Commuting Is a Drag (on the Economy)

http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/article/moneyhappy/7928 ^ | Friday, July 28, 2006 | Laura Rowley

[BenLurkin]

Ron Rogers gets behind the wheel of his Acura Integra before dawn in Brentwood, Calif. His iPod, loaded with stand-up comedy and audio books, is hooked up to the car stereo.

Rogers needs plenty of audio material for his commute: He drives more than 90 miles -- roughly two hours each way -- from the San Francisco Bay Area to his job as a public relations specialist at a communications technology firm in suburban Sacramento.

Rogers is one of the 3.4 million workers that the Census Bureau has dubbed "extreme commuters." At least 2 percent of Americans wake up to a commute of 90 minutes or more one way. Not surprisingly, most of these workers live near major metropolitan centers: New York, New Jersey, Maryland, California, and Washington, D.C., have the most workers with extreme commutes.

The number of super-commuters nationwide has skyrocketed 95 percent since 1990, as workers hang on to lucrative jobs in city centers but move farther and farther afield in search of better housing, low crime, and good schools.

Too Much of a Bad Thing

Unfortunately, commuting is a bitter pill that rarely gets easier to swallow. Researchers have found that people have the capacity for "hedonic adaptation" -- in laymen's terms, the ability to adjust to extreme circumstances, both happy and unhappy.

For instance, classic studies of lottery winners and paralyzed accident victims found only small differences in life satisfaction between these groups and control subjects. But certain experiences -- living near a noisy highway, for example -- become more aggravating over time, something scientists call "sensitization." Commuting falls into this category.

A 2004 study by two economists at the University of Zurich found that people tend to overestimate what they'll get by commuting long distances -- i.e., a bigger paycheck, a more prestigious position, the ability to buy more stuff -- and underestimate what it will cost them in stress, health, and loss of connection to family and friends.

Driving to Stay in Place

Which brings us back to Rogers. Married with an infant son, he fell into his morning marathon involuntarily. Shortly after he bought his home in Brentwood in 2004, he was laid off from his PR job in nearby Pleasanton. In July 2005, he found the position with SureWest Communications in Roseville, outside Sacramento.

Rogers quickly put his home on the market, but real estate prices were declining as new developments became available and interest rates inched higher. Rogers would still have made a small profit by selling immediately, but not enough to afford the same digs in Sacramento.

"We were afraid we would end up selling and never get into a similar house again," he says. And so he began his long-distance relationship with work, spending $400 a month on gas and occasionally crashing on friends' couches in Sacramento.

Then, about four months ago, Rogers and his boss hit on a solution: telecommuting. Rogers now works from home two to three days a week -- a setup his company had never tried before.

The Country's Costly Commuters

In 2004, more than 24 million Americans, or nearly one-fifth of the workforce, worked at home during business hours at least one day per month, according to the International Telework Association and Council. About two-thirds were self-employed, but 7.6 million worked for companies.

With the miseries of commuting well-documented and gas prices hitting record highs, one would expect the masses to be banging down their managers' doors looking for a deal like Rogers'. But many workers who have the ability to telecommute don't take advantage of it, according to a new study by the University of Maryland Center for Excellence in Service and consulting firm Rockbridge Associates.

The poll found that only 2 percent of adults who work telecommute full time; another 9 percent telecommute part time and 8 percent have home-based businesses. Of those who could feasibly telecommute, less than half would choose to do so more than two days per week, and 14 percent would not telecommute at all.

The study suggests that our unwillingness to sacrifice our social lives at the office, combined with our love affair with cars, costs $3.9 billion in fuel and time annually.

Telecommuting Isn't for Everyone

These findings shocked me, since I've thoroughly enjoyed working from my home office for the last few years. (Actually, it's an unfinished space in the basement that's pleasantly cool in the summer and bone-rattling cold in the winter unless the space heater is turned on full blast.)

One reason workers don't telecommute is that the financial savings just aren't that significant for most people, says Charles Colby, president of Rockbridge Associates. "The median commuting time in the U.S. is 20 minutes, and many people only have 15 or less," Colby explains. "Let's say gas goes up to $4 a gallon. You commute 20 miles in total in a typical day and your car gets 20 miles to a gallon -- you're looking at four dollars a day."

An estimated two-thirds of the Fortune 500 companies offer telework options, according to Gil Gordon, president of a New Jersey consulting firm that has been advising companies on the practice since 1982.

He's not surprised by the University of Maryland/Rockbridge study. "One of things that makes an employer desirable is they are open to flex time or telework or casual dress," he explains. "Even if people don't take advantage of it, they like to have the choice. People are savvy enough to have thought about it and know when it's not right for them."

Kristin Beltramini, 24, knows telecommuting is right for her. Like many Boston-area workers, she lives across the border in New Hampshire -- more than 40 miles from her job at a public relations firm in Woburn, Mass. On a good day, she'll spend an hour driving to work. But on Friday night, that almost doubles. "People are leaving Boston for the weekend -- the lakes in the summer, the leaves in the fall, and skiing in the winter," she says.

Beltramini drives a Honda Civic that gets 36 miles to the gallon, and fills her tank once a week to the tune of $30. She figures working from home four days a month saves her between $24 and $36 and countless hours of aggravation. She relies on her cell phone, laptop, and high-speed Internet connection to link to the office's network.

Coming Up with a Plan

If you too want to telecommute, put yourself in your manager's shoes first, Gordon advises. "Anticipate his or her concerns about your availability -- how you'll answer phone calls, what you'll do if there is a meeting or if you're needed in an emergency."

Also explain, in writing, why working from home will give you the ability to be more productive, to organize your work better, or meet deadlines more effectively. Figure out what parts of your job can be done more efficiently from home. "It's all about keeping your manager's blood pressure low," Gordon says.

As Beltramini has discovered, working at home "is a great chance to be extremely productive because people are not coming to my desk asking for things," she says. "The only distraction is my cat likes to sit on my lap or walk across the keyboard."

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[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I worked at the Pengaton during the 90s and lived in Northern Va about 30 miles from the Pengaton. It took me an hour commute each way. I was in a carpool for a while than became a "slug" or daily hitchhiker. Still it was a huge drag. Up at 5am home after 6pm, once I exercised and ate, it was time to go to bed and start the cycle once more. I knew people in my office there that lived as far South as Petersberg, VA; West as in Harper's Ferry, W.Va, East as Dover, Del.; and North as Southern PA. People would catch a Vanpool at 3:30am (sleep on the van) in order to live where they wanted. It was not a life for me. After 5 years, I moved to a saner commute.

[Max in Utah]

The number of super-commuters nationwide has skyrocketed 95 percent since 1990, as workers hang on to lucrative jobs in city centers but move farther and farther afield in search of better housing, low crime, and good schools to escape the brown people.

Many times, yes. Low crime is good.

[Graymatter]

I've known a good many telecommuters who started off thinking it was a good thing, practically a perk they had deserved. And in a surprisingly brief period of time they were surprised to be severed from their employment.
I don't think it's because they were annoying. There are intangible issues here, of maintaining and defending one's turf. If you're not there you don't realize you have competition; or even if you do, you can't phone in what you have to do to avoid getting shafted.
In other words, be vigilant, because telecommuting can make you irrelevant.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The real problem with this kind of commute is that it is pretty much totally unproductive time that is spent under increasingly stressful conditions."

Only if you let it be.

http://www.simplyaudiobooks.com/

http://www.booksontape.com/

[Ol' Sox]

"...be vigilant, because telecommuting can make you irrelevant."

You've got that right. Our new CIO, when asked about his policy towards telecommuting put it very succinctly -

"If you don't need to be in the office, what is the difference between you and Babu in Bangalore?"

[discostu]

I'd get a different job, possibly involving a move to somewhere that doesn't have that kind of cost disparity between places that are nice to work and places that are nice to live.

[discostu]

I'd still rather spend that extra time at home.

[RipSawyer]

About the only positive thing about my current employment is that I am less than three miles from the job. My engine doesn't get fully warmed up. I don't mind driving as part of the job but I hate driving back and forth to a fixed location to work.

[discostu]

But how much do you get to enjoy your home when your work time including commute is 11 hours? Then another 8 hours for sleep, another hour or so getting ready for work in the morning. A lot of people use the great house excuse, but what good is a nice place to live if you're never there and conscious, I suppose it cuts down on the ammount of time you have to spend cleaning the place but that's the only benefit. I wouldn't call it crazy like a fox, I'd just stop at crazy.

[discostu]

Yeah I've got two positives with my current job, they're HQ'd somewhere with a higher pay scale than the rest of my industry in Tucson, and it's a 10 minute drive to work. Those have kept me here for 4 years. I like being home, being able to stay in bed later and get to work on time and getting home early to enjoy my wife pool and books is worth a lot to me.

[RebelBanker]

My former boss spent most of his career in New York City. The only people that lived within an hour of his office were either very rich or very poor. There was simply no affordable housing for mid-level office workers closer than that. Since the vast majority of his neighbors on Long Island made the same commute to Manhattan he did, everybody accepted it as a fact of life in the big city.

[RebelBanker]

"If you don't need to be in the office, what is the difference between you and Babu in Bangalore?"

I understand and speak English.

[discostu]

Which is part of why New York is on my list of places to never even entertain the possibility of maybe someday living there for a short time. There are some places where a serious commute is the only option, those are all places that in my book suck.

[crv16]

I don't understand people with those kind of commutes, live in the same town you work

I took a job in Mass 5 years ago. At the time, and still now, property prices here inside 495 are almost double what they are in southern NH. Not to mention that I wouldn't want to live in one of the "bluest" states in the country.

[discostu]

So work somewhere else. Either half of that equation can be changed. It just makes no sense to me, the part of my life I gather the least joy from is the drive to and from work (and I actually love to drive in general, but work time driving has none of the aspects of driving that are fun), and the path to a happy fulfilling life lies in minimizing the sucky parts.

[crv16]

It has been my experience that "telecommuters" are a huge drag on their department. They're constantly calling in to their co-workers asking them to check the fax, find a document and fax it to them, get into their computer and find a file and e-mail it to them, etc. I have learned to hate telecommuters.

This is not a telecommuting problem, it's a technology problem.

I telecommute one day a week. I connect to my corporate network via a secure VPN connection, and using Microsoft "Remote Desktop", it's no different than me sitting at my desk at work.

[crv16]

So work somewhere else.

If my current company wasn't such a joy to work for, I would. I work with some of the smartest people in the whole computer industry, get paid handsomely and have benefits that would make a union worker jealous.

[RebelBanker]

The longest commute I ever had was about 45 minutes each way assuming traffic was no worse than normal. I am much happier with my current 10 minute commute, but understand that I am sacrificing money and opportunities by working in the same small town I live in. I am also taking a risk, since if my position here is eliminated I do not have the "big city" network to help me find another job.

All that being said, I would not criticize anyone else's decision to drive longer to have a better job and better place to live.

[discostu]

I loved the job with what I considered to be the hell commute, but after two years of it I was sick of the drive, then the company moved and life was good all around. I just can't wrap my head around spending life in the car for work, worst of all things.

[discostu]

I guess I'm being overly harsh on them, it's just a crazy lifestyle choice to me.