9-5 Puppy Help! Potty Training / Crate Training !

So I am getting a puppy next week and I wanted some input/advice on how I should go about letting my puppy out. So last time I had a puppy I was in school so it was easy to adjust / take care of my puppies needs. Now I am post college grad with a 9-5. Since I do not have all the time in the world I am looking for an efficient and responsible way to keep my puppies bathroom needs taken care of.

I also want to state clearly for the people of reddit that I have accepted I need to do whatever is necessary for the puppy for its health and happiness. I do not want this to seem like he wants a puppy but none of the work that goes with the puppy. Its more or less a conversation of efficiency and educating myself further on how to take care of a puppy.

So as a baseline I am going to state that I expect to take the puppy out frequently. I think the metric is roughly for every month they are old is how often they should go out.

I will also say I am against the idea of pee pads. I am on the border of maybe getting one of the fake grass pads to encourage peeing on something like grass. I am not familiar with the implications of this compared to pee pads.

Then to double down I want to crate train and think this is very important to do for every dog. Planning on sleeping in the crate for a while and taking “scheduled” nap times. Then feeding and such in the crate.

So my first problem is I work 40 mins from home. So it is not as easy to just go home on break. That would be easy if I had to do it once but it seems I will have to do it several times a day which will not add up.

So here are my potential solutions (I am open to more ideas or criticisms of these!)

a.) My Dad lives 20 mins away from my work. Sadly he is a hour from my work but I can take my puppy to his house in the morning. Then take 2-3 breaks a day (Depending on where we are in the timeline). Then after work get the puppy and go home. This option seems like a lot of burnout. Also lots a travel. This seems like worst case scenario.

b.) I am not too sure on how I feel about this one to be honest. I would create a smaller pen area in my house with the crate inside it. Get a grass pad and put it in the pen area. I will have about a week and a half with the puppy before having to go back to work so I feel we can get her used to the pad. Then go home once a day to make sure she gets outside and to monitor any thing she would need. I really hate that this does not enforce crate training. If she sleeps in the crate and or has “Crate time” would that make up for it. Then ofc when she gets older she would not need a pen. I do not know how realistic this is and if this would enforce bad behavior.

Now typing this out I feel as a I actually only have two options. I do not want to leave them with family members that do not have the same level of care as me. I can not afford a type of daycare.

Do we have any ideas? Any solutions? Any problems with anything I have presented?

Thanks for everyone taking the time to read this and respond if yall did