Lol I "love" that the first benefit this company lists in their jobs page is "In-Office Culture". Do people actually believe that having to commute is a benefit?
You can't reduce the in-office or remote experience purely to commuting. It's just one aspect about how and where you work and work life balance in general.
But since you asked, yes, I actually enjoy commuting when it is less than 30 minutes each way and especially when it involves physical activities. My best commutes have been walking and biking commutes of around 20-25 minutes each way. They give me exercise, a chance to clear my head, and provide "space" between work and home.
During 2020, I worked from home the entire time and eventually I found it just mentally wasn't good for me to work and live in the same space. I couldn't go into the office, so I started taking hour long walks at the end of every day to reset. It helped a lot.
That said, I've also done commutes of up to an hour each way by crowed train and highway driving and those are...not good.
I don't get this. This idea that 'work life balance' should mean that the two should be compartmentalised to specific blocks of time seems counterproductive to me. To me it feels like an unnatural way of living. 8 hours in which I should only focus on work, 8 hours I should focus on everything else followed by 8 hours of sleep. I don't think that is how we are supposed to operate. Even the 8 hours of sleep in one block is not natural and a recent invention. Before industrialisation people used to sleep in multiple blocks (wikipedia: polyphasic sleeping)
The idea that you have to be 'on' for 8 hours at a time seems extremely stressful to me. No wonder you need an hour afterwards just to unwind. Interleaving blocks of work and personal time over the day feels much more natural and less stressful to me. WFH makes this possible. If I'm stuck on something, I can do something else for a while, maybe even take a short nap. The ability to focus and do mentally straining work comes in waves for me. Being able to go with my natural flow makes me both happier, more relaxed and more productive.
The key to work/life balance to me is not stricter separation but instead better integration.
> This idea that 'work life balance' should mean that the two should be compartmentalised to specific blocks of time seems counterproductive to me.
Different people are different and can have different preferences.
For me, having different physical spaces helps me focus on work at work and my family at home. When they are the same physical space, both suffer. I'm not saying everyone should feel this way.
Counterpoint: when I "wfh" I end up just sleeping 90% of my work hours and smashing out actual work for the remainder. When I'm in an office I'm productive 70% of my hours and it has nothing to do with accountability, just a proper office environment (and yes I have a work area at home). Regardless of going to office or wfh, I don't have set hours.
The overarching point is everyone is different, ymmv.
This is part of the company culture. If the company respects the boundary between work and personal life, and it's a cultural value, then it shouldn't be a problem for you establishing a space even without going to the office. You just close down your work laptop, put it aside and open it up next time when it's time to work again. Of course, there's stuff like on-call shifts, and there's a temptation to just stay later and finish this one thing, but if the company culture does not expect you to be tethered to work 24x7 then it's doable. If the culture is right, you don't need a physical barrier for this to be doable.
> so I started taking hour long walks at the end of every day to reset. It helped a lot.
A good habit. I dont see why any remote worker couldn't do that.
> it shouldn't be a problem for you establishing a space even without going to the office.
No, this was nothing to do with company culture. This was just my own mental response to just always being at home. Admittedly, the pandemic accentuated this because we weren't going anywhere even on weekends and evenings. But even as things opened up and we resumed our normal socialization, I returned to the office long before most people because I needed the mental and physical distance.
I know I'm atypical. In those early days,I estimated fewer than 5% of people in my office were voluntarily returning and even today when we're at RTO 3 days a week, most people do exactly that and no more.
1. It's extremely cold and dark! I must wear extra clothes when going inside and I get depressed at wasting a day of nice weather in what looks like a WW1 bunker.
2. Terrible accessibility for disabled people! (such as myself)
3. Filthy toilets!
4. Internet is slower than at home!
5. Half the team lives somewhere else so all meetings are on teams anyway!
6. They couldn't afford a decent headset so I get pain in my head after 5 minutes, but I don't have a laptop so I can't move to a meeting room.
The HR really can't understand why after all these great perks I insist on wanting to work from home. I am such an illogical person!
Friend works at office that allows dogs. Her workplace is one big dog toilet! She is expected to clean it (she is not toilet cleaner).
She get sexually assaulted, when her boss shoved his dog into her crotch!
There were some hospitalisations from work related injuries... Regular bullying, threats of violence....
I did quit a job within 2 weeks because of casual racism and sex harassment in the office. But I was lucky to find something else that fast, to be able to do it.
> Do people actually believe that having to commute is a benefit?
Everything is subjective here. I don't love commuting, but I'm remote now and there are days I kind of miss it. I got a lot more podcasting listening in when I did which I really do miss, and I enjoyed getting out of the house, on a schedule, and seeing my city and area.
As for BEING in the office, yes I also miss that. I miss the friendships with people from other parts of the org that I made; I miss the getting together at lunch and talking about both work and non-work stuff; I miss the pinball machines that one enthusiast set up.
THAT SAID, I abhor the _requirement_ to be in an office; it's a top down, heavy handed, hamfisted attempt at trying to force something that IMO can only come naturally, under the guise of "CuLtUrE!", and unless forced to I won't consider any job that requires it. (NB: This, too, is a tradeoff - if it's close to my house and I've got some latitude as to what time to make it there so I can have some freedom to avoid the heaviest of traffic, sure.)
This is just another example of the "open office" concept. When that came out everyone hated it except for the C-suite that didn't have to do it, under the mistaken idea that it forces "collaboration, which is good", when the reality was that the "good" part was emergent, holistic, and natural, and any forcing function kills it. But of course we also know that it was nothing but a cost-savings issue, and the "collaboration" argument was a gaslight retcon of the highest order. Open offices actually worked when PART of the office was open, allowing collaboration _as needed_ and driven by the teams/groups that wanted to do it, not by management. RTO is exactly the same.
But since you asked, yes, I actually enjoy commuting when it is less than 30 minutes each way and especially when it involves physical activities. My best commutes have been walking and biking commutes of around 20-25 minutes each way. They give me exercise, a chance to clear my head, and provide "space" between work and home.
During 2020, I worked from home the entire time and eventually I found it just mentally wasn't good for me to work and live in the same space. I couldn't go into the office, so I started taking hour long walks at the end of every day to reset. It helped a lot.
That said, I've also done commutes of up to an hour each way by crowed train and highway driving and those are...not good.