Return to office feels like a massive pay cut
Mandatory office returns force employees to spend thousands on gas and hundreds of hours commuting for work that is entirely screen-based. Doing video calls from a noisy open office instead of home makes the commute pointless, leading people to quit.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1leaving the job
- 2negotiating hours or flexibility
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I mentioned how it was easier for me some days when I had calls with international teams to WFH that day/week because of the time difference. Got a non-answer. Others mentioned the gas prices. Got a non-answer. I was the first to leave, but I know I wasn’t the last.”source ↗
“my old boss tried pulling us back 5 days a week right when gas jumped to almost 5 bucks. i asked if they were gonna bump pay to cover the difference and got a blank stare. lasted 3 weeks before i peaced out”source ↗
“This is such a big part of why I hated return to the office at my last job. I was still spending half my day on teams calls with people on other cities and countries but now instead of in my home office I was at in an open floor the size of a football field with 500 people trying to do the same thing.”source ↗
“It is crazy because it is a massive pay cut. Thousands in gas and hundreds of hours of commute time.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2Tips for planning your first office move
- 2How to handle crazy high shipping costs for small business
- 4Why is public transit so packed during rush hour?
- 2Handling hostile outgoing IT providers during migration
- 3How to handle terrible air pollution when traveling
- 16Why do big companies require so many rigid formalities?