodbye to 10 hours a week. Yuck. Thankfully I have never had a long commute, my current commute is a 10-minute bike ride. Additionally, every company should provide at least one work from home day. Having a day at home where you can do laundry while working and other minor chores are such a huge win. Not to mention sleep-in to 830 if I want. Even while doing these mini chores I am WAY more productive at home. It also breaks up your week. My WFH day is Tuesday. So I deal with Monday, then have that cushy WFH day, then when I come back on Wednesday it feels like just a 3 day work week. Friday is casual and most employees take Friday to WFH. Its a ghost town and I love it. I need to begin looking for one of these dank jobs that are truly a four-day work week though.
  • riffraff 7y ago
    I think it also highly depends on how you commute. I had a ~1h commute for years, which meant 10 hours gone a week, but I commuted via public transport (train+metro/subway/underground) which meant I had 10 hours a week for reading or conversation with friends on the same route. I worked from home for 10 years after, and I swear I read less! If I had been driving those would have felt like completely wasted time. Or, a friend of mine in Sweden had an even longer commute by train, but his company counted the time as office time, since he'd just work on the train, which meant no loss of free time. (I still agree all companies should encourage WFH as much as possible)
• wonderwonder 7y ago
  Long commutes are pretty terrible. Often times though parents are forced to choose between a long commute to their place of work but sending their kids to a good school zone vs the alternative. Unfortunately funding school zones based on property taxes leads to vast disparity in their quality and their ability to provide for students. The result for many is having to choose a long commute. With that said I commuted for just over an hour+ each way in a sports car pre kids for 3 years and I never want a low car again. Give me a comfortable SUV / sedan any day now.
• golergka 7y ago
  Renting in a 5-minute walk distance from the office have been, by far, best investment I've made in my life. Even though it's a small studio apartment, saving two hours of stress per day is heaven-sent for someone with low energy and chronic depression like me. It's like life switched to easy mode all of a sudden. The only downside is, I can't manage to schedule a time to read books – subways and trains were ideal for it.