You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Watching with interest, looking for a new job but most are miles away from me and I'd rather not have to get another car.
Makes me appreciate my job - something I enjoy, office once a month
Also interested in how you get such a job
I only have to do that usually 3 days a week though thankfully and can work from home the other 2.
If you can work from home two days a week, is there a compelling reason why you can't also do so for the other three?
think what a lot of people don't take into account is the sheer cost of commuting, or of commuting and staying over.
All public transport where I live is 25p per journey 😂
So at the weekend you'd get up at 0400, half hour rush to get ready, leave at 0430. Work 0630 till 1830, returning home 2030. Dinner, shower, in bed by 2200. Six hours kip and then repeat. IMHO you'd end up falling asleep at the wheel and crashing......................
Not really a recommendation for OP but moving closer to work seems to be the last thing people suggest, it certainly used to be more common (essential even) before our lives became car centric with the expectation we can live and work in totally unconnected locations. When you think of the benefits of moving closer - afford a more expensive house and more at home time - surely worth the one off disruption. We made a modest move that saved me 30 minutes each day, but that really adds up, about 10 days a year saved!
think what a lot of people don't take into account is the sheer cost of commuting, or of commuting and staying over.
It's a good one to point out to people how widespread car ownership is a problem for everyone too. Because you end up paying for car ownership whether you have or can afford to have one or not.
Live in town near employment - you're paying a premium to not need a car, and also paying for the street parking because ultimately that is factored into the house prices as it means there's no premium for one with the extra land for private parking. Curtail the free on-street parking and you get the benefit of making housing affordable for people who can't afford a car (or a house at the moment).
Live further out - cheaper housing, but you need a car.
I do a 45 mile each way commute. For 5 years it was 5 days per week 8am-4pm with the ability to start earlier/finish earlier when possible. It sucked doing it full time and I was close to leaving (enjoy the job and it pays well). Covid came along and we were already set up to work remotely so no issue. Been working a hybrid 3 days on site, 2 days at home which has made it palatable for the past 5 years. Unfortunately, the Executive office has decided to mandate a 5 days per week in the office. We get opportunity to WFH if there's a one off reason at the discretion of your manager but that's it. It's not come in to effect yet but I'm 10 years older than when I took the job and the thought of 3 hours per day travelling is not something I'm looking forward to.
Unfortunately my previous company (same industry) was on the door step but had a horrible toxic culture so that's definitely not an option!
In conclusion, long commutes suck. I need to make a change.
40 mins for me, 4 shifts in 8. Had 6 months commuting 2hrs each way but stayed over for a couple of days at a time and shared driving. No chance I'd do that every day!
Now the decision is do i use the job offer as leverage to try and improve my position here.... moral compass time 😀
If you think you are undervalued then that's a conversation to have irrespective of whether you have an offer available?
Longest commute I'd allow is 1 hour, door to door. Anything longer just stretches out the working day too much unless you can mix it up with social activities. Having said that I spent a few years where I would work something like 2 weeks travelling with work and 2 weeks home doing whatever I wanted - albeit chunks of that turned into bits of admin and programming as it was fun to do at the time. And there were the few months where I commuted 200miles each way at the start and end of the 5-day week. Still, for 'regular' jobs my longest commute was up to 1 hour. Since 2019 there's been no commuting for me due to WFH 100% of the working day.
Longest I've done was one hour each way door to door - 10 minute walk; 40 minutes on the train; 10 minute walk. Did this for about five years, five days a week. My current commute is a 15 minute walk, my resulting quality of life is improved immeasurably and I'd never go back to the 1 hour commute, much less two hours (and driving as well).
I did 4 months of commuting 2.5h each way, 5 days a week, by train and bike. It’s was all encompassing. With an 8.5h work day in the middle l, it was like Groundhog Day with no time for ANYTHING but eating, sleeping, working or commuting.
No way I would do more than an hour in each direction which is what I currently do by bike.
Unfortunately, the Executive office has decided to mandate a 5 days per week in the office. We get opportunity to WFH if there's a one off reason at the discretion of your manager but that's it.
Our new CEO has decided that we should be office first now.
Before COVID we were allowed a day or two at home, at managers discretion, it'd been like that since we went 100% laptops, maybe a decade? During COVID it was 100% home for most (only 60% for me as i'm key staff/SME/whatever you call it), since COVID it's been completely at managers discretion until last year when we went 30% WFH, again, managers discretion.
Now we're expected in the office 5 days a week. Started ~3 weeks ago. WFH at managers discretion for specific reasons.
It's now almost outright rebellion.
The traffic has gone insane, it's added 20 minutes to most of my colleagues car commute into/out of Göteborg (Barely affects me as i live in the opposite direction). Bus timetables are being altered, because even with the separate lanes the buses are taking an extra 10+ minutes to do the journey. There's talk of adding buses as well. There's no carparking spaces past about 8:20, there are no *charging* spaces past 7:45. The bike sheds are rammed, people are just locking bikes to railings, security are losing their shit and cutting the locks and moving the bikes, then the bike owners lose their shit with security once they've cut the bike off the railing because there aren't any spaces... There's no where to sit (the offices are mostly designed around 65-70% occupancy) they tell us to just use meeting rooms instead, so people are booking meeting rooms for the whole day so they have somewhere to sit. So i can't get a room to have a meeting in. Depending on if i can even find a desk in the first place. There are i think 96 desks in my particular landscape, and about 140 people, we were one of the highest remote working business groups as we do 90% of our work in meetings or on the phone. My team area is 9 desks, there are 13 of us. Canteens are now queuing out of the door and along the corridors some days, can't sit anywhere in there either. Kitchen spaces in the landscape are slightly better, but there are now queues for the microwaves and sinks, pretty much continually for an hour. Toilets are horrendous as well.
And we're getting no work done either.
Not really a recommendation for OP but moving closer to work seems to be the last thing people suggest, it certainly used to be more common (essential even) before our lives became car centric with the expectation we can live and work in totally unconnected locations. When you think of the benefits of moving closer - afford a more expensive house and more at home time - surely worth the one off disruption. We made a modest move that saved me 30 minutes each day, but that really adds up, about 10 days a year saved!
With so many two working adults households this presupposes that you can achieve that outcome for both of you and not actually end up in a worse situation.
I've got a 2-3 hour in total round trip per day (usually slow in, fast home). My wife works a mile and a half away in the opposite direction, the kids school is 2 miles away.
There's no solution that gives both of us a short commute and doesn't mean adding a school run unless one of us changes our very niche jobs and takes a significant pay cut.
If we split the difference on distance our total household commute time and cost would increase significantly as the halfway location is an overcrowded and congested urban sprawl with non existent public transport and poor road and rail connections. I'd save very little and my wife would add 45 minutes each way. This is why we didn't move there 20 years ago when we bought this place.
I think that is partly why the live where you work approach is so hard to make work for so many families. It's great if it's an option but I doubt we are that much of an outlier.
and doesn't mean adding a school run
they could walk or ride? Mine wanted to walk the 10 minutes to primary school in their last 2 years. They needed to walk and ride to high school just over a mile away. Then 6th form they rode or got the bus.
Having said that, the need to have 2 working parents (irrespective of whatever that need is) is not well supported by most employers. For which I blame employers.
Our new CEO has decided that we should be office first now.
time to pick a new job. CEOs are detached from reality unless they are 3 or fewer degrees of separation from the entry level people. When I read that my old employer had an executive who had looked at a not full car park and decided it indicated an unproductive workforce that needed to return to non-existent office space I lost all my limited remaining confidence in such people.
Depends what your priorities are. I'm not driven by money as long as I have enough to live. I use to teach full time and built up a very popular course. But I regret it. Had very little time to ride and build fitness. Covid made my realise how important time at home really is. So now I work locally 4 days a week. Less money but much more time.
I count commute time as work time so always looked for local jobs. I did once have a 3 day a week job but was a 90 min drive each way. It was exhausting and I ended up catching up on sleep on my days off and not riding as much as I wanted to.
Currently work locally. Can ride it in 15 mins if I push hard. Or Ill do a 40 min loop if I've slept well. Or a 12 min drive.
My job used to be 5 days a week, all the team in the office, and ~30 mins from home. No great problem. Then we merged with another company, the location moved to the other side of Brum (near Birm International station) and commuting involved at least an hour, commonly more than that, down the busiest part of the M6, or an expensive train trip. I did that for a couple of years, starting very early to try and beat the worst congestion on the M6. My boss was also commuting from Chesterfield to the same place via M1 or A6, M42 at least 90 mins each way. We both agreed we were dafties, so Fridays soon became WFH days, which I extended to Tuesdays too for domestic reasons.
Then came COVID, and after returning from furlough, the corporate infrastructure for WFH had been beefed up a lot, plus they'd discovered people could actually be quite productive without being in the office every single day. So 'hybrid working' was officialised, and the business gave up the lease on a building that had capacity for nearly 500 staff, and moved to a different building with capacity for about 130, the stated expectation being most staff in the office 1 day a week. Commuting for the majority became the exception rather than the rule. As a team, we generally did Thurs in the office. Still mostly a 75 min commute each way, mind, as traffic levels on the M6 were long since back to pre-COVID levels.
I've packed in work now so don't have to think about commuting in detail, but to answer the OP's question about a 4 hour daily commute - yes, that would very quickly lose its limited appeal. Not worth it. You'd be a grumpy bugger in next to no time.
time to pick a new job.Nah, whatever i choose to do i'm going to have to do a commute to the office. Bugger all work closer than where i am now unless i go back to aerospace, and worse than that, it's aerospace manufacturing and service, and that's *never* happening. I've outlasted the last 5 or 6 CEOs and there's no will to apply the new rules across probably 50% of the managers already... Think they are a bit pissed at watching a quarter of their staff having nowhere to sit!
So, i'll keep turning up (when i need to) and collecting the money.
I would guess it'll be quietly shelved after the summer vacation and go back to a more reasonable, and official 30/70 split, as we've had for the last year or so.
Now the decision is do i use the job offer as leverage to try and improve my position here.... moral compass time
no moral compass needed. You now have an external value to compare with your current company valuation, I.e., your current salary. If there is a discrepancy then you negotiate. And have to be ready to walk if they don’t meet your request. You don’t have to factor commuting costs, your current company don’t know that you won’t move.
people who do not move companies regularly will end up undervalued as a general rule. There may be other benefits in kind like culture, commute, but it won’t be salary.