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Totally agree. Working from the office is a dealbreaker for me yet I prefer working in an office compared to home. I just hate wasting a portion of my day to co

Totally agree. Working from the office is a dealbreaker for me yet I prefer working in an office compared to home. I just hate wasting a portion of my day to commuting or turning a 8 hour work day into a 10 hour workday for the same pay. In my experience it seems like the people who make the decisions on returning to the office are those who can afford to live close to the office.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago
> In my experience it seems like the people who make the decisions on returning to the office are those who can afford to live close to the office. I firmly believe that those behind the RTO push don't realize their 24 hours are very different than the average workers.
philipov 3y ago
We need a law that mandates commute time be counted as billable hours. Those two hours of commute should come out of the 8 the employer gets.
- midoridensha 3y ago
  Here in Japan, employers have to pay for the employee's public transit commuting costs (but not time). So people living very far away (i.e. outside the city's transit service area) are unlikely to get an offer.
- ouEight12 3y ago
  ... and now there's an HR mandate that managers need to give extra preference to applicants who are located closer to the office.
  - bearmode 3y ago
    Is that so bad? The other way of looking at it is that employers would be more likely to allow WFH, since they don't have to pay for your commute costs anymore
  - flangola7 3y ago
    That's already been the case all along
  - nostrademons 3y ago
    Facebook used to do basically that - they gave you a $1000/month stipend if you lived within 5 miles of the office. A lot of other companies do it in more informal ways too, eg. I've heard of companies turning down applicants because they lived an hour and a half commute away from the office. It has some mixed results. It's very positive for traffic and for climate change - if everyone goes from a 30 mile commute to a 5 mile one, that's 6x fewer vehicle miles traveled, 6x less car CO2 emissions, and 6x less traffic. But it also drives up rents around the office to crazy-high levels. Facebook's policy basically just boosted rents in Palo Alto by $1000/month (when they were there), and then it and the office location was single-handedly responsible for the gentrification of East Palo Alto (after they moved).
    - midasuni 3y ago
      If I were to commute to my companies nearest office it’s about 1h20 or 60 miles. Let’s assume I moved to near that office and lived in a high density area away from nature and dark skies. What does my wife do, who now faces an 80 mile commute the other way?
      - fhd2 3y ago
        That's just what it boils down to: Add kids to the mix and you'll have them change schools (and their entire social circle) every time you do a career change - to earn more, to do something more interesting, or because you're simply forced to. For anyone but singles, co-located work seems anachronistic. Worked back in the day were only one person in the family had a job, and jobs were held for decades (not years) I suppose. Today it seems ludicrous to expect anyone to move for work. Which naturally leads into either long commutes or remote work. Having built several remote-first companies, I'm gonna say it's not perfect, but it really works.
  - data_maan 3y ago
    This makes sense multiple perspectives: it's good for the climate to not make people burn gasoline every day (though this point may be lost on some people) and it's also good for the local community - both the employer needs to step his game up to assist and train people more since talent pool is limited and locals also need to step their game up since there are only so many local employers around (assuming all prefer to hire locally). Going this way, if this were a law, would also prevent employers from treating people as expendable. Flying people in from across the globe because they are marginally cheaper than the local work force never made sense to me.
- gedy 3y ago
  TBH I'm on salary like many here and I do subtract the commute time (1.5 hr round trip) from work hours when I go in. I'm not paid by the hour so I'm not commuting then doing a full 8 hours in the office, sorry.
  - zeroonetwothree 3y ago
    I’m on salary and wfh but often work 4 hours/day. Of course some times if it’s “crunch time” I work 12 hours. But on average it’s probably under 6. The whole point of salary is you don’t count hours though so you are encourage to be efficient instead of inefficient
    - midasuni 3y ago
      I get a feeling in america it’s Work want to move me off an hourly wage. Which is fine, but it means instead of being paid time and a half for every hour over 35, I take 1.5h in lieu off. If I do a 90 hour week you’ll barely see me for the next three weeks.
- lelanthran 3y ago
  > We need a law that mandates commute time be counted as billable hours. Those two hours of commute should come out of the 8 the employer gets. That sounds like a good way to make companies do WFH wherever they can. I mean, they already give preference to candidates near the office in order to facilitate ridiculous hours.

SketchySeaBeast 3y ago

> In my experience it seems like the people who make the decisions on returning to the office are those who can afford to live close to the office. I firmly believe that those behind the RTO push don't realize their 24 hours are very different than the average workers.

philipov 3y ago

We need a law that mandates commute time be counted as billable hours. Those two hours of commute should come out of the 8 the employer gets.

midoridensha 3y ago
Here in Japan, employers have to pay for the employee's public transit commuting costs (but not time). So people living very far away (i.e. outside the city's transit service area) are unlikely to get an offer.
ouEight12 3y ago
... and now there's an HR mandate that managers need to give extra preference to applicants who are located closer to the office.
- bearmode 3y ago
  Is that so bad? The other way of looking at it is that employers would be more likely to allow WFH, since they don't have to pay for your commute costs anymore
- flangola7 3y ago
  That's already been the case all along
- nostrademons 3y ago
  Facebook used to do basically that - they gave you a $1000/month stipend if you lived within 5 miles of the office. A lot of other companies do it in more informal ways too, eg. I've heard of companies turning down applicants because they lived an hour and a half commute away from the office. It has some mixed results. It's very positive for traffic and for climate change - if everyone goes from a 30 mile commute to a 5 mile one, that's 6x fewer vehicle miles traveled, 6x less car CO2 emissions, and 6x less traffic. But it also drives up rents around the office to crazy-high levels. Facebook's policy basically just boosted rents in Palo Alto by $1000/month (when they were there), and then it and the office location was single-handedly responsible for the gentrification of East Palo Alto (after they moved).
  - midasuni 3y ago
    If I were to commute to my companies nearest office it’s about 1h20 or 60 miles. Let’s assume I moved to near that office and lived in a high density area away from nature and dark skies. What does my wife do, who now faces an 80 mile commute the other way?
    - fhd2 3y ago
      That's just what it boils down to: Add kids to the mix and you'll have them change schools (and their entire social circle) every time you do a career change - to earn more, to do something more interesting, or because you're simply forced to. For anyone but singles, co-located work seems anachronistic. Worked back in the day were only one person in the family had a job, and jobs were held for decades (not years) I suppose. Today it seems ludicrous to expect anyone to move for work. Which naturally leads into either long commutes or remote work. Having built several remote-first companies, I'm gonna say it's not perfect, but it really works.
- data_maan 3y ago
  This makes sense multiple perspectives: it's good for the climate to not make people burn gasoline every day (though this point may be lost on some people) and it's also good for the local community - both the employer needs to step his game up to assist and train people more since talent pool is limited and locals also need to step their game up since there are only so many local employers around (assuming all prefer to hire locally). Going this way, if this were a law, would also prevent employers from treating people as expendable. Flying people in from across the globe because they are marginally cheaper than the local work force never made sense to me.
gedy 3y ago
TBH I'm on salary like many here and I do subtract the commute time (1.5 hr round trip) from work hours when I go in. I'm not paid by the hour so I'm not commuting then doing a full 8 hours in the office, sorry.
- zeroonetwothree 3y ago
  I’m on salary and wfh but often work 4 hours/day. Of course some times if it’s “crunch time” I work 12 hours. But on average it’s probably under 6. The whole point of salary is you don’t count hours though so you are encourage to be efficient instead of inefficient
  - midasuni 3y ago
    I get a feeling in america it’s Work want to move me off an hourly wage. Which is fine, but it means instead of being paid time and a half for every hour over 35, I take 1.5h in lieu off. If I do a 90 hour week you’ll barely see me for the next three weeks.
lelanthran 3y ago
> We need a law that mandates commute time be counted as billable hours. Those two hours of commute should come out of the 8 the employer gets. That sounds like a good way to make companies do WFH wherever they can. I mean, they already give preference to candidates near the office in order to facilitate ridiculous hours.