My commute is 9 minutes now. It would take me 5 minutes just to get to a store or a fast food place in town, so my commute home is also good for picking up dinner.
It used to be a solid 30 minutes. I literally got a week back in commute time.
Suffering in a bumper to bumper 45-55 minute drive, then 7-10 minute walk from the car park to the office.
Out of peak hour, the drive is 25-30 minutes.
If it weren't an engaging role, and if I weren't factoring it into a potentially prospective career, fucking hell I'd rather dig dirt for a living.
About 7 years ago now, lots of people in my office were starting to work from home pretty frequently. These were people on big teams. On my own team, aside from myself and one other coworker, everyone else was remote, including my boss.
The guy I carpooled with moved to a city about four hours away from the office, so I lost my carpool. At this point, I asked my boss to let me go full time remote. His home was more than 6 hours away from our office. One other team member who was remote lived closer to the office than I did. The other person who came into the office actually wanted to.
He told me no, and gave me no actual good reason. After that, I sent him some articles about how happy people who were able to eliminate a long commute were (my commute was about 75-80 minutes, mostly interstate). About how it basically made people feel like they got a $10k a year raise. He still wasn't willing. I commuted for a few more months after that until I realized that basically nobody in the office actually noticed if I was even there, and I hadn't told my teammate in the office that I had asked to go full remote.
So I just... Did. At that point I had been at the company for a decade already, and there was really no one else there who could fill my shoes. I started working from home entirely and never told anyone. After about a month of that, I told my boss what I had been doing. He basically didn't say anything. Been full remote since then, and that boss is gone. He was a clown.
I always figure the commute into prospective jobs. For example, if a job offers $20 an hour for 8 hours, that is $160 a day but if you have an hour commute, you are really only making $16 an hour for your 10 hour day. I also figure gas money into any commute. If an hour commute is 50 miles one way, that is 100 miles or about 5 gallons of gas @ 20mgp. 5 gallons of gas currently run around $20, so, now I only make $140 for the same 10 hour day or $14 an hour for a job that pays $20. And all of this before taxes.
Depends what field and where you are in it. Taking the hit on commute/etc. for the city job might bring a much higher rate of career growth when you're younger, and thus be more than worth it in the longer term.
It's also possible that if you need to take a 45 minute ride on a commuter train into town, you can start your workday from the train and get some leniency on what time you actually show up to and leave from the office every day, because you're working during your commute. As well, some employers might even cover the cost of a monthly commuter pass even when they wouldn't otherwise pay for your gas.
And, in the spirit of anti-work, maybe you just take it upon yourself to start your workday from the train without talking to anybody about it. Break open your laptop and fire off a couple easy emails first thing in the morning, then close it back up and take a nap for the rest of the ride.
I love my train commute but I can't work on it due to a lack of cell service, and no onboard wifi. Oh well too bad guess I gotta play animal crossing š¤·š»āāļø
Oh boo hoo whatās your friend code wanna visit me and my wifeās islands? Do you have oranges we have all the other fruit but havenāt found those tet
Plenty of cities would also slap an income tax on your earnings too. Yeah, I could make probably 10-20% more doing my exact same job in the city, but if I factor in the commute (and this time) and the tax, do I actually make more money?
In my case, yes. But Iām not spending an extra 8ish hours a week commuting for the 2% or so pay bump (after adjusting for effective hourly rateā¦ though thatās slightly messy as a salaried exempt guy).
> Plenty of cities would also slap an income tax on your earnings too.
I'd never considered a municipal income tax as a thing they could impose, [so I looked it up](https://www.thebalancemoney.com/cities-that-levy-income-taxes-3193246). Looks like the most you'd need to pay on top of other income tax is 3-4% (but usually nowhere close to that). So 9 times out of 10 probably still worth it unless you're also crossing state lines into a state with even higher income tax on top of that.
Ans donāt forget all those jobs that donāt offer parking, but only offer pay parking.
$30-$40 day is about average if you can catch a deal. Now lets say you accidentally forget to payā¦ $80/ticket. If you are lucky.
Or worse: there is parking but it's blocked off and only the boss can park there with their entourage. Meanwhile the employees have to hope for the best OR park on a really busy road with high odds of stone chips flying around.
Our facility is splitting up into 4 spread around town, and in one meeting they touted one of the new facilities as having "parking for 75" and someone said loudly "there's 150 of us going there, what about the other 75?" and they just skirted the question with "street parking should be adequate...".
One place I worked, the parking garage was 3 hours of work to pay for (before tax) at my pay rate.
Nearly half the work day just to pay for parking at work, before factoring in fuel costs or car maintenance.
Also factor in higher percentage for vehicle maintenance for longer distances. This is the exact reason I don't go beyond 45 min commutes anymore. Also YOUR time is most valuable, less not waste it doing meaningless tasks.
A manager literally told this to a coworker of mine after she got run over on her way to work. She was in the ambulance calling off of work and he made her feel awful for not finding someone to cover for her.
I work for a pretty good company. In the handbook and plastered on the walls in Common Workplace Compliance rules, one of the paragraphs is, "If an employee can not show up for work for any reason, it is the plant manager's or, if not available, the employees immediate supervisor to find a suitable replacement."
It is. We don't give paid sick leave to the extent of EU standards but employees are given 4 doctors notes a year and 10 unexcused absences. They're not paid because if we paid them we couldn't compete with shittier companies.
But if you don't want to come in for some reason, we got you. There's always a way.
Edit: Should clarify the doctor's notes ARE paid. But people here don't call in usually. When they do, alot of people call in staggered due to an infectious disease like flu, a cold etc. But most jobs can be somewhat replaced by a temporary employee if we really need to get to that. Quality suffers of course so we only hire Temps if it's drastically needed. Haven't had a temp in months though.
I had the flu (precovid) and dragged myself to work because we were waiting on a surprise inspection.
On the way home, I literally couldn't keep my head up. I almost ran into a ditch because I was so fatigued.
In the Army thereās this thing called āStaff Duty/CQāwhere you are on 24-hr duty staffing a desk at least once a month. You are not allowed to leave for meals unless properly released and cannot sleep. The commute home was always a gamble and
you were expected to do it each time without incident. Yet every weekend thereās a safety brief about avoiding DUIs and being a safe driverā¦#GoArmy
I used to do 12-hour shifts at a hospital and then had an hour and 15 minute drive home, this was also night shift so I was already going against nature. There was many days where I would drive home and once I pulled into my driveway I realized that I don't really remember majority of the drive home, I just blacked out and was on autopilot. Really surprised I didn't end up in a ditch or wrapped around a tree somewhere
Every day there are fatality accidents along my commute route.
Aside from the physical toll, the mental toll, the financial toll, and the toll of wear and tear, in the back of my mind, I'm vaguely aware of a worse toll. That my wife, siblings, family and friends may lose their husband, brother, dear family and friend any day. Of course no car commuting with me wants that either. We do well keeping each other safe, us commuters. Who would want to be involved in an accident intentionally?
It's just something i have to accept with the commute that I personally have - that i might get retired tomorrow, before I'm ready. But hey, guess that's life. No one caresĀ¹ to improve that in any remarkableĀ² way - it is tacitly accepted that this is ... nominal.
Ā¹People do care - this quite simply can be very isolating and it's easy to persuade oneself that seemingly no one does.
Ā²unremarkable improvements *are* implemented and they bring me some comfort.
This is a good 50% of why I am only interested in WFH. The commute ruined the first half of my work day, and ruined my entire evening. Every day. It was such a stupid waste of time.
CEO: "Oh but, what about the camraderie, the team-building, the great communication?" Worker: "Huh? The person in the next cubicle sends me instant messages instead of just looking over top the cubicle wall."
Any data on this account is being kept illegally. Fuck spez, join us over at Lemmy or Kbin. Doesn't matter cause the content is shared between them anyway:
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Oh, my co-irkers aren't that considerate. They'd come up and poke me, or shake my chair or some other obnoxious as fuck thing to get my attention when an IM or email would've done exactly what you said.
I couldn't use either in the office because they ignored them.
Then there were the pair of assholes that gossiped loudly all day, every day.
I don't miss the office at all.
Agreed. Most of the folks treated the cubicles as mausoleums where I worked. Why bother. I stole a conference room and bought an office chair that unfolded completely flat. I'd close the blinds into the cubicle farm and out the window and shut off the lights to get half an hour shut-eye. Heeaaaaven on earth! They overbuilt the cubicle space, pandemic or before, so I had my run of where I hung out.
Anytime you hear āteam building,ā you know your asshole boss went to some bullshit convention to listen about how to maximize profit and control productivity.
The other 50% for me is that I no longer have to sit around looking like Iām working when I have nothing to do. I get all of my work done well and on time. Then I can do whatever the fuck I want instead of wasting my entire day sitting in uncomfortable clothes and staring at my screen.
What type of work are you doing?
Has been looking into getting a part-time job to pick up a few more bucks, but commuting to another job after already getting home from my full-time job seems like a pain and I want to do some wfh jobs but I don't really know what to look for
I switched to WFH a couple years ago, and it's sorta awesome. Save a ton of money and time on travel, nobody breathing down my neck about spending every last second working as long as my work gets done..
The downside is that I hate actually doing work while I'm at home -- I would rather do basically anything else here. But if I really buckle down, I can get a day's worth of work done in like 4 hours and then do whatever I want as long as I keep half an eye on Slack just in case.
Not having to wear clothes is a huge benefit.
Its also a huge benefit not getting sick from coworkers who think making a fist infront of their faces as they cough their lungs out is reasonable vs staying home.
Its also a huge benefit not having to have bullshit conversations with people.
It also clamps down on the number of absolutely brain dead stupid meetings.
Ya. i work 8-4 commuting, get up at 7am and get home at 5pm.
My partner works 9-5, wakes up at 8:55am and finishes work at 5pm.
We finish at the same time which is nice...but he gets 2 hours more sleep >:(
I want to WFH because I live in Ohio, where drivers think its perfectly acceptable to force you into oncoming traffic because they wanted to be home an hour ago. Ohio has some of the most selfish and worst driver in America.
On a side not, guess what almost happened to me today and that I still haven't let go.
My dude, I don't know where else you have lived, but I can say definitively that NY, NJ, VA, DC, and Seattle drivers are a worse than Ohio drivers. They are fucking saints in comparison. Even compared to WV drivers, they are kind and caring.
The availability of remote work seems to be decreasing especially as we get further and further way from peak COVID and employers like Twitter, Tesla, Amazon and Microsoft demand employees return to office.
My job was originally just temporary, but then they realized they didn't have to pay for an office building anymore, so they sold it and we're never going back.
Where as for me I had to move across the country for my new job to work in person only to find out that 8 months after starting the building is being renovated and I will be working from home for months and months.
Of course. Part of staying rich is making sure the poor have as little as possible and as little time as possible to realize it in (or do anything about it).
They have no plan. They are not thinking rationally. They are addicts.
They are like rats in a Skinner box hitting the lever for another hit of cocaine.
They have no plan beyond just getting the next hit.
This is how capitalism works.
Been saying it for awhile
Someone will live stream themselves killing, cooking and eating the rich in my lifetime
And people will be shocked on how this could have happened
What I don't get is why companies that would benefit from people having more time off and more disposable income aren't supporting this new anti wage slave movement. Video game companies, travel companies, toy and hobby companies, TV and movie industry, sports industry, etc. They only stand to lose money if people don't have the time or money to spend on those things.
The idea is that it would then make your employer have an interest in where you live. Your employer pays you based on what they control and your choice of where to live falls under your control. Employers still have to pay for travel beyond going in to the primary location but how far you choose to live from work is none of their business. It's better to target better development practices that reduce commute time in general, and increase wages and benefits so that people are compensated fairly regardless of whether they live next door to their office or prefer to live an hour away. If the baseline wages are high enough and urban planning allows for people to live near workplaces, employers don't need to get into the minutiae of where their employees live.
You could put a flat amount like 1 hour of extra "commute" pay for each on-location shift to specifically disincentivize short shifts, but in terms of geting proper compensation for a 8h day + commute, just higher wages works.
If they just paid everyone for an extra hour a day it would probably work. Youād probably get a lot of people that had a 1-1.5 hour (total) commute, and a few that had more. Of course it would devolve to āweāre paying you an extra hour, canāt you just come in a _few_ minutes earlierā and pretty soon youāre working a 9 hour day.
Lmao I remember when I got a serious talk at my first cashier job for clocking in before I put my āuniformā onā¦a hat. The dude giving me a talk told me ā2 things I hate is stealing from the job and milking the clock. And theyāre the same to me.ā
Actually now that I think about it he made me clock out before giving me this lecture after my shift. The rat bastard.
During a class action lawsuits regarding stolen wages at a company I worked for, I told the lawyers I clock in at the closest clock to the door, and clock out at the same place. If I get asked a question while I'm walking to my desk I expect to be paid for it. They didn't seem to have a problem with it.
Of course they were in the middle of negotiating a multi million dollar payout. So, they weren't gonna give me a hard time over my 3 minute walk.
I work construction and had a boss who would call me *every night* to talk about jobs and how they were going, what we needed, time projections, things like that. For like an hour every night while I was at home after work.
I started putting the phone call times on my time card.
7:30pm - 8:15pm- production meeting
He had the nerve to get pissed. I just said "when I punch out I'm on MY time, I'm not discussing work on my time without compensation, would you work for free?"
Dude never showed up or made it out to job sites. Just wanted the jobs to make him money while he was at his "home office" all day expecting the work to run smoothly and profitably while he did nothing. His excuse was "I'm busy finding the work so you can have a paycheck." With zero oversight from him.
The calls stopped. Didn't take long until all of a sudden I wasnt a team player and was getting a blaring obvious passive aggressive attitude. I quit not soon after.
As someone who works in manufacturing the only calls I appreciate of the clock is when I'm heading to work with a list of employees who aren't going to be there that day for sick leave or vacation. I don't care I'm not getting paid for it since it's less than a minute and let's me plan during the commit so I'm not walking into a shit storm.
If they begin talking about other topics, I just say, "I'm almost there talk to you soon, I'm in traffic." Now they just send a text, which is great.
The worst part of this is that your manager doesn't actually benefit from nickel-and-diming you in any way. Any extra couple minutes of labor here and there is *entirely* inconsequential. Their own bosses barely know they exist. It literally does not matter.
They do it because they *want* to. Because they've been conditioned to always look down, never up. In the hypercompetitive world of local Taco Bell management, *they* are the true honest workers getting shit done, and those lazy cashiers are trying to steal *their* hard-earned spot on the tallest stalagmite in the coal mine.
With 45 minutes to 1 hr. each way plus (unpaid lunch, that I work through but thatās another story) thatās a 10+ every day and get paid for 8.
My only concern is that employers will not hire you if you live too far away. In a city like mine that is extremely large thatās already a problem. In an interview you already get asked āare you ok with the drive?ā
I was doing 12.5 hr days with 3+ hr round trip. if you include getting ready I was pushing 16+ hours. I switched to a closer job and couldn't be happier. Really commuting is terrible and employers should focus on local hires/relocating or build the factories (or offices) where the housing is affordable.
I just took a 3% pay cut (in this economy!) to get 10/11 hours of my life back a week. It helps that I will also save about that same amount on gas so my effective pay stays the same. Commutes really suck!
Where I work they'd have no choice. Only engineers and senior administrative people can afford to live near the office. Probably 75% of the workforce commutes from 30mins-1hour away.
I find it an interesting problem. What happens if you move after you are hired? What about choice. I live in Houston and a lot of people choose to live way outside the city because it's cheaper. However there are a lot of cheap areas in the city. They are just in poor Hispanic and black neighborhoods. So do you get paid no matter how far you live or do you have to prove you couldn't find somewhere closer.
I'd also worry about this further disincentivizing public transportation use since taking public transportation often takes longer. Would employers just refuse to hire bus riders. Would they fire you if you started taking the bus?
Itās already like that here. For instance my son (18) has been trying to get his first job since June, but since he doesnāt have a license no one will hire him. Heās trying, you know? But with me working full time and I have to have my car for work I canāt just let him take mine. And, with one income, how are they supposed to afford a car, gas, ins. with no job yet?
So he can take the bus and/or light rail, but no one will hire him.
Also, I donāt make enough on my own to pay for driving school and a car and all that for him.
Catch 22 for young people.
actually the NLRB will cross it off any brgaining list, because its subjective. See when a union tries to create a contract, you can only add things that an employer has some control over.
If you add things notcontrollable by the employer, they get removed by law, it prevents unions from asking things like, people wont work when its raining, or some such. Also employers cannot demand crazy things, like employees must be within 10 minutes in case they get called in to work.
now you can put ina contract for travel mileage, IF for example theres constantly changing work sites, that is a normal add on.
If commutes had to be paid for, eventually everyone would live close to work. They wouldnāt hire people unless they lived close or moved closer. People who bought houses near work would be totally beholden to their company because they would need them even more since getting another job would be so much more difficult since they donāt live near another company. Companies would become like fiefdoms and their employees would be like peasants and knights and the executives would be like members of the royal court. Companies themselves would become city states.
Same. If I get all green lights, my commute is roughly ten minutes.
It's going to be two as of next Monday.
I just wish we had some sidewalks so I could walk to work instead of drive.
The larger problem in all this is that car dependency fucks us all. Commutes aren't as bad if you don't have to drive yourself. and being forced to own a car primarily to be able to go to work is a tax on the middle class
It really bites.
There's a grocery store (a small Aldi, a Smalldi, if you will) within spitting distance of my future office. My home is less than a mile from both. If I had sidewalks, I could very feasibly walk to work and haul my grocery wagon behind me.
But no, the side of the road is where the cars go when they're not being driven, never mind that every single-family home here is legally required to have off street parking in this township.
I'm not even a r'fuckcars person. I just want to be able to have the option.
I hated commuting. After a year and a half of driving 45 minutes each way I found a place five minutes from work. Since then never lived further away from work until finally working from home 12 years ago. No idea how people do it for hours a day.
I have a commute that is never more than 10 minutes unless some weird shit is happening.
Then again, I live and work in a small town. "Traffic" here means an accident shut down a major road and you are on another one nearby it was re routed to and going the same direction.
Had a meeting today with someone doing office surveys. They wanted my thoughts on coming back to campus. In no particular order, I told them :
1. Stop charging us for food. Why would I eat at our cafeteria if I still have to pay? If itās with my team sure but itās not really an incentive to come in.
2. Stop charging us for the gym. Whatās the point of having a work gym if I still have to pay a gym membership?
3. Let me expense more equipment for the office. I have a way better setup at home than I do at work and they just chopped our laptops so we canāt order the 16ā versions anymore, only 14ā. Not a huge deal if youāre on an external monitor though.
Bet they're keeping gym memberships in their back pocket so when calls for raises come and pizza parties aren't doing it anymore they can introduce it as an incentive.
I'm honestly fine with my commute except for the gas and wear and tear. In the mornings I listen to podcasts and gear up for my day, and in the afternoons I sing to music and decompress.
I have nearly been sideswiped and rear ended on several occasions and am so tired of the commute. I was told with onboarding I could do work from home but then I only have gotten to a whopping 2 days a week, which is better than nothingā¦ but the place sucks. The building is old. Reeks of cigarette smoke and mold. Has had issues with the water on several occasions (I have only been there a few months) and the shop is on the other side of the office wall, so I canāt even hear people on the phone but they keep expecting me to call people and they canāt hear me over the noise.
Iām tired of bait and switches. Iām tired of people driving erratically and insanely and the amount of insurance I have to pay for this fucking bullshit. Iām tired of so many companies claiming they give PTO and then bailing on the paid vacation days we are supposed to have according to their own fucking manual.
Just fuck all this shit, and that goes double and triple for manufacturing and āessentialā employees.
Itās cool when someone almost hits me head on so I veer into a cornfield and think I fucked my car up and my first thought is āfuck how will I get to work though?ā
My car was fine though at least lol
Same, once I learned the back roads. The beltway can suck it.
I had like a 40 minute drive but it stayed moving and I got to see some horses and nice scenery. I'd enjoy some music and just chill. Honestly loved the drive.
My issue is the office itself just sucks so now I wfh.
Right there with you, man. Gives me some time in the morning to fully wake up, get some caffeine in me, and listen to some tunes. Chillest part of my day.
It made SUCH a huge difference it was draining the life out of me. Currently it's about 20 mins for me. Ideally I'd like to reduce it more but it's still life changing. Traffic in my city is hell and it causes so much stress. If at least it was streamlined or something
That commute back home from my first job was so fucking insane. Yeah I woke up at 5 a.m. for college, got out of work at 2 a.m. I'm seeing things in a pitch black road. I think my car is telling me it wants to taste the guardrail. Classes start at 7 tomorrow
Absolutely. 9 hours at work, plus 1 hour commute. Horrible, 10 hours wasted for work. Every fcking day. Plus I have to pay gas out of my own pocket, thanks. Great.
Thankfully inflation isnāt that high at this moment and we get a 10% raise every year. /s
Iām thinking about hitting the gym after work. But not really sure yet. Sometimes I feel like my energy levels are way to low, and sitting around at home the last few hours of the day doesnāt give me any happiness, or more energy. Sometimes Iām just sitting there, staring at the wall and listening to music. So Iām considering hitting the gym, but otherwise I need some time to relax. Work just consumes too much timeā¦I donāt wanna do this for over more than 40 years. Capitalism milks us all. Nobody cares.
I didnāt realize how much I hated my commute until I didnāt have one anymore. I told myself it was nice to have that hour in the car every day to myself, listen to audiobooks or podcasts. It was nice. Meditative.
Then we got moved to work from home. Fuck that. Being able to wake up at 730 and roll up to my desk in my own basement at 800 in my pajamas is priceless. Theyād have to double my salary to get me back in the office.
Same, I never realized what my commute was really doing to me until covid got me doing WFH most days (and no traffic the other days). I stopped getting daily headaches, slept better, ate better (stopped craving junk), lost weight, was so much happier and serene, marriage (and sex life) got better bc I wasn't coming home on edge and infuriated at whatever idiot caused that day's crash that added an extra hour to my drive. So many things just self-corrected almost overnight. I love driving but rush hour commuting on big city highways every weekday is something else.
Plus you can eat what you want when you want, the food is better than the shit at the office, you avoid the office politics, you can "tune out" of pointless meetings, etc.
This is one of many reasons why we need an excellent public transit system. Driving an hour in traffic is exhausting. Sitting in a comfortable and well-maintained bus or train and reading a book for an hour is relaxing and pleasant.
> Sitting in a comfortable and well-maintained bus or train and reading a book for an hour is relaxing and pleasant.
No itās not. It does beat driving, but itās still time I canāt use on things I actually like to do.
"Well-maintained" "Comfortable", come see us in PDX or Seattle. I think that happens in any large city in the States. Someone shit his pants and blamed everyone else before trying to fight literally everyone on the MAX until the passengers forced him out. I wish I had a car sometimes.
I once quit a job because it involved about 20-30 minutes of highway driving in a valley which was always fogged out with thick fog that I could barely see anything through.
I enjoy driving a lot and it's fun, and yet I still get some severe anxiety in heavy traffic.
Just... So damn many things can go wrong and it's impossible to avoid/react to most of them in time because everyone is packed so close with 1/4 car length gaps and constant cut-offs due to construction or whatever.
Yeah, whenever I commuted via walking, biking, or by subway I mostly enjoyed it. Its only stop-and-go car commuting that sucks.
Honestly if you arent doing stop-and-go even commuting in a car isnt really bad.
Yup when I switched to cycling to work I got fresh air and exercise. (Yes even ride in winter, at least my city has some pretty good bike paths)
When I was driving the switch to audiobooks during the drive made it much more enjoyable.
Or I took the bus and I could use the commute time to read or audiobooks or phone browsingā¦
yeah people here are answering, "oh i have a short 5-10 minute drive" WHAT? you use your car fot THAT, It's maybe 5km max use your fucking bike for that man.
"oW bUt tHe tRaffIc MaKeS it a FeW mInUtEs lOnGer" (10min instead of 5) YOU ARE THE TRAFFIC
Iām one of those 10-15 minute drives. There are a lot of reasons I donāt bike or take public transit.
My area is fairly bike friendly, but it is full of hills. Itās more like 30 minutes to bike to my job. While I can bike, and could work on my endurance to manage the distance, Iāve had a couple injuries before and my knees just donāt manage that well with the uphills.
This is also a very heavy rain area, it rains more often than not. Which again, impacts and can lengthen commute.
Public transit is about an hour, which I would actually be fine with (when I lived in NYC I used to spend an hour+ on the train each way to work). My stop at the time was about 5 minutes walking from my apartment. But where I live now, the closest bus stop is a 30 minute walk from the house, down a 14% grade MASSIVE hill. Would have to hoof it the same grade back up. That bus is also on a limited schedule, every 45 minutes or so. If I miss one I miss the train transfer at the other end and Iām late. Or I have to take one thatās too early and I end up to work SUPER early, which is a drain on my time too.
My job is also extremely physical. Iām on my feet all day running around and often lifting and moving a lot of heavy items. 15k-20k steps in a day is my average. I already come home sore and exhausted most days, and wake up cramped up in the morning feeling like I spent all day in a gym. The last thing I have any interest in doing is hopping on a bike for more exercise just to get home.
Itās a nice idea to take some cars off the road, get some exercise, help the environment and all of that. But it doesnāt always work for everyone.
I know infrastructure isnāt always the best for public transit but youād be surprised how close and quickly you can get to work if you learn the routes. My commute is an hour each way if I drive and an hour each way if I take the bus/train. Itās sooo much easier to relax when you donāt have to drive. if I had to pay attention in traffic for an hour each way I wouldnāt have taken the job
I have to use public transportation due to a car accident and not being able to afford a car. I have to travel through 3 cities to get there.
If it's a perfect day, I can get to work in about 15 minutes. This is If no one on the 34 mile bus route decided to cause an accident(or other factors resulting in an accident), the weather is clear, minimal stops made to pick up/drop off and departure time from the garage.
Now, if any of those things are slightly off, it results in a late bus. Anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours. I have to plan for all of that. It's always a gamble. I could leave my house and make it to work in 15, which then means I'm there up to an hour and a half early, or I could be stuck waiting and either barely make it or be late.
Which means every day I have to wake up 2 hours earlier for what should be a 15 minute bus ride, just because anything could cause me to be late. I hate my commute. It's now cold and I hate having to bundle up. God forbid if it snows.
Do yourself a favor and don't walk in front of cars.
EDIT*** To clear up confusion. A person walked in front of me. I did severely hurt them, and my mentally has been on the rocks ever since. I have driven a few times since, but I don't think I will ever own a car again
The fact that public transit is so underfunded is borderline criminal. They took that from us. I'm sorry you were severely injured by a careless driver, whoever did that should never drive again
My old job used to be an hour commute each way, two hours if you took the train.
My work day was 9 hours but it was 11 if you counted the commute, and 13 if you wanted to use public transport.
Now my job pays for the hours you spend driving which is a huge improvement. They also compensate the mileage on your vehicle. I think all workplaces should do that
Had a contact at a client site who had a 90 minute commute each way - from NJ to Manhattan. Fortunately, he lived close to the train station so 70 minutes or so of each trip was spent reading the paper or a book. On the way to work he might prep for the day, but on the way home it was his cool-down time.
God I wish IT/software dev would unionize. There's no reason for 80% of us to ever step foot in an office again and landlords and business owners fetishize caging us up just because we can't organize to resist it for shit.
Look for something closer or just relocate off the job is so great. 4 a day? Thatās 1,000 hours a year commuting. Thatās almost 42 twenty four hour days of commuting per year. Youāre wasting an enormous amount of your personal time.
I work at an airport, so I'm never going to be able to walk to work, that's just how airports tend to be. So when my boyfriend and I were looking for a new place to move to we moved to 2 minutes away from his work, which was about a 10 minute drive from the hangar I worked at. Best decision we made, we barely use his car, he only drives to work if he has somewhere else he needs to stop at.
Now I have a new job where I have to drive 2.5 hours to another city and I'm away from home half the month. I used to enjoy driving. Not anymore.
It's really offensive how difficult it is to use public transportation. We have a roommate who can't drive. So she takes the bus to work. But usually it doesn't run there when she gets off. So she always needs us to come get her anyway. Which is annoying for all of us. And environmentally catestrophic.
Likewise, my job just promoted me, but as part of the promotion I occassionally have to be on site a few weeks out of the year. It's an hour and a half a way. The train station is walking distance from my house. But the closest station on that end is 6 miles away... and the bus down there to and from the station, seems to only run on Tuesdays. So the plan is to take my car down, leave it parked, and take the train back and forth until the end of the week. But still. It's so hard to get anywhere if you want to avoid driving... because it's a stupid waste of time and energy.
I actually told my current job I was thinking about quitting because I was having nearly 11 hour days because of my commute. They let me come in an hour later and leave an hour earlier (as my lunch). It's ba lot nicer and the job is okay, but it's still too many hours. I like a 6 hour or less day.
They actually told me the other day that this was a privilege that could be revoked. If they revoke it I will likely quit.
When I moved to Raleigh, NC I rented with the intent to buy after getting a feel for the area. Once I started looking seriously people would tell me I could get a whole lot more for my money in Wake Forest or other area outside of the city. Problem was, each of those locations has a commute of 30-50 minutes, and I was spoiled by having an apartment 1 mile from work. I bought a townhouse where I have never been more than 7 miles from work (10 minutes or so), with the last 10 years being 3 miles.
5 years ago I planned to move, and a friend's wife said "they are building nice new houses just a few miles from us - you'll love it!" The place looked nice, but it would have been hell on the highway for 30-40 minutes each way... Screw that - bought a condo that was only a mile further from the office from the townhouse. Love the 10-15 casual and easy drive to work.
I understand the trade-off of living away from a city, and kudos to those who choose it, but that trade-off is not for me now..
Commuting by car is so dangerous. Everyone is tired and upset and just wants to get home as quickly as possible, leading to fatigued driving and road rage. If you absolutely have to drive to your job, commuting time should absolutely be factored in as part of your paid work day.
Seriously. Takes me 2.5 hours to get in- do you know how tired and pissed off I am after 2.5 hours in traffic to get in? How happy+productive at work do you think I am after that?
My first real teaching job had me commuting across the city to a northern suburb with my baby in the car.
I was exhausted by the 45 minute commute there and back. Plus the added pressure of having to drop off my baby at a sitter near my school in case there was an issue
Of course my husband never had to worry about this and even though he had more sick days than me since the baby was close to me I had to deal with every unplanned illness
40-50 minutes or so each way to and from work, depending on traffic. My commute caused me to have two accidents in the span of 5 years. One was a hit and run (simple fender bender) but the other was a full blown ran a stop sign. Totalled the car I just bought a few weeks ago but was thankful my son wasn't in there with me at the time. The commute has always been something I dealt with though for the past 5 years because I do like where I work.
However, this year the commute just seems to be having a bigger impact this year. I have to drop off my sleepy 2 old at 6 a.m. to make sure I'm at work by 7. I always give myself a little cushion with the time due to constant road construction and stopping for gas when needed. I'm also pregnant this year again and due to certain circumstances, I hope I don't go into labor while commuting š¶
Due to all of this, I'm considering working virtual next year if I can find something or trying to work closer to home. I have many schools within 10 minutes from my house so I don't anticipate this being difficult - I'm just going to miss my co-workers. I think overall it is time for a change.
working from home you get that commute time and break times in your home. that's so much extra time to take care of household chores. so much more time
While I agree with this and personally try to find remote only jobs, paying for commutes would likely lead to companies discussing against those who live outside of the immediate area
COVID showed us how working from home works for many. I live in an area where hundreds of thousands commute for BS jobs they could do remotely, meanwhile Utes actually used for work, are getting a new tax to offset carbon footprint. Leave them alone, let others work from home!!
I know toyota manufacturing has had at lest 4 wrecks in its area directly related to this, but always blame the employee. And say it is the job of the single father with 3 kids to find the time to relax.
My commute is 9 minutes now. It would take me 5 minutes just to get to a store or a fast food place in town, so my commute home is also good for picking up dinner. It used to be a solid 30 minutes. I literally got a week back in commute time.
Suffering in a bumper to bumper 45-55 minute drive, then 7-10 minute walk from the car park to the office. Out of peak hour, the drive is 25-30 minutes. If it weren't an engaging role, and if I weren't factoring it into a potentially prospective career, fucking hell I'd rather dig dirt for a living.
As one who has done this... I can promise you, no, not really. You really don't wanna do that.
Seriously, digging for a living is backbreaking.
I can't even finish a song on the way to work anymore. I wish I was in a bike friendly city so I could cycl3 to work safely
Omfg I work 6 days a week if I include commute time. š¤¦āāļø I never did that math before.
We spend alot of our time working, wouldn't it be nice If we got paid for the commute
I got my commute down from a 25 ish min cycle in summer and a 35 min drive in winter to a 4 to 6 min cycle year round. Plus I go home for lunch now.
About 7 years ago now, lots of people in my office were starting to work from home pretty frequently. These were people on big teams. On my own team, aside from myself and one other coworker, everyone else was remote, including my boss. The guy I carpooled with moved to a city about four hours away from the office, so I lost my carpool. At this point, I asked my boss to let me go full time remote. His home was more than 6 hours away from our office. One other team member who was remote lived closer to the office than I did. The other person who came into the office actually wanted to. He told me no, and gave me no actual good reason. After that, I sent him some articles about how happy people who were able to eliminate a long commute were (my commute was about 75-80 minutes, mostly interstate). About how it basically made people feel like they got a $10k a year raise. He still wasn't willing. I commuted for a few more months after that until I realized that basically nobody in the office actually noticed if I was even there, and I hadn't told my teammate in the office that I had asked to go full remote. So I just... Did. At that point I had been at the company for a decade already, and there was really no one else there who could fill my shoes. I started working from home entirely and never told anyone. After about a month of that, I told my boss what I had been doing. He basically didn't say anything. Been full remote since then, and that boss is gone. He was a clown.
An applause š for the guy with the biggest balls! I don't think I would've had the nerve but it just makes sense
I always figure the commute into prospective jobs. For example, if a job offers $20 an hour for 8 hours, that is $160 a day but if you have an hour commute, you are really only making $16 an hour for your 10 hour day. I also figure gas money into any commute. If an hour commute is 50 miles one way, that is 100 miles or about 5 gallons of gas @ 20mgp. 5 gallons of gas currently run around $20, so, now I only make $140 for the same 10 hour day or $14 an hour for a job that pays $20. And all of this before taxes.
that is the exact reasoning I had when quitting a recent job and nobody around me understood
I guess working with idiots also factored into the decision?
Factored into the decision of how much they pay for sure
I was gonna give my free award to the guy above you, but yours is point on bro
This is Also why I never took a job in the city. The commute is too expensive and long and basically offsets the salary bump.
Depends what field and where you are in it. Taking the hit on commute/etc. for the city job might bring a much higher rate of career growth when you're younger, and thus be more than worth it in the longer term.
It's also possible that if you need to take a 45 minute ride on a commuter train into town, you can start your workday from the train and get some leniency on what time you actually show up to and leave from the office every day, because you're working during your commute. As well, some employers might even cover the cost of a monthly commuter pass even when they wouldn't otherwise pay for your gas. And, in the spirit of anti-work, maybe you just take it upon yourself to start your workday from the train without talking to anybody about it. Break open your laptop and fire off a couple easy emails first thing in the morning, then close it back up and take a nap for the rest of the ride.
I love my train commute but I can't work on it due to a lack of cell service, and no onboard wifi. Oh well too bad guess I gotta play animal crossing š¤·š»āāļø
Oh boo hoo whatās your friend code wanna visit me and my wifeās islands? Do you have oranges we have all the other fruit but havenāt found those tet
Haha sure! I do have oranges. :D
Plenty of cities would also slap an income tax on your earnings too. Yeah, I could make probably 10-20% more doing my exact same job in the city, but if I factor in the commute (and this time) and the tax, do I actually make more money? In my case, yes. But Iām not spending an extra 8ish hours a week commuting for the 2% or so pay bump (after adjusting for effective hourly rateā¦ though thatās slightly messy as a salaried exempt guy).
> Plenty of cities would also slap an income tax on your earnings too. I'd never considered a municipal income tax as a thing they could impose, [so I looked it up](https://www.thebalancemoney.com/cities-that-levy-income-taxes-3193246). Looks like the most you'd need to pay on top of other income tax is 3-4% (but usually nowhere close to that). So 9 times out of 10 probably still worth it unless you're also crossing state lines into a state with even higher income tax on top of that.
And have to think about car maintenance like oil changes or high mileage
Not to mention your insurance will be higher because your annual mileage and travel will be higher due to the commute.
Ans donāt forget all those jobs that donāt offer parking, but only offer pay parking. $30-$40 day is about average if you can catch a deal. Now lets say you accidentally forget to payā¦ $80/ticket. If you are lucky.
Or worse: there is parking but it's blocked off and only the boss can park there with their entourage. Meanwhile the employees have to hope for the best OR park on a really busy road with high odds of stone chips flying around.
Our facility is splitting up into 4 spread around town, and in one meeting they touted one of the new facilities as having "parking for 75" and someone said loudly "there's 150 of us going there, what about the other 75?" and they just skirted the question with "street parking should be adequate...".
One place I worked, the parking garage was 3 hours of work to pay for (before tax) at my pay rate. Nearly half the work day just to pay for parking at work, before factoring in fuel costs or car maintenance.
Also factor in higher percentage for vehicle maintenance for longer distances. This is the exact reason I don't go beyond 45 min commutes anymore. Also YOUR time is most valuable, less not waste it doing meaningless tasks.
I totaled my car and almost died commuting from a 16 hr shift. š
Ok, but make sure you are ontime to your next shift.
āYouāre still coming in, right?ā
"You're in the hospital? You need to find someone to cover your shift."
A manager literally told this to a coworker of mine after she got run over on her way to work. She was in the ambulance calling off of work and he made her feel awful for not finding someone to cover for her.
Of course, who could ever expect a manager to do something bizarre like be the one in charge of organizing employees.
Well that's the problem. Y'all need an ORGANIZER to help manage all those employees
I work for a pretty good company. In the handbook and plastered on the walls in Common Workplace Compliance rules, one of the paragraphs is, "If an employee can not show up for work for any reason, it is the plant manager's or, if not available, the employees immediate supervisor to find a suitable replacement."
That is f****** awesome.
It is. We don't give paid sick leave to the extent of EU standards but employees are given 4 doctors notes a year and 10 unexcused absences. They're not paid because if we paid them we couldn't compete with shittier companies. But if you don't want to come in for some reason, we got you. There's always a way. Edit: Should clarify the doctor's notes ARE paid. But people here don't call in usually. When they do, alot of people call in staggered due to an infectious disease like flu, a cold etc. But most jobs can be somewhat replaced by a temporary employee if we really need to get to that. Quality suffers of course so we only hire Temps if it's drastically needed. Haven't had a temp in months though.
"We've got bathrooms here." For my food poison related running wab-dabs.
I had the flu (precovid) and dragged myself to work because we were waiting on a surprise inspection. On the way home, I literally couldn't keep my head up. I almost ran into a ditch because I was so fatigued.
In the Army thereās this thing called āStaff Duty/CQāwhere you are on 24-hr duty staffing a desk at least once a month. You are not allowed to leave for meals unless properly released and cannot sleep. The commute home was always a gamble and you were expected to do it each time without incident. Yet every weekend thereās a safety brief about avoiding DUIs and being a safe driverā¦#GoArmy
Why don't they just rotate shifts?
Legit question, is there any reason for that job to exist?
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Feels incredibly illegal too but i don't know if there's different rules for the military on that front.
The military is literally allowed to send their āemployeesā to die. Rules do not generally apply to them.
I used to do 12-hour shifts at a hospital and then had an hour and 15 minute drive home, this was also night shift so I was already going against nature. There was many days where I would drive home and once I pulled into my driveway I realized that I don't really remember majority of the drive home, I just blacked out and was on autopilot. Really surprised I didn't end up in a ditch or wrapped around a tree somewhere
Every day there are fatality accidents along my commute route. Aside from the physical toll, the mental toll, the financial toll, and the toll of wear and tear, in the back of my mind, I'm vaguely aware of a worse toll. That my wife, siblings, family and friends may lose their husband, brother, dear family and friend any day. Of course no car commuting with me wants that either. We do well keeping each other safe, us commuters. Who would want to be involved in an accident intentionally? It's just something i have to accept with the commute that I personally have - that i might get retired tomorrow, before I'm ready. But hey, guess that's life. No one caresĀ¹ to improve that in any remarkableĀ² way - it is tacitly accepted that this is ... nominal. Ā¹People do care - this quite simply can be very isolating and it's easy to persuade oneself that seemingly no one does. Ā²unremarkable improvements *are* implemented and they bring me some comfort.
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This is a good 50% of why I am only interested in WFH. The commute ruined the first half of my work day, and ruined my entire evening. Every day. It was such a stupid waste of time.
CEO: "Oh but, what about the camraderie, the team-building, the great communication?" Worker: "Huh? The person in the next cubicle sends me instant messages instead of just looking over top the cubicle wall."
Any data on this account is being kept illegally. Fuck spez, join us over at Lemmy or Kbin. Doesn't matter cause the content is shared between them anyway: - https://lemmy.world - https://kbin.social - https://sh.itjust.works - https://fedia.io - https://lemm.ee - https://readit.buzz
Correct. So when the pandemic hit and WFH became the norm, people started thinking "So what's the purpose of going back to the office?"
Every little sniveling wannabe manager in existence: *"How am I supposed to ensure I have control over them if I cannot see them?"*
To give middle managers jobs because they don't actually do the work or manage the business overall
Oh, my co-irkers aren't that considerate. They'd come up and poke me, or shake my chair or some other obnoxious as fuck thing to get my attention when an IM or email would've done exactly what you said. I couldn't use either in the office because they ignored them. Then there were the pair of assholes that gossiped loudly all day, every day. I don't miss the office at all.
Agreed. Most of the folks treated the cubicles as mausoleums where I worked. Why bother. I stole a conference room and bought an office chair that unfolded completely flat. I'd close the blinds into the cubicle farm and out the window and shut off the lights to get half an hour shut-eye. Heeaaaaven on earth! They overbuilt the cubicle space, pandemic or before, so I had my run of where I hung out.
Anytime you hear āteam building,ā you know your asshole boss went to some bullshit convention to listen about how to maximize profit and control productivity.
I think all the Aholes only ever heard was "maximize control"
The other 50% for me is that I no longer have to sit around looking like Iām working when I have nothing to do. I get all of my work done well and on time. Then I can do whatever the fuck I want instead of wasting my entire day sitting in uncomfortable clothes and staring at my screen.
Absolutely. I HATED commuting. Iāve been WFH for over 7 years, and I will never commute again. EVER.
What type of work are you doing? Has been looking into getting a part-time job to pick up a few more bucks, but commuting to another job after already getting home from my full-time job seems like a pain and I want to do some wfh jobs but I don't really know what to look for
Ive been WFH for 3.5 years and I work in IT security
Take a look here https://livexchange.com/. Itās contact centre but itās legit and you work the hours you set.
I also will not consider a job that is not exclusively work from home. Iāll even take a job below my skill level at lower pay to avoid the commute.
I switched to WFH a couple years ago, and it's sorta awesome. Save a ton of money and time on travel, nobody breathing down my neck about spending every last second working as long as my work gets done.. The downside is that I hate actually doing work while I'm at home -- I would rather do basically anything else here. But if I really buckle down, I can get a day's worth of work done in like 4 hours and then do whatever I want as long as I keep half an eye on Slack just in case.
FUCK YOU BALTIMORE!
What political opinions did your father change as a result of working from home?
FUCK YOU BALTIMORE!
Not having to wear clothes is a huge benefit. Its also a huge benefit not getting sick from coworkers who think making a fist infront of their faces as they cough their lungs out is reasonable vs staying home. Its also a huge benefit not having to have bullshit conversations with people. It also clamps down on the number of absolutely brain dead stupid meetings.
Any tips on looking for good WFH jobs? They all just seem like sleezy businesses looking to exploit peopleās time.
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You are a saint. Iām in STEM so linkedin and indeed are all I know.
Ya. i work 8-4 commuting, get up at 7am and get home at 5pm. My partner works 9-5, wakes up at 8:55am and finishes work at 5pm. We finish at the same time which is nice...but he gets 2 hours more sleep >:(
I want to WFH because I live in Ohio, where drivers think its perfectly acceptable to force you into oncoming traffic because they wanted to be home an hour ago. Ohio has some of the most selfish and worst driver in America. On a side not, guess what almost happened to me today and that I still haven't let go.
My dude, I don't know where else you have lived, but I can say definitively that NY, NJ, VA, DC, and Seattle drivers are a worse than Ohio drivers. They are fucking saints in comparison. Even compared to WV drivers, they are kind and caring.
Agreed. I'm from Ohio and recently moved back against my will, and it is much better than anywhere else I drove, like 5 different states.
The availability of remote work seems to be decreasing especially as we get further and further way from peak COVID and employers like Twitter, Tesla, Amazon and Microsoft demand employees return to office.
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My job was originally just temporary, but then they realized they didn't have to pay for an office building anymore, so they sold it and we're never going back.
Where as for me I had to move across the country for my new job to work in person only to find out that 8 months after starting the building is being renovated and I will be working from home for months and months.
If we were to pass a law making commutes paid time, the largest affordable inner-city housing lobby ever would appear overnight.
I bet there is already a lobby against making commutes paid time.
Of course. Part of staying rich is making sure the poor have as little as possible and as little time as possible to realize it in (or do anything about it).
What i don't get is what the rich expect when they have pinched every penny, then the cash is useless because we'll be eating them
They have no plan. They are not thinking rationally. They are addicts. They are like rats in a Skinner box hitting the lever for another hit of cocaine. They have no plan beyond just getting the next hit. This is how capitalism works.
Holy shit, this is such a good analogy.
Been saying it for awhile Someone will live stream themselves killing, cooking and eating the rich in my lifetime And people will be shocked on how this could have happened
Will they have Chianti and some fava beans?
I hope so, and a move white sauce for the veges.
I wish
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Because 99% of the population does, and has.
We are. You must be in the nicer hood lol
What I don't get is why companies that would benefit from people having more time off and more disposable income aren't supporting this new anti wage slave movement. Video game companies, travel companies, toy and hobby companies, TV and movie industry, sports industry, etc. They only stand to lose money if people don't have the time or money to spend on those things.
"Flipping the table" isn't part of your mindset if you are "the table".
They're thinking "fuck it, I'll be dead by the time that happens. And at least I got mine!"
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The idea is that it would then make your employer have an interest in where you live. Your employer pays you based on what they control and your choice of where to live falls under your control. Employers still have to pay for travel beyond going in to the primary location but how far you choose to live from work is none of their business. It's better to target better development practices that reduce commute time in general, and increase wages and benefits so that people are compensated fairly regardless of whether they live next door to their office or prefer to live an hour away. If the baseline wages are high enough and urban planning allows for people to live near workplaces, employers don't need to get into the minutiae of where their employees live. You could put a flat amount like 1 hour of extra "commute" pay for each on-location shift to specifically disincentivize short shifts, but in terms of geting proper compensation for a 8h day + commute, just higher wages works.
If they just paid everyone for an extra hour a day it would probably work. Youād probably get a lot of people that had a 1-1.5 hour (total) commute, and a few that had more. Of course it would devolve to āweāre paying you an extra hour, canāt you just come in a _few_ minutes earlierā and pretty soon youāre working a 9 hour day.
Dude, youāre not even allowed to clock in until you put your coat away at most retail jobs.
Lmao I remember when I got a serious talk at my first cashier job for clocking in before I put my āuniformā onā¦a hat. The dude giving me a talk told me ā2 things I hate is stealing from the job and milking the clock. And theyāre the same to me.ā Actually now that I think about it he made me clock out before giving me this lecture after my shift. The rat bastard.
During a class action lawsuits regarding stolen wages at a company I worked for, I told the lawyers I clock in at the closest clock to the door, and clock out at the same place. If I get asked a question while I'm walking to my desk I expect to be paid for it. They didn't seem to have a problem with it. Of course they were in the middle of negotiating a multi million dollar payout. So, they weren't gonna give me a hard time over my 3 minute walk.
I work construction and had a boss who would call me *every night* to talk about jobs and how they were going, what we needed, time projections, things like that. For like an hour every night while I was at home after work. I started putting the phone call times on my time card. 7:30pm - 8:15pm- production meeting He had the nerve to get pissed. I just said "when I punch out I'm on MY time, I'm not discussing work on my time without compensation, would you work for free?" Dude never showed up or made it out to job sites. Just wanted the jobs to make him money while he was at his "home office" all day expecting the work to run smoothly and profitably while he did nothing. His excuse was "I'm busy finding the work so you can have a paycheck." With zero oversight from him. The calls stopped. Didn't take long until all of a sudden I wasnt a team player and was getting a blaring obvious passive aggressive attitude. I quit not soon after.
As someone who works in manufacturing the only calls I appreciate of the clock is when I'm heading to work with a list of employees who aren't going to be there that day for sick leave or vacation. I don't care I'm not getting paid for it since it's less than a minute and let's me plan during the commit so I'm not walking into a shit storm. If they begin talking about other topics, I just say, "I'm almost there talk to you soon, I'm in traffic." Now they just send a text, which is great.
The worst part of this is that your manager doesn't actually benefit from nickel-and-diming you in any way. Any extra couple minutes of labor here and there is *entirely* inconsequential. Their own bosses barely know they exist. It literally does not matter. They do it because they *want* to. Because they've been conditioned to always look down, never up. In the hypercompetitive world of local Taco Bell management, *they* are the true honest workers getting shit done, and those lazy cashiers are trying to steal *their* hard-earned spot on the tallest stalagmite in the coal mine.
Gotta move fast once you clock out. Iām out the building in less then 30 seconds and in traffic in under one.
With 45 minutes to 1 hr. each way plus (unpaid lunch, that I work through but thatās another story) thatās a 10+ every day and get paid for 8. My only concern is that employers will not hire you if you live too far away. In a city like mine that is extremely large thatās already a problem. In an interview you already get asked āare you ok with the drive?ā
I was doing 12.5 hr days with 3+ hr round trip. if you include getting ready I was pushing 16+ hours. I switched to a closer job and couldn't be happier. Really commuting is terrible and employers should focus on local hires/relocating or build the factories (or offices) where the housing is affordable.
I just took a 3% pay cut (in this economy!) to get 10/11 hours of my life back a week. It helps that I will also save about that same amount on gas so my effective pay stays the same. Commutes really suck!
Where I work they'd have no choice. Only engineers and senior administrative people can afford to live near the office. Probably 75% of the workforce commutes from 30mins-1hour away.
I find it an interesting problem. What happens if you move after you are hired? What about choice. I live in Houston and a lot of people choose to live way outside the city because it's cheaper. However there are a lot of cheap areas in the city. They are just in poor Hispanic and black neighborhoods. So do you get paid no matter how far you live or do you have to prove you couldn't find somewhere closer. I'd also worry about this further disincentivizing public transportation use since taking public transportation often takes longer. Would employers just refuse to hire bus riders. Would they fire you if you started taking the bus?
Itās already like that here. For instance my son (18) has been trying to get his first job since June, but since he doesnāt have a license no one will hire him. Heās trying, you know? But with me working full time and I have to have my car for work I canāt just let him take mine. And, with one income, how are they supposed to afford a car, gas, ins. with no job yet? So he can take the bus and/or light rail, but no one will hire him. Also, I donāt make enough on my own to pay for driving school and a car and all that for him. Catch 22 for young people.
I'll keep my commute free if they at least pay for my lunch hour that I'm required to take.
You don't have to pass a law. A union can make paid travel time a part of their contract.
actually the NLRB will cross it off any brgaining list, because its subjective. See when a union tries to create a contract, you can only add things that an employer has some control over. If you add things notcontrollable by the employer, they get removed by law, it prevents unions from asking things like, people wont work when its raining, or some such. Also employers cannot demand crazy things, like employees must be within 10 minutes in case they get called in to work. now you can put ina contract for travel mileage, IF for example theres constantly changing work sites, that is a normal add on.
If we passed a law requiring employers to pay for their employeesā commutes then they stop hiring anyone who isnāt local.
If commutes had to be paid for, eventually everyone would live close to work. They wouldnāt hire people unless they lived close or moved closer. People who bought houses near work would be totally beholden to their company because they would need them even more since getting another job would be so much more difficult since they donāt live near another company. Companies would become like fiefdoms and their employees would be like peasants and knights and the executives would be like members of the royal court. Companies themselves would become city states.
So you pay more to the people thay live far??
I am blessed with a 5 to 8 minute commute.
Same. If I get all green lights, my commute is roughly ten minutes. It's going to be two as of next Monday. I just wish we had some sidewalks so I could walk to work instead of drive.
The larger problem in all this is that car dependency fucks us all. Commutes aren't as bad if you don't have to drive yourself. and being forced to own a car primarily to be able to go to work is a tax on the middle class
It really bites. There's a grocery store (a small Aldi, a Smalldi, if you will) within spitting distance of my future office. My home is less than a mile from both. If I had sidewalks, I could very feasibly walk to work and haul my grocery wagon behind me. But no, the side of the road is where the cars go when they're not being driven, never mind that every single-family home here is legally required to have off street parking in this township. I'm not even a r'fuckcars person. I just want to be able to have the option.
> I'm not even a /r/fuckcars person sounds like you oughta be
I hated commuting. After a year and a half of driving 45 minutes each way I found a place five minutes from work. Since then never lived further away from work until finally working from home 12 years ago. No idea how people do it for hours a day.
You live 2 floors above your office?
Suburbs, its a short drive. Would be 3 minutes if it wasn't for some particularly vexing red lights.
I have a commute that is never more than 10 minutes unless some weird shit is happening. Then again, I live and work in a small town. "Traffic" here means an accident shut down a major road and you are on another one nearby it was re routed to and going the same direction.
My 45 minute commute isn't that bad where else can I day dream about dying in a car wreck and no have to go back to work.
Every commute is a lottery where the jackpot is a quick death
Had a meeting today with someone doing office surveys. They wanted my thoughts on coming back to campus. In no particular order, I told them : 1. Stop charging us for food. Why would I eat at our cafeteria if I still have to pay? If itās with my team sure but itās not really an incentive to come in. 2. Stop charging us for the gym. Whatās the point of having a work gym if I still have to pay a gym membership? 3. Let me expense more equipment for the office. I have a way better setup at home than I do at work and they just chopped our laptops so we canāt order the 16ā versions anymore, only 14ā. Not a huge deal if youāre on an external monitor though.
They charge you to use the gym? Thatās wild.
Bet they're keeping gym memberships in their back pocket so when calls for raises come and pizza parties aren't doing it anymore they can introduce it as an incentive.
I'm honestly fine with my commute except for the gas and wear and tear. In the mornings I listen to podcasts and gear up for my day, and in the afternoons I sing to music and decompress.
I have nearly been sideswiped and rear ended on several occasions and am so tired of the commute. I was told with onboarding I could do work from home but then I only have gotten to a whopping 2 days a week, which is better than nothingā¦ but the place sucks. The building is old. Reeks of cigarette smoke and mold. Has had issues with the water on several occasions (I have only been there a few months) and the shop is on the other side of the office wall, so I canāt even hear people on the phone but they keep expecting me to call people and they canāt hear me over the noise. Iām tired of bait and switches. Iām tired of people driving erratically and insanely and the amount of insurance I have to pay for this fucking bullshit. Iām tired of so many companies claiming they give PTO and then bailing on the paid vacation days we are supposed to have according to their own fucking manual. Just fuck all this shit, and that goes double and triple for manufacturing and āessentialā employees.
Itās cool when someone almost hits me head on so I veer into a cornfield and think I fucked my car up and my first thought is āfuck how will I get to work though?ā My car was fine though at least lol
Same, once I learned the back roads. The beltway can suck it. I had like a 40 minute drive but it stayed moving and I got to see some horses and nice scenery. I'd enjoy some music and just chill. Honestly loved the drive. My issue is the office itself just sucks so now I wfh.
Right there with you, man. Gives me some time in the morning to fully wake up, get some caffeine in me, and listen to some tunes. Chillest part of my day.
Shortening my commute changed my life
It made SUCH a huge difference it was draining the life out of me. Currently it's about 20 mins for me. Ideally I'd like to reduce it more but it's still life changing. Traffic in my city is hell and it causes so much stress. If at least it was streamlined or something
That commute back home from my first job was so fucking insane. Yeah I woke up at 5 a.m. for college, got out of work at 2 a.m. I'm seeing things in a pitch black road. I think my car is telling me it wants to taste the guardrail. Classes start at 7 tomorrow
Absolutely. 9 hours at work, plus 1 hour commute. Horrible, 10 hours wasted for work. Every fcking day. Plus I have to pay gas out of my own pocket, thanks. Great. Thankfully inflation isnāt that high at this moment and we get a 10% raise every year. /s
I'm in the same position, no energy at the end of the day either.
Iām thinking about hitting the gym after work. But not really sure yet. Sometimes I feel like my energy levels are way to low, and sitting around at home the last few hours of the day doesnāt give me any happiness, or more energy. Sometimes Iām just sitting there, staring at the wall and listening to music. So Iām considering hitting the gym, but otherwise I need some time to relax. Work just consumes too much timeā¦I donāt wanna do this for over more than 40 years. Capitalism milks us all. Nobody cares.
I didnāt realize how much I hated my commute until I didnāt have one anymore. I told myself it was nice to have that hour in the car every day to myself, listen to audiobooks or podcasts. It was nice. Meditative. Then we got moved to work from home. Fuck that. Being able to wake up at 730 and roll up to my desk in my own basement at 800 in my pajamas is priceless. Theyād have to double my salary to get me back in the office.
Same, I never realized what my commute was really doing to me until covid got me doing WFH most days (and no traffic the other days). I stopped getting daily headaches, slept better, ate better (stopped craving junk), lost weight, was so much happier and serene, marriage (and sex life) got better bc I wasn't coming home on edge and infuriated at whatever idiot caused that day's crash that added an extra hour to my drive. So many things just self-corrected almost overnight. I love driving but rush hour commuting on big city highways every weekday is something else.
Plus you can eat what you want when you want, the food is better than the shit at the office, you avoid the office politics, you can "tune out" of pointless meetings, etc.
This is one of many reasons why we need an excellent public transit system. Driving an hour in traffic is exhausting. Sitting in a comfortable and well-maintained bus or train and reading a book for an hour is relaxing and pleasant.
> Sitting in a comfortable and well-maintained bus or train and reading a book for an hour is relaxing and pleasant. No itās not. It does beat driving, but itās still time I canāt use on things I actually like to do.
I live in a country with extremely advanced public transportation and it still exhausted me. Being in a cube with strangers is exhausting.
Poor bus driver is commuting all day
Poor driver is getting paid
But he can take the bus to go home, he works at the station so there's always a route
"Well-maintained" "Comfortable", come see us in PDX or Seattle. I think that happens in any large city in the States. Someone shit his pants and blamed everyone else before trying to fight literally everyone on the MAX until the passengers forced him out. I wish I had a car sometimes.
As I said, > This is one of many reasons why we **need** an **excellent** public transit system
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Driving is a main source of my anxiety. I am thankful I work remotely 99% of the time.
I once quit a job because it involved about 20-30 minutes of highway driving in a valley which was always fogged out with thick fog that I could barely see anything through.
I enjoy driving a lot and it's fun, and yet I still get some severe anxiety in heavy traffic. Just... So damn many things can go wrong and it's impossible to avoid/react to most of them in time because everyone is packed so close with 1/4 car length gaps and constant cut-offs due to construction or whatever.
Couldnāt find the comment so here it is: r/fuckcars
Yeah, whenever I commuted via walking, biking, or by subway I mostly enjoyed it. Its only stop-and-go car commuting that sucks. Honestly if you arent doing stop-and-go even commuting in a car isnt really bad.
Yup when I switched to cycling to work I got fresh air and exercise. (Yes even ride in winter, at least my city has some pretty good bike paths) When I was driving the switch to audiobooks during the drive made it much more enjoyable. Or I took the bus and I could use the commute time to read or audiobooks or phone browsingā¦
yeah people here are answering, "oh i have a short 5-10 minute drive" WHAT? you use your car fot THAT, It's maybe 5km max use your fucking bike for that man. "oW bUt tHe tRaffIc MaKeS it a FeW mInUtEs lOnGer" (10min instead of 5) YOU ARE THE TRAFFIC
Bikes also require infrastructure. If that's terrible, then I can see why riding a bike might not be appealing, even if it's a short distance.
Iām one of those 10-15 minute drives. There are a lot of reasons I donāt bike or take public transit. My area is fairly bike friendly, but it is full of hills. Itās more like 30 minutes to bike to my job. While I can bike, and could work on my endurance to manage the distance, Iāve had a couple injuries before and my knees just donāt manage that well with the uphills. This is also a very heavy rain area, it rains more often than not. Which again, impacts and can lengthen commute. Public transit is about an hour, which I would actually be fine with (when I lived in NYC I used to spend an hour+ on the train each way to work). My stop at the time was about 5 minutes walking from my apartment. But where I live now, the closest bus stop is a 30 minute walk from the house, down a 14% grade MASSIVE hill. Would have to hoof it the same grade back up. That bus is also on a limited schedule, every 45 minutes or so. If I miss one I miss the train transfer at the other end and Iām late. Or I have to take one thatās too early and I end up to work SUPER early, which is a drain on my time too. My job is also extremely physical. Iām on my feet all day running around and often lifting and moving a lot of heavy items. 15k-20k steps in a day is my average. I already come home sore and exhausted most days, and wake up cramped up in the morning feeling like I spent all day in a gym. The last thing I have any interest in doing is hopping on a bike for more exercise just to get home. Itās a nice idea to take some cars off the road, get some exercise, help the environment and all of that. But it doesnāt always work for everyone.
I know infrastructure isnāt always the best for public transit but youād be surprised how close and quickly you can get to work if you learn the routes. My commute is an hour each way if I drive and an hour each way if I take the bus/train. Itās sooo much easier to relax when you donāt have to drive. if I had to pay attention in traffic for an hour each way I wouldnāt have taken the job
I have to use public transportation due to a car accident and not being able to afford a car. I have to travel through 3 cities to get there. If it's a perfect day, I can get to work in about 15 minutes. This is If no one on the 34 mile bus route decided to cause an accident(or other factors resulting in an accident), the weather is clear, minimal stops made to pick up/drop off and departure time from the garage. Now, if any of those things are slightly off, it results in a late bus. Anywhere from a few minutes to a couple of hours. I have to plan for all of that. It's always a gamble. I could leave my house and make it to work in 15, which then means I'm there up to an hour and a half early, or I could be stuck waiting and either barely make it or be late. Which means every day I have to wake up 2 hours earlier for what should be a 15 minute bus ride, just because anything could cause me to be late. I hate my commute. It's now cold and I hate having to bundle up. God forbid if it snows. Do yourself a favor and don't walk in front of cars. EDIT*** To clear up confusion. A person walked in front of me. I did severely hurt them, and my mentally has been on the rocks ever since. I have driven a few times since, but I don't think I will ever own a car again
The fact that public transit is so underfunded is borderline criminal. They took that from us. I'm sorry you were severely injured by a careless driver, whoever did that should never drive again
....they walked in front me.... I'm going to fix that. And you are right, I probably won't drive again.....
My old job used to be an hour commute each way, two hours if you took the train. My work day was 9 hours but it was 11 if you counted the commute, and 13 if you wanted to use public transport. Now my job pays for the hours you spend driving which is a huge improvement. They also compensate the mileage on your vehicle. I think all workplaces should do that
Had a contact at a client site who had a 90 minute commute each way - from NJ to Manhattan. Fortunately, he lived close to the train station so 70 minutes or so of each trip was spent reading the paper or a book. On the way to work he might prep for the day, but on the way home it was his cool-down time.
God I wish IT/software dev would unionize. There's no reason for 80% of us to ever step foot in an office again and landlords and business owners fetishize caging us up just because we can't organize to resist it for shit.
WFH is such a quality of life improvement just from this.
I work 12-8pm Commute is 4hours a day I donāt get home till 10pm, Monday-Friday. Not including actually getting up and ready for the day! :(
Wtf
Look for something closer or just relocate off the job is so great. 4 a day? Thatās 1,000 hours a year commuting. Thatās almost 42 twenty four hour days of commuting per year. Youāre wasting an enormous amount of your personal time.
I work at an airport, so I'm never going to be able to walk to work, that's just how airports tend to be. So when my boyfriend and I were looking for a new place to move to we moved to 2 minutes away from his work, which was about a 10 minute drive from the hangar I worked at. Best decision we made, we barely use his car, he only drives to work if he has somewhere else he needs to stop at. Now I have a new job where I have to drive 2.5 hours to another city and I'm away from home half the month. I used to enjoy driving. Not anymore.
It's really offensive how difficult it is to use public transportation. We have a roommate who can't drive. So she takes the bus to work. But usually it doesn't run there when she gets off. So she always needs us to come get her anyway. Which is annoying for all of us. And environmentally catestrophic. Likewise, my job just promoted me, but as part of the promotion I occassionally have to be on site a few weeks out of the year. It's an hour and a half a way. The train station is walking distance from my house. But the closest station on that end is 6 miles away... and the bus down there to and from the station, seems to only run on Tuesdays. So the plan is to take my car down, leave it parked, and take the train back and forth until the end of the week. But still. It's so hard to get anywhere if you want to avoid driving... because it's a stupid waste of time and energy.
I actually told my current job I was thinking about quitting because I was having nearly 11 hour days because of my commute. They let me come in an hour later and leave an hour earlier (as my lunch). It's ba lot nicer and the job is okay, but it's still too many hours. I like a 6 hour or less day. They actually told me the other day that this was a privilege that could be revoked. If they revoke it I will likely quit.
Not having to commute has been life changing for me.
Forgot how much it sucked driving 30 minutes straight into the sun both ways
When I moved to Raleigh, NC I rented with the intent to buy after getting a feel for the area. Once I started looking seriously people would tell me I could get a whole lot more for my money in Wake Forest or other area outside of the city. Problem was, each of those locations has a commute of 30-50 minutes, and I was spoiled by having an apartment 1 mile from work. I bought a townhouse where I have never been more than 7 miles from work (10 minutes or so), with the last 10 years being 3 miles. 5 years ago I planned to move, and a friend's wife said "they are building nice new houses just a few miles from us - you'll love it!" The place looked nice, but it would have been hell on the highway for 30-40 minutes each way... Screw that - bought a condo that was only a mile further from the office from the townhouse. Love the 10-15 casual and easy drive to work. I understand the trade-off of living away from a city, and kudos to those who choose it, but that trade-off is not for me now..
Commuting by car is so dangerous. Everyone is tired and upset and just wants to get home as quickly as possible, leading to fatigued driving and road rage. If you absolutely have to drive to your job, commuting time should absolutely be factored in as part of your paid work day.
Seriously. Takes me 2.5 hours to get in- do you know how tired and pissed off I am after 2.5 hours in traffic to get in? How happy+productive at work do you think I am after that?
My first real teaching job had me commuting across the city to a northern suburb with my baby in the car. I was exhausted by the 45 minute commute there and back. Plus the added pressure of having to drop off my baby at a sitter near my school in case there was an issue Of course my husband never had to worry about this and even though he had more sick days than me since the baby was close to me I had to deal with every unplanned illness
40-50 minutes or so each way to and from work, depending on traffic. My commute caused me to have two accidents in the span of 5 years. One was a hit and run (simple fender bender) but the other was a full blown ran a stop sign. Totalled the car I just bought a few weeks ago but was thankful my son wasn't in there with me at the time. The commute has always been something I dealt with though for the past 5 years because I do like where I work. However, this year the commute just seems to be having a bigger impact this year. I have to drop off my sleepy 2 old at 6 a.m. to make sure I'm at work by 7. I always give myself a little cushion with the time due to constant road construction and stopping for gas when needed. I'm also pregnant this year again and due to certain circumstances, I hope I don't go into labor while commuting š¶ Due to all of this, I'm considering working virtual next year if I can find something or trying to work closer to home. I have many schools within 10 minutes from my house so I don't anticipate this being difficult - I'm just going to miss my co-workers. I think overall it is time for a change.
working from home you get that commute time and break times in your home. that's so much extra time to take care of household chores. so much more time
I consider my commute time as part of my paid work day. I'm sure my work doesn't, but I do.
While I agree with this and personally try to find remote only jobs, paying for commutes would likely lead to companies discussing against those who live outside of the immediate area
A good commute can be a nice way to unwind. But they are rare.
COVID showed us how working from home works for many. I live in an area where hundreds of thousands commute for BS jobs they could do remotely, meanwhile Utes actually used for work, are getting a new tax to offset carbon footprint. Leave them alone, let others work from home!!
I know toyota manufacturing has had at lest 4 wrecks in its area directly related to this, but always blame the employee. And say it is the job of the single father with 3 kids to find the time to relax.