How the pandemic has affected people’s perspective on travelling to work
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
While I can’t say I’d like to pay the price of 2x50 minutes each day, I too miss that piece of time that was truly mine and mine alone. I used it to read, do a mediation or just space out and let my mind wander.
My next job will be exclusively remote, and I'll be much better off for it. I don't mind what other people choose to do, as long as I'm not forced to participate in the return to the office.
Now I fly around a lot and it feels like half my life is draining away "waiting to get somewhere".
I'm happy for you but it doesn't seem like a typical commute though.
Except you do not, do you? If the weather is horrible more often than not and you still choose to bicycle then that is on you. Same goes for people who complain that their commute takes upto 2 hours. That is/was a choice you made when you chose your living arrangement and employer.
I know I get downvoted for this opinion since it goes against majority of HN, but commute and office work are both really nice and I miss them. I hope come next month our office opens up and I can start going to work again. But my situation is way different. I've purposely chosen both my employer and my living situation to suite me. I have 15-25 minute drive to office. My gym is on the way and there is several choices of grocery stores, so I can get additional benefit for my commute. On top of that the 20 minutes of driving back home is very nice book end to day of working and I can leave the office completely behind me and just have a nice drive and listen some music. In same toon in the morning I can hit the gym and then have a nice drive to office and start focusing on the work immediately.
It is fine if you don't like your commute or your office, but don't take it personally when someone says that they like it.
> around drivers who I can only presume have WW2 fighter style marks for how may cyclists they've managed to run off the road
Aggressive or unsafe driving is bad even if the author has the option to use other transport. It is bad also because to prevent people from using bikes.
Having said that, I definitely think the pro-cyclist camp (which I do consider myself a part of) likes to ignore that there are a lot of utterly useless cyclists out there too. Riding on the pavement, jumping red lights, being obstructive in traffic just to prove a point for example. I wish all cyclists kept to the highway code religiously because the small minority of bad cyclists or overly militant evangelists seriously damage the reputation of all cyclists, most of whom are simply ordinary people who want to get around without the expense or ecological footprint of driving.
Cycling ought to simply be a means of getting around, as normal as walking or driving. I understand this is how it's seen in places like the Netherlands, which is a far better state of affairs than here where cyclists are basically seen as vegans on wheels with all the drama that entails. Cycling shouldn't be a political act; I don't want to tell anyone they can't use their car for example, I'm certainly not saying everyone has to take up cycling and replace every journey with it. I'm not interested in telling anyone what to do with their life choices, I just want to get to work without getting literally run off the road by a mental taxi driver or clipped by a pillock who thinks its important to save the 0.5 seconds it would have taken him to check his left mirror.
But since we are on the topic from my experience most of the crashes that involve bicyclists could have been easily prevented by the cyclist.
The complaint was about aggressive or unnecessary dangerous driving.
aggressive or unnecessary dangerous driving is done by both parties and seeing a cyclist dodge and weave around cars during rush hour doesn't really leave much to imagination why their insurance premiums are higher.
However I think it's also true that at least some people who are anxious to get back to the office are visualizing a pre-pandemic office. And at many companies, it's going to be more along the lines of a fair number of people having gone full remote and others coming in 2 or 3 days a week.
And others probably read it as "I can't wait to get everyone I work with back in the office" whether intended in that spirit or not. I do think some will be disappointed by what "the office" looks and feels like at many places post-pandemic.
You're very fortunate to have had both the opportunity and ability to do this. Many people are not.
HN users with their top-of-market salaries and offices in downtown centers tend to forget this.
I thought so, because it's a small city in the Czech republic. There are about 5 guys there which have bussineses in various sectors. They all know each other. If you screw up badly in one job, you are not gonna get hired anywere.
"But why won't you move to Prague?" you ask. Because in Svitavy you get about 13-15k CZK netto/month. Rent in Prague for a reasonable studio apartment is about 11-12k (for reference - 9k for rent + 2,5k for utilities - https://www.sreality.cz/detail/pronajem/byt/1+kk/praha-kobyl...). Realistically the apartment is gonna be higher than that, because there are already 50 people who are willing to pay more than the said 9k for the linked one. You need about 4k a month for food. 500 CZK for phone + internet if you are cheap etc.
So in my example scenario, let's say you are saving 1k while in Svitavy, which is about right. You can't just go to Prague for job interview during your day job at a sweat shop. After a year you are gonna have 3/4 of living costs in Prague. If you are anything else than a programmer or IT guy, you are not gonna find a job in 2-3 months, possibly 6.
So unless you inherit something or take a loan to risk it all, you are stuck in Svitavy. Have a bit more empathy, nextlevelpíčo.
Also (and this is a general accusation, not a personal one!) it's easy for people who are homeowners to lecture others about sensibly choosing where to live, but for those of us with little prospect of getting on the housing ladder near their pre-covid jobs this line of argument does tend to grate. Being at the mercy of often predatory landlords is never a good position to be in, so I do take it a little personally when people call out for an end to remote work being the norm and a return to the old way of things. For many, remote work has been an adjustment of power away from bosses and landlords and towards employees which is something I don't think should be thrown away cheaply.
I have zero desire to live in a city and zero desire to ever set foot in an office again, and I know that many other people in our sector feel them same. Provided enough people stick to their guns on this, commuting and office work can be a genuine choice rather than something people are coerced into which I think will be a hugely positive thing for society. I suspect it'll benefit people who actually enjoy the rat race too, because the offices will be empty of people like me who'd rather work in their own space and instead be populated exclusively by people who actually want to be there. I'm not saying people like you shouldn't get to go to the office if you want to, but I am saying that people like me shouldn't be forced to for no reason other than seagull managers fearing their authority might be eroded by remote work.
I literally only live near an urban area because I had to pre-COVID as remote jobs were few and far between. I'd far, far rather be in a cottage in the Welsh mountains or on a sailing boat slowly working around Britain. Urban life in general is something about as appealing to me as a sudden brain haemorrhage, which I think is an aspect in the motivations of many pro-WFH people that a lot of anti-WFH people fail to grasp. Lots of people live in urban areas because they had to, not because they wanted to and WFH provides an excellent route to finally escape the modern "dark Satanic mills" for good.
>anti-WFH
Many people who like to go to office (including myself) are not "anti-WFH". I don't get where this mind set is coming from. Just because someone likes something you don't does not mean they want you to do it as well.
There is nothing about your position I "fail to grasp". I weight cons and pros and currently full time remote work has more cons and less pros than office work for me. This is very much a personal choice anyone can make. If you like remote work then you should optimize your life around that. That is literally none of my business and has no effect on me. But this is very touchy topic on HN and people are doing exact this "anti" vs "pro" people mind set and using very loaded words like "rat race" or relating other side's opinion to actual physical ailments and other emotion driven arguments which just seems odd for a forums that is suppose to be technical in nature.
For huge numbers of people remote work finally let them cast off the shackles of city life while retaining their professional jobs, the point you're not grasping as someone who actually likes city life is what an incredible improvement that is to many people's quality of life, and how jealously people guard this new feature of their lives.
If remote work is the most important aspect of a job for you then you should look for fully remote job. You might need to compromise on some other aspect like pay.
If you just want to eliminate commuting then remote work is one option, but you could also just move closer to your office or change jobs to a company that has office closer to you or to a company that has office in a location you wish to move to.
Again there is nothing I "fail to grasp" about this. There are other jobs than the highest paying one and there are other options than to work than commuting two hours to an office. What you don't seem to grasp is that I am not fighting you and you are fighting some fantasy version of me.
Actually, the length of your commute is the result of where you choose to live and where you choose to work. If you decide that you want those to be located an hour away from each other, like magic, that is exactly how long of a commute you are responsible for making.
There are almost infinite places you could live or work. I find it quite amusing that people complain and try to externalize blame for the clear result of a series of their own choices.
dude be a bit empathetic. Some people might have relatives they have to take care of, and are unwilling to downgrade their job by multiple levels, hence the commute. Others might have children with friends in local school - sure, they can move, but it's the last resort.
I sincerely hate you libertariantsy types. Your attitude works when you are 25-30 with no kids and distant family. And you know what fascinates me? Having remote/in office work be optional, this doesn't impact you in any way. I can happily live without commute, you can go to office for all I care.
Huh. I didn't realize it was a libertarian view that one should be responsible for outcomes that are obviously the result of decisions they made (and still make).
> I can happily live without commute, you can go to office for all I care.
Right. A choice that each of us can individually make. I've made mine and you make yours. I am simply stating that one should take personal responsibility.
In general, your employer shouldn't/doesn't care how long you have to commute to work. Why? Because you are replaceable with someone who doesn't have this problem or won't whine about it.
Stop externalizing blame. Your quality of life will increase greatly once you stop expecting other people to solve problems you create and just solve them yourself.
> dude be a bit empathetic.
Empathy for what, exactly? OP can get a job closer to their home OR move closer to their job OR find a remote only job. It isn't their employer's responsibility to endlessly subsidize and cater to the choices of their employees.
Regarding your other assumptions: I am outside of the age group you mention and have children + distant family.
At least in the Bay Area, the minimum length of one's commute is a function of how much money you make, and how small a shoebox you're willing to live in. Most of the peninsula and south bay are completely priced out for me, since I'm not a SVP or venture capital partner making $2M/year. I live about as close as I can comfortably afford, which means about 2.5 hours each way, by way of three interstate highways. If I made more, I'd love to "choose" to live closer to work.
Some of us put up with 2-3h commute round trip time a day for many years cause it was the only way. Now with remote, that commute is not necessary.
Of course people will choose not to do the hellish commute, if they have the choice.
I work in a mechanical industry, so employers are always located in some ugly industrial zone. And no, I’m not living there, and neither would you.
Is this a reference to a bunch of meetings or does your employer want to be able to watch you all day?
I wouldn't agree to it, but I've heard about such requirements from others.
Who seriously believes this?
I used to get a lot of reading done on my commute. For whatever reason sitting down to read at home is difficult. I was recently on a plane, and probably read the most I’ve read in 18 months. But I’m not sure why being on transit vs. elsewhere makes it easier to read. Perhaps the lack of consistently fast internet?
Hour spent in city traffic is horrible. Nobody wants that.
But before pandemic I started taking a 5hr drive instead of flying (from Toronto to Ottawa FWIW) . It was the most zen experience of my life. And massive part of it was guilt free nature. I'm going to work, I would've been in a Taxi / security line / plane anyway, but I get to enjoy time away from to-do list and housework and project and obligations everything else.
Going for a walk, I always have million guilts in my mind - I could be vacuuming or cleaning basement or mowing the lawn or doing taxes or or or... Whereas a pleasant commute is seemingly externally forced, completely guilt-free me time.
Again only applies to pleasant commutes, which I feel are a rarity.
--- On aside, How you approach commute also makes a difference. When I had downtown commute I was grouchy mcgrouch upon returning home in my manual hard clutch wrx.
Then I switched to a cvt gas powered scooter. I still did all the same things - I did not lane split or share, I spent same time in traffic. But world has been opened up since I didn't have the hard clutch and roof and a pillar in my way. I enjoyed the stop and go traffic as it allowed me to soak up the beautiful downtown I never noticed before.
---
But most of the time commute sucks and ALL that being said I love my remote work. I am surprised that we are doing marginally better last year in communication and team cohesion and results than we have while in the office.
So why not just go on a walk every morning, for that same transition effect? Because for me that would require sustained (or even increasing) effort over time to keep up, whereas the commute requires decreasing effort over time. Skipping the commute is a non-starter, because it has immediate consequences that my morning brain wants to avoid (having to email my boss/client to say I won't be working today). So over time it becomes a mindless, autopilot activity. Skipping the walk is too easy - if I'm in a rush or just not in the mood, I'll justify skipping it, just this once... The mental health consequences of skipping the walk are too long-term and nebulous to concern my morning brain.
I do also love going for walks by the way. But taking pleasure in an activity isn't a reliable motivator for long term habits, because it's so mood-dependent, and also because things get old when repeated daily.
Second this recommendation. Since the pandemic I rent (sublease) a small office room which is walking distance from home. Best commute ever. It's a quiet space and gives me a separation of work and home.
Taking a break when needed makes you more productive in long term. It prevents burnout.
But sadly there are parts of life, such as school or employment, where looking busy is important. There we learn bad habits, which may take a lot of time to unlearn.
In short term, could you make yourself feel less guilty about taking a walk by deciding the exact route and exact starting time in advance? Then the walk might feel a bit more like "doing your duty"...
Anecdotally - a client who lived in Texas who and had an hour drive with lots of traffic to commute to work each way had gotten a Tesla, and had had it for about 6months (this is in 2019) and he said he loved it, but that his wife liked him having it even more! When I asked why, he told me that she had noticed a marked difference in his emotional state when he got home from work for the better - when he thought about it he realized that the car taking on the mental work of dealing with rush hour traffic allowed him to decompress on the way rather than be more stressed out…
The cool thing is that I can adjust the length of it myself, rather than relying on freeway traffic to do so for me.
The thing about working remote is that you can commute if you want to, and you can skip the commute if you want to. If you work on-prem, you have no choice. I prefer having a choice.
I do a daily walk, but it’s not quite the same for me.
What I loved even more was the ability to fully disconnect at 5pm. Having every evening properly all to yourself is something you don't appreciate until you've lost it.
2x50 min seems super long
Legal everywhere in California. That will create a physical separation as well as mental.
> Legal everywhere in California.
Edinburgh is about 1/5th of the way around the planet from California, and even if it wasn't, not all housing units are resident-owned detached single-family homes (or resident-owned units in multiplexes with individual yards) with sufficient free backyard space for a habitable, functional office.
I, for one, started doing this at work "on my own": I'd show up at the office at 8 AM, and leave by 5:30 at the latest. This way I could avoid rush hour, dividing my commute time by 3. This didn't prevent me from seeing friends, etc in the evening.
I don't know why it hit me that day but I just felt sick of my time not being respected. Like yeah I get it if I have to be in early for a meeting that I have to take part in, but don't ask me to come in early so I can listen to things other divisions in the company did that have no bearing on my job (this place was a conglomerate so the other divisions were in totally different industries than mine). After that day I started to ask my team to work from home more and more. When I got sacked in March 2020 I took a remote job and have no plans to return to an office ever.
I made an all-hands meeting simulator to cope when we moved to Zoom: https://rafsters.itch.io/all-hands
Ah, yes, the pep rallys. Didn't attend them in HS. Didn't attend them in college. Still don't attend them.
It reduced a ~50 minute commute to ~20, so even though I was starting an hour earlier I only needed to get up about 30 mins earlier. Plus, having that extra time in the evening felt really good.
That said, we transitioned to full remote working and I can’t imagine myself going back to be honest.
For example, a few months ago the Telecom area announced that they purchased hardware to move our phone system into Microsoft Teams. Phone numbers would be moved over department by department, your desk phone would stop working once your number moved over, and here's some recommended headsets if you'd like one.
Then, after the phone system switch was well underway, an email from the President announced that we'd all be back in the office in September and that WFH would no longer be a thing. On a positive note, the MS Teams telephone integration works really well, so regardless of where I work it's an improvement over the desk phones.
Then, after I'd told my team to prepare for coming back full time, the messaging changed to "We're going to transition back to the office and you only need to be in two days per week, but we'll be back full time by January."
Honestly, I'm not sure how I feel about returning to the office. I'm sure I'll get used to it much like I got used to working from home. And I'm sure my co-workers will get used to me leaving at exactly 4pm (thanks to the bus schedule) instead of staying a bit afterwards to finish whatever I'm working on.
From the rumours I hear though, not everyone is feeling the same way. I know of five people that have left who would have likely stayed if they could work from home.
On top of all of this, COVID cases in my province are skyrocketing (10% of Canada's population, but 35% of its cases) and our elected leaders have disappeared. Apparently the Premier is finishing up a two-week vacation next week, so maybe we'll see restrictions re-imposed at the last minute and returning to the office will be postponed.
Wfh will ultimately win here because it’s far better suited to information work than being ever present physically in a pseudo-factory.
Is it really so bad having small talk with coworkers? I don't know where one is supposed to find friends in this new society that prefers talking to strangers and aliases on the internet over talking to the person sitting right next to them.
When covid hit, I'd just started a new job in New York (ironic that my timing was really that bad) and I reached a point where I had to break bad habits. I went through about four "waves" of breaking these habits, as painful as that was it was still progress. There was hope for a new office in August, but that basically didn't happen. I also moved back home when my prior lease was up, because why on earth would I pay to live in New York when half the city is still closed along with insane rent.
Cut to now, I was looking forward to going back to new york for the end of my 20's, however at this time I don't really see the point anymore. Being social is a farce (either at work or in person), I'm used to having more space and frankly the financial side makes immense sense. Remote work used to be something I was very against and unexpectedly I now welcome it. I also have bad acne, so the lack of social anxiety with that in a work environment is another plus. I guess I see my time differently now, maybe I'll regret not being more social, but I feel like I got that out of my system in my early twenties living in big cities since I was 19?
That's a good reason as any to tell any boss pushing for in-person work to go to hell.
From TFA:
> “I really don’t want to be on the tube in rush hour, even with my mask on, because a lot of people aren’t wearing masks. I’ve been double jabbed, but the tube is an incubator for the virus.”
Maybe the expensive-ass government should do its fucking job and start fining or banning anyone taking public transit that is maskless or dicknosing.
If people were smoking in the tube they'd be fined or arrested. Five minutes of covid exposure is much more damaging to a person than five minutes of passive smoking.
The other places I have seen where people need masks are mostly just the surgical (non-sealing) type, and half are dicknosing on top.
Hopefully the rest of Germany is being less stupid and actually enforcing the rules.
Also it's 100% guaranteed that wearing masks is safer than not wearing them, and it's minimal effort. So just use common sense and wear the mask, it's working great for managing covid in Asia.
Your logic is basically this: "I heard of a study that suggest masks are less effective in an environment." --> "lets not wear masks and maximize our chances of spreading covid. Because there's a study that suggests masks are less effective in certain environments"
If your definition of "works" is "provides nontrivial protection over the course of an 8-hour workday indoors", then yes, I would argue that does constitute a conclusion of "doesn't work".
This isn't a "disinformation tactic" any more than your argument of "it's not 0% therefore it works."
Note that I am also not arguing against mask-wearing. I am arguing against the notion that we can go back to normal in the near future, because masks don't seem to do all that much, and there isn't much else we can do.
That, or we have to accept a nonzero (but not that large) probability of getting sick with a new disease other than the usual flu, colds, etc., and hope that for the most part the vaccine-breakthrough infections aren't serious or life-threatening.
From the research I skimmed, it seems like a cloth mask is mostly not doing anything for you if you're indoors for an extended period of time. Do not extrapolate that I am arguing against mask-wearing, because I am absolutely not. I am arguing that we cannot go "back to normal", because you can't just put on a mask and be safe to a meaningful extent. I worry a lot about my friends who are schoolteachers, and in the next few weeks will be stuck indoors for several hours with 30+ children.
Edit: also, it really depends on the train car. Have you been on the Lexington Ave line in NYC during rush hour? You are literally jammed face-to-back at times, and the air conditioners sometimes do fail. There's basically no way to avoid exchanging aerosols and large droplets with other people.
even having a masked police officer ride a few trains with the revenue protection people and start handing out on the spot fines / cautions.
I no longer own a car, but the fact that it was fairly clean was enjoyable.
But driving itself can be very tiring, at least if you are trying to drive safely. That's the main reason I don't ever want a driving commute longer than 30 minutes, but would be okay with a longer transit commute.
...not on the subway
I have fond memories of letting the world go on the Sydney trains on the way to/from uni
Extremely large quantities of money have been removed from the business models of traditional, worker-employing journalism and redirected to Google, Facebook etc. to the point where I don't understand how any of the traditional old school businesses remain functioning at all. Hell, Craigslist struggles, and Craigslist was an early wave of the internet hurting what newspapers do.
"Yep. All ad money went to zuck, brin, and page" is glib, but does not deserve this degree of downvoting. In important ways, it's the truth.
I'm sure that ad spending has shifted online, but traditional media companies have been losing audience before Google launched News and Facebook started to dominate. There's plenty to blame, and the web as a whole probably played a part, but I'm not sure it's the primary driver. Before there were online alternatives, there was TV or just not getting "the news" at all. Relying on not having competition feels like a bad idea with regards to being a sustainable business.
Fact of the matter is, an office is an outdated method of working with today's technology. It just took a pandemic for the general public to realise this. You pay for a commute that's not necessary, you pay with your time (that you're not paid for) to get there (time that you could be spending on family, or something else), and depending on where you work, you're probably smelling 100s of people's sweat every day, and taking in, and contributing to, a whole lot pollution.
The problem is that managers want to see people working and an office environment is perfect for this purpose. I would be surprised if anything really changes in this regard long-term, other than in a few outlying cases.
That's the problem with looking at a limited number of opinions, I've seen a different consensus in people I've spoken to. Only 1 person (out of around 30) expressed a desire to remain completely remote and never go back to the office, while the rest favoured a hybrid approach. None of those I talked to (including a couple in the C-suite) expressed a desire to return to the office full-time.
There is no wish to come in.
What you're ending up with is that neither the people who want to be remote nor the people who were OK with going in specifically for pre-pandemic office are interested in going in. I'm not sure how well hybrid works and there will probably be some shifting around as a result.
One challenge is that this means that in-office people that were used to everyone being physically present will largely have to adapt for many meetings (for example) to operate as if everyone were remote.
But that is mainly because my family figured out I work from home and because I work from home they think they can just drop by anytime they like and demand my attention. I have asked a number of them "If I worked at an office would you drop my workplace unannounced because your son has broken his xbox controller (for the third time?)", the answer has been pretty much "ofcause not", so why do you think its acceptable.
I did ponder renting some office space near to home but it's cheaper to be a bit of an arsehole, tell the family "I've rented an office to prevent interruptions during my work day" and just ignore the door then it was to rent space :-P
However I don't have kids which would be more difficult to ignore while working from home. I just have to put up with the neighbourhood cats (including my own) interrupting me now and then, the cat from 2 doors up the street just jumped though the top window of my office to pinch some leftovers and is now raiding my cats toy box for a catnip toy.
But I have the benefit of a) having spare space in my home for a home office b) very little interrupts while at home c) great neighbours d) very good internet connectivity where I live (not excellent as I'm still waiting for 5G and FTTP, but I do have good 4G as a backup connection when needed). If any one of those were missing I would be seeking to either move or acquire office space to fullfill those needs.
From the people I talked to it is mixed with the majority wanting no more than 3 days, with most going for 2 days at home the rest in the office. The Hybrid model...
The amount of decisions, and knowledge that is passed around in a given office with just idle in person chats in the hallways or inpromptu meetings pretty large in many organizations, this everyday knowledge transfer does not happen in WFH, or happens less often, this can lead to things being missed, people being left out of the loop, etc.
Also it really depends on if a person a location in their home that can dedicate to an Office, that can be door closed off for meetings, and have no / limited interruptions.
I know a few people that do not have a spare room or other space to dedicate to that, so WFH for them is using the Kitchen table, or a desk in the living room that is not ideal... People like this generally prefer to be in the office.
hmm I experience it every day, where I over hear something in the hallway that another team it working on, that impacts my team.
This is especially true for IT depts who are often the last to know about something when they should be included from the Jump...
but sure just deny my 20+ years experience and insert yours as more valid that mine...
I am sure what you experience is true for you, and I am sure as I said in my original comment my experience my not be true for a company that has been WFH as primary for years, or from their formation.
However if you work for a 60+ year old company that until 2020 never had any WFH then just try to graft on WFH, that is going to be an issue
If this is how you are finding out about things that impact your team, then your company’s communication and planning is broken and work from office is a bandaid enabling that. Wfh forces good process as it’s not sustainable without it.
This is a breath of fresh air, finally some cost-benefit analysis is being done on what was a very hasty set of decisions.
The other type of commute is when you are required to pay continuous attention to your environment for your safety. I played "pay attention or die" (aka driving) on 2 of the top 10 most congested expressways in the country as part of my daily commute... being able to have a friend along for part of it helped, but that time is never truly your own. I imagine it's the same for using a form of public transit that is less than safe, especially as anyone other than a large old grumpy white guy.
Transition time in the first case can be quite rewarding, although both are a tax.
For example I went to work by local train for a while, but in practice it was a 10 minutes walk, a 5 minutes wait, a 5 minutes ride, a 10 minutes wait, a 20 minutes ride, then a 10 minutes walk. So in 1 hour there was only 20 minutes “free”.