#commute

I enjoy the work and have no problem doing it 40+ hours /week. What is quickly driving me insane is spending hours in traffic every day to do the same job I know I can do the same, if not better, without the drive when all of your work is on a computer. Gas is too expensive and Dearborn/metro Detroit su-ks to commute in. On top of that, shame on Ford for making all of their employees come in 4 days for over a year now without proper seating and planning.

Been wondering how many people got into a low mileage lease based on WFH & now are like ohhhh fxck!

Hearing layoffs next month in center city commute. Expecting certain percentage per org TPX?

Seriously considering telling Fido that I literally CANNOT absorb the extra financial cost of commuting to work every day when gas is projected to hit $6/gal. Is anyone else concerned about this? Sure, it’s fine if you live within a few miles but my commute is over an hour combined. How is this okay with Abby and why is no one doing anything about it?

Seattle's average commute time has significantly decreased, ranking third nationally. This improvement is primarily attributed to the rise of remote work and a substantial decline in public transit usage. In 2019, 25% of residents used transit, dropping to 15% by 2024. The article notes that solo drivers now average 26.5 minutes, while transit riders take 49.5 minutes. This trend contrasts with Sound Transit's efforts to increase ridership amidst budget concerns.

Seattle, Washington

https://seattlered.com/watch/seattle-ranks-3rd-in-america-for-shrinking-commutes-heres-why/01a08bb4-3c00-8008-f0fa-136d5b56ae80

I have a 2 hour round trip to Dallas HQ that I do everyday. I am looking forward to my commute on Monday morning. In the morning it gives me a chance to plan my day. And in the evening I get the opportunity to reflect on my day while driving home. I am too tired to do anything once I am home so I have no trouble falling asleep on time. I love working here. Thank you JS and RTO.

I don’t get this ft rto for some but not for all its arbitrary and unfair
So bc our area has the space we get to slog into Boston with our costly commute while other areas that likely cost less to commute get to wfh?!?
How does that build collaboration knowing some of your colleagues sets up a phone meeting just as you would like to leave for your commute all the while they’re sitting on their 🫏 at home with NO COMMUTE?!!!
How is THAT not a hostile work environment?!?
Yea I’m po’d

Just the beginning of Groundhog Day for us all?! This is the daily grind personified.
I just think after 6 years of ft wfh and then hybrid this is going to be a really difficult slope to scale after a couple of months with no let us except an errant holiday or vacation day?
What were they thinking?!!
I’m exhausted just thinking about how tedious this gets and how arduous it is after a long day.
It doesn’t help and it’s not political because gas dollar for dollar was higher under Carter obamma and even joe much higher but it’s painful at the pump. The average on today’s dollar would be between $5-6 on average.

I remember asking if there was a chance they’d reduce a day as gas prices climbed and was told no. Never mind how other people are abusing that but with prices going up I am pretty close to living paycheck to paycheck. I don’t want to bring it up again to the powers that be but it’s really getting hard. Every single thing is. The icing on the cake is the constant fear of a layoff every other week. Is anyone else going through this? I’m tempted to borrow from my 401K.

Any tips on making our daily commute to Tuas more pleasant? I don’t know what to expect

Oh, was that not motivating enough?
Well what if we completely fu---d you over and made you commute for 2 hours a day?

Oh well, I tried. I cannot figure out why the employees are not happy or motivated.

Time to give myself a 5 million dollar bonus for all that hard work!

There are absolutely times when people should be together, but in reality those times are few and far between. If the work actually benefits from being face to face, great. Get everyone in the room and get your sh-t done.

But that’s not what 5x RTO has become… We’re tracking badge swipes, building dashboards, calculating hours and obsessing over whether someone’s a-s was physically in a chair for eight hours. All for… what?

So people can drive to an office, put on headphones, open Teams and work remotely from the office?… Seriously, what the fu-k are we doing?

If my entire day is Teams calls, emails, spreadsheets and work with people sitting in different buildings or different states, then forcing me to commute to do it from a cubicle isn’t collaboration. It’s pointless theater.

I could do the exact same work from my house just like I did for a decade before Covid. I’d get more done, I’d be less burned out, and AT&T wouldn’t have to waste money supporting the office just so somebody can say we were “present.”

Bring people together when there’s a reason to be together. Stop confusing physical presence with productivity. They are not aligned.

If the end result of 5x RTO is that I commute an hour to sit in a building and work remotely from my desk, then congratulations, you did it (and nothing else)!

Way to go baldo! You just reinvented working from home - with traffic. What a joke!

Having to waste more than two hours on commute is certainly not making me more productive. What it is making me is resentful and slow and absolutely unwilling to go the extra mile, something I used to do all the time. I'm betting you RTO will turn out to be the biggest productivity ki-ler.

Could someone please clarify how the “4 good weeks out of 6” policy is measured? If it is tied to the 3‑days‑in‑office requirement, does that mean I would only need to be in the office 12 days over a 6‑week period (4 weeks × 3 days)?

Our team provides 24/7 global support, with all communication conducted electronically and no in‑person interaction required—especially for my role. My workday does not begin at 8 AM nor end at 5 PM, and weekend coverage is a regular part of the schedule. Despite consistently meeting or exceeding performance expectations, I have not received a meaningful salary increase in years, and I cannot afford to live near the office.

For me personally, the 40‑hour monthly commute is unpaid, non‑productive time that could otherwise be spent on work or on personal recovery. As a result, the in‑office requirement feels fundamentally misaligned with the remote, round‑the‑clock nature of the role.

Some people seem to genuinely need the office for their social life. Fine. Go in five days a week. Nobody is stopping you.

But I’m not going to work to make friends. I’m here to do a job. And we’re told loyalty is dead and we’re a market-based company, so let’s be honest about the relationship — I sell my time and expertise, AT&T pays me for it. That’s it.

I prefer working with people who can get their sh-t done without an adult babysitter watching over them. If you can’t perform from home, sitting in an office doesn’t magically make you productive. Now you’ve just added a commute and a day full of distractions.

We’re supposed to be here to work, not recreate a nursing-home social mixer five days a week.

If you need the office, have at it. Just stop making the rest of us pay for your social life.

• Show up at the office at 8am
• 8 hours of Teams calls with people in a different state/office or working from home
• 30 minute lunch break
• Leave at 4PM and drive two hours home
• Question the point of it all

It doesn’t get better than this!

This issue needs to be addressed before the new AT&T headquarters in Plano opens.

The Plano campus will have pickleball courts, which means employees may soon be competing against one another on a regular basis. However, virtual employees already have a major advantage: they do not have to spend up to two hours each day commuting to and from the Dallas headquarters.

While the rest of us are sitting in traffic, virtual employees could be using that time to practice their serves, improve their game, and prepare for the Plano courts. By the time the new headquarters opens, employees who have been commuting may be years behind in pickleball development.

This creates a serious fairness issue. The Plano pickleball courts should be a level playing field, but that will not be possible if one group has had significantly more time to practice simply because of where they work.

Leadership needs to act now, before the competitive gap becomes impossible to close. I am requesting that virtual employees return to the office so everyone has the same commuting obligations and the same opportunity to prepare.

We cannot wait until the first Plano pickleball tournament to realize that this problem should have been handled sooner. The integrity of AT&T pickleball is at stake and the time to act is now before it is too late.

When I was working from home during covid, I was amazed at how much work I got done. I was proud of how much I accomplished daily. It was a pleasure working every day. Now that I'm back in the office, the commute, the noise, distractions, bothered by boring id--ts has completely demotivated me. I only come in to do the minimum. They really miscalculated the whole opportunity.

I am a fool. I underestimated Dallas commute, Parking and the 8 hour requirement. What a mess. Door to door is 11 hours for 5 days a week. What the he-l? How are my fellow 50 year olds taking it?

I stay because the health insurance covers my kid's therapy and the commute is only 20 minutes. My manager is clueless, but my three teammates are sharp and we cover for each other. Why would I start over somewhere else that'd probably have the exact same issues and no seniority?

I do have to say that I am grateful that PNC let us work from home if we used the Parkway East. I would be so drained by the time I got to work and got home. You’re talking probably at least an extra two hours commute time plus spending more money on gas sitting in all the traffic. No matter which detour you took it was bad. I talked to a few few friends. I have in the medical field and it was a nightmare. Don’t let people tell you that it wasn’t.

So if the executives are reading this, I want to thank you for letting us do this because you didn’t have to.

Who is commuting 5 days a week, 60 miles each day. $25 per day in travel costs not including parking.

Aren’t you exhausted? Needs to be at least 3-4 years until Plano HQ.

Finding new employment in Dallas doesn’t help as commute doesn’t change. Those who work in Plano office are super lucky.

Why do the follow the work letters that are going out have Dallas listed when we are moving our headquarters 20 miles north in Plano? That is like a 45 min drive just between the locations.

How inconvenient to require people to drive to the Dallas location when the location is changing in 2 years. Who even comes up with this stuff? It is like they are actively trying to cause unnecessary stress and inconvenience to their employees.

Hard Pill to swallow but due to no job offer and single salary, my hand is forced. See you all on the commute. Might get used to the 2 hour daily commute in a Tesla.

I wonder how many of us will institute personal boundaries when we go back 100% in September? I will not be working remotely at all - this means I won't be doing anything outside of 9 AM - 5 PM EST. If you can't be flexible with me, then I am not going to be flexible with you Fidelity. Why should I be getting up early to have a meeting with offshore, struggling to get my kids on the bus, and then have a long commute just to take calls with people on zoom?

All my young life we used to move every 3 years. Now I despise doing the same thing again after 10 years of not moving. Though it is progress and might be good for me, but I am unable to be motivated enough to move for T. Don’t have a second job or option but need to move. The place, weather and commute su-ks. It will be great for family but not for me Ugh..

It’s been almost a month since we were required to return to the office in the name of "collaboration," and all I have seen is people including leaders finding different ways to minimize their time in the office.
Leaders have families to take care of too, so many leave after just a few hours because they need to pick up their kids from camp or school. It’s a reminder that everyone is balancing work with personal responsibilities.
Meanwhile, I haven’t seen any meaningful increase in collaboration. What I have seen is hours lost commuting, searching for parking, walking to and from the office, and dealing with all the extra logistics. It feels like a significant waste of time and energy that could have been spent doing actual work.

Media content on the networks is the future and there are significant synergies to be gained. See you on the commute!

Anyone else on a “hybrid” team where their entire management chains lives 2.5 hours or more from the office? my management chain is cheating the company- they dont like commuting so they show up around 10am, leave at 2pm, and barely do anything. how is this allowed? when will HR fire people like this? my director joins meetings from recreational events and encourages us all to cheat Verizon. basically if we dont tell on him- he wont tell on us. somewhat new to the company and the behavior of leaders here is atrocious. my AD is similar. he always takes off friday

What was your motivation to do so? I am feeling overwhelmed and under confident and just thinking all is going to he-l with this move as I dread that 2 hour commute

Why four days? Simply put, four is twice as many as two.

As a result, employees should expect approximately twice the collaboration, twice the innovation, and, where practical, twice the culture.

While these projections have not yet been validated, they remain directionally encouraging.

The Value of Presence

Research consistently demonstrates that employees working in close physical proximity are more likely to:

• Ask if anyone has seen the conference room adapter.
- Spend fifteen minutes determining whose turn it is to reboot the meeting-room computer.
- Participate in spontaneous conversations that begin with, "Quick question..." and conclude forty-three minutes later.

These are the kinds of high-value interactions that cannot be replicated through purpose-built collaboration software specifically designed to replicate them.

Visibility Matters

Although employee evaluations will continue to be based entirely on performance and results, it is important that those results occur where they can be observed.

This allows leadership to appreciate the effort that accompanies the work, such as walking briskly between conference rooms while carrying a laptop.

Building Culture

Many employees have indicated that they already feel connected to their teams.
This is encouraging, but incomplete.

Organizational culture is strengthened through shared experiences, including:

• Searching multiple floors for an available meeting room.
- Listening to someone else's conference call while attending your own.
- Discovering at 11:58 a.m. that everyone had the same idea for lunch.

These experiences build institutional knowledge that is difficult to quantify, which is fortunate.

Addressing Productivity

Some employees have expressed concern that additional commuting time may reduce the number of hours available for focused work.

Leadership recognizes this possibility.

To offset the impact, employees are encouraged to become more efficient.

Frequently Asked Question
Q: If my team is distributed across three states and we still meet on video calls, why am I commuting?
A: While your meetings may still occur virtually, it is important that they occur virtually from the office.

This reinforces our shared commitment to flexibility

What we get at Voyix:

• Suggestions to take public transportation and allow extra travel time on game day
• Game day experience at GHQ

Tells you how much Voyix cares about its employees🙄

Single income and Have 2 kids in elementary school going to middle in 2 years. Frisco seems to be best so far based on what I saw in great schools. But commute su-ks. Can you please recommend other areas, somewhat closer to commute. I may have to drop off kids and pick them up as well. So some flexibility there would help.

What is your daily commute look like from home to HQ? What time you start if you have kids in school and how do you manage day to days life?

Not sure if others have noticed, but the Frisco executive center is now sharing space with Intuit employees. It’s been noticeably more crowded lately and it doesn’t feel like the same place it was when we first moved in.

Which honestly brings up something I’ve been thinking about for a while — was Frisco even the right call to begin with?

The location is surrounded by toll roads. For a lot of us commuting in every day, there’s really no way around it. Those tolls add up and that cost falls on employees, not the company. That felt like an oversight when we moved in and it still does.

And now we’re sharing the space with an outside company? That wasn’t exactly part of the pitch when this place was built. So it makes you wonder — is this a cash flow issue? Or did the business case for building here just not hold up the way leadership said it would?

Either way, it’s a fair question. The people who made this decision aren’t the ones paying tolls every morning to get there.

My son was born when I had a remote job, then Covid happened and I was home all the time (he’s always been in daycare while I’ve worked, though). Now he’s in first grade and this back to office is ki-ling me because I can’t be in multiple locations at once. I get him to school at 8. We live just north of spring and on my best days, I’m still coming into the parking garage after 9am. I have a friend who helps me with carpooling from our neighborhood a couple of days a week and gets the boys to their mutual after school activities so I can meet them there but I feel like all I do is manage a commute to satisfy a rule that is not in the best interest of anyone who wants to also be present with their children. I was always very good at my job and being the mom with fully stocked cooler at the field. I look around and wonder who else is quietly dealing with this? And why aren’t we saying anything as a collective voice. I’m tired of decisions being made for me by men whose wives or nannies have made them believe this is manageable for people who are lacking coparenting support.

On my deck. In the sun.

Looking at that solid red traffic map and reflecting on how often I was stuck in that grind that was taking years off my life. Quitting that toxic hellhole was the best decision I ever made!

3 hours a day.
15 hours a week.
60 hours a month.
720 hours a year.

That’s 30 full days of your life spent commuting every year.

One entire month annually sacrificed sitting in traffic so a presence report can show the “right numbers” for work that still just happens on a laptop and Teams calls.

Thousands in gas, tolls, parking, wear and tear, and unpaid time gone forever.

And for what? Morale is worse. Burnout is worse. The stock is down. People are leaving.

That’s #LifeAtATT

Relocating to Dallas this summer and thinking of moving close to Hosp Elementary school in Frisco. I have kids in elementary schools and wondering if anyone is in this situation to commute from Frisco to downtown Dallas and what times you usually start your commute and manage the 9 hours at office. I am unsure if there are any closer areas to cut down the commute for present HQ and upcoming HQ