Tell me about your commute

I get out of bed, walk to the bathroom ( 10 yards ), walk to the kitchen and make coffee ( 10 yards ) and walk to my desk ( 10 yards ).

When I was working, my commute was a walk to the train station, a 30 minute train journey on a packed train and then a 20 minute walk to work. Unless a bus arrived at the right stop just as I got to the stop and it would be a 5 minute bus journey.

And I hated it. I hated not being able to get a seat and having to stand, crammed into other people's armpits. I hated people who acted like no-one else existed and talked loudly on their phones or painted their fingernails or used up 2 seats with their luggage.

I hated people who stopped dead in front of me whilst walking through the station or down the street. People who cut straight across me. I hated them. I actually developed a 'Don't fuck with me' walk to stop people from approaching me or hassling me.

I hated the waiting around and the people who didn't wash and the people who ate smelly food on the train and just humanity in general.

I really hated it.

Did you get that I hated it?

shakeysix said:

The spurs got me to thinking about the very different places we AWers inhabit. Getting to and from work is something that we share but seldom talk about. What is your commute like?

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Driving on highway 93, on the western edge of metro-Denver. It's usually a pretty nice drive since it's just open grazing land between the highway and the foothills/mountains.

How far do you travel?

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About 20 miles; 30 minutes.

Do you walk?

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Heck no.

Use public transportation? Drive?

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Rarely use the bus, just because I'd have to drive to the bus stop to begin with, and my car's mileage makes it cheaper transportation than the cost of bus tickets (even if I bought an annual pass).

Is there drama? Humor? Danger?

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Well, like I said it runs along grazing land. A few times there's been traffic jams from cattle getting through the fence and on the road. Car crashes are fairly frequent since there's a lot of bends, blind turns (while going up/down hill), and pretty scenery to distract the non-regulars. During the winter a light snow storm can make the road all but impassable, due to said tight turns/hills. Oh, and blowing snow will shut down the road completely (we get some high winds coming down off the mountains, make's it white-out conditions). But those snow events are maybe a handful of times in a whole season.

If I explained my commute to you all, in the detail that I think of it, you'd think Monk was written from me.

No complaints from me. I used to commute into London from the suburbs, then Edinburgh from out in Fife. This is -much- better.

My commute is about an hour. one bus (very short), 25 minutes on the train, 15 on the seabus. They're air-conditioned, and I always get a seat (except when something's gone wrong) so I just pop open my laptop and work on something.

I used to drive, way back when, and hated it. Too stressful.

My commute was similar to Wille's until I retired.

The secret to working from home (at a job, not as a writer) is discipline. Get up at a reasonable hour in the morning, get dressed, put your butt in the chair and get to work. Don't get distracted by laundry, cleaning house, 'Ellen' on the TV, or anything else. All those things will still be there after you do your work, and they don't pay the bills. The only exception I made was for putting a pot of stew or something on the stove around 2pm and going to check on it every so often. I was self employed, working from home for over 30 years.

MM

i drive a little more than 25 miles each way. in the mornings, i leave pre-dawn/pre-traffic and can make it in a half hour. in the evenings, it's a crawl and i'm lucky to make it home in an hour and a half.

shakeysix said:

Mr. Monk is you, rob ? --s6

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You might think so.

Be out the door at exactly 0524 or I'm late. At CVS by 0529, buy one serving of whole chocolate milk. At the train station by 0534, second row, first spot. take my spot waiting for the train, right at the "look both ways" sign, then a half step to my left. Door always stops right there. Always sit in the rearward half of the quiet car, first seat. Finish milk by third stop. Snore the rest of the way.

When I come home, leave work by 1803, arrive at the platform by 1816, column number 7, plus one of the safety tiles. Those engineers use landmarks to decide where and when to stop, so I know the door stops right there...

Need I go on?

I swear I had a great photo of the twitten path (betwixt and between -- a path that goes through houses, kinda...a local thing )


But can't find it.

Anyway, I walk down here to get to work

Fun thread, shakey!

I take my kids to and from school every day--total RT is just under four hours a day. (I know.) I work about 15-25 minutes away (depending on whether it's season or not), a commute I make 3-5 times a week.

We're talking about moving ten minutes closer to town to cut down on some of the driving, but given that my job sometimes involves staff meetings at the beach, I love every minute.

At the moment, my commute is similar to William's -- bedroom--> bathroom --> kitchen --> office.

Before that, I was in Melbourne, in an inner city suburb only a 20 min drive away from work. On the way in, I'd always see pelicans, black-shouldered kites, black kites and nankeen kestrels...and rush-hour traffic inching along in the other direction. The best time was going home in winter, because I'd drive past the footy oval (the Ted Whitten Oval for any Melburnians reading). Not a footy fan myself, but there's something about driving past an oval in the evening, when the floodlights are on and the players are training that is just so Melbourne. (That and the MCG.)

Before that, I lived in an outer suburb of Townsville, North Queensland. Also a 20 min drive to work. All the birds mentioned above, plus white ibis and big flocks of magpie geese (in the wet season).

shakeysix said:

First of all, what is a seabus? I have the craziest picture in my head. Is it anything like a ferry? Which sea do you have to cross? Crossing a sea to go to work sounds awesomely romantic to me.

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It's a small foot-traffic-only ferry that goes back and forth across the Burrard Inlet. 12 minute trip.

Mine's lousy. 75 miles each way, (78 if I take the kid to school first). About 30 minutes on the backroads (which at least are pretty this time of year with the foliage). Toughest spot there is going by a school in an overpriviledged area where there are way too many minivans being driven by women yapping on cell phones. Then it's a 'highway' which usually tops out around 30 mph for the first 10 mi. Around an hour and 40 minutes later, I get to work.

Thankfully, that's only 3 days a week though. The other two I'm in my PJ's

shakeysix said:

Helix, I have been reading about Australia my whole life. The town I work in is called Macksville and I know that there is a Macksville in Australia too. It is on the coast in NSW. It is about 5 times bigger than my Macksville but that only makes it about 2,500 in population. Ever heard of it? --s6

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I hadn't heard of it, but I just looked it up on Wikipedia. I liked this:

In 2006 Australian Census Macksville had a population of 2,658, despite the sign at the entrance to the town claiming a population of 7000.

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That's a potential story right there! It's going in my Big Book of Brilliant Ideas (which is actually a small book of notes that I can make neither head nor tail of when I look at them again).

Now I'm going to have to visit Macksville. It's a bit far away from me, though.

I drive downtown and park on the only street without parking meters, then walk a mile to work. I have to leave the house by 6:50 am. Any later, and I'll miss out on the south side of the street. It'll be full up. And if that's the case, I have to park on the north side. Why should that matter? The street is under the freeway interchange and all the supports are on the north side, near the parked cars, which provide plenty of hiding places for criminals who then smash the car windows and take whatever they can. I've had my car window smashed twice in 4 years parking on that side. But I figure it's still cheaper than paying for a monthly parking pass nearer to work.

shakeysix said:

William, do you dream up ponderous poetry while you drive or do you just salute the traffic with your middle digit?

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yes, a great deal of thorn forest plus many other poems have been all but fully composed on the road, the most specifically related being ode to roadkill.

none of which precludes me from saluting traffic with my middle finger, i might add...

I used to write in my head/conceive of poetry and plots while i commuted when I had a 50 miles each way commute. I was writing a lot then, too. All that percolating time resulted in a lot of words.
Then i started working from a home office. No commute for almost 3 years. Writing decreased, but i became a hell of an editor.
Next week i start the 25 mile each way drive to downtown. i don't mind driving and the think time is really good for me.

William, Ode To Roadkill is one of my old favorites.