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Comment by jh00ker | Hacker News Reader

Before the pandemic, I feel like the norm was to leave your home at whatever time was necessary for you personally to get into the office at the time that meetings are generally happening (at my company this was 10am, usually for standup).

One thing I've noticed on my team as we talk about returning to the office, is that now ICs seem to think about the commute as taking away from their total working hours in the day. Whereas before, they thought of being "on the clock" (so to speak) when they arrived at their desk, now, in the minds of a lot of folks, the clock starts when the commute starts.

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Interesting that they only realize it now. That is why i never wanted to commute. Saw it as a waste of life. Nowadays it is a good time for me to read (sitting in a train). Commuting by car would still be stolen time i guess.

I'm listening to audiobooks since years while driving and take it as a personal time before reaching my family. Very enjoyable.

Legally in many countries commute to work is working. If you have an accident while commuting it counts as a work accident. Not sure what is the status in the USA.

but its not on the clock. So if I have an accident on my commute I am insured via work, but regardless the time spent on the commute will not be coming from my 40h/week time account but cut into my free time.

Who in tech works on a clock?

Honestly I've never met anyone in my 20 years of career.

Do you use clock-in, clock-out systems to show presence in an office building? For what?

Genuinely curious.

I’ve seen this, quite common for federal contracting. Although it’s also common to hammer-click 8 at the end of the month..

That said even if you’re not clocking in it’s common to want to work a full 8 hours or close to it.

Everybody in Germany and most of the rest of Europe, too. There are exceptions but generally not for your run-of-the-mill techy. And even if you work whenever you like, your employer is obligated to show that you worked no more than is allowed by law. (That's the purpose of time recording, protect the worker from too much overtime.)

How you do that differs, but there are companies that run clock-systems for that -- many of them are coupled to the access control systems of your office/factory, so when you use your ID card to enter the building, you automatically clock in. Others require you to maintain timesheets in one system or the other.

How reliable these systems reflect how much time you actually worked is up to debate, but as employer you get into serious trouble if you don't have them.

I've seen it in France, because there are two types of contracts here - week (you get paid for 35h/week or up to 39h/week with bonus time off to compensate for the extra up to 4h on top of the "maximum" legal 35h) or day, where you get paid for 200-something work days in the year, regardless of hours worked (2 or 10, as long as the work is done and the maximum work hours in a day/week/month and the minimum rest periods are followed, all is good), which comes with a slightly different tax regime, more days off to compensate for the higher workload, etc. If you're on the first type of contract (as I was at my previous job), you have to keep track of your hours, you get overtime, etc.

It’s used for in office work as well as for remote work. Essentially the company has to be able to provide a time sheet for legal reasons. This is a legal requirement for employees in a non leadership position, but even team leads are required to do time sheets , so only department leads are at a level where the legal requirements are relaxed.

This means overtime is always compensated either in pay or by taking days off and frankly I would not work any other way anymore in an employment situation (unless self employed)

Also required in public sector jobs here. When you are on a contract with compensation time off for overtime, and it's sometimes even computed with >1:1 compensation on average hours over some time window, you kind of need to track it.

I worked for a small software company in Canada. We were hourly. Had a specific start time and end time and they shoed you out the door at 5pm to lock up. If you ever had to stay late, you filled out an overtime sheet. No clock in/out but if you were late frequently you'd get a talking to.

It was annoying. I'd often be 'in the zone' at 5 and they felt the need to interrupt productive work. Not sure why. Eventually they gave me a key.

> Who in tech works on a clock?

In the US and in the tech career field but outside of the tech industry (and maybe even inside it in places that aren’t paying top dollar) in places like California which have a higher-than-federal salary floor for wage/hour exemption in the field, even if nominally reimbursed on a salary basis, plenty of people at junior levels, because they are subject to wage/hour/overtime rules.

Probably also a lot of people in places that have stronger worker protections than the US (which covers, well, most of the developed world.)

It should. You're not in the car for your benefit.

Personally this is my biggest resistance to in-office work; if the commute was recognized as part of the working hours, I don’t care if I spend some of my workday on the road (although I might feel that time could be better spent, but my employer gets to make that tradeoff).

I'd want to live a four hour walk from work. I wouldn't have to spend a minute in the office, I'd still get paid, and I'd be in great shape too

That was one of the reasons I chose my most recent employer to be a company that doesn't have an office within 2500 miles of where I live. There's no way they could reasonably demand that I come in to their office on more than an every few months basis. Incidentally, they're also pushing an RTO for people who live within 25 miles of their office -- unsurprising, since they just rented a brand new, 16000 square foot space a few months ago. I feel sorry for those who are averse to RTO and couldn't see it coming.

Are you ever concerned you might be an easy person to chop for layoffs? My employer is moving to full-time RTO and the rumor mill is that most people outside of that (similar, 25 mile) boundary will largely be in the first round of layoffs.

Well, I live in the Bay Area, so it's not like it'd be hard (relatively speaking -- I am aware of how truly insane the job market is right now) to get another remote or hybrid gig with a more local company.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

My mind shifted this way for sure. Another 2-3 hours of my day is lost when I commute once weekly.

Of those, I fully work because I start at 8am promptly and take short lunches.

Days I go in often feel more like socializing for the sake of socializing - it’s just huge meeting days.

If RTO is mandated at my company I’ll probably try to get in at 6am and leave at 2pm if I’m not going to consider a commute.

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