Company announces return to office 2 days after employee signs a lease on an apartment 45 minutes away from the office: 'I have been remote for 3 years.'

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
May 5, 2026 5:45 PM EDT

He's got bad luck.

Your daily commute can greatly impact your feelings about your job. If you don't like your job, but only have to walk five minutes to get to it, that might make you like it more. If you love your job but have to travel three hours round-trip to get to it, you might start to resent the wear and tear the commute puts on your body and project that negative feeling onto your job. 

It's pretty frustrating to go from having no commute to having any commute. Even if you have a 30-minute commute, which in the grand scheme of things is pretty short, it's still one hour of your day that you could've spent doing anything else if you worked at home. You can get a lot more done around the house if you don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn to get to work on time. In most cases, having a commute shouldn't be a reason to leave your job, because chances are, in this "return to office" era, you're not going to find a new job that doesn't require any time spent in the office, unless you're in high demand because you're extremely good at what you do.

The employee in this story is probably going to have to accept the fact that he's going to have a 45-minute commute each way to work, and there's nothing he can do about that. 

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  • Man with dreadlocks holding head at desk with laptop
    via Vitaly Gariev

    A remote employee stresses after discovering he will need to return to the office, even though he just signed a lease for an apartment 45 minutes from his company's offices.  

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • My company announced a return to the office two days after I signed a lease on an apartment 45 minutes further from the office.

    I moved last year specifically because I'd been remote for three years and my lease was up. My manager knew I was moving, I told him directly, he said nothing.
    via u/Renvaxis
  • HR knew, I updated my address in the system. I found a place I really liked that was further from the city, cheaper, more space, actually have a proper home office setup now. Signed the lease on a Friday.
    via u/Renvaxis
  • Black and white chairs and table
    via Collov Home Design

    A nice home office that any remote employee would be happy to have access to. 

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • The RTO email went out the following Monday. Three days a week, effective in six weeks. I sat with that for a bit. Then I went back through my emails to check if I'd missed any signals and there was nothing, no hints in any all hands, no rumors from people I know in other departments, nothing. Just the announcement.
    via u/Renvaxis
  • I'm 45 minutes away on a good day, closer to an hour and fifteen if there's traffic which there usually is in the morning. So we're talking potentially 2.5 hours of commuting on three days a week. I looked into breaking the lease, the penalty is significant enough that it's not really viable. I raised it
    via u/Renvaxis
  • with my manager who said he understood but that the policy came from above him and he had no flexibility on it. I asked HR if there were exceptions for people who had relocated with no notice of a policy change and was told exceptions would be considered case by case, which seems to mean no.
    via u/Renvaxis
  • I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. Still processing it honestly
    via u/Renvaxis
  • Psychological-Bag272 As someone who works in the wider HR team and also remote, we honestly don't get told these things and find out the same time as everyone else. Only the senior leaders at the top would know about it. I don't take their advice as a no, personally. If you have always been remote then it is definitely worth putting a case forward that you have signed a lease a few days before RTO was announced and the financial cost for breaking the lease. They may compromise and extend the rem
    via u/Psychological-Bag272
  • Renvaxis OP That's actually a useful framing, I hadn't thought of it as a negotiating position. The lease timing is pretty well documented so there's at least something concrete to point to. I might go back to HR with that angle
    via u/Renvaxis
  • Psychological-Bag272 My company has gone through something similar recently. They updated the RTO policy from just 2 days a month to 3 - 4 days a week which is a huge shift. In the past month alone, we've received 174 exception requests, and the policy has only rolled out in 1 country (Australia). Many of the cases look a lot like yours: people now live too far away, commuting costs don't make sense relative to their salary, or they have caregiving responsibilities.
    via u/Psychological-Bag272
  • The company can't realistically reject every request and risk losing that many employees at once. Even if there's an intention to reduce headcount, they'll still want to control who leaves. So, in practice, some exceptions will be granted. Being a strong performer definitely helps. I'd suggest clearly highlighting the key projects you're involved in and the value you bring, anything that makes a compelling case for why they should make an exception for you. Good luck!
    via u/Psychological-Bag272
  • Imaginary-Friend-228 You could be signing a mortgage up to your eyeballs and your management won't bother to tell you you're about to la d off
    via u/Imaginary-Friend-228
  • Valar_Kinetics I got laid off once two weeks before Xmas when my son had been born the day before. I was right back in the office the next day, still got fired. None of these people care.
    via u/Valar_Kinetics
  • drunkenwildmage A friend of mine took a promotion that required a transfer. She rented for the first year to make sure the new position was a good fit. Once her lease ended, she felt secure enough to buy a house. The day after she signed the paperwork, her entire department was let go.
    via u/drunkenwildmage
  • Fun-Dragonfly-4166 i can not answer your question. but i think about your situation every time someone says i could leave the company for a better paying job but what will they do? how will they manage without me? WHO CARES Two week notice? WHO CARES What is best for the company? the company does ok. worry about yourself
    via u/Fun-Dragonfly-4166
  • ozziewithanie I commute 1.5 hours each way via public transit 3 days a week currently, and they're trying to change than to 5 days a week in a couple weeks. I didn't move, the work location did. Companies sk, honestly.
    via u/ozziewithanie
  • A woman holding a cup of coffee on a bus
    via Ahmed (Unsplash+)

    Employee commutes to work via train, not because she moved far away from her office, but because her office moved far away from her. 

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • sprinklecattoo Ugh do you have any flexibility in your working hours? - On the days I go into the office I start much earlier to avoid rush-hour.
    via u/sprinklecattoo
  • Renvaxis OP I asked about that actually. Technically yes but the "core hours" window makes it pretty limited. 45 min on a good day becomes 1h15 in morning traffic so I'd have to leave pretty early to make a real dent
    via u/Renvaxis
  • Terrible_Act_9814 45min to 1hr~ is usually the normal commute for the avg commuter. Unless you live close by which is like 15-30mins.
    via u/Terrible_Act_9814
  • mrsmunchy When my company announced RTO, my department head had no idea it was coming. Go for that exception though. My company wrote it right into our handbook. If I lived TWO miles closer, I wouldn't still be working from home 5 days a week.
    via u/mrsmunchy

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