[arcturus17]

> you can make a commute a quite pleasant part of your day and create a healthy separation between your work and your life

Everyone is picking on the rest of your arguments, and I can sympathize with some of them, but not this one. Never had, nor can I envision, a commute with a healthy separation of work and life or that wasn't orders of magnitude worse than, you know, reclaiming that time for whatever I want.

[alexfoo]

For the sake of balance I'd just like to say that I agree with the GP on this.

I miss my ~30 minute commute (by bike) from my old job. It provided good delineation between home and work, and 1h of good cardio a day meant I didn't need to do any of that at the gym. I didn't have a need for that time to myself to choose what to do because I liked that choice being taken away for these relatively short periods and me being "forced" into doing a nice chunk of exercise. It also allowed me to ramp up to work thoughts on the way in, and to slowly dump my work thoughts as I went home.

Maybe this is also just me who, now working fully remotely, struggles to regularly schedule in a similar amount of exercise despite having more time available with no commute. Since it's no longer strictly required I'm less likely to do it.

But discussing this with other colleagues and we worked out that, as a generalisation, which side of the fence you are on these types of things comes down to whether or not you have children.

If you have kids then you often crave an activity like a 30 minute commute because it's an genuine excuse to have this time to yourself. If you don't have kids you've no idea why you would crave this time.

[kelnos]

The problem here is that you've decided that because you liked your commute, and that it had benefits for you, everyone else should be forced to do the same, and inevitably it will often be in much less comfortable and useful ways than you've been able to do it.

Allowing remote work increases possibilities, and you've presented a false dichotomy. There's nothing that says an employer can't still maintain a (smaller) office for people who want to come in (either every day, or a smaller part of the week). Employers could also provide a stipend so people like yourself could rent a desk in a co-working space (assuming they still exist post-pandemic). And at the most basic, assuming you really did have to work from home, there's nothing stopping you from taking a break and going on a 30-minute bike ride. You could even "simulate" your commute by taking that ride once in the morning and once at the end of the day.

Requiring people to come to the office reduces possibilities, and requires that everyone conform to the same mold. I totally get that you liked going to an office. But it's selfish to require everyone else do that just because you want to. And you don't need to require that in order to get what you want, too.

> If you have kids then you often crave an activity like a 30 minute commute because it's an genuine excuse to have this time to yourself.

This is completely unrelated. Please don't suggest that everyone else should have to go to an office every day because you somehow can't negotiate a 30-minute break from your kids with your partner. That's your problem to fix, not mine.

[alexfoo]

Wow, you've completely misread/misunderstood my post. Little point in saying any more.

[arcturus17]

Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

I work remotely, but I walk to an office. I also like to have a separation of work and home.

Also I'm very physically active, I do crossfit 4x a week right next to my house.

I find it easier to commit by not being tied to any other location other than my home.

[alexfoo]

Indeed.

I definitely go through phases where I need a lot more structure in order to make things happen. Having an office just the right distance away to go to was a good target. I could either run or cycle to/from it. A public transport option was easily available (this is London, so public transport is nigh on amazing) but I was able to resist that lazy option.

I guess what I'm saying is that the freedom of working from home is just too much freedom for me. I'm way more productive and my employer gets way more of my time (not that they demand any extra time from me) but I'm lacking the initial impetus to get out of the house to do my own stuff.

Even something as simple as walking my kid to school (they're old enough now to make their own way) meant that I was out of the house and, on days without any early morning meetings, I'd walk on to the local pool to do a ~1h swim, or I'd run a long route home. Now it's just too easy to be holed up indoors and think "ah, I'll go for a swim/run/ride a bit later" and never do.

I know the motivation/planning/execution will come back eventually. I've successfully trained for various endurance events in the past but I guess my brain hasn't caught up with all of the changes that the pandemic has had influence on, including my working setup.

[spacedcowboy]

I work from home, in the shed at the bottom of the garden. If I want/need time alone, I still have that separate space. Mostly though, I just appreciate the extra 20 minutes in bed in the morning, and the extra time in the evening with the family (the kid is at the stage where engineering challenges are still fun for him, so it's fun for me too).

I have already told my manager that despite the official "you must work 2 days in the office per week" policy, if they ever try to apply that to me, I'm out. I'm looking for an excuse for early retirement, but it's just too much of a risk to disturb the status quo at the moment. Perturb the situation at your peril, employer-mine.

I got a seat-assignment earlier in the week (the official line is that they've hired too many people and can't place everyone, so some of us have 'volunteered' to stay at home). I was just about to enquire what was going on in Slack when he got to me first saying it was a group-wide thing and he'd reassign me to a non-desk seat as soon as he could. Which he did; and so I continue to work there...

[hdjjhhvvhga]

> nor can I envision

Actually I implemented this. When I worked in the office, I used to bike to and from work every day. Every week I tried to choose a (slightly) different route. An it was really, really good for my mental health.

For the first 10 minutes or so of the ride I still had some thoughts from work, then gradually they started to disappear, I got intrigued by new shops being opened, some random folks doing crazy stuff on the street etc. In the end, I could feel endorphins coming and finally felt pleasantly tired when arriving home.

Now, when I work remotely, I do the same, I just ride whenever I want instead to the office.

[kelnos]

> Now, when I work remotely, I do the same, I just ride whenever I want instead to the office.

Thank you! I've seen far too many posts where someone is saying "I biked/walked to work and it was great; everyone else should be forced to go to an office so I can keep my nice commute".

How are so many people blind to the idea that, if they are working from home, they can still take a bike ride or go for a walk before and after work? Hell, they might even now have the flexibility to take that ride/walk during lunch, or at other times when they need it.

[8ytecoder]

Me as well. I intentionally chose to live within a 30 min bike ride and biked as much as I can. That’s how I got fit. That said, companies don’t pick their office location based on how close it is to where most people live. In all major cities and especially in the Bay Area, commute is a nightmare you just have to deal with rather than do something with it.

[Implicated]

I gasped when I read this sentence. I wish I had a blood pressure monitor to get an idea of the effect. What an incredible perspective. Amazing how we can massage things in our minds into a shape we can accept.

[tzs]

I had such a commute once. I lived in Seattle but worked on the other side of Puget Sound commuting by ferry.

Most people who commute across Puget Sound go the other way. They live on the west side and commute east to Seattle. That direction is a nightmare, with heavy traffic and long waits both in traffic and at the ferry terminals.

Going my way traffic was not too bad even if I went in during rush hour. I usually went in a couple hours or so later though and then it wasn't even noticeable. Similar coming home.

On the ferry I could nap in my car, or read in my car, or go take a nice stroll around the deck enjoying watching the water, or have a meal or a snack at the ferry's cafeteria, or relax in the fairly comfortable passenger seating area. There were newspaper vending machines with the Seattle Times, Seattle PI, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal which provided another way to spend my time on the boat.

[paulcole]

Get yourself a short bike commute. I did pre-pandemic and it was amazing. I’ve never had a commute longer than 30 minutes by bike in my professional life. I always much preferred living in the smallest cheapest apartment I could find near a place with a lot of jobs.

Pandemic royally fucked over that lifestyle.

[arcturus17]

I already walk to work, because working remotely doesn't mean necessarily working from home, and I could do that even if I worked at home.

[paulcole]

Yeah, I switched to a coworking space about a year ago. I still hate remote work but having a nice building to go and work it makes it tolerable.

[kelnos]

Or you can, y'know, just go for a bike ride before and after work. Just the starting and ending points will be your home, rather than an office.

[paulcole]

My apartment is too small for me to want to be there for both work and after work hours.

[anonred]

Biking 10-15 minutes to work on a protected bike path is an order of magnitude better experience mentally and physically, speaking from personal experience.

[arcturus17]

I can do that on my own without the need to be compelled by anyone, and in fact I walk to the office every morning (I work remotely, but go to a co-working space), with the difference that I have the freedom to do otherwise at any given moment.

[nicpottier]

Live in a city, get a bike, take a job you can bike to.