Thats lucky for you but you must be aware of how uncharacteristic that is. When you get a new job that commute disappears unless the new job is close to the old job or you up and move.
It might be a bit uncharacteristic, but it still doesn't change the fact saying commutes have to be a minimum of 30 minutes isn't true. Its not entirely out of the ordinary to have a <30min commute. Most people in my office have a <15min commute, with a few having a similar commute as mine (~5min by car). My wife's commute is 12-15min. Most of my friends have a 15-20min commute.
Many people have commutes much less than 30 minutes. Maybe 30 minutes is an average, I'd probably agree average commutes are close to 45 minutes, but that's an average not a minimum. Those words have two very different meanings.
This probably depends on your local traffic environment in your city. Depending on the time of day and exact routing, 7 miles in southern california can take you 45 minutes or more. If you take the bus like I do you are in for closer to an hour.
Sure, commutes in Southern California seem to be a nightmare. But most office workers don't live in Southern California, so using that as a global minimum of commute times is probably extremely biasing it.
> Now throw in minimum 0.5h + 0.5h commute or more realistically at least 1.5h total commuting time
This is what I'm responding to here. ihateolives is suggesting all commutes are a minimum of 0.5h each way, with 1.5h being a realistic figure. They make no mention about Southern California, they're talking about WFO in general. Would you agree that 1.5h commutes in general are realistic, or do you think that's pretty big hyperbole?
To me, 1.5h commutes are insane and are a massive outlier, and I live in one of the most sprawled out metro areas in the US.
You are wrong. Look up what average commute time is in US. 40+ minute commutes are uncharacteristic, except for a small fraction of Americans who live in a handful of metros.
> Look up what average commute time is in US. 40+ minute commutes are uncharacteristic
Emphasis mine. Average is not minimum. Those are two entirely different concepts.
I'm not wrong about my commute time, it's legitimately roughly 5 minutes. Since nobody is suggesting a lower commute time for WFO, I'd say that's probably a minimum. I totally agree the average is closer to 40ish minutes, but minimum is not average.
