Blind, an app that provides a platform for anonymous career-related posts, conducted a survey of employees at top-tier companies, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan. The survey asked workers if they’d prefer to permanently work from home rather than get a $30,000-a-year raise.

The survey of 3,000 employees at these well-respected companies  overwhelmingly—64%—responded that they wanted to continue staying at home, thank you very much. Only two companies out of the 45 sampled, JPMorgan and Qualcomm, had a higher percentage of their staff go for the $30,000 option.

According to the study’s findings, “About 64% of Amazon workers who answered the question preferred permanent work from home, as well as 62% of Microsoft employees and 67% of Google employees. Apple employees would rather take permanent work from home over $30,000 more at 69%, and Salesforce employees at 76%.”

To some, this may sound surprising. These corporations are held in high esteem, as they are exceedingly hard to get into. People aspire to work at these organizations. You’d think that since they worked so hard in school and in the workforce to get into these good jobs with high-status companies with the potential to quickly advance, they’d happily go back to the office.

When you take a step back, while $30,000 seems like a lot of money, it’s not large enough to get the majority of respondents out of their homes. It can’t be due to lack of motivation, as WeWork’s newly installed CEO intimated about remote workers. There are long hours and pressure—whether the person’s at home or in the office.

It may boil down to dollars and sense. Hypothetically, if a person in the study works in New York City and resides in Westfield, New Jersey, a nice upper-middle class suburb, they’ll have about a two to three hour round-trip commute back and forth to work.

If the person takes the train, it’s roughly $300 per month for the privilege of having to switch stations in Newark, New Jersey, run up and down flights of stairs to catch the connecting train to Penn Station. Assuming that there’s not a delay or problem, once you’ve arrived, there’s another leg to the journey. This could entail yet another train, taxi, Uber or walk a fair amount of distance to get to your office.

The annoying commute is compounded by the inclement weather of the Northeast with cold snowy and icy winters and oppressively hot summers. The pandemic, coupled with calls to defund the police, has left New York a little dirtier and scarier. There have been reports of questionable characters committing heinous violent acts on the streets and in the train stations.

Driving to and from work is a soul and time-sucking experience. The roads are too crowded, traffic is a nightmare and you need to fight off the urge to get road rage. There are the associated costs of gas, the wear and tear on the car, not to mention how it takes years off of your life, stuck in traffic, sucking in the car, truck and bus fumes.

If you do decide to go back to the office, you can’t wear your work-from-home uniform of tee shirts, shorts and flip flops. You’ll have to buy a brand new wardrobe, especially if you put on the pandemic extra pounds. Then, there’s the question of who will take care of your children now that you’re going back to the office.

During the time at home, you were able to mow the lawn, clean the house and do other chores. After an eight to 10-hour workday, plus two hours of commuting, there’s little time to take care of all of the stuff around the house. You’ll need  child-care assistance, landscapers, house cleaners and to take your clothes to the dry cleaners. The costs keep adding up.

When you get into the City, there’s the obligatory stop at Starbucks for a venti coffee and sausage and egg breakfast sandwich that runs about $10.00 or so, depending how fancy you like your coffee. The odds are high that you’re not brown-bagging lunch and either ordering out or running to a local food joint for an overpriced meal that tastes terrible. At least once or twice a week, you’ll get roped into an event after work that sets you back financially for dinner and drinks.

You no longer have the precious moments with family and friends. Say goodbye to the bike rides on a nice sunny day. The few workouts you did during the pandemic will peter out, as you won’t have any energy left after the long, exhausting hours and stressful commute. The work-life balance you cherished over the last year will be over.

When you add in all of the real costs, the $30,000 isn’t that much, especially after taxes are taken out. In addition to money spent, there’s the opportunity costs lost.  You won’t be able to continue with hobbies, have a side gig, break away to play some golf, read a book, watch your kids’ soccer games or just enjoy and savor the extra hours you used to have.

Source: Forbes