6 ms·

There are a thousand factors, but one of the biggest and simplest is getting commute time back. Gaining even one hour a day is life-changing. Imagine gaining tw

There are a thousand factors, but one of the biggest and simplest is getting commute time back. Gaining even one hour a day is life-changing. Imagine gaining two hours.

e_i_pi_2 2mo ago
I know of a company where they want anyone within 90m to commute, so that's up to three hours lost in a day, making an 8 hour workday actually 11+ hours
- frollogaston 2mo ago
  And possibly commute to an office their team isn't even at, because the point isn't colocation, it's to keep people working during work hours.
- DiggyJohnson 2mo ago
  I’m always confused why the default commute time in these discussions is always 60 or 90 minutes one way. 60+ minute commutes are outliers and I don’t understand why a person would take a job that far away without being aware of the commute or moving closer to the work. Does that make sense? Most American commute 10-30 minutes. That’s the middle of the bell curve.
  - bluefirebrand 2mo ago
    > 60+ minute commutes are outliers and I don’t understand why a person would take a job that far away without being aware of the commute or moving closer to the work 60+ minute commute times are very common where I live. If you are anywhere outside of the downtown area you either pay for parking (expensive) and have a shorter commute, or you use public transit (cheap) and have a long commute. When I used to commute to an office it was easily an hour to an hour and a half each way every day. I hated it
    - cosmic_cheese 2mo ago
      Yes, I get the sense that this varies a lot depending on area and economic strata. In the poor rural area my hometown is located, 1-3h+ commutes aren't unusual, partially out of necessity (there aren't enough jobs nearby to sustain the population).
    - ghaff 2mo ago
      When I commuted semi-regularly into a downtown office, it was a good 90 minutes. Latterly, going into a newer company's customer briefing center was more like 2 hours each way. I had access to commuter rail which was more pleasant than driving so long as I didn't have an evening dinner/event. but it took about the same length of time. One answer to the parent's question is that I owned/own a house which was a pretty manageable 25 minute suburban commute which I wasn't going to sell just because I got a new job. (Which didn't last that long anyway.)
  - Aurornis 2mo ago
    We’re in a weird period where a lot of jobs went fully remote around COVID, many weren’t prepared for it, and now they’re doing the opposite over-reaction and forcing everyone back. A lot of the people I know who went remote after COVID took remote jobs at new companies (remember “the great resignation”?) or moved to a new house because they thought they were done with commuting. Then their companies said they wanted everyone back.
  - forestrywat 2mo ago
    Do you have a citation for that?
  - tikhonj 2mo ago
    I mean, in a lot of these cases people take those jobs because they're able to work remotely initially... and then get hit with an inflexible, top-down RTO mandate once they've settled into the role.
  - closeparen 2mo ago
    Most of the 60 minute travel time radius around a San Francisco or Silicon Valley tech HQ is water and nature preserve.
    - DiggyJohnson 2mo ago
      It doesn’t make sense to assume SF logistics even on this board because it’s such an outlier. Just my opinion.
      - deleted 1mo ago
        [deleted]
  - TuringNYC 2mo ago
    >> Most American commute 10-30 minutes. You're on a board full of technologists. Many are in SF or Seattle or NYC. A 10minute commute means you live in a 5-20 Million dollar home in SF. Not sure how realistic that is. I work in NYC. The salary doesnt support having a home in the city. Yes, it can support a 1br apt, perhaps a 2br with roommates. Definitely not accomodations for a family.
    - DiggyJohnson 2mo ago
      In NYC commute times are still under 45 minutes for most tech professionals door to door.
      - TuringNYC 2mo ago
        i think there is a big diff between 10-30min and 45min your 45min assessment is probably right for early career. once you have a family, it gets much harder and less common
  - s1artibartfast 2mo ago
    It's also a corresponding economic window: Laptop professionals who make enough money to own and buy a nice house in the suburbs but not FU money to buy in the city. I count myself in this category. If you don't make enough to consider buying, you might as well rent close. If you are super rich, you can buy in the city or don't have to worry about building home equity.
  - xboxnolifes 2mo ago
    I could see the average commute being 20-30 minutes without traffic. I cannot see that being the average in any area with even a small amount of morning/evening traffic.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- doom2 2mo ago
  I somewhat frequently get recruiter mail from NYC-based companies. If it's clear the position is in office, I usually include the same bit in every response: I live ~75 minutes away by train. Make the commute free or heavily discounted for me and I'll come in the three days a week. Plus, since I won't be driving, I can do some work on the train.
mikert89 2mo ago
Its not just the time, its the energy expended.
- sublinear 2mo ago
  Yes, definitely. Time management is a lot easier when it's all on your own terms apart from the required meetings. You get to skip the commute and reap the benefits all day long. Even your diet improves. You can cook fresh or have delivered whatever you want. Your hygiene improves since nothing is preventing you from taking another shower or committing to more involved skincare. You clean your home more often. You're more likely to exercise throughout the day for natural stress relief. If you have any minor medical issues that need upkeep, you're already in the privacy of your own home. This is not just a list of annoyances or frivolous luxuries for highly sensitive people. These are the basic building blocks for a better quality of life. These used to be the forever-deferred items at the bottom of my todo list stressing me out. Now they are integrated with my life and effortless. I'm no longer trapped in a cube and put on display. I can live like a human being and do whatever whenever wherever I want. My life is no longer oriented around running errands or physical presence.
  - mikert89 2mo ago
    The biggest for me is diet by far, I cook every meal. If I have a stretch of going into the office, I end up eating slop, which kills my energy levels
- MaxHoppersGhost 2mo ago
  And money spent on a more expensive house closer to the office vs the same home in an affordable place. It's the main reason I can't go back to San Francisco, once you get used to a less than one million four bedroom house in a pleasant neighborhood you can't go back to living in a shoebox for twice the price, even if it's the most beautiful city in the world.
- zmmmmm 2mo ago
  energy / time / money / environment / office space reclaimed
georgemcbay 2mo ago
Not having to plan my life around traffic patterns is the biggest advantage for me. I enjoy working in the office at my current place of employment... nice office space, small company, everyone who works there is great and the office is only 15 minutes away if there is no traffic. But I live in Southern California, so when there is traffic that 15 minute commute balloons to 45-60 minutes. So I work from home most of the time. I still go in a couple of times a week (voluntarily, not required) but there are no expectations of a set schedule so it is very easy for me to avoid heavy traffic commute times.
jjice 2mo ago
I go into my company's Boston office with an hour and a half commute each way by train about once a month. Even doing that once a month sucks. I couldn't imagine doing that even three times a week. I regularly get LinkedIn messages from recruiters with hybrid offerings in Boston that pay less and will then suck an additional 9 hours a week out of my life. Biggest nope I can think of. I'd have to get paid a lot more to sacrifice an additional 10 hours a week commuting. You can't just tack an additional ten hours worth of pay on, and even if the pay was excellent, I can't imagine this is something I can do long term. Losing three hours a day for a commute eats into so much social and sleep time.
- ghaff 2mo ago
  I didn't have to do it every day and it wasn't for that long a period but I had sort of come to the conclusion that it wasn't sustainable, especially after the novelty of working in the city wore off. I live fairly far out but, even that aside, there's just a lot of traffic. Even coming in for something after work these days still takes me 90 minutes to get in and commuter rail is useless for an evening event. Last sometimes commute (I traveled a lot) to a suburban office was much more manageable but the office shutdown at some point during COVID because of low use.
panny 2mo ago
>one of the biggest and simplest is getting commute time back Zoom out. Being full remote means I don't even need a car. I can live in a walkable city with passenger rail in a low cost of living location. I can reduce my living expense to just food and utilities with a paid off house and no automobiles.
KludgeShySir 2mo ago
Wait, are you saying that human contact has no bearing on one's psychological well-being? Or are you saying that I'm being deliberately obtuse?
jasondigitized 2mo ago
Commuting to work for people who don't absolutely need to commute to work may be the biggest cargo cult of them all.
zmmmmm 2mo ago
It's funny, because talk about a 25% potential productivity improvement saving multiple hours per day per employee in literally any other context and management would be crazy for it. Like AI hype bubble crazy. But culturally they cannot come to terms with the idea of losing power / control / influence over how work is done, so WFH gets treated completely differently.

There are a thousand factors, but one of the biggest and simplest is getting commute time back. Gaining even one hour a day is life-changing. Imagine gaining two hours.

e_i_pi_2 2mo ago

I know of a company where they want anyone within 90m to commute, so that's up to three hours lost in a day, making an 8 hour workday actually 11+ hours

frollogaston 2mo ago
And possibly commute to an office their team isn't even at, because the point isn't colocation, it's to keep people working during work hours.
DiggyJohnson 2mo ago
I’m always confused why the default commute time in these discussions is always 60 or 90 minutes one way. 60+ minute commutes are outliers and I don’t understand why a person would take a job that far away without being aware of the commute or moving closer to the work. Does that make sense? Most American commute 10-30 minutes. That’s the middle of the bell curve.
- bluefirebrand 2mo ago
  > 60+ minute commutes are outliers and I don’t understand why a person would take a job that far away without being aware of the commute or moving closer to the work 60+ minute commute times are very common where I live. If you are anywhere outside of the downtown area you either pay for parking (expensive) and have a shorter commute, or you use public transit (cheap) and have a long commute. When I used to commute to an office it was easily an hour to an hour and a half each way every day. I hated it
  - cosmic_cheese 2mo ago
    Yes, I get the sense that this varies a lot depending on area and economic strata. In the poor rural area my hometown is located, 1-3h+ commutes aren't unusual, partially out of necessity (there aren't enough jobs nearby to sustain the population).
  - ghaff 2mo ago
    When I commuted semi-regularly into a downtown office, it was a good 90 minutes. Latterly, going into a newer company's customer briefing center was more like 2 hours each way. I had access to commuter rail which was more pleasant than driving so long as I didn't have an evening dinner/event. but it took about the same length of time. One answer to the parent's question is that I owned/own a house which was a pretty manageable 25 minute suburban commute which I wasn't going to sell just because I got a new job. (Which didn't last that long anyway.)
- Aurornis 2mo ago
  We’re in a weird period where a lot of jobs went fully remote around COVID, many weren’t prepared for it, and now they’re doing the opposite over-reaction and forcing everyone back. A lot of the people I know who went remote after COVID took remote jobs at new companies (remember “the great resignation”?) or moved to a new house because they thought they were done with commuting. Then their companies said they wanted everyone back.
- forestrywat 2mo ago
  Do you have a citation for that?
- tikhonj 2mo ago
  I mean, in a lot of these cases people take those jobs because they're able to work remotely initially... and then get hit with an inflexible, top-down RTO mandate once they've settled into the role.
- closeparen 2mo ago
  Most of the 60 minute travel time radius around a San Francisco or Silicon Valley tech HQ is water and nature preserve.
  - DiggyJohnson 2mo ago
    It doesn’t make sense to assume SF logistics even on this board because it’s such an outlier. Just my opinion.
    - deleted 1mo ago
      [deleted]
- TuringNYC 2mo ago
  >> Most American commute 10-30 minutes. You're on a board full of technologists. Many are in SF or Seattle or NYC. A 10minute commute means you live in a 5-20 Million dollar home in SF. Not sure how realistic that is. I work in NYC. The salary doesnt support having a home in the city. Yes, it can support a 1br apt, perhaps a 2br with roommates. Definitely not accomodations for a family.
  - DiggyJohnson 2mo ago
    In NYC commute times are still under 45 minutes for most tech professionals door to door.
    - TuringNYC 2mo ago
      i think there is a big diff between 10-30min and 45min your 45min assessment is probably right for early career. once you have a family, it gets much harder and less common
- s1artibartfast 2mo ago
  It's also a corresponding economic window: Laptop professionals who make enough money to own and buy a nice house in the suburbs but not FU money to buy in the city. I count myself in this category. If you don't make enough to consider buying, you might as well rent close. If you are super rich, you can buy in the city or don't have to worry about building home equity.
- xboxnolifes 2mo ago
  I could see the average commute being 20-30 minutes without traffic. I cannot see that being the average in any area with even a small amount of morning/evening traffic.
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
doom2 2mo ago
I somewhat frequently get recruiter mail from NYC-based companies. If it's clear the position is in office, I usually include the same bit in every response: I live ~75 minutes away by train. Make the commute free or heavily discounted for me and I'll come in the three days a week. Plus, since I won't be driving, I can do some work on the train.

mikert89 2mo ago

Its not just the time, its the energy expended.

sublinear 2mo ago
Yes, definitely. Time management is a lot easier when it's all on your own terms apart from the required meetings. You get to skip the commute and reap the benefits all day long. Even your diet improves. You can cook fresh or have delivered whatever you want. Your hygiene improves since nothing is preventing you from taking another shower or committing to more involved skincare. You clean your home more often. You're more likely to exercise throughout the day for natural stress relief. If you have any minor medical issues that need upkeep, you're already in the privacy of your own home. This is not just a list of annoyances or frivolous luxuries for highly sensitive people. These are the basic building blocks for a better quality of life. These used to be the forever-deferred items at the bottom of my todo list stressing me out. Now they are integrated with my life and effortless. I'm no longer trapped in a cube and put on display. I can live like a human being and do whatever whenever wherever I want. My life is no longer oriented around running errands or physical presence.
- mikert89 2mo ago
  The biggest for me is diet by far, I cook every meal. If I have a stretch of going into the office, I end up eating slop, which kills my energy levels
MaxHoppersGhost 2mo ago
And money spent on a more expensive house closer to the office vs the same home in an affordable place. It's the main reason I can't go back to San Francisco, once you get used to a less than one million four bedroom house in a pleasant neighborhood you can't go back to living in a shoebox for twice the price, even if it's the most beautiful city in the world.
zmmmmm 2mo ago
energy / time / money / environment / office space reclaimed

georgemcbay 2mo ago

Not having to plan my life around traffic patterns is the biggest advantage for me. I enjoy working in the office at my current place of employment... nice office space, small company, everyone who works there is great and the office is only 15 minutes away if there is no traffic. But I live in Southern California, so when there is traffic that 15 minute commute balloons to 45-60 minutes. So I work from home most of the time. I still go in a couple of times a week (voluntarily, not required) but there are no expectations of a set schedule so it is very easy for me to avoid heavy traffic commute times.

jjice 2mo ago

I go into my company's Boston office with an hour and a half commute each way by train about once a month. Even doing that once a month sucks. I couldn't imagine doing that even three times a week. I regularly get LinkedIn messages from recruiters with hybrid offerings in Boston that pay less and will then suck an additional 9 hours a week out of my life. Biggest nope I can think of. I'd have to get paid a lot more to sacrifice an additional 10 hours a week commuting. You can't just tack an additional ten hours worth of pay on, and even if the pay was excellent, I can't imagine this is something I can do long term. Losing three hours a day for a commute eats into so much social and sleep time.

ghaff 2mo ago
I didn't have to do it every day and it wasn't for that long a period but I had sort of come to the conclusion that it wasn't sustainable, especially after the novelty of working in the city wore off. I live fairly far out but, even that aside, there's just a lot of traffic. Even coming in for something after work these days still takes me 90 minutes to get in and commuter rail is useless for an evening event. Last sometimes commute (I traveled a lot) to a suburban office was much more manageable but the office shutdown at some point during COVID because of low use.

panny 2mo ago

>one of the biggest and simplest is getting commute time back Zoom out. Being full remote means I don't even need a car. I can live in a walkable city with passenger rail in a low cost of living location. I can reduce my living expense to just food and utilities with a paid off house and no automobiles.

KludgeShySir 2mo ago

Wait, are you saying that human contact has no bearing on one's psychological well-being? Or are you saying that I'm being deliberately obtuse?

jasondigitized 2mo ago

Commuting to work for people who don't absolutely need to commute to work may be the biggest cargo cult of them all.

zmmmmm 2mo ago

It's funny, because talk about a 25% potential productivity improvement saving multiple hours per day per employee in literally any other context and management would be crazy for it. Like AI hype bubble crazy. But culturally they cannot come to terms with the idea of losing power / control / influence over how work is done, so WFH gets treated completely differently.