What price/value working close to home

One of the benefits and perks of what I do and who I do it for is that I'm afforded quite a bit of freedom when it comes to where and when I work.

While I tend to prefer being in the main office most days as it makes my job easier and I prefer face-to-face interactions the option of setting up shop for the day in one of the satellite offices closer to home, or indeed working from the couch in my lounge room when the need arises is definitely appreciated.

I work from home. I love it. Allows me to fit in gym time whenever I want. No office politics. Can stop and go for a walk or play my guitar when I want. It’s not for everyone though.

I have a walking commute to the office (2 miles) and I find it pretty beneficial.

Previous jobs where I've had to commute on a bus, I didn't really mind, as it gave me time to study or read a book. Driving I absolutely hated.

I always try to live as close to my work as possible. There might be some drawbacks attached to that: smaller flat, no place to park a car, etc but I see it as an advantage as it makes life so much easier: little time spent on going to work (currently 30 minutes by bike and train, which is long for me), little time spent on cleaning, little money on heating, and not having or needing a car also saves tons of money and is good for the environment.

I would hate working at home, but a short commute can be very nice (not that I have one despite it being not that far in terms of miles).

I do like that my commute is by public transportation so I can read or surf the web, and when the weather is nice and it's light longer I can bike to and from work, which I used to use as a major part of my workout (I'd take a longer route to go by the lake and add a loop to add mileage). I also used to regularly run home (it was about 6.5 miles) and might again, although I'm a little farther now.

Worst case I can get in some extra walking any time I want based on where I get on and off the L.

@yirara We are a suburb of a large metropolitan southern city. We have several gorgeous historic districts, a classic American town square, and a national battlefield park. “Bedroom Community” because most people commute to the city.

I enjoy a single family home, a block or two from all this bounty. My “shared” bedroom accommodates a husband, a sweet ladylike kitty with a heart shaped chin, and the attention-seeking cat from hell. Actually, he’s from northernmost Germany but that’s a looooong story.

Technically my office is only 10 miles away from home, but 10 miles in my city can easily take an hour. I normally take the train to work. My gym and a fitness studio I attend regularly are both walking distance from my office, though, so I actually prefer going into the office so I can get in a workout easily. The days I work from home it's much harder to fit in a gym workout.

I have always lived in smaller cities/towns and I am gonna admit that my longest commute was about 30 minutes/9 miles. Now I live 2 miles from my office. The only thing I don't like is that due to the types of roads (almost zero curb or sidewalk and tons of traffic) there's no safe way to walk or bike to work. Small issue though! I feel lucky I can get to work in about 12 minutes even with traffic, 5 without...and come home daily for lunch.

I’ve done something that’s unusual with my current job: I’m living further away, distance-wise from work. Like I said though, it’s still just 30-35 minutes to the office.

Usually I try to work within a short cycling distance. The previous job was 1.7km This one is in a not only very expensive, but also very busy and polluted town, with luttle chance to cycle out into nature on weekends. So I looked at what other towns are with 25 train minutes and fell for this place. Got everything including a good arthouse cinema and two towns within 20 minutes for my underground culture needs and areas with a very varied nature and history just outside town, 2-3km away instead of endless suburbs.

reversemigration wrote: »

I really enjoy my 15-20 minute walk to and from work. That, plus being in an active job and having a fitness center on-site, builds exercise into my day. It's one of the reasons I chose to work where I do.

That would be the ideal for me -- I'd love to be able to walk to work -- although as I said above I don't really mind my commute because I can do other things while traveling.

My job is such that it needs to be in the downtown business district and although there are places to live a 15-20 mins walk away, I couldn't have a house and would be in a mid or high rise, which isn't my preference.

My big city is mostly a bunch of neighborhoods, and I love the one I'm in and that it's very walkable and accessible to a nice bike and running path, not to mention good shopping and restaurant districts, as well as being bikeable to work. It's also pretty easy to get wherever else I want to go by public transportation, if it's too far to walk.

My car is old and has had intermittent issues with the battery in the winter, and last time I took it in they told me the issue is that I don't drive it often enough (I usually drive it at least once on the weekend, sometimes twice). I was like what am I supposed to do, come home from work and go for a drive?

lemurcat2 wrote: »

reversemigration wrote: »

My car is old and has had intermittent issues with the battery in the winter, and last time I took it in they told me the issue is that I don't drive it often enough (I usually drive it at least once on the weekend, sometimes twice). I was like what am I supposed to do, come home from work and go for a drive?

I'm in the same boat lately. I've considered ditching one of our cars and just using Uber/Zipcar/etc for those days when my wife is working and I really need to get somewhere. I have to overcome the inertia of convenience, though!