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Comment by Gordonjcp | Hacker News Reader

I never understood why people think time spent travelling is "lost".

Commutes are often filled to the brink with people, there usually isn't enough space for everyone to move freely, and depending on one's location, you might have nothing but a black tunnel wall outside the windows. Public transport often requires one to switch trains or buses, and traffic jams are a constant worry for drivers.

Travelling, as in actually going somewhere, is often a nice and relaxing experience. Taking a delayed filled-to-the-brink bus to the train-station, switching to a delayed train without a single free seat, switching to a hermetically sealed metro car an hour later and finally arriving at the office 30 minutes late is _not_ a relaxing experience.

I'd love to see my coworkers now and then, but commuting really neutralises any benefits from going to the office.

Maybe travel at a different time, then.

That's the thing, though; when you're bound by working hours and need to commute (which most people are), you don't really have much choice and will need to commute during rush hours.

Personally, I'd rather find a non-tech sector job close to my home than commuting to a tech job. I am very happy to be fortunate enough to have the option to work from home all of the time -- most people don't

I just had to say this: I admire and applaud your patience which you demonstrated when responding to the person above. Kudos for being insightful and kind at the same time.

Tech jobs haven't been 9-5 for about twenty years. If your employer wants you punching a clock and sitting at a desk, you need to change your job, or Change Your Job.

If you can walk to a train station in 5 minutes, then socialized with your train friends for half an hour to 45 minutes or read a book. Or if you commute by walking, cycling and running and it is considered your daily physical activity, it is fine.

If you spend your time running to a bus stop, not being able to do anything in the bus because it is crowded and bouncy, then have to catch a train, that is also full then another one, to run to another bouncy crowded bus and reach your office 1h30 to 2h00 without having been able to spend a decent amout of time reading, chatting or something else, this is totally lost. If you are driving chance is it is also lost for the most part.

Who the hell has train friends?

Might be a new startup idea! Time to sell train friend subscriptions :p

I made friends when I was commuting by train in Switzerland.

The first weeks you ignore people. Sometimes you start talking because of a special event, an unexpected halt, whatever. First friend I did was a cyclist like me so we were bumping into each other when hanging our bicycles to the hook when entering the train and one day he complimented me on my bicycle and then we started talking. Second one is a girl I was seeing most of the time because we were kind of looking for the less busy cars at the end of the lane every morning where most people are too lazy to walk to. She was sitting so straight and elegant one day I simply asked her if she was dancing ballet as most people who sit so well are dancers. It happened she wasn't but we started chatting and now we are friends. Another one I really started talking to because of another girl who was sitting at my side and who had intellectual developmental disability. That girl kept talking and talking, she was very funny, aware of her disability yet made fun of it saying it made her more entertaining and it was true and she was constantly making jokes about life, her and ourselves. I never met that person again but she made me and the woman sitting in front of me chatting about how good time we had talking to her afterwards that we ended up chatting for an hour and also became friends. These are the three I kept as friends and met outside of the commute context even years after we all stopped taking those trains and am still in touch with while living in another country. But I met other people I would bump into once in a while, whom I exchanged numbers and we would chat a bit every time we met.

It takes a bit of time usually and you don't get to be friend with a complete car but if you take the very same commute daily for months you eventually find out that you can bound with one or two people that share part of the journey.

I get it. When I lived in a metro area on a regular commute I would often see the same people at the same time every day for years.

Lots of people I know who live in the north of England and Scotland get to know the people they end up commuting with, but this seems much less common in the south of England. I think conversation with strangers on the train is also much more common up north.

People in the north of England and in Scotland are a lot friendlier, or at least a lot more likely to start up a conversation.

The south of England is fucking *weird*. If you start talking to someone they look at you like you just pissed all over their legs.

> If you are driving chance is it is also lost for the most part.

I will never understand why people think time spent driving is "lost".

Because it is? It's time you can't spend on your hobbies. Of course, if repeatedly driving the same route every day is one of those, then go ahead.

To be fair the grandparent post did not elaborate, but not everyone is locked into doing nothing during their commute.

People using public transport might be able to do all sorts of things like reading or creative work.

That’s of course hard if you need to drive yourself.

But if you are able to make good use of that time one could consider it not lost.

Maybe commute should be clocked in for jobs that don’t rely on physical presence?

You often cannot do anything on the commute because you have walk, train, walk, bus, walk and no period is long enough to get anything useful done.

I average about 20-25 audiobooks a year. Commute time was some prime listening.

I've got the John le Carré George Smiley Collection on at the moment. Blasting through snowy countryside on a beautiful sunny day listening to tales of Cold War spies? Cannot be beat.

Commute does not allow for flow-like experiences.

The key word is might. I was commuting in a big city, 1+ hour one way, regardless car or public transit. So you'd think that in the latter case I had 40-50 minutes to do stuff? Wrong. First you need to wait for the transport, technically you can read something quickly while waiting, but you always need to watch for car numbers, not to miss yours, and holding a phone out in winder is fucking cold. In summer sun blinding a screen and causing it to overheat due to max brightness. Then you are riding in the overcrowded tram or bus, one hand holding the rail not to fall, so no typing, and reading is rather limited when you are packed like sardines. Then you repeat all that for the second leg of the trip (not many are lucky to have a direct line to work). So all in all out of 1 wasted hour you maybe read for like 10 minutes total in shitty conditions. Oh, and reading standing really hurts your neck (because you are reading face down), spine (because you are always in the asymmetrical stance), and hand (carpal syndrome from holding too wide phone and doing swiping gestures with the same hand).

Commuting in the car obviously makes impossible to do anything else.

Total efficiency of commute is about zero.

> Commuting in the car obviously makes impossible to do anything else.

I don't understand why you'd think that.

Do you just sit motionless, thoughtless, and in perfect silence in the car?

I generally travel at least 40 miles and sometimes a few hundred miles a day to get to work.

When else do I get to sit on my arse for a couple of hours and listen to the radio?

Literally ANYTIME else. Nothing prevents you from passively consuming radio content a few hours a day at home.

2am, when everyone else including a ridiculously energetic toddler is in bed?

Headphones.

Home?

Irony aside, I'd rather drive to meet friends or family living in the countryside than to work. And all things being equal, I'd rather bike, I'm still sightly overweight and it helps.

1. Turn off pc

2. Turn off phone

3. Turn on radio

4. Enjoy

I don't have a "smart" phone.

I rarely use my computer at home, unless I'm working on some music or video in which case I can't really listen to the radio.

When I was a younger human, riding my motorcycle into the office every day was an amazing hobby. I loved it and would absolutely go back to that daily habit if it works for me.

so what do you call 3 hours a day when you're forced to sit/stand in a carriage? sure, I can find activities to occupy myself, read a book, listen to podcast, etc, but this is not by choice. I'd rather go for a run. So if I cannot do what I want during the time, then the time for me is lost. And don't even get started on "learning new skills" while on a train. Studying requires concentration, at least for me, so no, I cannot learn new language while standing under someones armpit.

If you need to travel three hours by train every day and you don't like it, you need to get a job that's not three hours away.

Brilliant mate but 3 hours a day is 1.5h away

That's the entire point of this argument

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