'Wildly more expensive': Workers with in-office jobs spend about $31/day that they wouldn't working from home — here's what employers need to do

In order to update these spreadsheets and email some fuckers, society must allow for 200lbs of meat to be moved fifty miles per day. Because someone has to stare at me. The meat.

A higher up at my company recently derisively said one of the major reasons people didn't want to return to office was because they saved money working from home... as if that's a ridiculous reason. Some of these executives are so out of touch with their inflated salaries.

Expect a lot of the usual punching-down in response to this. "Carpool. Brown bag your lunch." and so on.

This doesn't include the opportunity costs of not being at home. Since you're not at home, you can't tidy up for a few minutes during a break. You can't prepare a meal for dinner that takes a long time. You can't run a quick errand in the middle of the day without eating up "sick" time. You need to provide childcare for kids after school.

If they want me in an office they need a good goddamn reason to do one of the most dangerous things I do all day - driving - and to pay me for all the things I'm missing out on. Not just for the commute, but a cleaning service, child care, and takeout for dinner.

my first reaction was that's a rediculous amount, but its actually not that far fetched. my commute cost is $17 per day (AUD) which is pretty much half that. all it takes is a cheap lunch and a coffee to meet that total (obviously something you can avoid most days but you won't everyday because "TeAm BoNdiNg" requires spending money to eat with people you don't like

There’s about 246 working days (assuming you take up to 3 weeks a year off for sick/vacation, I know may be high for some people). At $31/day that’s $7,600. Use an average of 32% on taxes and you’d have to give a person at least an $11,200 raise to offset that savings…. And companies are still wondering why people are hesitant to come back?

I remember as a kid going over a friend's house and seeing the quarters lined up on the table. His parents were both nurses and had to pay to park at the hospital. I don't remember the amount at the time, just being in awe at how much they spent just to park where they worked.

They usually worked on different schedules too, so that's separate parking.

Exactly.

3.25$ X 2 for the metro fare. Approx 5$ for a cup of coffee 25-30$ for lunch. A few bucks more on maybe a drink or a snack.

This adds up.

On the clock from the moment I leave the driveway and until my commute home. Pay mileage too. Ok to stipulate a reasonable limit on this, of course. Or, you know, let people work from home.

That's wildly country specific..

When we got called back to the office at my last job, it cost me about $65 per day to go to work. There was gas of course, but then there were tolls both ways, parking fees, and lunch. It was ridiculous. $10 both ways in tolls, $22 parking $15+ for lunch, plus gas. Before the pandemic there had been an employee shuttle that I used to negate all of those fees, but it wasn't available after the pandemic. I ended up finding another job and quitting when they wouldn't entertain letting me stay remote. The stupidest part was that I would commute an hour both ways (because of traffic), and spend all that money, just to sit at a desk by myself and teleconference with my team who was in a different state. The entire team folded a few months after I left since their other two key engineers left too.

Here's what must be done!

it will never be done

I agree with the premise, but this rub me the wrong way:

"$16 on lunch, $13 on breakfast and coffee."

It sounds like entitlement if you think someone should be paying for something you already do at home (eat), but choose to do it in the most expensive way possible.

Make food and coffee at home and bring it to work. And if you're already buying expensive shop meals to eat at home, why complain about spending that outrageous amount of money when you're outside the home?

That’s insane. That’s like $600/month

How much was electricity when you were working at home? Air conditioning? Are you buying more alcohol? If you are complaining that you are buying lunch more thats your problem.. you can pack a cooler and bring that shit to work.