My current commute is 30 mins drive one way with peak hour traffic (17 mins with no traffic) in the bay area. The new offer I have is going to increase my commute to 1-1.5 hours one way using public transport or company shuttle. The new job profile has more breadth than my current role and I would have accepted it without a thought had it been at the same distance as my current job. Now, I have accepted the new offer but I am still in double minds about the commute. I cannot move closer to the new company because of personal reasons. This makes me consider declining the offer. What should I do? Update: I might be able to get some (2 or 3 depending on the ramp up and other circumstances) WFH days a week. TC: 180K
I did for a year. It was miserable. My personal life, health and productivity at workplace - everything took a hit after first few weeks. Will never do it again.
Did you drive or take public transport or company shuttle?
See if you can have WFH days
Updated the question
Create a schedule that works for you - ie. take calls from home, get work done in the morning and come in off-peak traffic times, etc. If you WFH twice a week and it works, the commute should be doable.
You may have to bite the bullet and do it for a year now that you’ve accepted. Or don’t and thank yourself later.
It better be giving you a significant TC bump. Long commutes have a surprisingly bad impact on your mental health.
I am doing it now. I got about 20% pay raise but my commute change from 20 min each way to 1 hour each way. I have also a young family. Those 2 hours spent on the traffic is miserable. I had no time to hit a gym and I am constantly late picking my son from his school. I am starting to look around again (just passed my 1 year anniversary).
Same boat here. 50m (shuttle bus) to 1.5hr (Caltrain) each way for the offering company (not yet accepted). Would've been a no-brainer if same commute time. Given i don't have kids, and 25% bump + promo, i may take this chance to get out of my comfort zone and try it out for at least a year. Also, I'll negotiate for wfh ~2 days a week.
Just curious, why would you apply for a company if the commute would be an issue? Unless the company has decided to move its address overnight...
Some companies have multiple offices and post job descriptions that indicate the role could be in any of them. For instance a recruiter from Google reached out about a role that could be based in SF (25-30min commute for me) or Mountain View (over an hour).
I just accepted an offer in the same bucket. Despite common feeling here, I’m just going in with the mindset that it’ll suck but the opportunity is quite great and current situation at work sucks. I’ll be calling friends/ gf on the way back and listening to podcasts. I think it won’t be terrible honestly, just expect shitty and it’ll hopefully be better
Are you going to take the company shuttle? How is your future WFH policy incase you already know about it?
I don’t know about WFH policy. I will be driving which kinda sucks even more but I know many ppl that do it and they just say you get used to it. You have to be good at leaving work at a certain time and letting everyone on your team know that.
In the same boat here. Already accepted an offer. The commute is really bad. I'm thinking about staying put at Oracle for now until I land something closer
Declining after accepting an offer and completing visa process will burn all the bridges with the new employer and after declining we will still have to ‘hope’ to land something closer. This thought is confusing me to make the final decision.
I'm kinda a US citizen ...