[KnobbleMcKnees]

Whenever I'm sat in a four mile tailback at 6pm, I often look at everyone in the cars around me and, if they make eye contact, I give them a little nod and a smile, as though to say, "We chose this. This was a great choice".

[tbrownaw]

> tailback

I assume this is the thing that's called a "traffic jam" where I live?

[KnobbleMcKnees]

I'm actually British but I was appealing to the er, status quo in this case!

[nostrebored]

Maybe you should live closer to work. The choice to live in sprawling cities and partaking in dystopian car culture _is a choice_.

[doubled112]

Sure, simple.

I'll just pack up my family of four and move to a bachelor apartment to save the commute.

I choose to have a family, and I choose to work too, I suppose.

Maybe $JOB will provide me a raise to do so.

[skyyler]

I don't make enough money to afford a place within an hour of where I work.

Any advice? You seem to have answers.

[nostrebored]

Take advantage of the fact that you can change companies to somewhere that provides you with enough compensation to live near your work. This might require a move. People have moved for work for centuries.

[skyyler]

I actually had to move to take my current job.

Any recommendations for places I can move to?

[happytoexplain]

Moving is a burden of a highly varying degree. The implication that it is a non-factor points to a fundamental absence of shared experience between you and the people you are criticizing.

[nostrebored]

I have moved significantly more than the average person to do exactly what I’m talking about here. Without money, with money, without kids, with kids. I feel like I have a pretty reasonable amount of experience.

It’s not that bad.

[KnobbleMcKnees]

I work for a company that's fully distributed, and do ~2k miles a year, almost exclusively to visit family.

Your halfway-house "build your life around your career" mentality appealed to me in my early 20s when I was on starter salaries and was unmarried and childless. That is no longer the case and you couldn't - as I've had the pleasure of telling several interviewers - pay me to return to it.

[outside1234]

And then what after he is laid off in 9 months by this job randomly?

Buy a new place next to the new employer?

[nostrebored]

Why buy? Buying houses is a bad idea if you don’t have certainty or value the flexibility of moving.

[bluefishinit]

Perfect argument for WFH. It doesn't get any closer to work than that.

[plagiarist]

"Simply emigrate to another country, bud, you are choosing to live with the car culture"

[nostrebored]

You don’t have to emigrate to another country. I’ve lived in half a dozen U.S. cities with no car at this point.