An hour spent commuting is 1/16th of your daily life, and that hour is by far the biggest risk to your life every day. You should be getting triple pay to ameliorate the hazard risk it represents.
Not to mention the environmental damage.
The time and expense of commuting is theft, if that job can be done from home.
Submitted 14 hours ago by j4k3@lemmy.world to showerthoughts@lemmy.world
Comments
HubertManne@piefed.social 35 minutes ago
lichtmetzger@discuss.tchncs.de 3 hours ago
Absolutely. I’ve been working from home for ~3 years and I’ll never go back. I have so much more time for myself (and also, no one is annoying me with smalltalk or stupid questions).
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
There is a study that showed workers don’t mind commuting so long as the route is full of greenery and nature. That explains a lot because in my hometown, I was happy enough to commute in public transport and people are nice enough that you can chat with them. Then I moved to a bigger city, which is a concrete jungle. I hate the commute. And mind you, the public transport in my home town is about ten to twenty minutes more depending on the traffic, but I didn’t mind for some reason. Then, after moving to a bigger city, travelling only for one hour feels like a long trek.
HubertManne@piefed.social 22 minutes ago
Oh my yes. My big nastalgia thing is when I lived in a neighborhood just outside city center and my commute was three miles. I would walk it, go four miles out of my way to bike the lakefront, or if weather was bad enough take transit. Most of the time I was getting nice exercise with the commute and I could pick up some things on my way home. I mean a lot of that is just not being in a car really and of course that outside of work most everything I needed day to day was walkable.
solarvector@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
Something like 4 minutes of my 25 minute commute is through trees, and it still makes a big difference. I think you’re on to something.
frank@sopuli.xyz 5 hours ago
I used to have a drive to work, and it suckkkkkkkkkked. I moved, and can now cycle to work or take a nice train. I suddenly do not mind my 30 minute commute at all. I look forward to my bike ride most of the time, and I love the feeling after having done it.
lobut@lemmy.ca 3 hours ago
I take a bus and then walk … half hour or so on the bus and half hour or so of walking. If I drive it’s like 35-45 minutes?
However, I’m always more tired when I arrive there. Also, I’m not a fan of finding parking and stuff around the office.
FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Agreed.
I’m lucky in several respects, being on a public transit line and only 10 minutes from work, but we have a guy on my team who drives, in his own car, 90 miles each way for our one day a week in the office. It’s dumb.
foggy@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
When they started pushing for $15 federal minimum, it should have been $50.
Today, it should be about $150.
At $150/hr, you could afford to buy a an average home with a years pay.
People don’t realize how insanely bad it’s been getting.
I disagree that we should be paid triple to travel. We should just be paid appropriately. That’s all.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 minutes ago
thats a bit out there but in terms of eggs I estimate minimum wage if it was the same when I was young would be somewhere between $45 and $75 per hour. It still amazes me how much money I was paid back then as a high school student.
spongebue@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Ok, so we have a lot effed up in our system right now and I’m not trying to discount that. But this is like high school economics level stuff when I ask…
At $150/hr, you could afford to buy a an average home with a years pay.
Between the lowered supply of creating houses (in that it becomes more expensive to produce a house because everyone is getting paid a hell of a lot more) and the increased demand for housing because everyone has a bigger number in their bank account… Do you really expect that housing prices would just… Stay the same?
I’m also curious when any society at any point in history has been able to sustain decent housing with about a year’s worth of wages?
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 hours ago
Maybe not one year, but it looks like a median home in the US in 1965 cost around 6 years of a median income.
In the 1854 book Walden by Thoreau, he gives a pessimistic account of how long it would take to afford a property in a town, that is still less than today:
An average house in this neighborhood costs perhaps eight hundred dollars, and to lay up this sum will take from ten to fifteen years of the laborer’s life, even if he is not encumbered with a family- estimating the pecuniary value of every man’s labor at one dollar a day, for if some receive more, others receive less
Although he goes on to describe building his own more remote cabin for $28.
Something is very, very wrong with incomes and housing prices currently that wasn’t as bad a problem in the past.
CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 12 hours ago
Agreed. My wife and I are doing pretty well and we don’t even make anywhere near $150/hr combined. Maybe in the Bay and NYC that wage would make sense but not most places.
tatterdemalion@programming.dev 11 hours ago
You’re out of your mind if you think a $300k salary for every citizen is feasible. Paying that out would require $124 trillion, or 4x our GDP.
Whostosay@sh.itjust.works 10 hours ago
That’s the thing though, the number doesn’t matter.
We have people starving and then we have people traveling to the other side of the planet to throw a wedding that could feed millions of people.
Fuck a number, fuck money, eat the rich then we can all eat and live wherever we want.
bstix@feddit.dk 3 hours ago
The company is probably going to charge their customers even more for the work you do in your working time.
Someone already pays that money. The workers just don’t receive it.
If everybody was self-employed, those are the prices that would be paid.
flueterflam@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
$150 per hour? I’m in salaried software engineering and barely making a third of that after a promotion.
If what you propose happens, all the prices of everything would skyrocket… It seems good on paper, but it ignores all the greed of capitalism…
For better or worse, (the latter for rich folks…) there “needs” to be tiers of incomes (in Capitalism). Bumping the minimum just bumps the prices. We’ve already experience it with minimum wage bumps in the US. We don’t have an actual solution that works at the moment in the US because minimum wage increases automatically lead to greedier CEOs.
spongebue@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
I mean, I agree with a lot of what you said but also we haven’t had any federal minimum wage bumps in a decade and a half. States that follow federal minimum wage haven’t exactly kept their cost of living frozen.
floopus@lemmy.ml 3 hours ago
I currently travel 2 hours to and from work, making my 9 to 5 a 7 to 7. I hate it so much lmao
qwestjest78@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
I have always felt that you should be paid for travel time for a job. If it takes 30 mins to drive to work then the company should be paying you that time.
Look at how many bosses/CEOs bill their daily travel expenses to the company
HubertManne@piefed.social 6 minutes ago
Also I have seen many office location decisions seem to be about the ceo's commute.
Nelots@lemmy.zip 2 hours ago
I wonder if this would make it harder for people to find jobs. I imagine companies would be less inclined to hire people an hour away if they had to pay for it.
Chivera@lemmy.world 9 minutes ago
Or they might allow more work from home if it means saving on those commutes.
korazail@lemmy.myserv.one 4 hours ago
Which CEO downvoted this?
1984@lemmy.today 10 hours ago
If you do the math, its just horrible. If you have one hour to work, its 2 hours every day just getting to and back from work, which is 10 hours per week.
So you are spending more than an entire work day every week in traffic!
Isnt that just insane? If you are working from home, you have 10 hours of free time every week. The value of that is insane. You could go to gym, spend time with family, learn how to cook, whatever. Its a lot of time.
HubertManne@piefed.social 32 minutes ago
Yeah in most cases if a job gave you a 25% increase for always in office and you are wfh you would be better off staying work from home unless your wage was inadequate to begin with (which unfortunately it often is).
Illecors@lemmy.cafe 9 hours ago
Small tech social media is just as bad at sucking all that time up. Ask me how I know :(
cravl@slrpnk.net 4 hours ago
At least it’s your own brain exploiting you instead of some shadowy cabal of advertising execs?
WereCat@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
I’ve done 30000km in a year by commuting.
specialseaweed@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
When I was renting (most of my life), I would find an apartment that was close to my job. I hated commuting with a furious passion.
MalReynolds@piefed.social 11 hours ago
Historically unpaid commute originated before urban sprawl, car culture and a massive spike in population, it's been grandfathered in, but it's absolutely theft in the current environment, whether the job can be done at home or not. Posit 1 hr commute either way, that's 10hrs a week, and should probably get hazard loading as well. When unpaid commute originated it was more like 10-15 minutes walk per day.
One of the most significant and efficient policy changes to combat CO2 and other pollutants would be to legislate paid commuting (with just protection against discrimination for both employee and employer). Just watch every employer WFH everyone who can be, not to mention improved quality of life, local services and being hugely popular.
HubertManne@piefed.social 10 minutes ago
I would like to add a rider to pay at least minimum wage for interview time.
notarobot@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
I mean… It can be. You just have to ask for a raise. That is what I do. If I get a job that is further away, I expect to be paid more. One of the reasons I’m sticking with my current job even though the pay is not great, is that I’m less than 10 minutes away from home. I even get to come home for lunch.
korazail@lemmy.myserv.one 4 hours ago
Upvoting, but also commenting to say that employees are at a disadvantage in almost all cases: a company can almost certainly absorb your loss but most people cannot absorb the loss of their income.
Asking for a raise could get you fired (sorry, “let go”), especially if you’re in a position where there’s an eager new applicant just waiting for a position to open up, such as any service-industry job.
Even niche skilled jobs are not immune. If your cost approaches the value your employer extracts from your labor, then you will be left jobless and you may find it hard to find a comparable position if your skill-set is tightly focused. If you’re the one COBOL programmer at your company, you are underpaid; the moment you demand your actual worth, they will figure out how to pivot that old code-base to something more modern, even if it costs millions of dollars to license and switch to a new ERP platform or similar bullshit.
I’ve turned this WFH rant into a worker protection rant, so back on topic: Wouldn’t it be nice to just … not have to drive to a place to put your butt in a seat when your butt could be at a seat at home and do the exact same thing? I get that some jobs don’t work that way, but many (probably most) do.
In 2020, we witnessed most jobs at company headquarters around the world being done at home and nothing exploded. Almost everything done from a cubicle can be done from home. Wouldn’t it be nice to knock down those buildings and make them green spaces instead?
razorcandy@discuss.tchncs.de 11 hours ago
Accepting an onsite job, regardless of whether it can be performed at home or not, places the responsibility on you to be able to commute there, and it wouldn’t be fair to compensate only office workers for their commute time when other workers face the same risks while traveling. I’d rather have reliable public transportation and fair salaries relative to costs of living.
princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 8 hours ago
This fails to take into account unemployment rates or any other factors that apply pressure to such decision-making. We need legislation that enshrines payment for commute time universally, as it would encourage WFH mandates rather than RTO ones. As well as compensate other workers for their commute. Or perhaps a flat rate of one hour each way’s pay no matter the distance, to stop certain workers finding it harder to get a job.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 11 hours ago
The rich and poor alike are prohibited from sleeping under bridges. Just choose a better job! Easy! Why didn’t everyone else think of that?
razorcandy@discuss.tchncs.de 6 hours ago
Not sure how your takeaway from that was “just choose a better job” unless you’re digging for something to be upset about.
I am advocating for employers offering salaries that can cover workers’ essential needs, including their own individual transportation needs, rather than reimbursing only people whose jobs have the possibility of being done remotely, OR having reimbursement available to everyone. That, and the more affordable option of public transportation becoming more accessible.
starlinguk@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
My employer gives everyone an annual public transport ticket for commuting.
Admetus@sopuli.xyz 7 hours ago
Taking into account expenses, and no need to financially budget for travel and stress about it, this is a fairly low cost way to satisfy your employees. Is the work not possibly WFH or employer would rather have people in office?
spongebue@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
The implication of this is that if that job can’t be done from home, it’s not theft. So the guy making pretty decent money in an office job that could be done at home should get compensated for their commute, but the sandwich artist making far less should not because that can’t be done at home?
And before we start saying that everyone should have their commute compensated, that has a lot of baggage to it too. I live in the suburbs. I chose to live there knowing there was a trade-off between having more house for the money, but also spending more time in my car to get anywhere. If I were searching for a job, I wouldn’t want to be passed over for it because of the longer commute time I was expecting to have from my own choice in where to live. And let’s say I decided to move 3 hours away to be closer to my in-laws or something. But don’t worry boss, I’ll keep working here! I just won’t be in the office for more than 2 hours a day unless you want to pay me overtime. That’s… A little ridiculous.
HubertManne@piefed.social 14 minutes ago
I disagree here. I get your mister moneybags being able to live anywhere and your preference is the only deciding factor but some are taking cost into consideration. Paying for commute would cause businesses to take location into account for profitability in terms of employee time. It would make sense then for a company to even provide a benefit like a subsidized loan for property closer to the work.
november@lemmy.vg 13 hours ago
Then how about the employer gets to pick one of two options: Either compensate for a reasonable commute, or pay a wage that allows the employee to live within walking distance?
spongebue@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Arguably there is an average commute time baked into the wage already along with other expenses people have in life. I’m not sure it needs to be itemized out as its own thing.
And this also assumes an IMO flawed assumption that working from home is entirely expense-free. I have a decent work area in my home. If I didn’t, that space could be used for another kid’s bedroom. Or a craft room for the wife. Or a dedicated Lego room. Or a sex dungeon. Maybe some of those things can be paired up with an office easily enough, but that’s my choice, not my employer’s. Plus there are other day to day costs, like the electricity to run my equipment, the Internet connection I probably would have had in the 21st century but technically don’t have to, heating/cooling costs… You get the idea.
visnae@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Don’t you include commute in the workday? If you have 30 min to office (1h in total), and have a 7h workday, then you only need to be in office for 6 hours. And 1h of them is probably lunch?
If company allows work from home, then they will probably maximise the number of “work” hours, as you don’t have a commute and lunch is probably quicker.
(This is how it should be, but yes I’m joking)
vane@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
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Doubt about deathDroggelbecher@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Great news, traffic deaths are no more because most victims die in the hospital instead of at the site of the accident. Fear hospitals, not traffic.
vane@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
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I think that’s transport accidents 2.3%. I approve the OP statement that going to work when you can do it at home is dumb. but doubt about transport death.
shittydwarf@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
Plus unnecessary damaging the environment which is already in critical condition
West_of_West@piefed.social 12 hours ago
We care about the environment, but if you could commute an hour and a half to go on MS Teams that'd be greeeat.
HubertManne@piefed.social 7 minutes ago
this. I am interviewing for an in office position and we start the day with a call with the other folks in house. Its like that dead like me episode where she sits back to back with the guy but he insists all communication should be email.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 12 hours ago
You wouldn’t say that when a plummer or any physical trade suddenly charge you triple for commute.
Not that i mind, really, would be sweet if us tradesman get a salary/commission hike.
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
Don’t know about household plumbers, but in a B2B setting you totally do charge for mobilization. Usually, the site is like 500-2000 km away from the specialist you happen to need today. Those service engineers need to travel everywhere in the EMEA region anyway, so a distance like that is just another Thursday for them.
AndyMFK@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
I’ve never had a plumber not charge a callout fee. Same applies for any trade. Idk where you live that you don’t, but in my experience, any kind of tradesperson will always charge a fee for their commute
antlion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
No, but I would be nice if they charged for mileage separately. That would give a discount to more local businesses. Of course they may also have to bid based on your distance to the hardware store.
Eq0@literature.cafe 9 hours ago
Quite some businesses in my area do that. I was quite surprised the first time I saw it, but it makes sense. They usually have distance bands and some extra cost if you are further than a 15-20 minute drive.
PrettyFlyForAFatGuy@feddit.uk 3 hours ago
You dont get charged a “callout fee” when you call a tradesman? thats basically what that is
Trimatrix@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
Not trying to be a capitalist shill or anything. But in that case, wouldn’t need for a more local plumber spring up? Supply and demand eventually meeting the mentality of someone in the local community to say, “Well being a plumber wasn’t my first choice but the money makes it hard to ignore.” or the demand being so great that a plumber in a more saturated supply area decides its too good of an opportunity to not move.
psx_crab@lemmy.zip 11 hours ago
The issue now would be there isn’t possible to have plumbers in all corner of the city/town, especially when some place the rent is so high it’s not gonna worth it. Commute is still gonna be around 40min to 60min round trip, more in rural area. Not to mention people also tend to have their trusted or recommended tradesman for the job, as it’s a skilled profession, everyone gonna have different level of skill, ware, price, and attitude toward customer, which mean the trusted one might be further away than the unknown company closer to you.
Tradesman that work on site already factor in commute into the pricing anyway, but in no way that commute is 3 times of anything. My counter argument to OP is really just that 3 times is stupidly high, while agreeing that people should be compensated for the time spend commuting, maybe with a bit higher in salary per day they spend in workplace.
bonsai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
I spent 4 hours yesterday commuting 🙃 Fucking hate it here
Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
I would kill for 1/16th. I’m at 1/8th trying not to go into the office more than three times a week.
Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
I wouldn’t kill for 1/16th it wouldn’t make a difference to these people. Maybe a bomb threat.
cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
Downvoted purely for sharing ai content. Eww.
dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 minutes ago
it’s unpaid labor either way, it’s a bit arbitrary to say owning a car and commuting for a job isn’t time and money spent for the employer in your capacity as an employee