Some years back I opted to ride to work, was about 9 miles one way. I found that I was able to get to and from work faster than driving a car. I worked at a small retail establishment that had a warehouse/receiving area in the back that made for easy storage of my bike. I might have considered it differently had I had to lock my bike outside.
I was fairly lucky in that the trade I dealt with was construction so the lack of a true shower wasn't hampering to me. There were days where I came in pretty hot and sweaty or just downright messy after bad weather. I made sure to arrive around 30 minutes early just to give myself time to cool down and resume normal breathing, etc. It was also a really good idea to stage a change of clothes at work such that when the weather turned bad you had something clean and dry to change into. The backpack/duffel I used at that time was not weather proof.

All in all mine was a mostly positive experience. I did have one self inflicted injury due to shooting a bird at a passing redneck....