IMO, an hour spent commuting is an hour stolen from one’s children.

I am starting to use coworking spaces now because WFH has something of a toll on my family, primarily because kids are loud, and it can be frustrating to work while your loud kid is screaming in the next room without enough of a sound barrier to prevent you from hearing it. I'm not angry at my child, but sometimes I get upset with my wife for not preventing this, or for telling me it's not that loud when it is impossible to escape the noise.

(And when they're not being loud, they're being cute, and it's a tempting and easy distraction to go spend some time with them in the middle of a work day.)

In this sort of dynamic, I see working at an office as a fairly healthy option. I know it's a bit of an outlier (SAH mother + WFH father), but I'm definitely more productive and less stressed out working from an office.

I agree with this to an extent. Our kiddos are old enough to be in school. But if someone is home sick, I have to take the day off because it’s hard to get anything done.

A reply to you mentioned noise-canceling headphones. That doesn’t work for me, because the kids want to engage and play with the parents when they’re at home. It’s not just a matter of noise.

That said! I still agree with OP’s sentiment. I find that I’m much more relaxed without having to worry about the commute. More time to help the kids get ready and just enjoy the moment. More time to walk them to school.

Before, I would be a ball of stress trying to get people out the door in the morning so I could catch one of only two buses that could take me across the bay to work.

Same thing in the evenings. More time to pick them up, walk home, take serendipitous side adventures and help foster their curiosity. I love it.

In Sweden, you have legally mandated days to take off specifically for kid related reasons, such as illness, which is quite neat :)

Yep, I strongly dislike working from home on days that the kids are home. But I also highly value the flexibility.

What is your office like? The ones I've had dubious honor to work in is like you describe, but with dozens of noisy adult children in the same room with me, not the next one.

I've bought 28sqm apartment to be my office, few mins by foot from our apartment when the kid arrived. It is just better to split work hours and family hours better at that point. Better for everybody. If the main apartment/house is big enough I would not have felt the need to do it probably.

I would still not accept working from office jobs though.

> I know it's a bit of an outlier (SAH mother + WFH father)

Not much of an outlier.

In this economy? Maybe not in your income bracket.

Based on the data on this page[1] on households with kids:

57% have both parents working full time

28% have one parent working full time and the other not working at all.

The remaining 16% is one full time, one part time.

As another commenter pointed out - while not the majority, it's definitely not an outlier.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2020/article/comparing-characte...

In the US at least, it's like 2:1 ratio, maybe 30-35% of families with kids have a stay at home parent.

So, less common, but not an incredible outlier.

What's somewhat interesting is that at both very low and very high income levels, the % of stay-at-home parent is higher. So for people near poverty, or people making top 1%-ish income, it's less than a 2:1 ratio, more like 35-40%. For middle income like $40k-$100k, it's more like 3:1 or 4:1.

At no income level is it lower than 20% stay at home parent though, so not too much of an outlier in any case.

Noise cancelling head phones and some soft music cuts out any kid noise completely for me.

Is this also true of an hour spent winding up or down by going on a walk or reading a book or some other adult hobby?

Personally, I don't believe I must either be working or spending time with my children every moment they are awake. I'm a person too, not just a worker and parent, and need to have my own time.

Hyperbole and language like this is exactly why it's so hard to have this debate in any rational way. The onsite crowd says that all their WFH colleagues are playing video games and doing laundry all day while the WFH crowd says employers are stealing from their employees' children.

I don't think the WFH crowd minds others going into the office. The pro onsite crowd on the other hand wants others forced into the office because their choice is unsupportable if people are given a free choice.

>98% of workers want to work remote at least some of the time 65% report wanting to work remote all of the time.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/remote-work-statisti...

If 1/3 of your workforce meets 2 days a week your average utilization is about 14%. The logical conclusion is a ghost town that goes away as soon as your employer cuts the building off like a diseased hand.

> If 1/3 of your workforce meets 2 days a week your average utilization is about 14%

That's a good point. All that fancy real estate and coffee machines start to look like a wasted investment when they're used 14% of the time.

Although you’re probably right, I think you’ve got the motivation of the pro office crowd wrong. They want folks in office because if any significant part of your team is remote then you are effectively working remote, even if you’re in an office.

Yep. Bingo. I want to interact with human beings otherwise my mental health tanks. I don't want to work remote and I even less so want to work in an empty office. If the office is empty I'm not going there because its twice as depressing.

This is basically what I said. The partially/fully remote crowd is the overwhelming majority. The only way to satisfy the minority is to submit the majority to the minorities preference. This doesn't seem altogether reasonable.

An ideal situation would be different companies with different philosophies in proportion to preference but this isn't really what's happening. You had a plethora of options during covid now you have a bunch of old people trying to force everyone back into the office.

I think a good compromise is just partially remote. I 100% see the benefit of not being in the office every day. I like going in 3 times a week. My company has a policy that every person must come into the office 3 days on mode (so like, if some weeks you don't reach 3 it's okay as long as most weeks you do), and allows 2 days for people who live far away. It works really well and satisfies my desire to be in the office and see other people there. Most people seem to enjoy it.

I think this is a remarkably dysfunctional policy that only serves to placate mostly irrelevant middle managers who now look as useless as they are and has literally no other virtues.

If part of your people are there and part are not then you must necessarily adopt patterns and communication techniques fit for remote work. Your remote people wont be happy because they have to come in and your in office people wont be happy because many days less than half the staff will be there.

If you want to have enough space for most people to be there on some days you need almost as much space as full in office. You can't realistically hire anyone who lives more than a 30-60 minute commute and because you want to have access to a large desirable workforce your building is probably located somewhere expensive as well. A large chunk of the most desirable workers who want to work remote are forever off limits or if you do make exceptions you now have jealousy and drama.

Hybrid work is the answer to how can I have all the disadvantages of both styles and none of the advantages while not being shitty enough that all of either group leaves.

There are good points here that would be nice to engage with in a fruitful discussion, but do you see how that's difficult to do when you lead with a provocative, emotionally charged phrase like

> I think this is a remarkably dysfunctional policy that only serves to placate mostly irrelevant middle managers who now look as useless as they are and has literally no other virtues.

You're wrong. Its the best office I've ever worked in with some of the happiest workers and a wonderful culture. I actually work there. You are getting very vitriolic about an extremely skewed hypothetical idea of my workplace that you've made up in your head. Meanwhile, I'm here, seeing happy workers all around me. And I'm not a manager. People like you sound grumpy and horrible and no wonder you don't like being around people. They probably don't like being around someone like you.

I know people with 1.5 hour commutes at my office. They come in twice a week. I ask them about it. They like coming in twice a week because everyone is really nice and friendly to be around. It's refreshing and fun. The only person management reprimanded about how often he came in was a young guy who lives less than 30 minutes away and didn't come in for 4 months. He doesn't really have an excuse. But everyone is allowed to skip a few weeks. It's not a punitive policy.

Let me also point out I'm not in the US. Living more than 1.5 hours away from your office is rare as hell and nobody is driving that distance. They're reading on the train. People leave early to miss rush hour. That's totally acceptable in our office. Because we're not micromanaging people. We just like people being in the office for culture. I know you can't fathom any reason to talk to other humans other than to control them, but some of us can.

And the people coming into the office are happy. We like seeing people, so we come in on similar days. Some people Mon-weds, some tues-thurs, some tues and thurs. Everyone knows noone comes in on friday and very few on monday. Most people come in on tues and thurs. So we coordinate. Because we are human beings with social skills.

Even the guy who avoided coming in for 4 months, when he came back said that he actually liked being in the office and would like to come in more he was just being lazy. I asked a girl who takes a 1.5 hour train and sometimes crashes at my house. She says she doesn't mind it at all she likes to have an excuse to come to the city and she still saves money over living here.

Not everyone is a miserable sod like you.

Here in the US the average person relying on public transit commutes 47 minutes each way. Leaving early is verboten and micromanagement as normalized as bringing your sickness to work with you and sharing it with your coworkers. Over 1 hour is not abnormal. Driving is shorter but much more expensive and more stressful.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/one-way-...

Most workplaces aren't social clubs much less families. It doesn't make one a sod to pick their friends and family and their work for different reasons and be jealous with their free time. You should celebrate your great fortune and I'm certain work put in to have your life figured out so well.

Most of us settle if we are lucky for something that pays enough to live with a reasonable work life balance and would do well to guard our time to spend with real friends and family we pick rather than the folks who happen to work in the same profession.

Looked up the average commute in London workplaces. It's about 45 minutes so not far off. But it's largely train. Which is a bit less mentally tiring at least if you only have to do it a couple times a week and can avoid the absolute worst time. Mine's 30.

What I'm confused about with the hatred for office work amongst people who are mainly working in tech is that most tech companies pride themselves on good work culture. Even in non tech specific companies there are a lot who want to emulate that in their tech departments because it's famous and revered. So yes, I put in some effort and found a good company. I've never worked at FAANG or even a startup but I found companies that value tech culture enough to not micromanage their tech department. So of all the demographics of people to be moaning so much about their work culture I don't understand why it's tech people.

I would also point out that you should perhaps get more agitated about your labour laws because in other countries we have twice or thrice as much anual leave and live in less siloed communities and both of those are proven to increase longevity. Both having more holiday and going to the office when you aren't on holiday will probably make you healthier and happier. At the end of the day, I'm advocating for working practices that align with human nature and are good for our mental and physical health. The fact that you don't have that is a whole other legal and cultural problem that comes from having no labour movement in your country. Which is really sad. But that's the problem at the end of the day.

I definitely like being able to wfh some of the time and I think having to work from office some of the time is a good compromise. When people aren't forced to go people don't go. Even i don't go, and i hate wfh all week. Because once people stop turning up, it starts to be pointless to go. I'm going because i need ftf interaction with people. If nobody turns up its not even fun. Also I have terrible time blindness and if I'm not forced to be somewhere at a certain time I will never get there....

Anyyway, where-ever i've been though that encourages a few days a week in the office, everyone says the big days where everyone comes in and we catch up are fun. The wfh days give us balance. only a handful of people attempt to avoid coming in like the plague. Most people don't like having to commute all the time, but very few people hate going outside and seeing people at work like the wierdos that argue for 100% wfh online.

I have a colleague that takes like a 1.5 hour train to get in and we just went to the pub together after work yesterday, sometimes i let her stay over at mine so she can be in office for an extra day. I love seeing this person. If there was no mandatory office, we would not be friends. Last year I worked 99% remote and I barely ever spoke to human beings and I wanted to die. We are not made to exist like that. And I think the wfh crowd is way too skewed towards middle aged people with spouses and children. If you don't have that wfh ruins your life.

At my last job, my manager was being flown in every week. He was in the office for three days a week and stayed at a hotel. His kids were apparently furious. The company was really committed to being in the office, but kept hiring people from different cities. It felt very destructive.

Wait until you hear about construction and physical labor jobs. All run by child abusers.

What about all of us that don't have children. who need social interaction outside the house to be sane? who have just started our careers and need friendly colleagues around us who will support us? who have been cast out of adolescence into a world where everyone tells us to stay in our room alone and maybe download an app if you don't want to be suicidal. not everyone is a middle aged parent my guy

You shouldn’t depend on work for a social life, or even social interaction. Moreover, it’s not the responsibility of your coworkers to provide that to you.

If you need mentorship, your employer may offer that as a formal program. You also might be able to reach out directly to more senior people. Frankly, I find more and better opportunities to provide mentorship over Zoom than I did in the office.

Good luck with your career and mental health, my guy.

During my last job change I gave concrete numbers to recruiters on what getting me into an office would cost.

In the end I ended up working remote, which is what I preferred, which wasn't surprising given how much the commuting time was worth to me.

For me it was:

>Company A is 2.5 hours of drive time

>Company B is remote

Pay is the same.

lol I imagine that Company A will find some sucker, but instead of getting A+ workers that can realize company B> company A, they are going to get the leftover workers, their second choice. To be fair, leftover workers seem to stick around at a company for 10-20 years.

Why call people suckers? Maybe they don't mind commuting? Maybe their commute is only 15 minutes, and not 2.5 hours?

> To be fair, leftover workers seem to stick around at a company for 10-20 years.

Even if they were "leftovers", their value to the company they know in and out after 10 to 20 years and their productivity skyrockets compared to the A+ rock stars that left the company after one year.

I think they would be referred to as 'suckers' because they are spending time for their employer for which they are not compensated in that scenario (two options, both pay the same, but one requires you to sacrifice significant portions of your day for no compensation).

You negotiate compensation before accepting the job and generally have the option to move.

If anything it’s people failing to consider commute times when looking for work that’s the issue not company’s requirements. Going they will pay me 10k more per year but I’ll spend X more hours a week commuting is effectively being paid to commute.

Hence calling them suckers. Doing the commute is fine, but not taking it into account is potentially seeking yourself short(even if you end up feeling forced to take an offer you feel doesn't take it into account - at least then you're aware).

Who are these people who are competent enough to hold an engineering position but do so without taking the facts of a commute into account?

Given the low proportion of people I've extended employment offers to over the years who even try to negotiate terms or drill down into employment terms that might affect the value, I'd assume it applies to most engineers.

At some point I got a week more holiday than every other employee in the UK at my employer at the time because I was the only hire who had questioned a contract clause and gotten them to confirm my preferred interpretation of a woefully misleading clause in writing before signing, and when they later wanted to stick to the technicalities of how it was written I was able to just forward them an email from the COO confirming that in my case they'd agreed to my interpretation.

Most people seem to only pay attention to the headline amount, and then grumble about the consequences after the fact.

Bill might like a long commute as much as Gladys likes to work from home. Hard to call Bill a sucker in that case.

The only reason I can imagine that somebody would genuinely like a long commute would be if they hate their home life and are trying to escape from it. They'd probably be better off just getting a divorce instead.

My commute is about 40 minutes each way by bus, plus a 5 minute walk on both ends. I love it. I get outdoors for a short walk four times a day, I read books and magazines on the bus, see what's being built or new businesses opening around town, sometimes I get to meet neighbors and other commuters, or help out random strangers with directions or whatever. My commute to work is definitely a benefit to my life.

If you had a remote job, would you take a 40-minute round-trip bus ride twice a day just for the enjoyment of it?

No.

During the summer when I work from home I take a 20 minute walk at 8:30 (and water my tomatoes) and a 20 minute walk at 12:00 before settling back into my home office with lunch.

If I’m feeling up to it, I get another 30-40 minute walk in once it cools off in the evening.

I don’t mind driving in during the winter though, because then I don’t have to pay to heat my house (beyond 15C for the cat) for the day.

The human brain is incredible at rationalization.

In this thread, hospitalJail discovers that some people enjoy leaving their basement :)

STRAWMAN Flag this. No one is arguging for isolation

I love to go to the park with my kids. I love going to parties.

I don't like sitting in my car unpaid to do work that doesnt require sitting in the car unpaid.

I was explaining to someone why I enjoy my commute. It's totally OK if you don't enjoy yours! I would also hate having to sit in a car! People are different and have different situations and that's OK.

Yeah I hate how the wierd basement dwellers are telling us how to handle our mental health. 99% of humans are not basement dwellers who don't like seeing people. People are becoming more socially awkward because our society is forgetting the fundamental social nature of human beings. So maybe some people think they like it. But the statistics don't lie - mental health is going off a fucking cliff. We're not meant to live like this. There are a few basement dwellers who are really that introverted, and there are some people who just have commutes that are THAT BAD (and that's bad town planning), but most people benefit from being outside our house for large portions of the week and having most of our communication being face to face. And that's just a fact.

This is the most institutionalized-minded answer I have seen.

I don't know what this means, sorry.

Nothing stops you from doing that if you work from home, so while the trip might be a benefit to you, it is entirely orthogonal from whether you work from home or an office.

On the contrary, not being forced into the office let's you choose your journeys.

This nearby comment does a good job explaining why that doesn't really work out for me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39042945

I can't help but feel that is a rationalisation.

No. theres a reason why humans have always had routines that are agreed upon by society. We are social creatures. We are not made to be individualistic islands with all the responsibility to perfectly dial in our mental health ourselves.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. You're arguing I would be a happier or better person if I stopped doing a thing I enjoy doing? Why?

Reading on a long buss/train ride can be inherently pleasant. Similarly not all car commutes are stuck alone in traffic, I rather enjoyed commuting with my dad.

I had a bike / ferry / bike commute a couple days a week for a while. It was nice to get that exercise in, and I enjoy ferry rides too.

I did once work with someone who intentionally found a job far enough from home that he could justify a "bachelor pad" in town and just go home to the family home at the weekends. I wonder what proportion of weekend commuters do it out of a desire to stay away vs. financial reasons.

I've been WFH for 15 years and love it. My wife has been WFH for 3 years. While I do prefer WFH, I think there were benefits to us being apart during the work day and then catching up at dinner/evening. There are some downsides to being together 24/7, even in a good relationship.

Gladys can drive around for hours at will, while Bill has no choice. Bill is still a sucker.

There can actually be significant value to limiting optionality. This is the solution to "the paradox of choice"; sometimes it's actually better to have fewer choices!

I find this very unintuitive and even mentally rebel at the idea when I think about it, but I still think it's true.

But for example, consider three scenarios:

1. Work from home, with a consistent habit of going on a ten minute walk and reading for half an hour before and after work. 2. Commute with a ten minute walk and half hour train ride, with a consistent habit of reading on the train. 3. Same as (1), but family responsibilities and other distractions end the moment work begins and begin the moment work ends. 4. Same as (2), but spend the train ride doom scrolling.

For me (1) is best but also unlikely because there are too many other "choices" of what to do before and after work, so in practice I end up doing (3).

But option (2) of commuting by train would actually be better than (3) despite having less optionality! I would have more wind-up and -down time each day, and get more reading done.

But the risk of option (2) is that there is still too much optionality; instead of reading, I could scroll crap on my phone. Removing that optionality somehow - by getting a dumb phone or some other solution to keep myself from this bad habit - would be another improvement.

Clearly it would be better to make better choices without limiting options, but human nature being what it is, it often turns out better in practice to not have the other options at all.

15 minutes is not significant.

15 * 2 minutes a day 5 times a week is 100h+ by the end of the year

It's 1.4% of the year (assuming that 130 hours a year is correct I didn't check it). That's less than two ounces out of a gallon of liquid or less than half a centimeter out of a foot.

In what other things is 1.4% considered "significant?"

Taxes jump to mind. COL adjustments vs inflation for the past few years also comes to mind. Beating some measurable world record by 1.4% is probably a big deal. I'm sure there are more examples if you look for them.

Bro nobody is spending 100% of their time being productive. we have to have transitional time. time going from one place to another is a net benefit because living in one box is anti-human. for me the cost of the time is so so worth it because i feel so much better seeing my colleagues in person. i become a shell of myself if i don't leave the house so losing the time is something i'm very okay with. its such a small amount of time to make my life 200x better.

You can read 10 books during that time. It's not like you need to sit there, do nothing and intensively hate your life 2 * 15 minutes a day.

Or, you know, it's 15min exercise which you need just the same :)

130h a year, assuming you work 5 days every week and that every commute is exactly 15min.

Would I be a sucker if I have a 12 minute commute and prefer going into the office with my teammates?

No one lives 12 minutes away from this place. They picked the 'Ohio' of our state to build their HQ. Cheap land.

Wow, just wow. Calling someone a sucker for taking a job, without considering anything else.

What about the top of the crop who live around the corner and prefer office over WFH for a clear separation between work and personal life?

Tech is full of people like OP. You got good paying job (because profession is hot) so you’re obviously smarter than everyone else, and your way of thinking and living is only right one.

‘Smarter’ or just ‘different’…?

I don't think that's entirely true. I know a few A+ people who enjoy being in the office and hate working from home. I don't know how many of those folks there are, but I don't think company A would be totally stuck with leftover workers.

Once you add those numbers, the total is usually insane. While I do miss being in the office sometimes (mostly for the social life), it's just too expensive for me as a worker right now. It's not just the time spent on commute, it's also the money that you have to spend to stay within a commutable distance from the office.

Also, my profession is being a Software Engineer, not a train passenger.

I made a calculator for this a while ago: https://flat.social/blog/get-a-remote-team-back-in-the-offic... (scroll a bit down for the inputs).

> You spend around 8 hours on travel weekly which amounts to around 45 days of full-time work per year and will sum up to 450 days of full-time work (3600 hours) over 10 years. It's 4 years of full-time work days (9000 hours!) over 25 years.

Kind of wish I hadn't looked... :(

And if you're driving to the office, that's 450 hours where you can get into a fatal accident, with about half of them in the morning when you might be too sleep-deprived to safely operate a motor vehicle. Driving on four hours of sleep is the equivalent of drunk driving. And if your start time is the same every day, then it's likely you'll have many nights where you fall asleep too late, maybe even because you're preparing a presentation for your morning meeting...

Or 450 hours of breathing with polluted air stuck in an outdated underground train system - https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/london-underground-pollution

Yep, I prefer the office.

... but not even close to enough to car-commute more than about 10 minutes to it, given the option. That's roughly the cut-off. Under 1.5 bikeable miles (that's ideal!) or maybe 5 miles by car.

And to get that short a commute, I'd need all kinds of other compromises in most cities. Worse schools, more expensive and smaller housing.

Is my preference for the office worth hundreds of hours a year lost commuting, thousands of dollars a year in transportation costs, and all the extra micromorts from the commute? LOL. LMFAO. God no, it's not even close. No typical commute is a low enough cost that I'd pay it to be in the office. It's way off.

So, though I do in fact prefer working in the office... nah.

Money to stay within commutable distance, but also the cost of the commute itself.

E.g. my yearly cost of commuting when I did added equivalent to about $2.5k/year in after tax transport costs.

I've typically told recruiters about 20%, from a high base, and frankly that is lower than it ought to be when accounting for both the time and costs, but given I already live where I live, I feel I could justify it in terms putting extra cash straight into my pension pot and retiring earlier. But not enough to lower it further to find a point where someone is more likely to take me up on it.

I definitely agree here. For most of my career I was fortunate enough to not have a "real" commute. at most a 20 min walk to the office. The worse commute is when it was raining or snowing.

The problem becomes now my home is tied to my work place. If the company moves or I change companies, I have move or stress at a new commute. I did move once during a job change, and it didn't last long.

Another compounding issue is that I like to stay at companies for a long time, 10 years. This is frequently becoming difficult for a number of reasons not entirely in my control.

I wonder if others are in the same situation.

I wouldn’t call 2.5% of the day (including night) nothing. 20 minutes is way past the upper bound of a daily commute I would consider reasonable!

If you take a 1 hour commute (30 min each way)

It’s waking time, not sleeping time, which is out of a 16 hour waking day.

5 hours a week makes about 20 hours a month roughly, which is about half an extra work week to live that you miss out on.

Multiply that 30 minute commute each way by 12 months and it’s close to 260 hours a year.

160 hours a month of work so you get back about 1.6 working months to put into something else.

I had a few minute commute for 10 years. It was an unfair advantage.

I wouldn’t call it nothing either. I’d call it “actually getting a decent amount of exercise,” something many struggle with.

That sounds like a self-discipline problem.

What’s wrong with incorporating exercise into one’s lifestyle, without dedicated exercise time? It’s convenient and sustainable. Sure, it’s not as good as dedicated exercise time in terms of the adaptations one would get, but it’s much better than the adaptations they’d get on their couch.

Nothing is wrong with that - it's the issue of attempting to impose it on others which is objectionable.

point me to where they tried to "impose" this on others...

And the walk to work is a self-discipline solution!

You wierdos want everyone to have to micromanage our own mental health like we're islands. Humans are social creatures with social rituals for a reason. We go mad without them. People shouldn't have to force themselves to do everything without any social support. (and i go to the gym 4 times a week with my own discipline so no im not incapable i just don't want to have to do that about everything ever)

People think youre a pussy thats why you got downvoted. but I agree with your spirit though. We should minimize commute time.

I too prefer a voluntary 20 minute walk over a mandatory one. Then my brain can be aimed at what I value, not work.

I cant find a company that doesnt implode in less than a year.

Edit: Subcontractor at bp. Opec crunch. entire floor fired. Hardware startup, unexpected giant bill overnight. Layoffs. Fullstack webshop, sales didnt land. Crypto finance gig, asset prices crashed, clients all went broke instantly.

Sometimes thats just how it is.

I absolutely let my employer pay for my commute. Indirectly of course, but my income requirements are dependent on how much hours I have to put into work, which includes my overall time investment. Same with all other costs I have because of work.

That said, time is important to me and I have a 5min commute, 20min if I walk. For that reason I do prefer the office. Better meals and better coffee and nice colleagues.

If employers want to force people into offices, maybe pay them a bonus.

It's not the financial cost of the time that's important it's the time itself - it's the requirement to completely go against my internal body clock to be at a location by a socially determined starting time - I start working at 10am usually - from home that means I can get up at 8.30 perhaps- to be in an office that means 6.30 am - I don't want to wake up at that time...

Disclaimer: not saying regular exercise isn't important...

There is a meme, or some "motivational" thing that floats around. "Exercise for an hour a day. It's less than 5% of your day - what's your excuse?"

Uhh... because, if I factor in: - 8 hours for sleeping

- 8 hours for working

- 1.5-2 hours for commuting

- 0.5-1 hour to get ready for work

- 1 hour to prepare and eat dinner

All of a sudden we are at 19-20 hours, and it's not less than 5% of my day, it's actually 25% of my day.

Better coffee is definitely situational, especially if your employer buys over roasted beans.

I have good coffee at home but my boss is a fanatical addict that considers bad coffee a mortal sin.

It sounds like you're lucky to have that boss if you really enjoy coffee. I would wager most bosses are fanatical cheapskates that consider expensive coffee an unnecessary cost

Usually office coffee sucks though. Do you have real manual espresso machine in the office and a person who is responsible for operating and regularly cleaning it? The automatic kind with "americano" and "espresso" buttons can't really make a good coffee.

Exactly. For me, there's nothing better than 15 minute walking commute.

Not just time cost, but also monetary cost. At least in tech, most jobs exist in a small set of metro areas where housing prices are incredibly high. Pushing for more remote work enables more flexibility in where people live / can ease some of the housing pressure on these congested metros.

And the housing in those cities scales terribly when you have kids. What might’ve been doable with 1 or 2 people traps you into very high rent or mortgage (+ even worse commute) to have room for a family. I moved out of the west coast - which I really liked as a place - to be closer to family and to pay 1/3 to 1/2 for the housing

This is one of the reasons I've stayed remote, in spite of being OK in an office environment (and sometimes preferring it).

I'm moving out to a town 3 hours away, which is not really commutable into London. It's a better quality of life, and the housing options are much better. Selfishly, I don't much care about the housing pressure in London, but I do care about whether I can spend my downtime going places and doing things I enjoy, and remote working makes that MUCH easier.

The solution to that problem is to count the travel time and any required breaks as part of work hours while also reimbursing all travel expenses. That would require employers to pay the full cost of unnecessary in-person work on both ends and would strongly disincentivize them from doing it.

Employers reimbursing your travel expenses if they need you to travel to a conference on the other side of the country is already the norm so why shouldn't they reimburse your travel expenses if they want you to travel somewhere in the same geographic area?

Wouldn't this subsidize other's to live further away from work? I think this might have up having unintended negative externalities. It doesn't seem "fair", because I could get paid more for living further away (assuming I'm compensated for commuting time beyond just the cost of depreciation, gas, and maintenance).

One twist on your idea: why not give the employers some incentives to spread out more? For example, if they want you to live in a city center Monday through Friday, they should have to pay for your city housing. (If you want to own a house and go there on weekends, you can buy one independent of the employer.) This would cause employers to rethink the idea that they should be locating themselves in places like San Francisco or New York.

If people stay in terrible working conditions to maintain health insurance, I can't imagine the kinds of pressures involved when your home is tied to changing jobs.

Not quite comparable though I would say, given that you know what you're signing up for when applying for a job. Travelling to a conference is a one-off whereas you'd be expecting to come to your job everyday (given the contract states this). You wouldn't accept a job in another country and turn round expecting them to pay for your flights, hotel etc. to be in the area during the work week

Aside from being compensated directly for daily commutes (on which we could reasonably disagree), there’s also an issue around liability: if someone crashes going to work and the other side wants to sue, should the company be liable, the employee, or both? Being “on-the-clock” makes it more likely the company would bear responsibility, as opposed to being “off-the clock”. Company cars seem to be less common now than they were even 10 years ago. A personal injury lawsuit could easily bankrupt a household, but is much less likely to bankrupt a mid-sized or large company.

I would argue this is implicitly paid in salary differences

It makes perfect sense to you, and me, but unfortunately, in America at least, the upper hand is very much with employers. I could be semi-OK with non-reimbursement for salaried workers if daily travel was factored in, but for those on hourly wages it’s immoral to have commuting expenses (time __and__ money) eat significantly into wages.

We actually deal with this nonsense in our household; my wife is hourly and between the commute, parking, and walking to/from her workplace she loses about 20-25% compared to the time she actually gets paid for. We also spend a lot on gas, and have been putting ridiculous miles on her daily driver. Not to mention physical fatigue and emotional stress; she talks about quitting at least once a week. All for a mediocre wage (I would have said it’s garbage if she was our sole earner - my compensation is about double hers and I WFH).

Edit: also, I remember company cars being a thing not too long ago. I don’t hear about them as much as I used to.

BTW this is where commute by public transport shines. My 30 minutes to the office are my dedicated reading time, an hour a day. If instead I had to drive, that would be lost time, because paying enough attention to the book distracts enough from driving to add unnecessary risk.

I enjoy my commute as well but no amount of justifiying it changes the fact I’d be much better off with either a shorter commute or none whatsoever by going fully remote. I’d even be okay with hybrid. Wasted time on commute ads up to a minilifetime that could be used in different ways

And then there are the people who want to visit family far away from their home and still be able to work. That’s enabled by remote work.

True, my WFH option has allowed me to spend weeks at a time with my parents and siblings, who live far from me, at very important times in their lives.

Previously I’d see them during holidays only, and now I see them once a month and actually am able to spend quality time with them.

And while I respect the idea and value of non-remote, I don’t think any amount of “in-person whiteboarding sessions and relationship building” would be worth sacrificing for the flexibility of spending quality time with my family and seeing them more often.

It depends. In my case the commute is a (seriously) bumpy bus ride that takes 2-3 times more than by car (the bus has stops and it takes a longer route and I have to change the bus at least once, that adds extra latency). Fortunately the bus is relatively empty in my stop so I don't have to stand.

This means that I couldn't read anything. Shaking of the bus also gives me time to time a mild headache. Now if the ride was smoother (like a train or a tram) and I still could sit and read then indeed I would agree with you.

Fortunately I don't have to commute very often so I can tolerate this to a degree but if I had to commute every day then it would add considerable extra strain into my life.

Normally the day should be divided into 3 equal parts: 1 sleep time, 2 work time, 3 personal time.

Commute time effectively steals from either personal time or from sleep time and this comes on top of getting ready for work that is also a major waste of time in the mornings.

When for many years I had a long commute into London I appreciated I was lucky that it was on a train line without any train changes required. So that was a calm productive "me time" on the train for over an hour each way. Usually do some work on my laptop, some hacking on hobby apps, some film watching etc. Also a lot of snoozing.

But I also self-selected roles closer to the end station in London so the commute at the other end was short-ish.

Whenever I had to do any other commute: by car, bus, multiple changes, etc it was always a grind and shortlived.

However, I was able to stop even the not-so-bad commute long before COVID as I wanted to be at home when the kids came back from school as they are only young once and briefly so. Though I miss the "me-time".

Shines where it can, doesn't work in most of the US.

Public transit use:

https://vividmaps.com/public-transportation-in-the-united-st...

https://vividmaps.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/public-tran...

Population density:

https://www.axios.com/2023/10/28/americans-moving-map-2022-f...

https://www.axios.com/2023/01/31/cities-pandemic-moving-tren...

https://www.axios.com/2023/09/14/where-america-stands

Thankfully the US is a major outlier in this aspect globally.

You need to get out of your bubble. After having traveled to more than 60 countries on all the continents (except Antarctica), I can assure you that a majority of humans do not have good reliable public transport. It is a luxury that only some parts of the world have.

Just as an example, right now I am in an Indian city where there is some minimal public transport but a majority of people need their own vehicle to commute for most of their journeys. And it is not an unusual scenario for India, which contains more population than Europe and North America combined.

You're being silly. The majority of the world also doesn't have access to airplanes, but that doesn't mean they don't work. OP is certainly not in the ridiculous bubble you're describing.

OP's words: "Thankfully the US is a major outlier in this aspect globally."

I don't think OP understands the meaning of the word globally

We need to keep in mind the framing of this- it’s a discussion about commuting vs wfh. In the universe of locations where that’s a serious conversation the US is an outlier in terms of poor public transit.

Don't you think Indians too have serious discussions about commuting vs wfh? Now I am asking this seriously - what bubble are you living in if you think that topic doesn't pertain to people in developing countries?

I do not think that it is valid to compare a developing country that can't provide even proper sanitation to US.

We can compare US to Japan, to Europe, perhaps to some parts of China but certainly not to India - it would be too much apples to cucumbers comparison.

I agree. Then let's say "developed world". Saying US is a global outlier is silly when much of the globe is underdeveloped.

Perhaps, but we can say that there are certain reasons why the public transportation can be not very good in the developing world.

Imagine that we but every country and their development index and their public transportation development index on a XY graph? Would US still stand out?

Let's assume that it does. Then we can say that US is a global outlier.

I now see where you are coming from and based on your definition, it makes sense that US is a global outlier. However, the dimension of developed status of a country was not at all apparent in the original context which was only about WFH, commute and public transport.

Why would you think comparing the developing world with the USA makes in any way sense - do you actually think the US is at the developmental level of India?

When comparing similarly wealthy countries the US is absolutely an outlier in this.

> Why would you think comparing the developing world with the USA makes in any way sense

Because you said - "Thankfully the US is a major outlier in this aspect globally." "Globally" implies the entire world. Now why are you moving the goalposts? If you wanted to confine the discussion to the developed world, just call out US being an outlier in the developed world.

I think it was obvious what they meant given context.

I don't think it is that obvious. HN is a global platform after all.

It stands to reason that someone who has travelled to over 60 countries would have the ability to understand what someone is trying to say without being this needlessly pedantic.

Probably we have different reasoning processes then. But this discussion is about WFH vs remote and the impact of not having to commute. It is a very pertinent topic to a lot of workers in developing countries because they too have to endure shitty commutes every day.

It shines when comparing to commute by private transport, but not so much when comparing it to no commute at all. If you didn't have a commute to the office, you would still have an hour to do your reading, but you could do it in bed, or in a coffee shop, or in your kitchen, or on a walk...

I find that a reason to leave the house and be a part of the hustle and bustle is fundamentally good for my energy and mental health. I bet I wouldn't read in the morning as much if I didn't have that commute.

This is very subjective, as well as personal and irrational, but I find it to be true. I benefit from having a reason to go out into the world in the morning. WFH and the freedom to go to the coffeeshop or take a walk didn't match up.

I agree. I lose energy levels and general lust for life when I don't have a strong reason to leave the house.

I have a public transit commute, but at the end of the day it's 8 minutes of walking to the train, a transfer after 7 minutes, and then a 7 minute walk to the office from the train. Never enough unbroken time to get into a book :(. I've learned something new about public transit commuting--look for a commute with as long a single stint on the train as possible, while still trying to minimize total time.

Getting the extra reading time is nice, and if I didn't have a family I'd be all about that. But for me I get to spend mornings and evenings with my son, but if I had to commute half an hour then the morning would become just a rush to get him to daycare and the evening I might get to see him for a few minutes before he goes to bed. Sure the hour of reading would be nice but it would greatly diminish the quality time I'm able to spend with the little man.

> BTW this is where commute by public transport shines.

That depends on the public transport. When I lived in London (inside what is known as the zones 1-6), I had a walk, a wait for space on a train, then stand for 40 minutes on that completely packed train, then a change at a crowded station, then another wait for space on an underground train, then stand on a completely packed underground train. All of this while dealing with angry and rude other people trying to push on each step before you. I would get to work completely stressed and in a bad mood already. That is on a good day. On a bad day the trains would just be cancelled, or the underground halted, or something and it would take hours to just get to the office.

The only way I would consider going back to something like that is for a huge, huge amount of money.

I've generally had a 30-40min commute most of my career, but also generally had a flexible enough start time that exact to the minute arrival at my desk was not performance impacting.

Unfortunately a lot of things conflate over time as you become more senior to generally make your commute worse.

For me - my last 2 roles have earlier required start time, with a hard start (morning meeting / standup / L3 support presence), company office locations got a little further, and trains got a little less reliable.

Fortunately I am remote since COVID, but when I was going in / or have to go in now.. I need to bake in 45-60min depending on how much I'm willing to risk being late that day.

For me I'd rather work 11-12 hours/day at home then go into office for 10 hours & spend 1.5-2 hours on the commute. Company is getting 10-20% more time out of me, and I at least save the money & "commute prep time".

Why are you working at all during what was your commuting time? You weren’t getting paid for those 7.5-10 hours before, so you’re in a worse position now unless your pay increased commensurate with the extra hours. That should have translated into more personal hours, not more working hours.

I took on a role with earlier/longer expected hours, but with the agreement I would do it remotely. And yes it's for a lot more money, not just an extra 10-20% for the extra 10-20% hours.

Ah, good on ya!

To be fair though, my previous role I found the day got longer during/post COVID because senior managers suddenly felt empowered to schedule meetings earlier and later.

In some cases, it was getting brought into more senior manager meetings I previously wasn't privy to, that had always been too early (7-8am).

In other cases, it was moving those same managers goal posts because they'd always been online early and hey if you want access to them, the only place to find time on their calendar was like 8am or 5pm.

I know A LOT of senior IC / team lead people who fell into this trap during COVID.

> For me I'd rather work 11-12 hours/day at home then go into office

How sustainable is to work 11-12 hours a day though? If we do 5 hours of intense work and the rest is spent in meetings or other overhead activities make 8 hours just enough to make it sustainable over long periods of time…

Let's put it this way. I'm expected to be readily accessible for 9-10 hours/day, and reachable for some hours outside of that. I have some operational responsibilities in the morning, maybe 1~3 hours of meetings and fully understood we get in far less than 5 hours of intense work. People are generally cool with me being totally away from desk for lunch.

How I spend the time in between in terms of doing research/reading/etc is up to me. If I had to do this in an office setting it would suck to be stuck there when stuff does come up.

> I'm expected to be readily accessible for 9-10 hours/day

Why? Are you contracted for 45-50 hours per week? Or if contracted less, are you compensated for the additional hours?

I'm contracted for 38.5 hours per week. That's 8.125 hours Monday to Thursday and 6.00 on Friday. If I work longer than this I am compensated with time off in lieu. I do have to log my time daily. Overall works great. I'm fairly paid and have a good lifestyle.

I actually find it hard to imagine working 9-10 hours every day for any extended time period.

It’s really more than that. I live in the city, my office is 7 minutes away most mornings.

The transition time of arrival and departure is easily 30-45m daily, on my employers dime.

I do 50% and it works for me. End of the day most of the problems associated with this issue are workplace and cultural issues that come to a head with remote/hybrid. The only novel dysfunctions with employees that I see (and I’m an exec with about 900) are people doing things like secretly moving away and abusing medical accommodation. There’s also an issue where people build their life around remote and are disappointed when they miss opportunities, but are unwilling to meet in the middle.

End of the day. The lazy idiots are just as lazy, grinders grind, and smart people continue to be smart.

I just commute during work hours. My boss is fine with this and I'm in the office around 6.5 hours per day.

Which is perfect. If that time is counted as part of work, thats a good deal. That is ideally what it should change to.

It still sucks. I want to be solving interesting problems during my work hours, not deal with traffic.

Thankfully I take the train/bike (and I love biking quickly up the SF hills, absolutely smoking people using electric motors).

Not only the commute, but also lunch breaks. In US and Canada, lunch breaks are short, but back in Brazil I had a 1:30h lunch break, and then at another job, 1:12. But I'm at the office, can't go to bed, I'm at the company's computer so can't do anything I want, also it's in the office, so if watching some TV show or anime that has more graphic content, that might also be a no.

So basically, waste of time.

I get calls for jobs that would increase my TC by 100k, jobs I’m confident I could land, and I won’t interview for any of them. That’s how much WFH means to me.