Comment by bboygravity

Comment by bboygravity 4 days ago

It's also crazy that any office worker needs to go to an office (and waste time in traffic and pollute, unpaid, for work).

This could all be fixed within 1 day if government would mandate companies to pay you for the duration you're away from home for work (including travel time).

It would fix pollution, traffic jams, housing shortages, fake employee shortages, mental/stress issues and potentially even declining birth rates.

But I guess "because boss says so" is a more important argument to not fix all of those things.

CydeWeys 3 days ago

> This could all be fixed within 1 day if government would mandate companies to pay you for the duration you're away from home for work (including travel time).

Be careful what you wish for. The most likely result of this would be companies simply letting go any employees that had a commute longer than X minutes. And of course all the remaining employees would now say their commute takes X minutes too, to get the maximum subsidy. E.g. I currently bike, which takes 15 minutes, but I could easily walk and make it take 40 minutes instead, to get a nice bonus to my current pay.

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tuna74 4 days ago

So if you walk to work you should get more pay than your neighbor that bikes to work if you work at the same location?

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arcticbull 4 days ago

If an Uber Eats guy brings you food from down the street, they get some amount of money. If they bring you food from across town, they get much more money to cover the extra time they spend driving. In both cases they brought you McDonalds.
That said, I think it's more like if you're expected to work 40 hours per week, and your employer mandates you come into work an hour each way, then you should either be expected to work 32 productive hours -- or you should be compensated for 48 hours. But I guess this has always been the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees.

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- nox101 4 days ago
  
  I had a friend who lived 90 minutes from work. He complained that the commute sucked and wanted something for it. I talked to a friend who pointed out he took the job. It was his decision to take a job 90 minutes away. It was not the company's responsibility to pay him more than others because he chose to live that far away.
  
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  arcticbull 4 days ago
  
  As I replied to a peer comment, my employer moved my office from a 10m walk downtown near my house to a 45-60m multi-modal commute to an industrial office park. I didn't sign up for that, but I like my job. Now if they'd had to factor in reimbursements for actual distance traveled for employees maybe they'd be more motivated to stick closer -- and to only hire employees within a distance budget they're willing to pay.
  
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- paulcole 4 days ago
  
  > if you're expected to work 40 hours per week, and your employer mandates you come into work an hour each way then you should either be expected to work 32 productive hours -- or you should be compensated for 48 hours.
  That’s this person’s fault for choosing to live an hour from the office. I’ve always realized how stupid commuting is and the longest commute of my adult life (I’m currently 41) has been a 30-minute bicycle ride.
  Now the people who live an hour from the office want less work or more pay than me? I say just fire them instead.
  Or just let everybody negotiate the deal they want for themselves and let them price in their cost of commute or whatever into their ask. If somebody who lives an hour away wants to work 20% fewer hours or make 20% more money, let them shoot their shot and ask for it.
  
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  arcticbull 4 days ago
  
  Where do you draw the line between "it's the employees fault for not wanting to live next to work in an industrial office park adjacent to a homeless encampment" and "it's the employers fault for insisting people commute in when they can achieve just as much from home without?"
  Do you expect people who change jobs to only work at employers they're proximate to - or to sell their homes each time? What if moving means the kids have to change schools? Or a married couple, do they both have to change jobs?
  My employer happened to move offices, so my 10 minute walk turned into 45-60 minutes multi-modal. Does that mean I should be fired for their decision to move to a lower cost jurisdiction when I can provide the same value? In that case am I just being fired for not asking "how high?"
  I think in practice it ends up being "is this a hot job market or not" and if yes, then the employee gets to dictate, and if not the employer does. This doesn't really resolve the underlying issue though.
  I think a simpler model is just to allow employees to expense commute costs at the ~IRS rate. If the employer doesn't want that they can choose to hire only people nearby. If they move offices they should factor that into their cost estimates. But what do I know, maybe they should just fire everyone ;)
  
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  _gabe_ 4 days ago
  
  I live a 15 minute drive from my city, but it took me an hour and a half to get home in rush hour a couple weeks ago. I guess it’s my fault though for being stupid and not paying even more of a premium to live within a block of my office.
  
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  paulcole 3 days ago
  
  You are responsible for your choices, yes.
  But it sounds like you are bringing up the exception rather than the rule so don’t know what to tell you there.
  
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nimih 4 days ago

The logistics of having that level of granularity are probably a little unrealistic, but employers already follow a similar principle when adjusting pay scales based on cost-of-living for a given metropolitan area.

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moomin 4 days ago

Honestly they should pay me for the use of my home as office space. It’s not free to maintain.

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- SoftTalker 4 days ago
  
  You can deduct your home office if you use it only as an office for work. If it's also your bedroom, you can't.
  
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