I know this will vary a lot, so hypothetically let’s say you currently WFH/work remotely at least 3 days a week. Your commute to work takes an hour max (door to door) each way. If you were given the choice of a 4 day week working onsite, or a 5 day week WFH (or as many days as you’d like) for the same pay, which would you choose?
5 days WFH hands down.
And it’s not even close. Been wfh since 2014. “Life changing” is an understatement.
WFH. Unless I also get paid for commute time. Then, still WFH. Fuck traffic. This way, I’m neither dealing with it nor contributing to it.
I can go to the store or get some cleaning done on my lunch break, and I don’t have to spend time driving to do it. Fuck traffic.
I’m pretty good on commute time. It was a 5-10 minute drive or a 25-30 minute walk. I’ve stuck there for years because working for any of their competitors are in the area and I’d have to go straight to an hour each way minimum.
I wouldn’t mind going back in part time, if the hybrid office environment itself wasn’t so hostile to actually working, with sterile hot desks and everyone having loud overlapping conversations in their respective virtual meetings.Same for me. Time spend getting to work is basically also work time, which is usually not paid.
For a “fun” experiment just calculate how many hours you are on the way to work every year:
daily_travel_minutes * days_on_site / 60
Divide this by 8 to see how many holidays you get by switching to a fully/mostly remote job.
Don’t just count the actual journey time either - you have to factor in any extra time needed to get ready, parking, getting to or from the train and bus station, and any delays or traffic. If google maps tells you your commute takes 30 mins, it’s taking you 45 at least.
Yes, I described that unprecisely. You basically have to calc the difference between a full remote day and an on site day.
4 days in the office = 5 days remote considering getting ready + commute + not being able to do life admin in your breaks + cost of fuel and food…
The 4 day work week should be standard anyway, remote or not.
The commute time is kinda worse than work time, so the 4 days in the office are equal to 5 days WFH timewise. And I would still be missing out on benefits like cheaper lunch at home and wearing comfortable clothes, and not being tired all the time. On the other hand, I would always have 3 day weekends.
Yeah, count time getting ready and you’re easily wasting 1.5-2 hrs a day going to an office.
When we started wfh, most people picked up overtime and still spent the same amount of time devoted to work with a significant pay increase.
It’s a lot of time and effort everyone was just used to giving up for free. Why go back to it?
Especially since it’s 2023 and we’re still getting new COVID waves.
The time spent getting ready would be a big factor for me.
I work full time from home. Fridays almost never have any big meetings or important deadlines, so if you need to knock off early and beat the vacation traffic, it’s not a problem. And all the little things you usually reserve for a day off, like doctor’s or dentist’s appointments or a haircut, any of that can happen during the week without missing a beat. You don’t always need a 3 day weekend, but when you want one, you take one.
It’s the same for my partner. I don’t think he’s worked past 3pm on Fridays in the 7 months he’s been there. There’s just nothing going on.
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I work from home so that I don’t have to go to the office.
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I don’t have to go to the office.
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Let me work fewer days. 4x10 days would be nice. From home. So I don’t have to go to the office.
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I don’t want to go to the office just to be on Zoom all day anyway. It’s a waste of time, a waste of carbon, and a waste of company money on the office space.
I’m sensing you don’t like going to the office…
Yes it’s true. Why go to the office just to be on Zoom all day? I can do that at home and save myself some money. More importantly: I can do that from home and save myself the time it would take to drive to or from the office. Not to mention that I could be on Zoom all day from home and save myself the stress of driving around maniacs. Last, but not least, I could do it all from home and the company could save money by not paying for an office.
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Not even a question for me: full remote or bust. The extra day off wouldn’t make up for all the time wasted just from the pageantry of going to and being at an office.
Wfh for sure
I have done it both ways actually and I would take the 5 days WFH because I could still do the same amount of work in both scenarios and get paid the same. And on my “extra” 5th day of WFH I can just pretend to work and do whatever anyway.
Even if I had to actually work more, I’d still do WFH instead of commuting to the office because the commute and office + city experience just suck that much more.
After doing WFH for several years, I’ll only take a job on site as a last resort or for like double my pay. Then I would cut my time until FIRE roughly in half. I don’t hate doing work. I hate having a huge chunk of my time taken up by having to work 40 hours.
If work weeks were cut to 24 or even 32 hours, I might even reconsider the FIRE path.
What does FIRE stand for?
Financial Independence, Retire Early
Basically earn a bunch of money, invest smart, and retire early.
A bunch of people want to act like it’s some secret new method and treat it like a fad diet, but people have been doing it forever.
Thanks! Sounds like calories in - calories out in weight loss.
Yeah, it’s overly simplified to the the point you’re missing out on valuable details.
Like, if just “spend less, save more” was easy, everyone would do it
I think the original FIRE was much more radical- basically the plan is to save up only like 700k or so, move to a low cost of living area, spend less than 20k a year, and try to live off of stock increases and interest.
But honestly that life sounds kinda shitty, so people stopped talking about FIRE what all the other conditions and it just became more “save, invest, retire eventually”
basically the plan is to save up only like 700k
Oh, that’s it?
I’ll knock this out this afternoon and let you know how well it works
I work in a job where working from an office doesn’t make sense. So I’ve always wfh. In my current role, I’d never work for any employer that required me to go to an office. It’s counter productive to the job.
In your scenario, if I had a job that made sense, I’d pick wfh because I won’t commute an hour. 15-30 is the tops I’ll commute.
I’ve seen a couple of people say they wouldn’t commute more than 20 mins - I wasn’t expecting that tbh. I’m from London and an hour commute, door to desk, is pretty standard. Even my journey to secondary school took 45mins at the very least!
30 is about as far as I’ll go. Maybe 45. I haven’t communted for work in years. I know people who commute hours and I’d never do it.
Time has value. If I’m spending hours commuting, that’s time lost.
I will never commute again, ever. I’d rather work four days a week in my pajama pants and one day pantsless (Casual Friday) than waste my time schlepping my brain through meatspace.
Oohh I might have to implement that pantsless Casual Friday policy.
lol
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No need to be rude. There’s 7 answers so far and 3 of them would take the 4 day week.
I counted. Everyone picked wfh. What are you on about?
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It depends on a lot of factors, like how my productivity is measured, how long is the commute, etc. but in general I’d pick the 4 days in the office.
In your scenario? WFH. I like my work and hate traffic.
If I lived five minutes away from the office like I used to? I’d go in, assuming they’d let me be flexible with my time. I like being in the office. My coworkers are great and if I get burned out on what I’m doing I can go play with the hardware in the lab.
In real life? I live 100 miles from the office and work from home. I miss the comradery and being able to just walk down the hall and kick a piece of malfunctioning equipment directly though.
Good point. If your 4 days a week onsite are flexible that might entice more people. I think it’s the rigidity that a lot of people dislike, because life just doesn’t work like that. But I can’t work myself so I can only imagine.
I simply wouldn’t take a job with a one hour per way commute. Takes me 15-20 minutes max, and one less work day a week sounds sweet.
