https://fortune.com/2023/02/02/remote-work-why-do-i-miss-commuting-psychological-detach-recovery-liminal-space-management-study/
In our recently published conceptual study, we argue that commutes are a source of “liminal space”—a time free of both home and work roles that provides an opportunity to recover from work and mentally switch gears to home.
During the shift to remote work, many people lost this built-in support for these important daily processes. Without the ability to mentally shift gears, people experience role blurring, which can lead to stress. Without mentally disengaging from work, people can experience burnout.
Remote work actually bad, come back to the office.
I'm sorry for you if you think this is entirely wrong because if you have a good public transport, cycling or walking option that doesn't eat up too much of your day (say 15 mins each way or so) this is absolutely true. It's just that doing it by car always sucks major fucking ass, because driving a car sucks major fucking ass
There's also the option of just going for a walk. After I finish my WFH job I just go for a walk. Does exactly what this article wants without me having to commute; granted you have to be able to walk so goes back to your point.
Same, but my comment is supposed to be much more in the line of "If you have to or want to go to $job, that should be pleasant". WFH isn't an option for everybody, either due to what the job is or due to personal preference, especially among older people. If you're going to go there anyway, it seems like a good idea that it'd fulfill some public good, like letting people relax or do mild exercise.
Fully agreed, yeah. A 5 minute walk to your job as a cashier where you can sit sounds pleasant enough. A two hour drive to do the same thing where you can't even sit is the sign of a demonic society.
Yeah, absolutely. I think the discussion here is understandably, yet regrettably, very much car brained. A commute can be nice, theoretically, allthough I recognize this is basically a far fetched utopia for most people
From a car-brained perspective this article doesn't even make sense. Many moons ago I commuted an hour each way for work by car, and it would take me another hour upon getting home just to decompress from all that driving. I moved and started commuting an hour by train and my god what a difference. Made my life so much better, suddenly I was reading for two hours a day instead of fearing for my own life.
It's not contributing much to the discussion but I once lived within a 2 minute walk from my workplace and that was genuinely too little. Zero time to do the mental shift and if I wanted to do anything other than go home the option of "go home first, rest for a bit, then do thing" was way to captivating and always lead to doing nothing, as I was already home. I genuinely gained something from having a bit of a cycleable commute.
Again though, disclaimer, that's a privileged as fuck position and I understand the ire against the notion. I just want to say that a bit of an active travel commute can be a good thing occasionally in the utopian sense and we're very, very far away from this in most of the world.
deleted by creator
You know you can just go for a walk, right? There's no need to involve an office in this.
Also, my city has decent public transit, but living under an hour commute would have rent costs of approximately half my aftertax income. And my income is a bit higher than the median HH income for the city. It goes beyond just public transit infrastructure. Living 15 minutes from the office isn't feasible for most people.
I think the average commuting time here was an hour each way pre-covid.
Seeing as how I didn't mention offices, where's that come from?
From fortune magazine? This is part of an ongoing back to office propaganda campaign they've been doing for 18 months. They're trying to make sure business leaders are on the same page because the push might fail if workers have the option.
At one point back in the day my car broke down and I didn't have the savings to fix/replace it. Had to replace my 20 minute drive with a 2 hour bus trip until I saved up enough (love my underfunded public transit). It sucked, but I will say I enjoyed being able to read on the bus.