This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Georg Loewen, a 35-year-old senior director of digital marketing at SourceCode Communications, a public relations agency. He lives in West Orange, New Jersey. Business Insider has verified Loewen’s employment with documentation. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
When I joined my current employer in November 2024, I made it clear that my first job was being a dad. My wife and I both work, and our daughter was barely a year old.
I’d always been fortunate to work for flexible employers, but like many new parents, I was still figuring out what fatherhood meant — and how it collided with the reality of work.
Since 2022, my company has had a three-day-a-week office policy for employees based in New York and New Jersey. My one-hour door-to-door commute to our Manhattan office proved challenging over time.
Missing the train would delay my arrival at the office
I handle day care drop-off most mornings, which is at 8 a.m. The timing makes it hard for me to catch the ideal 8:20 a.m. train, which gets me to the office just after 9 a.m. — when everything runs on time. The day care is 4.5 miles away from the train station, where parking is first-come, first-served, and finding a spot can sometimes turn into its own adventure.
Taking the train at 8:46 a.m. gets me into the office after 10 a.m., but I sometimes would miss that one, too. When I did catch it, I often had to jump on client calls during the commute, which wasn’t ideal, since the service wasn’t always reliable and I had to change trains in Newark.
At some point, figuring out the best approach each day — balancing my availability and time in the office — started to feel like a math equation.
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A conversation with my manager led to work-from-home flexibility
Early this year, my daughter was going through a rough patch at day care. My manager noticed that I was struggling to make it into the office consistently and proactively brought it up.
Initially, we had a discussion about reducing my in-office time and maybe setting up a hot desk, but we quickly agreed to keep things flexible for the time being; if day care drop-off ran long or parking didn’t work out, I’d just work from home.
It seemed like what mattered wasn’t where I logged in from, but that the work got done.
Following this conversation, I began working from the office between zero and two days a week.
I sometimes feel guilty about the flexibility I’ve been provided
When I first started commuting less frequently to the office, I felt a bit guilty — partly because I worried this was supposed to be non-negotiable. Even now, I sometimes catch myself overthinking how it might be perceived by others, or worrying about being seen as “the one who gets to work from home more.”
But the truth is, I’ve only ever felt supported. There’s an understanding within the company that family comes first, and I genuinely believe my colleagues see that. There’s no bad blood — just trust.
For me, that trust has allowed me to drop my daughter off at day care, commute to the office when I can, and still make it home for dinner with my wife and daughter — if New Jersey Transit cooperates.
Not every day is perfect, but more often than not, it works.
I suppose you could call the flexibility I’ve been provided an exception or an accommodation, but to me, it feels more like an understanding. I’m confident that my company would extend the same trust and flexibility to anyone else in my shoes.
I know my flexibility might not last forever
Currently, with the flexible commuting arrangement, I usually make it to the office one to two days a week, but on weeks with holidays or parent-teacher conferences, I tend to go in closer to once.
Finding a parking spot at the train station continues to be challenging, so I recently got a foldable bike. My new commuting routine involves dropping off my daughter, driving back home, and then biking 1.5 miles to the station as quickly as I can. I’m still on the permit-parking waitlist for the station, but my neighbor told me not to get my hopes up too high.
While I’ve been grateful for the flexibility my company has provided, I know it might not last forever as my team continues to grow. I recently hired a marketing coordinator, and I’ve tried to be in the office whenever possible, especially during the onboarding phase. There’s never been a hard deadline on how long this flexibility would last, but I expect it will be reassessed over time.
For me, one of the biggest takeaways from this experience is that if you’re transparent about your needs, it’s possible to be awarded flexibility, and those conversations aren’t as stressful as they may seem initially.
