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I live in northern Bergen County, right near the border of New York state, and I have been working for 6 months for a company in Scotch Plains. When I first started, I was fully remote, but I knew this was temporary until the office was finished being renovated. Management initially said that while they really preferred us to be in the office full time, people could still work from home two days a week once the renovation was complete with no penalty.
Well, this didn’t age well. For a variety of reasons which I don’t care to get into, management bagged that whole hybrid idea. Effective last week, we all have to be in the office 5 days a week. We are not allowed to work from home at all, not even a hybrid schedule.
They really did a great job building the office (coffee shop on campus, various amenities, etc.) and I really like the people I’m seated with in our cube farm. However, the commute is a killer. It’s 50 minutes with absolutely zero traffic, which we all know never happens here. It ends up taking me around an hour to get there (90 minutes yesterday in the bad weather), and between an hour and 90 minutes to get home. Even leaving before the sun comes up, the Parkway is pretty much a parking lot from Exit 150 onward. I get on at Exit 168, and I get off at 142B.
I get up at 5:30AM, leave home at 6:45AM. I take an hour lunch, so it’s really a 9-hour day. I leave there around 5, and I typically get home between 6 and 6:30PM. This gives me just enough time to make a quick dinner, clean, watch maybe one episode of a TV show, and go to bed at 9:30PM if I want to get 8 hours of sleep. I know I sound like a baby, and “people did this or worse before COVID,” but it’s really affecting me mentally to sit in that traffic every single day. 3 days a week even would’ve been a lot, but tolerable. 5 days is an absolute beast. I’m basically working 11-12 hour days and being paid for 8. I don’t mind being at the office at all, but getting there and back is just horrible.
My manager (not the one who revoked the hybrid policy) seems to think we will eventually go back to hybrid, so I’m trying to ride it out for now and accept that my life will suck during the week. But I don’t see that happening. If they got us in 5 days and only lost a couple of people (out of hundreds) over it, what sense would it make for them to suddenly go back? If it doesn’t go back to hybrid like I suspect, I will eventually need to choose between living in Bergen County (which I love) and my job (which I also love). I’m really resentful that they did this, and I am very grateful to have a job in this economy. But I don’t care if I sound whiny either.
I rolled my eyes at the title of the thread until I read the rest of your post. I commuted for 30 years from NW Bergen (and a time in Passaic County) to the city before I moved to an even longer commute in Monmouth for the last years. The shortest commute I ever had was a little less than an hour when they put us in JC for a few months after the WTC went down while they looked for a new place in the city. Otherwise, it ranged from an hour and 20 to 2 hours.
But...it was by train. And although not ever getting enough sleep was always a problem, not having to DRIVE is huge. Not having to drive the PARKWAY is even bigger. Having moved from one end of the Parkway to midway down the state and telling my elderly mother at the time "I will never see you again on a summer weekend", I do feel your pain. I am willing to bet that even at 3 a.m., the GSP is backed up in the Oranges.
I don't envy you at all. That's a tough decision. Maybe resign yourself to it for the time being but keep your eyes open for another job with a better location.
Yes, you are wimpy. I used to walk to work 90 minutes each way, uphill both ways. Man up.
Better yet, get a closer/WFH job. Employees have more leverage with flexible work arrangements than ever before so no one should have to endure this if they don’t want to.
One of my first engineering jobs had me commuting from Hopatcong down to Tom's River every day to complete a project. 98 miles one way. Not something I'd do again.
One of my first engineering jobs had me commuting from Hopatcong down to Tom's River every day to complete a project. 98 miles one way. Not something I'd do again.
Ugh. I had to work on a project for a while that required me to drive to LaGuardia for 8 a.m. meetings three times a week. 66 miles each way. I had to get to the GWB before 7 or I'd be late. The traffic volume increases over about a 10 - 15 minute window.
Parkway to Turnpike, over the GWB, Major Deegan to the Triboro to the GCP.
Plus the disheartening feeling of driving to an airport every day and never actually getting to fly anywhere, lol.
At least you get to leave around 5. Never in my career, have I ever worked at a company where people leave around 5. Leaving between 6-7pm seems to white collar norm nowadays.
You're not wimpy. 2 hours a day is a lot of time. Spending 12+ hours a day on work and having only 1-2 hours per day of actual free time is not worth it.
If you spent 2 hours a day developing a hobby or learning new skills to enhance your career, you'd get really far. Or even time you can spend with your family. But right now you're just trading time of your life you can never get back for an arbitrary amount of money.
Yeah. I wish the company could just relocate right near my home. Getting up at 5:30AM, leaving at 6:45 before it even gets light, and then not getting home until after 6PM just does not feel sustainable to me. It’s only the first few days, and my entire life just revolves around working and commuting. I know I’m doing myself a disservice by taking the hour lunch instead of just working through it and only being physically there for 8 hours. But I’m so worn out by the time noon arrives, I need that disconnect.
We really do have fun in my section of cubicles. We eat lunch together and things like that, and it is very much like college. But it’s not fun enough to want to deal with that commute every single day. 40 miles may not seem far on paper, and it’s not if you live in Kansas. But this commute takes place in one of the most congested areas of the state, if not the country. It is miserable, and had the company retained their hybrid policy, I’d have no decisions to make. I actually prefer hybrid to fully remote, although 3 days of that commute is still a pain, but nothing like 5 days.
There are worse commutes out there, I know, but those people don’t mind it. I find it extremely exhausting. And I have to go to bed at 9:30PM in order to get the recommended amount of sleep. I didn’t finish eating dinner tonight until 7:15, and I have to go to bed in an hour and a half. I’m glad to see some support here, especially on a thread that leans older. Better than my family saying “Welcome to work, that’s life!” “You’ll have time to yourself on the weekends!” It’s not being in the office once I’m there that I dislike, it’s the commute. There’s a difference.
Since you like where you live, why not just look for another job that’s closer to home? I know you love the job, but you will grow to hate it when that daily commute wears you down.
The current NJ job market is very strong. Have you been looking to see what other options you may have? You should have no problem finding a job that is closer to home, or that allows you to work from home
You don’t have to deal with a soul-sucking commute everyday if you don’t want to.
Yeah, I agree unfortunately. I’ll likely have to choose between my apartment and my job if it never goes back to hybrid. And why would it go back to hybrid? If management got us in 5 days a week with almost 100% compliance, why on earth would they go back to only 3? It wouldn’t make sense for them. And I guess it’s an easy choice, since I basically only sleep in my place now.
And the people that tell me to “suck it up” really suck. It can’t be good for my car either. Maybe I don’t have a right to complain since I’m putting up with it for now, but my life during the week is really just work. I haven’t gotten up at 5:30AM since high school. Last time I worked in person 5 days a week (got laid off), I didn’t even wake up until 7. Obviously, that company was local, but it didn’t work out. I feel like I’m crazy at times for thinking that an hour each way (if everything goes perfect and there’s zero traffic or other obstacles) is a long trip.
I am in a very remote-friendly industry, and I may start at least looking a bit or looking at apartments even halfway there to shorten the commute a bit. But it would suck if I moved or left the company, and then they went back to hybrid against all odds. The fuel cost alone may end up being insane for me. I signed a new lease here in Bergen thinking I’d only be commuting 3 days a week.
You would most likely tolerate this if you had public transportation options. My commute each way usually takes about 65-80 minutes each way, sometimes more, but sitting in bus gives me time to close my eyes and catch up on sleep.
Unfortunately, for most, enough having time for yourself during the week doesn't apply. You would have to learn to stay up late to enjoy doing things you like.
Just commenting on your time management, why are you waking up at 5:30am and leaving at 6:45am? If you're a single adult man, 30 minutes total should be more than enough time to wake up take a shower, get ready and leave.
Is 8 hours of sleep really required? Its really not, and 5-6 hours is likely more in alignment with active adults.
Yeah your commute isn't great, if they aren't willing to negotiate, its going to wear on you. Either find a new job, or move would be my answer.
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