Comment by paulcole
> 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.
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 ;)