Long commute

Spent a lot of my working life commuting at least 1 hour each way. It was always with public transport. Ok in the morning. Get a seat, can read, work, phone etc, but hell in the evening time, standing. Last commute was 3 hours per day easily. Was killing me, especially as I got older.

Luckily covid means I can work mostly from home, but I'm cutting out better career options this way. But **** it, I've wasted enough of my life commuting.

Can you arrange working from home for some of the days ?

cycle it. Probably do it in half the time if rush hour traffic

I experienced that, used to commute for just over an hour all the time and I enjoyed it always listened to music treated it as my mental time out. But when work got more difficult, more stressful or life was just moving a bit faster I was upset at the commute. You're eyeing up that hour of commute in as extra sleep you missed, and that 1 hour back as time you could have gotten ahead of chores, been with the family or enjoyed yourself.

I think you know yourself your commute is not the problem as much as the work life balance , if you have an otherwise satisfying day you can spend that commute time better.

Have done long commutes in my youth 1.5 to 2 hrs. But I couldn't do them now. For a long my commute was an hour, and I don't think I could do that anymore.

These days anything over 40 mins seems long.

I'll say if driving an EV makes life a lot easier in traffic and automatic cruise control. I liked cycling. Train ends up being crammed so no fun in that. Ok on a quiet day.

I'm hybrid WFH but I notice on the days I commuting in the office I'm a lot more tired. Its not lifestyle commuting just makes you tired.

I don't think I'll go back to cycling, might go to an electric bike though. Driving through town has become a nightmare.

Worked in Dublin CC for a year in the early 00s. Had to be on the bus at 7.20am or Id be late for 9am. These days Id need to be on the bus well before 8am I guess. So up and out at 7.30am, home at 7pm.

Live about 15 minutes from town when theres no traffic. Made the decision back then that Im never spending a long time commuting and have stuck to it for nearly 25 years. And Ive basically been working remotely now for 10 years. Life is too short. **** that.

OP I think you need to look for another job.

If the commute is already stressing you out to the point where you needed to be signed off by your GP, it's not working for you.

You found work closer to home before, start looking and keep looking.

I did the 1hr+ commute each way pre-pandemic. I recently turned down a promotion which would have involved a return to commuting at least a couple of days a week again. But I wouldn't return to that lifestyle for any reason, now I realise how much time and energy it sucked from my life. It's not worth it.

Best of luck, whatever you decide.

My commute is 35-65 minutes depending on traffic. I've been doing it 2 years now having come from a job where I had a work van and most of the time I was driving. Previous to that I had no commute for a couple of years when in college. I've also had the torture of crossing Dublin city in rush hour traffic for 2 hours every morning.

The time of my commute is less important than the route and the traffic.

The route:

If the route has lots of twists, turns and traffic lights, it's OK for a short time, but becomes tiring very quickly. I despise having to drive in urban and city environments, so doing this as a commute would be a no-go. I'd much prefer double the commute time on a motorway. You either change your work location, or your home location to fix this.

Congestion:

This is what I find most stressful. If I am in rush hour traffic, the journey is just torture. You can feel the stress, anxiety and frustration of nearly everyone else around you. This is compounded when there is an accident, or breakdown, or if some climate activist feckin eijets are holding a protest causing traffic displacement and further congestion. You can change the time of your commute to mostly resolve this.

My Commute:

I seriously considered my current job location before accepting it. I had an old Nissan Leaf, so needed to upgrade to a longer range EV if taking the job. I chose to work 35km (by road) outside of Dublin, but I still have to travel some of the M50 toward the city as part of my commute and if I leave 5 minutes at the wrong side of 7am, the journey can go from 35-40 minutes to over an hour. Leaving at the right time is crucial, with some leeway on a Friday and a little breathing room on school holidays. If I get stuck in traffic, it's a stressful journey where I take evasion actions to cut some of the traffic, rather than just sit back enjoy the journey.

The route is straight forward. Once I am out of my housing estate, I contend with 3 roundabouts, 3 sets of lights and a straight run for 5 minutes before hitting the M50. 3 exits later and I am onto a dual carriage-way and motorway for a few more minutes. 2 more roundabouts on regional roads, a couple of turns after that and I am at work. I use auto-pilot in a Tesla 90% of my journey. When I drive our Leaf on occasion to work, I notice I am just not as fresh after the journey.

So, in essence, what I am saying is do what you can reasonably do to cut out as much of the "drive" as possible. That might mean adjusting your start/finish time if possible. Changing cars is a big one, but was important for me for a few reasons. I needed enough range to get to and from work on a single charge. I refused to go back to petrol/diesel, so it was a big expense at the time with a car allowance helping towards that. If the commute is hurting your health and you can't make practical changes, then you need to change jobs.

I think you have enough of something no matter what..

I think the pandemic brought about a major change in how a lot of people feel about long commutes / commuting times. It was certainly a wake-up call for me.

I'd been commuting into or across DCC almost daily since the age of 17 to the age of 50, and I did it because I had to and knew nothing else (though I was finding it hard by the time I hit 50 and had cut down to a four day week to offset the tiredness). At the time the pandemic hit, my commute time was minimum 60 minutes and regularly more each way.

WFH gave people (and me) a taste of a better way of doing things. Now obviously, WHF is not possible in all occupations. But I know I will never willingly go back to that. Not even part time.

To the OP, you said in a previous thread that you'd cut down to a three day week. Is this an option in your new job, (until you find something closer to home?)

I've recently started a job that has a 2 day in office/3 WFH model and I feel the OP's pain. Due to changes in my last place though I had to move on.

The split in my last job was at my own discretion so I used to go in maybe a day a week but outside of peak hours (as I could still be productive en route by joining calls in the car). Door to door was maybe 50 minutes most days.

Now I have a commute of 90 minutes minimum each way and a 12 hour day and it's a struggle - especially as there's no real reason for me to be in the office anyway. In fact because of the nature of most of my calls/meetings, they're better done from home anyway (open plan offices just don't work in a lot of cases). I think this is what's annoying me most about the whole thing.

Moving closer isn't an option because of rent/property prices but I'm not sure I'll last too long at this TBH.

Is that meant be % ???

Does the data capture average distance or location?

What would take an hour to commute in Dublin may only take 15 minutes elsewhere in the country.

My commute is a 5 min walk and a min drive. I would never live in Dublin unless making crazy figures. I would much rather take a less-paying job than torture myself with a commute. One hour is not the end of the world but still, it's a waste of time. House prices outside the capital are way more affordable too so it all works out. My rent is 500e per month for a 3-bed house don't think you would get that anywhere in Dublin nowadays. And Ireland is a small country so even if you are originally from Dublin and have a family there you can drive down in 2 to 3 hours in most cases. Only a handful of my friends got a mortgage exceeding 1k a month but have massive houses. Dublin was fun back in the good old college days but wouldn't suit me now with a family.

Just to expand upon my earlier post a bit having read more of the experiences from others.

My commute previously was about 95% motorway door to door with only about 5 minutes either side of local roads. I also drive a comfortable car well suited to that sort of commute so even when I was in the office, it was almost always an easy journey (again travelling outside the peak times definitely helped).

With this new job though, it can take as long to get from the M50 into the city as it does to get from my house to the M50. It also means getting up almost 2 hours earlier than I would previously and what should be an 8/9 hour day becomes a 12/13 hour one instead. Public transport isn't a runner as it would just be an added cost for an even more inconvenient and stressful experience. Plus I'd still have to drive to it anyway, find/pay for parking etc too.

As I said, the change was more out of necessity rather than choice but several years of being just as productive (generally more so) remotely has given me a whole new perspective on it all. Previously (before covid) I was doing up to 1300km a week in the car and often felt like my home was essentially more like a B&B during the week, plus I was eating worse than I usually do because of being too tired to bother making something when I'd get in.

I've gently tried to feel out what the options might be, but not getting very far. I think I'll take some of the advice here and start looking at what might be more local-ish, or at least on my side of the M50 anyway. I'm already resenting the (IMO of course) pointlessness of it now - what will it be like in the dark evenings of autumn and winter.

Good thread though, and a lot more balanced than most. Unfortunately there are many of us who have these situations and choices but it's good to read other experiences as well.