Employees are spending the equivalent of a month's grocery bill on the return to the office–and growing more resentful than ever, new survey finds

We had a skip-level with a director today who told us our 3 day in office is going to become a 5 day. When asked why, he couldn't articulate a single good reason. It was a "management decision" made by a bunch of tone-deaf fucks who never go to the office or get paid so much money that the cost is trivial. It's time to start unionizing everywhere. Fuck these class traitors.

When I was going to the office, parking downtown was $21 a day.

So $105 a week just to park to go to work.

Now, I COULD have taken a bus/train for $5.60 a day... But that would mean adding an extra hour to my commute in the morning and an extra hour and a half at night.

$21 - $5.60 = Saving $15.40 a day, but losing 2.5 hours.

My time is worth more than $6.16 an hour.

WFH I save ALL $21, plus gas money, plus not eating out for lunch or dinner.

After doing that for 3 years, I had $30,000 in the bank and bought a house.

The cost of commuting is just the tip, honestly.

The biggest expense is having to live near your employer, typically centrally-located in big cities with a high cost of living.

Also lost time commuting (especially if you can't afford to live nearby).

And also increased emissions, not only from driving yourself but a collective increase by way of traffic congestion.

Also allowing employees to work remotely massively increases the pool of employees to pull from.

The cost of it doesn't bother me as much as the time involved. If I'm showing up and leaving at the assigned hour I'm burning 30 or 40 minutes in the car each way. Adding another 15 to 30 minutes to get ready to go in versus my just getting dressed and walking into my home office.

Driving's always subliminally stressful. The whole time you're driving your subconsciously watching the cars around you and looking for problems. Your heart rate goes up and whenever you get to your location It takes a little while to get back in your groove. There's a nonzero transition period there. The last thing I want to do after driving home for 40 minutes and heavy traffic is to barrel right into chores but there I am.

Office jobs are BS in the internet era. You go to work to look at a screen. You come home to look at a screen. You go to bed, you look at a screen.

Your bosses are taking calls from their hot tubs while smoking big spliffs and making fun of you for not being as smart as them. They figured it out and they'll be retiring any day now. I'm not even being facetious, I know these people. They're the Pakleds of the human race.

Yes, please ask me to effectively take a pay cut to pay to drive across town so I can sit at a non-customizable hot desk to join virtual meetings with resources all over the globe. But it’s ok because in return I get to be interrupted constantly by people physically bothering me with a question in the name of “collaboration” instead of opening a ticket or sending an email like a normal person. Genius. I can’t understand why everyone’s complaining. (/s in case it wasn’t obvious).

I work for a FANG company and 2 years ago I willingly took a 13% pay cut on the condition I could work from home permanently. The pay cut hurt but my productivity and output jumped so high that received a promotion along with bump in pay a year later. Being a tech company, they track a lot of metrics around productivity and I know I am 28% more productive when working from home. I refuse to return to an office just because of office politics and drama that distracts me from doing my job. I’m not there to socialize.

Does anyone have knowledge and or experience with forming a union in the US? After doing some mild research I failed to find a union that represents telework / work from home employees, specifically those who are facing return to office mandates from their corporate overlords

Can confirm. I have to be in the office way more now and everyone hates it. I work way less than I used to to recoup the misery of commuting.

The most challenging aspect of returning to the office is the commute. This isn’t surprising because commutes of only 30 minutes are linked to higher stress and anger, while 45 minutes or more is linked to poorer overall well-being, daily mood, and health.

Love WFH for taking care of animals, stress free guilt free breaks, all my home comforts, but I do feel extra sedative when working for hours and do get a bit lonely wishing I could make more coworker friends, but they're on the other side of the continent

Of course Fortune can't close an article about how stupid RTO is without turning around and advising the (probably employee rather than employer) reader of all the good things they can do back in the office.

So what can you do if your employer mandates your return-to-office? First, focus on maximizing the benefits of this life change...

I mean, I account for $10k salary increase for in office work compared to what I'd take 100% remote.

Cities are expensive if your time is free. All the bullshit really adds up.

However, our research found that returning to an office often is a major disruption to one’s routine, foundational work, and overall life experience.

Damn work. Disrupting their routine and life experience.

Are people forgetting that the salaries were high in high cost of living areas to account for this cost. In the new normal, should employees expect pay cuts, or should employees that opt in to in office expect higher pay or stipends?

Also, curious about tax advantaged commuter benefits. Sure sticker cost is a months groceries, but if you are commuting and able to pay that pre tax for Metro or rail passes, it's only 66 percent of the sticker cost.

Also I think the pet and childcare costs are interesting. For child care, is that assuming like 1 or 2 extra hours of childcare per day?

"OH no. Those poor white collar employees"

So anyways, here I was breaking my body doing a job that has to be done in person but earns less pay and benefits when al.....