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0 pointszhengyi133y ago0 comments

... Maybe? This might be a case where an average doesn't tell the whole story.

45-minute to hour-long commutes each way have been the norm for me pretty much the entirety of my 20-odd year career in Silicon Valley. For me the outliers were the folk who opted to live 2+hrs away to afford a single family home, and were still commuting in - some did it daily; some did it weekly, and couch surfed during the week.

(The other outlier was the fellow who parked his Airstream in the back of the company lot until they told him he had to move.)

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closeparen3y ago

I think discussions about remote work and commuting bring out people with unusually bad commutes. And probably people with unusually bad commutes are in social bubbles where they think it’s normal, otherwise they wouldn’t sign up for it. But statistically, they are unusual!

michaelmrose3y ago

It's fair to say that according to your own sources that the average commuter according to census.gov loses between 250-520 hours per year commuting if we don't count the 125 they spent getting ready for work. I think pointing out that most people are closer to 250 is quibbling over less than meaningful details.

It's a huge waste.

elgenie3y ago

2 hour round trip * 5 days/week * 48 working weeks/year * 20 years = 9,600 hours commuting. Assuming 16 hours awake per day, that's 600 days of your life over two decades.

One might observe that if that's not an outlier, it ought to be.

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