It’s an undisputed fact that there are 24 hours in a day, and for most they’re neatly divided into three parts; eight hours for work, then rest, and play. Except, very few people actually work for eight hours and the demands of work under capitalism mean the time reserved for work encroaches upon our rest and leisure time.
Before home working became ubiquitous, most of us clocked up hours and hours traveling to and from our place of employment. These journeys weren’t just because we have a penchant for packed trains and traffic jams – our employers required us to be in the workplace. But travel isn’t cheap. Depending on your journey, it can costs hundreds of pounds monthly to make those trips. And not only that, it takes up the very little precious time we have. In 2019, the average amount of time people in London spent commuting on a weekday each way was 47 minutes, according to public transport website Moovit. But almost half (48%) of riders spend more than two hours on public transport every day. For the North East and Cumbria, the average time spent is 64 minutes.
For three years, I worked 9-hour contracted shifts (sometimes stretching longer), including Sundays, and commuted for two hours a day. Some of these shifts started as early as 7am, taking my wake-up alarm to 5am. When you take away work hours, commute, sleep, and mundane necessities such as eating, cleaning, grooming, a mere hour or two is left for leisure. Which is why working from home has been such sweet relief. But as the pandemic becomes a normal fixture in our lives and we head back into physical work spaces, it could be time to reframe the old system.
The incentives to go back to the office, currently, are lacking. Not only could there be potential health risks, but people have been able to cherish time and money sans commute….
https://ca.movies.yahoo.com/movies/time-commute-paid-employers-050010902.html
