Not to take job as it's 1 hour commute ?

[pollyputaket]

Basically I've been looking for a job for a while now and the only job I've been offered is 1 hour commute.
It's a 5 min walk from my house to train station
Then 50 min train journey
Plus 5 min walk from train station to office.
£11 train per day travel
So that is £55 on fares per week
Aibu not to take it for this reason ?
What would you do?

It's 40 hours Per week but it's only a min wage job

Like PPs I agree that an hour commute is quite reasonable. In previous roles I've had over an hour drive or public transport journey to do my jobs. If you don't need the money then don't take the job but I think it would be fine. Buying a travel card might reduce the travel cost but like others have said, we don't know what the salary is.

1 hour driving probably not, but 50 minute train and 10 minutes walking sounds fine.

I did an hour+ each way for a year including up to 37 weeks pg. I drove 55 miles each way to a school. Most of the journey was along the North Devon Link Road, a very beautiful but rather dangerous road that has had a number of fatal accidents on it. I had a nice car, a good sound system and loads of CDs to work through. On the way to work, I normally listened to Radio 3 or 4. After work I listened to a CD. By the time I got home, all the stress from work was behind me.

As others have said, use the time productively. A job at the moment is a good thing. What % of your pay will be taken up by the travel? Give it say 6 months and see how you get on.

An hour is not a long commute. I’d take it.
If you get a season card it would be cheaper

No, not for a minimum wage job.

After travel /bills /rent /food etc
I would only have £400 left a month

Whilst it's quite a long commute, the nice thing about it is that, as it's only one train and walking at both ends, it's controllable. No doubt the rail operator's website will be able to tell you if the train is running on time so you'll know when to leave the house which will minimise time spent pointlessly hanging around and you don't have to allow time for finding a parking space or that sort of thing. Same for the journey home.

But if you don't take this job, how much do you have left per month? And what are your other options?
Can you not take this job and keep looking for something closer to home?

Is that your nearest big city and does that mean most jobs you could apply for would be the same commute? Daily, it can be drudge but depends on how reliable the trains are and whether you can get a seat etc. I'd take it but keep looking.

I personally wouldn't do two hours of travelling per day for a min wage job.

So at the min I'm not working and I have £160 a month left
So I would obviously have extra money this way but is it worth it
£200 on travel a month seems like a huge chunk

An hour's commute, most of which you can relax on, and £400 spare a month after all bills and expenses are accounted for. Sounds really tough.

It may be 'standard' for many - but personally I'd never even consider a job with a one hour commute in most cases, unless I was desperate. Can't think of much worse to be honest.

@SwedishEdith no it's a different city
I live in a different city (smaller one )
Most office /big companies are in Newcastle

Don’t do it, that’s 2 hours a day = 10 hours a week, which is more than another whole day per week in terms of hours spent commuting.

Is there any WFH flexibility? How desperate are you?

I’ve done it before but will never do it again, it’s knackering.

If that's all you can get for now yes take it.

If this is the only job you've been offered I'd take it.

@pollyputaket

After travel /bills /rent /food etc I would only have £400 left a month

You'd have £400 'free ' money? Sounds fine to me, 1 hour commute is really not much. Why did you interview for the job if you weren't willing to commute ?

£400 after bills, rent, food and commute sound good if you don’t have a job at the moment. Since you’re not driving, you can just use the train journey to read or relax. You can then keep looking for jobs closer to home but you’ll be relaxed about it as you have a job

I think pre pandemic many people did an hour each way but I doubt many people want to go back to it tbh, it’s madness. For £400 a month, not worth it IMO.

@Mydogmylife on the advert it said wfh but at the interview they told me you need 6 months office based (for training and academy ) before you know enough to wfh

Is the train service a good one? is that an average commute or a best case scenario? I've done two different train commutes. One was on a small branch line which just pootled backwards and forwards and was very reliable. Nice clean trains and always a seat. I enjoyed it and liked my reading time and takeaway hot drink! The other was a commute to Paddington. Enough said.