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Comment by habosa | Hacker News Reader

Those are some nice benefits, but a commute is still mostly a waste.

I did the infamous SF to Mountain View commute on "The Google Bus" for two years. It's about as decent as a 1.5hr commute can be, you're on a quiet private bus with big seats and WiFi.

I spent about 80% of the time reading novels. With a few hours to myself a day I was reading a book a week no problem. In that sense it was nice.

Then I got moved to the SF office. My commute turned into a 20m bike or subway. Quality of life went through the roof. My girlfriend told me I seemed happier all day. I could still read in my saved time, but I was also free to spend that time on other things. I also get to spend a lot more time with my friends since I'm available to meet up after work on short notice.

Having this experience, I wouldn't go back to the commute even for a 20% raise. It's that bad.

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>Then I got moved to the SF office. My commute turned into a 20m bike or subway.

I did the Boston version of this. My wife and I lived downtown and moved to a suburb when our son was 7 months old. My one-way commute went from a 15 minute subway ride to a 1-1.5 hour trip depending on buses and such.

Five years later, we sold our house and moved back into the city and my commute shifted to a 20 minute walk. At one point, due an office move, I could see my office from my living room (I lived in a high rise). I literally gained 40-80 extra minutes a day and lost 15 pounds. I was also able to coach my son's sports teams since leaving at 4:30pm for a 5pm practice was much easier to do than leaving at 3:30pm and wondering if I'll make it in time the entire way.

And now, 5 years after that, I've moved out of the city again. ADHD and a need for space and room to roam have forced the change. I'm back to a 40-60 minute commute and counting the days (approx 2800) until my son is off to college/out of the house and I can move back.

Its also expensive I have recently go a job locally with a nice raise and no longer commute to London.

I calculated that I am £1000 / $1300 better off per month just from not commuting not counting my pay rise

that's really high, what was costing you ~£30 a day?

Though £1k/month is at the extreme end, UK train tickets can get expensive: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/15/dawn-10k-commute...

Its over 5k from Bedford to London (65 miles) This is of course taken out of your salary post tax and Ni contributions.

Train (plus tube) / Month 480

Travel to / from station 220

misc coffee news paper 100

Say £800 after income tax and NI is eqvielent to almost £1000

For about a year and a half I did a ~50% of the time commute via train that took about 90 minutes. It was less than a ten minute drive to the station and then a short walk on the other end. So not terrible.

But I would never have wanted to do that long term nor every day. It's still a big chunk out of the day and forced me into a particular schedule. It also didn't work for when I wanted to do anything in the evening in which case I had a fairly congested drive even leaving quite early in the morning.

>wouldn't go back to the commute even for a 20% raise

Bear in mind you just cited 29% of 8 hours extra (140 extra minutes) for that 20% raise.

Yeah but I don't get paid by the hour and the bus was technically "personal time". I worked on the bus only in 5-10 truly urgent situations per year.

I've also noticed that I now stay at the office later than I used to when I was on the bus, because I can go home whenever I want. So I am giving the company some "free" hours and am happy to do so. Feels like a choice not a mobile jail.

> My girlfriend told me I seemed happier all day.

My relationships take a nosedive when I have a long commute. It’s not that I become a jerk or anything. In both cases, my GFs commented that I was clearly much happier when the commutes ended. The quality of the time we spend together improves so much that during a recent job hunt I kept my search limited to a 10-15 minute radius from my home and didn’t even consider lucrative positions outside that range.

I too limit my job search to about a 15 (maybe 20) minute commute by car, or enough of a raise to justify moving. My quality of life is so much higher when I'm spending less than an hour a day of mandatory car time that it's simply not worth it for me to drive 45 minutes one way for an extra $80 every two weeks.

I'll chime in with the opposite experience. My wife and I went from short commutes when we lived in D.C. (5 minutes for her, 15 minutes for me), to a hour-and-fifteen minute commute from Annapolis to D.C. each day. We found we were much happier with the commute. Being parents, the extra time at home was diverted to chores and child care. The commute, by contrast, gave us time to ourselves to chat.

But the commute isn't the thing that absolved you from those responsibilities. I suppose you either stopped doing them or outsourced them, which you could have also done in your commuteless life.

Work expands to fill time.

Only if you let it - with some exceptions of course.

Did you and your wife commute together? If so, the comparison is not very valid; everyone else is talking about solo commutes.

Reads like “We could have finished our chores and baby duty early, to have conversations, but we opted not to. Commuting forced us to dedicate this time to ourselves, freeing our conscious from not spending time home with baby because nobody is going to judge our commute time as being irresponsible to our children”

I remember reading about a guy who used his commute to meditate. he felt great about his commute, and i'd guess that carried over to life in general.

>> I also get to spend a lot more time with my friends

I think that's key. Spending your time in activities known to help create deep sense of well-being. Books/entertainment maybe do not. Friends do. Meditation probably does. Maybe there are others ?

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