I’m always confused why the default commute time in these discussions is always 60 or 90 minutes one way. 60+ minute commutes are outliers and I don’t understand why a person would take a job that far away without being aware of the commute or moving closer to the work. Does that make sense? Most American commute 10-30 minutes. That’s the middle of the bell curve.

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Aurornis 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We’re in a weird period where a lot of jobs went fully remote around COVID, many weren’t prepared for it, and now they’re doing the opposite over-reaction and forcing everyone back.

A lot of the people I know who went remote after COVID took remote jobs at new companies (remember “the great resignation”?) or moved to a new house because they thought they were done with commuting. Then their companies said they wanted everyone back.

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closeparen 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Most of the 60 minute travel time radius around a San Francisco or Silicon Valley tech HQ is water and nature preserve.

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forestrywat 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you have a citation for that?

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bluefirebrand 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> 60+ minute commutes are outliers and I don’t understand why a person would take a job that far away without being aware of the commute or moving closer to the work

60+ minute commute times are very common where I live. If you are anywhere outside of the downtown area you either pay for parking (expensive) and have a shorter commute, or you use public transit (cheap) and have a long commute.

When I used to commute to an office it was easily an hour to an hour and a half each way every day. I hated it

	▲	ghaff 4 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		When I commuted semi-regularly into a downtown office, it was a good 90 minutes. Latterly, going into a newer company's customer briefing center was more like 2 hours each way. I had access to commuter rail which was more pleasant than driving so long as I didn't have an evening dinner/event. but it took about the same length of time. One answer to the parent's question is that I owned/own a house which was a pretty manageable 25 minute suburban commute which I wasn't going to sell just because I got a new job. (Which didn't last that long anyway.)
	▲	cosmic_cheese 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Yes, I get the sense that this varies a lot depending on area and economic strata. In the poor rural area my hometown is located, 1-3h+ commutes aren't unusual, partially out of necessity (there aren't enough jobs nearby to sustain the population).

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tikhonj 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean, in a lot of these cases people take those jobs because they're able to work remotely initially... and then get hit with an inflexible, top-down RTO mandate once they've settled into the role.