Remote work is the way of the future. A recent study from of IBM employees showed that if employees have a modest commute then they only need to work 38 hours/week before they start to have work/life balance issues.
If employees work for a company that allows them to telecommute, they can work almost 60 hours per week before running in to work/life balance issues. That's a big deal.
(That's not to say you should put in 60 hour weeks if you can help it, but it highlights the negative effects a commute has on people and their happiness in life.)
The commute just killed me - added so much stress and load. It affected me at work (I'd come into the office feeling burnt out), and it affected me at home (I'd often arrive home deflated).
Company should optimize for happiness. So for people like me, have an office. For people who thrive on working remotely, it should do everything it can to make them comfortable. I don't think there's a right or wrong approach. Just optimize for your workforce.
If you read the book, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts.
I work about a little over an hour away from my office and work from home several days a week. It's a nice trade-off between being in the office, where interaction happens, and being remote, where remote interaction happens, but also where I can hit substantially higher levels of productivity.
While I could do without my evening commute, I generally ENJOY the morning commute. I have Spotify to dig into albums and discover new music, audiobooks, a lot of podcasts I like, organize my day and think through problems at work. Even on the return home when I want to decompress and NOT think about work, I still have stuff I can listen to and enjoy.
I don't think commuting is any sort of great way to spend time, but "soul-sucking", even in horrible traffic when you're having a bad day and just want to be at home, is a bit dramatic. Inconvenience != soul sucking and such statements remind me of the Louis C.K. bits on American whining.
There is, however, good research that shows the adverse affects of commuting: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/05/your...
Then I got a job without a commute at all, and I swear it improved my day to day happiness by like 20-30 percent. I would have not predicted this much difference, but it's really true I think that your commute is way worse (or put another way that losing your commute would be way better) than you think.
[Edit: Oh, and I'm not even counting the other benefits like dropping hundreds of dollars on gas or train tickets, maybe even losing a car payment, or the satisfaction from helping to reduce pollution. I'm only talking about the enormousness of having two extra hours poured back into your day and the additional freedom to work when/where you're most productive]
Previously, I would endure on a 4-hour daily commute by bus/metro, work on a noisy office, and for a lower pay to boot. No way I go back to that life.
If X programmer would make 100k/yr working at your location in San Francisco, does X programmer make 100k/yr if they are full-time remote in another city?
