The most challenging aspect of returning to the office is the commute. This isn’t surprising because commutes of only 30 minutes are linked to higher stress and anger, while 45 minutes or more is linked to poorer overall well-being, daily mood, and health.
Can confirm. I have to be in the office way more now and everyone hates it. I work way less than I used to to recoup the misery of commuting.
Dude, you’re making someone work when they’re probably pretty sick.
Why not just tell them to take the time they need to rest, and don’t worry about the PTO?
No one’s making you punish someone for being sick.
Most people only have around 4 hours of highly productive work in them a day. The rest is just filler on an 8+ hour day when nothing much is accomplished. Or even worse, it’s when errors are made that take away from productivity as they fix them.
Commuting sucks out of the highly productive time. So if someone commutes for 2 hours a day, that’s 50% less productivity to the company.
For the managerial types out there. The old adage is completely wrong. Time is not money, productivity is money.
When I was going to the office, parking downtown was $21 a day.
So $105 a week just to park to go to work.
Now, I COULD have taken a bus/train for $5.60 a day… But that would mean adding an extra hour to my commute in the morning and an extra hour and a half at night.
$21 - $5.60 = Saving $15.40 a day, but losing 2.5 hours.
My time is worth more than $6.16 an hour.
WFH I save ALL $21, plus gas money, plus not eating out for lunch or dinner.
After doing that for 3 years, I had $30,000 in the bank and bought a house.
Same here brother. I went from almost a decade of 1.5 hour or more commutes to feeling healthier and happier than I had ever been. It was sad when we were kicked out of our apartment at the end of 2021, but we moved in with my parents temporarily and ended up buying a house in the spring using all the money we saved as a down payment. Thinking back, we saved far more than we had ever anticipated without even trying. We saved on gas, train fare, car maintenance, a dog walker, coffee or eating lunch at work. And then we also saved on just not going anywhere due to the pandemic like not vacationing or going out with friends. Even with all that, we definitely spent more money at the time on delivery orders, alcohol, and investing in home entertainment. But we still saved a shit ton and I wish every day that we could all just work from home if possible. Even aside from all the savings, think of how much less wasteful people were and how much less pollution we put into the air. Think of the extra sleep and the time spent with family instead of commuting. Having kids seemed so much more possible for the future working from home. But naw you gotta have that in-person interaction there isn’t any other way except over the last 2-3 years but just forget that ever happened.
There are other benefits aside from money that you enjoy when riding a train/bus compared to driving.
Buses/trains have drivers themselves, so you don’t have to engage with traffic to and from work - and during rush hour when the most people are on the road during the day.
Then, when you ride a bus/train, you lower the impacts and demands on the natural world, like reducing GHG potential per capital, reducing the vehicle waste from oil leaks, tire dust, smog, etc. per capita, and reducing the fuel demand per capita needed to get you where you need to go.
Downside with public transit is that people don’t like to be around other people in that kind of setting (for reasons like increased social contact for illness transmission, people might smell bad, might be loud, might pose a threat to others, etc.).
This being said, remote work is a wonderful alternative to even public transit. Agree with you there for jobs that don’t need to commute. Some jobs still do, and public transit would be my next best choice. Still, some jobs need to travel more than a fixed route, so hybrids or EVs would be better than ICE cars for that. Etc etc
I mean, I account for $10k salary increase for in office work compared to what I’d take 100% remote.
That’s based on an offer with a 15 minute commute and free parking. It scales up and I’ve had this conversation when being offered a job.
Yes, please ask me to effectively take a pay cut to pay to drive across town so I can sit at a non-customizable hot desk to join virtual meetings with resources all over the globe. But it’s ok because in return I get to be interrupted constantly by people physically bothering me with a question in the name of “collaboration” instead of opening a ticket or sending an email like a normal person. Genius. I can’t understand why everyone’s complaining. (/s in case it wasn’t obvious).
Is this really the norm in the USA? In the Netherlands most office lots have free designated parking and virtually everyome brings their own lunch.
