I’m sure that I am not alone in the world when I say I hate “Commuting” to and from work.

To me, commuting is one of the biggest time wasting tasks that anyone could ever do!

Yes, I have heard how you should listen to personal development, learning, or entertaining recordings while you are commuting so that the time is not wasted and I do on occasion listen to my favorite speakers and motivational recordings. But, commuting to and from the downtown Miami area requires one’s full attention. So, anything that makes your mind wander or distracts you from the traffic you encounter in Miami, just opens you up to an encounter with another already irate commuter.

Traffic and Commuting

It’s Just Ludicrous To Commute These Days

Especially in my profession, commuting should be a sin. Most days I spend setting in an office, working behind a computer screen building Analytical Systems for big businesses. It’s called “Business Intelligence” in the industry of Data Warehousing, the whole point of Business Intelligence is to gain insight into the operation of your business and how/where you can identify and correct problems that impact the operation of your business. Well, how about offering your employees the ability to telecommute?

Personally, my commute wastes about 3 hours per day for my round trip to and from work. That’s 15 hours a week of wasted productivity just for 1 person. Now compound that number by the total of employees you have in the company and you start to see what a huge resource drain commuting is to your company.

Obviously, there are other aspects to commuting that we could argue to. These include the impact on the environment, the toll on your physical and mental health, family strains due to longer times away from home, and other points that all are related to the time wasted while we commute to and from work. I’m not going to get into all of those in this post because there just would not be enough time for me to write the article if I tried to cover all the negative reasons why commuting is not smart.

Case Against Commuting

The argument for telecommuting is stronger now than ever; with high speed internet to your home, virtual private networks (VPN), video conferencing, teleconferencing, voice-over-IP (VOIP) and all the tools that make working remote a possibility, it just makes sense. Why would companies cling to the notion that you have to be in an office, setting in your cube to get your work done?

Now, I agree, there are professions that just don’t lend themselves to telecommuting. Additionally, there are times when you need to have that face-to-face meeting to get the results you want working with clients or co-workers but for the most part many professions could just as easily be performed from a remote office.

For me personally, yes, I can do my current work remotely, but because of the work I do, most of my clients want me to be on-site, regardless of what the commute would be like for me. Their expectations are for me to be at their work place where I can work hand in hand with them on their project and provide guidance to them. In the past I had commutes where I left on Monday Morning and did not return home until Friday night. Those were crazy times so I suppose I should not complain about having to commute for 3 hours per day because at least I am home each night.

This is the point at which a work-from-home job would be nice. Hence, the reason for this website and why I am involved in several work from home opportunities. I’m working on being a full-time work from home individual but I still have a ways to go to get there, so, off to work I go!