Long Commute is a source of unhapiness of work

[LOL!]

I am in the same boat. My commute is about 40 minutes on a normal day. The driving distance is 30 miles one way. On a snow day, it may take up to 2 hours.

Well, maybe the boat is your problem. Most people drive something with wheels.

 

[Alex]

My commute is measured in feet and seconds, not miles or hours...of course I work from home. I still hit the road all the time to visit customers, but I set appointments for non-peak travel times. why should I inconvenience myself? my earliest appointment is at 10 or 11 am and the latest is around 1.30 - 2pm. That way I miss all the vaunted Southern California traffic and get home before 3 o'clock. Seriously though, I really hate traffic. I wouldn't want to do more than an hour drive each way , I don't care how much they were paying me.

 

[bruce1]

My Morning commute is about an hour and in the evening an haur and a quarter. I hate the waiting in traffic in the evening and the idiotic drivers in the morning. Today was idiot take a pickup truck to work day.

Bruce

 

[Goonie]

Today it took me an entire 3.5 minutes to get to my j*b. I saw at LEAST 3 other vehicles, too. I guess I need to start out earlier to beat all that nasty-*ss traffic!!!

 

[sailor]

If not for the fact that I want to spend more time with my family I would not mind a longer commute.
This might sound crazy to you, until you realize I commute on a bicycle. 7 miles one way takes me about half on hour.

 

[Spanky]

If not for the fact that I want to spend more time with my family I would not mind a longer commute.
This might sound crazy to you, until you realize I commute on a bicycle. 7 miles one way takes me about half on hour.

That's what I used to do during the summer biking to work. It's about 30 minutes for a 6 miles ride.

 

[Canadian FIRE]

Do you agree with the following order of importance of a job? Commute is almost at the bottom of list - surprisingly.

Salary
Good environment
Benefits
Good co-workers
Good technology
Enjoyable projects
Challenge
Good management
Stability
Freedom
Flex time
Education
Commute
Advancement potential
Independence/trust
Training

Who they hell would put a commute that low on the list?!?! In my last town my commute was 7 minutes one way (if I hit both lights). Now I'm up to about 20 minutes and I think that takes forever.

I can't believe people do over an hour a day (one way)! To me I work too long at 8 hours a day and making it 10 seems nuts, I like my family life too much to do that!

CF

 

[Spanky]

Who they hell would put a commute that low on the list?!?! In my last town my commute was 7 minutes one way (if I hit both lights). Now I'm up to about 20 minutes and I think that takes forever.

I can't believe people do over an hour a day (one way)! To me I work too long at 8 hours a day and making it 10 seems nuts, I like my family life too much to do that!

CF

here is source: http://sageweb.sage.org/salsurv/sal05.pdf (2005 System Administrator Salary Survey)

A short Commute is still considered as one of the favorite attributes of work even though it may not be high in the list.

 

[justin]

3 miles - about 8 minutes. Maybe 12 if I hit all the red lights and get caught in traffic. Pretty bad!

I've done the 30+ mile commute that takes 30-45 minutes for a few summers/semesters during school. Not fun and the traffic was bad and unpredictable. Nothing as stressful as getting ready for what should be a 30 minute drive home on a Friday afternoon and finding out that there's a wreck 10 miles up and it ends up taking 1.5 hours to get home.

 

[Khan]

My last three years (and on and off throughout my employment here), my commute was 2.5 miles. Before 15 years ago, I used to walk a little more than a mile; but they took out the street and built an overpass further down .

 

[Gumby]

If the train is running properly, my commute is two hours door to door -- each way. That's right, four hours of commuting per day, plus 10 or more hours a day at w*rk = a very long day.

 

[Corporateburnout]

If the train is running properly, my commute is two hours door to door -- each way. That's right, four hours of commuting per day, plus 10 or more hours a day at w*rk = a very long day.

At least no wear and tear on your car

 

[Gumby]

I had to get a jump start this past weekend because it had been so long since I last drove it.

 

[unclemick]

Heck - back in ancient times it seemed like a twenty minute walk to my desk from the Boeing parking lots. My favorite was the two guys who had a department store dummy dressed up in the car so they could fool the security guy and park closer in the share the ride parking lot.

The half hour/forty minute drive to get to the lot was a nit.

With a 'tan' VW - decorating the antenna with something unique helped me 'find' the car at quiting time. Kept tennis shoes in my desk to sprint to the lot(so did others) to get ahead of the rush hour.

heh heh heh heh - 40 yrs and more lanes - rush hour is still kinda grippy in greater Seattle(1966 vs 2006) - but as a visiting ER - just hurry up and wait.

 

[Brat]

It is interesting to watch commuters jocky for position on the west bound Bainbridge Ferry commute in the evening. Some actually run up the ramps to be able to snag a seat on the Poulsbo or Kingston express busses.

Folks on my route just let the bulls run thankful that ours is a local route.

 

[Meadbh]

Commute is 4Km (10 minutes at 0700h; 15 minutes at 1800h) and traffic moves well unless there's a blizzard.

A few years ago I had a job offer in Toronto, to manage two sites approximately 20K apart. Commute would have taken ~2 hours per day. My response: Fuhgeddabouddit!

 

[streamjp]

I do not think there are any cookie cutter formulas here. I would rather commute 1 hr+ to a job I love than 2 minutes to one I cannot stand ........ many shades of grey in-between.

 

[sgeeeee]

When I was working, I think I only had a commute of more than 20 minutes for one brief period of time (less than a year). For 6 years, my commute was less than 1 mile. When I had the long commute, I got some language tapes and used the time to brush up on my Spanish. It made the 50-60 minutes seem tolerable.

 

[deserat]

Umm - OK, we're crazy - I used to commute 85 miles each way on I-80 (Sacto-Berkeley) - now commute 40 miles each way.... but not every day as I can telecommute. DH commutes 70 miles each way towards Stockton.....we hate it - we look forward to saying goodbye to CA -why do we do this? We have a house almost paid off that has appreciated close to 100% in 5 years and when we leave here, we will have a nice amount of cash to purchase our next roof.

As for fun stuff to do around here - well, that's a different story - great hiking, skiing, cultural (if weird at times), easy airports.....so there's good and bad.

Loved my commute in Europe - 5 minutes through beautiful countryside.

Deserat

 

[CyclingInvestor]

If not for the fact that I want to spend more time with my family I would not mind a longer commute.
This might sound crazy to you, until you realize I commute on a bicycle. 7 miles one way takes me about half on hour.

Same here. My commutes from 1979-2006 slowly grew (4m, 5m, 11m, 15m, 17m, 23m) with
each move and job change in the Los Angeles area. I bicycled most of the time, and the
longer the better, even when it was almost 2 hours each way. On the days I drove, I
always got home in a foul mood.

 

[cons]

Do you agree with the following order of importance of a job? Commute is almost at the bottom of list - surprisingly.

Salary
Good environment
Benefits
Good co-workers
Good technology
Enjoyable projects
Challenge
Good management
Stability
Freedom
Flex time
Education
Commute
Advancement potential
Independence/trust
Training

commute would definitely be higher on the list for me. however, it did take a few years to cut the commute time down to where it was stress free.

when i started working for my current employer 5 years ago, my commute was between 45 mins (w/o traffic) and 60 mins each way. after almost 3 months of all the stress it was causing, i found an apartment that was 25 mins each way, never hit traffic. luckily i was still single at the time, so the stress was bearable to some extent.

when we were looking to buy a place, close proximity to work was very important. we were lucky to have found a place that was safe, clean, quiet, and in a good school district. my commute is now between 8 - 13 mins, depending on how i hit the traffic lights. i take local streets to get to/from work, no more highways/expressways, but many more stop signs. the short commute definitely reduces the stress. with a wife and kid at home, can't imagine how it would be now if i still had that long stressful commute.

 

[dumpster56]

Umm - OK, we're crazy - I used to commute 85 miles each way on I-80 (Sacto-Berkeley) - now commute 40 miles each way.... but not every day as I can telecommute. DH commutes 70 miles each way towards Stockton.....we hate it - we look forward to saying goodbye to CA -why do we do this? We have a house almost paid off that has appreciated close to 100% in 5 years and when we leave here, we will have a nice amount of cash to purchase our next roof.

As for fun stuff to do around here - well, that's a different story - great hiking, skiing, cultural (if weird at times), easy airports.....so there's good and bad.

Loved my commute in Europe - 5 minutes through beautiful countryside.

Deserat

I hope your 100% appreciation on your house shows up when and IF you can Sell IT!!

Timing of this market is getting ugly.

Homes are sitting a long time and prices here in NJ are down 25%. We got lucky last spring PERIOD! I could not get 525,000 for that house I sold in april now, the prices are listing in the 440,000 range.

Good Luck my friends

 

[Spanky]

when i started working for my current employer 5 years ago, my commute was between 45 mins (w/o traffic) and 60 mins each way. after almost 3 months of all the stress it was causing, i found an apartment that was 25 mins each way, never hit traffic. luckily i was still single at the time, so the stress was bearable to some extent.

My commute has been 45 minutes each way for the last eight years. The commute for the next job will be 20 minutes but not as short as the commute time of 8 minutes for the job that I had turned down. Every time I drove by that company, I said to myself, "I could have saved my commute time significantly."

 

[Buckeye]

17 miles takes about 22 minutes. First I drive through my small town, then onto the state road, then through another small town, then 6 more miles of country roads to the manufacturing plant in the cornfield. The traffic jams come only during planting and harvest when the tractors are out on the road. Even though I don't have to deal with traffic jams and the drive is relatively short and the scenery changes with the seasons, the repetition (driving the same route) drives me crazy.