It absolutely blows my mind when I think about what we used to do before the pandemic in order to get to work. I live in a major Canadian city, and our winters can be extremely difficult. I live about 45 minutes outside of the city centre and that is without traffic. I used to work five days a week in the office and because public transit options are not optimal where I live, I chose to drive into work every day. The first thing I had to contend with, was the obvious traffic difficulties during morning and ate afternoon rush-hour. Secondly, I live in an area that has been growing exponentially every year thereby increasing the traffic problems along with it. During my 10 years living in this area, I have noticed that the government has done absolutely nothing to mitigate and offset the growing traffic problems getting to and from the city center. During the winter, if there was a major storm, I was still expected to make it into work. The best I could hope for was that they would grant us a few hours grace in the event the weather was really bad. Since the pandemic, not only do I work in the office only two days a week, but if there is even a hint of snow. I simply tell my supervisor that I will be working from home. I certainly am not complaining about my new dynamic now but when I think back at what was expected of us and what was considered normal I am completely disgusted. The hours that I wasted, and that were unpaid to simply get to work and get back home is astounding. Furthermore, the fact that I would literally take my life into my hands by trying to drive through a major snowstorm so that I could work is truly terrifying. I think that overall many workers have been able to harvest some leverage and agency post pandemic. And to think that major employers and captains of industry are furious that we’re not all heading back to the office like cattle and complaining that it’s difficult to fill jobs, just infuriates me even more. They would gladly watch us all heard into the office five days a week until we die and if we get into an accident on the way into work because of extreme weather conditions that’s just too bad. No thanks. I’m glad that I’ve got my new reality.