Returning to the office is 'wildly more expensive' today than in 2019

cnbc.com

3 pointsuptown2 comments

I got as far as their 'we surveyed 2,000 full-time workers about costs of going to the office' results - where those folks are spending an average of $145/week on breakfast, lunch, and coffee. (And that is treated as a straight-up cost of having to report to the office.)

Dunno how the survey questions were worded - but I'd bet those 2,000 workers were (on average) still spending serious money on breakfast, lunch, and coffee when working from home.

Of course, inflated numbers always make for a "better" news story - so take this one with some large grains of salt.

Selective reading. What about the $22/day in commute and parking fees that were part of the same list as the food costs? You actually had to actively ignore them when making your comment. That travel expense is a dead loss under RTO.

They also don’t mention how commuters value the quality time lost during a commute. Say two hours/week free time lost valued, say, at $100/hr. (Ask your 80 y.o. self what they’d pay to get those “healthy quality hours with your growing family” hours back.)

It does add up.

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