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The job is fine but the commute is destroying me — is this a legitimate reason to leave?

by Sandra Koo·May 24, 2026

Two hours each way. Four hours per day. Twenty hours per week. That's half a full-time job worth of my life, spent in traffic or on public transport that's often overcrowded and delayed.

The job itself is good. Good manager, interesting work, fair pay. But I arrive home after 8pm every day depleted. I have no life outside work and sleep.

What I've tried:
- Negotiated 2 WFH days — helped but wasn't enough
- Moved slightly closer — still 1.5 hours each way

The question I'm sitting with: Is a good job worth a life built around it? Because that's what this has become.

I know people will say "the commute isn't a reason to leave a good job." But 4 hours per day is a quality-of-life issue, a health issue (cortisol), and a relationship issue (no time for anything else). That seems like a real enough reason to me.

#commutE#work-life-balancE#wellbeing#decision
367 upvotes6 comments

Comments (6)

Juliana Hashim18

The hardest client conversation is raising your rate with an existing client. Frame it as: your scope has grown, your skills have grown, the market rate has grown. All true.

Syafik Razali13

Give 60 days notice before a rate increase. It shows respect for their planning cycle and almost always prevents a dispute.

Cecilia Tan10

The client who pushes back hardest on rate increases is often not your most profitable client anyway. Pricing clarity reveals relationship health.