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Comment by mojuba | Hacker News Reader

> a 25% increase in the amount of their time that's committed to work

I think you mean committed to life rather than work? Remember, people normally commute outside of work hours.

Therefore your math doesn't add up. 2hr commute against 8 hours of work is not a 25% increase.

But I think your point is still valid. Personally I'd "buy" my extra 2 hours of daily life for a 10% decrease in salary. Given that I'm awake for 17 hours, 2 hours saved is 11% of my waking time. Not a bad deal if you value your free time, or say you work on a side project.

Edit: see the correction below. It's still 25%, I was wrong.

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> Therefore your math doesn't add up. 2hr commute against 8 hours of work is not a 25% increase.

What? Going from 8 to 10 hours is absolutely a 25% increase. 10 is 125% of 8

The situation is a bit more complex than that. First, people don't live in the office, so even if you live closer to the workplace, you still spend a non-negligible amount of time preparing and getting there. It can easily amount to more than 30 minutes a day.

And secondly, an office job can be stressful, consuming, in a way that commuting isn't (if done by train or bicycle for instance). So i wouldn't put them all in the same box as time devoted to work.

There's a world of difference between going for a nice cycle or taking the train to see a new place or even going for a drive in the country versus cramming onto a standing-room-only train or risking your life in rush hour traffic or crawling along the highway in a tailback. Commuting is absolutely part of work, it's an unpaid part sure, but people aren't choosing it of their own free will.

This is mainly discussing WFH, so in this case people actually are living in the office.

You are right, I was wrong.

But I was mainly arguing that the commute time shouldn't be counted against work time, it really isn't: you can listen to radio, or read if you are on public transport. Rather, I'd count the saved commute against my life (as in, not work) time.

But I can listen to music while I work 90% of the time if I want to.

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