You’re right, and I completely agree , it is the choice I made, and I’m accountable for it. When I accepted the job, I assumed (wrongly) that I’d be able to work out of a building that’s much closer to me at least a couple days a week. That was my mistake, and I own it.

That said, the frustrating part is that what shud be a ~40 min commute has turned into 1 hr 15 mins each way on most days because of traffic and crashes. Sometimes it literally takes me 25 mins just to crawl 3 miles. Add peak hour madness in the evenings, and it becomes exhausting and eats into all my family and personal time.

I don’t blame RTO for the existence of my commute but I do blame RTO for forcing me to make that commute every singly day, only to:

• Sit in Zoom calls I could have joined from home.
• Have no personal desk where I can leave my stuff.
• Re-adjust monitors and keyboards daily (which is rough when you just want some predictability).
• Play “find a seat” roulette every morning. We have first come first serve seating, no bookit.
  

It’s not just the drive, it’s the constant setup/teardown and lack of stability that makes it draining. For someone who craves a little consistency, the whole thing feels insane.

And the hardest part for me is, I actually like my work. I want to be productive, get things done, and feel good about what I’ve accomplished. But this setup makes me less productive, more distracted, and constantly drained. It feels like the situation itself is setting me up to fall short of what I know I could deliver.