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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

And the employees most likely to quit will be ones with responsibilities that make it difficult to do the commute 5 days a week - kids to pick up from daycare, health issues to manage, a social life in the evenings, travel plans - basically the exact category that a company like Meta would want to replace with a younger, more exploitable bunch.

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> And the employees most likely to quit will be ones with responsibilities that make it difficult to do the commute 5 days a week

Or senior people who have a dozen offers waiting in their inbox that they've neglected responding to because they're reasonably happy where they are...until the prospect of commuting.

That's not how the job market is right now. There's like 5 companies in the world that can compete on compensation while allowing remote work with meta.

I would take a lower comp for remote work and a better work environment. They will never pay me the amount that would make me choose 2h in traffic everyday instead of having enough time to cook breakfast to my family, take my kids to school, have lunch with my wife, etc.

Every time I hear U.S. commute times, I keep thinking they must be grossly overstated.

How is your infrastructure so inadequate for... living?

They're overstated. The median commute time in the USA is about 27 minutes each way. NYC is the highest at 33 min.

Is that one way?

> 27 minutes each way

For tech hubs? Because tech hubs tend to be in some of the most traffic nightmare cities. I have worked in DC and Atlanta. My commute for all my jobs except 1 was an hour. The one exception was 20mins because it was a small weirdly placed company that just happened to be in the suburb one over from me.

For all other jobs, I had to commute to a business district I didn't live close to because business district and low price (when young) or great schools (when older) don't mix often.

Yeah, I know the median commute in these areas is low, but they are counting retail workers and teachers. I bet the median for tech workers is pretty high because of the reality of how they tend to be placed.

In a real tech hub, it's definitely going to be a longer commute. Nashville, for instance, is not a tech hub. Yet it has some of the worst commute times for people who have an office there.

Most cities on earth have mixed-zoning, with office and living spaces mixed together. There, this does not occur.

I live in Utrecht and despite living very close to Utrecht Centraal, it still takes me 45 minutes to get to Amsterdam where my office is. Count late trains and general rush hour, so for me it can take 2h out of my day easily if I'm unlucky (thankfully where I work we count commute time into the work day, the very first time I saw my manager I saw him sprint out the door at 3PM on the dot because he had a lengthy commute lol)

I think if you counted commute time as billable hours in the U.S. workforce, there would be much less complaining.

Long commutes are not unique to the US. I'm spending 1.5 hours one way in the UK. It's depend on your personal circumstances. If you are young and single it's usually possible to rent a studio or a room with reasonable commute time. E. g. if you have a family and/or own a house then moving close to the office in response to RTO mandate may not be an option.

And guess which of your employees can take that option.

Dozen offers to try to go through 5+ stages of recruitment process without any feedback and possibility to be ghosted after each person. How good senior people are with leetcode?

No point in quitting, reduce workload.

If leadership needs to manage folks out make them do the work and collect a paycheck while it happens.

Yeah I don't get people who quit when RTO or unreasonable changes are made. Quitting makes it easy for them and means they stop paying you now.

Letting them fire you means at worst you end up with the same outcome, at best you call their bluff and get paid a few months more (or forever).

Yeah but RTO takes real time and money. Sure you can earn a paycheck, but if you're commuting 2 hours a day total, you're still losing those 2 hours until they fire you. And that kind of stinks. And that's assuming you don't need to move. Moving for a job you hate is the worst.

I think the suggestion is just ignoring the RTO mandate and continuing to work remote, until they fire you for insubordination.

Reduce workload, get in a bit later and go home a bit earlier.

Avoid attending meetings involving people dialling in from a different office (that’s not in person collaboration, so it’s worthless work. Sorry, I don’t make the rules) and be present at the meeting (keeping the chair warm it’s all it counts after all) while browsing HN in the ones you really cannot get out of it.

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