View Full Version : Commuting
This sucks!
I really, really hate commuting and thought I'd setup a little Blog for all of those out there who hate it so much! So, feel free to post your own ranting and ravings about commuting to and from work here.
I've just spent several hours stuck on a lame, overcrowded, smelly, hot train. Then I had to change on to the tube - which was even worse! Then ended it with a brisk walk to the office. All in all I've spent 2 and a half hours travelling to a job which I don't like in a city which is hideous! On top of all this I have to pay 30% of my monthly wage just to do this!!!
The only benefit I get from commuting is that it makes me appreciate the time I get away from the City more and more!!!
I really feel for you - there's nothing worse than feeling like your wasting your life just travelling backwards and forwards
I'm lucky, I can cycle to work. I leave early in the morning to avoid most of the traffic, and only get hit by blind motorists about once a month :o):
jamesdevine
21-07-2004, 09:29
Dido to that.
I have spent the last four years doing the same hour and half to and hour half journey home for does four years. I see the same lifeless souls every day it sucks.
A number of years ago while waiting for a train home after a week hiking the hills I swore that I would never become one of those sheep. I am now the biggest and wooliest one of them :yikes: I have been feverly trying to find a way out. :banghead:
My tunnel collapsed last night I need to start a new one any alternative suggestions?
James
I used to live on the same site where I worked (Bradford), but then it was decided that I should move my desk over to Hudderfield where the rest of the team where.
Result 45minutes - 1 hours each way through Bradford rush hour and the M62 - in works 4x4 that does 22mpg on a good run.
One hour 15-20mins in the morning, one and a half in the evening. It's sapping, sometimes.
I work for me its good because I dont have to commute but it also means the work never actually stops
MartiniDave
21-07-2004, 10:50
I put my notice in at work yesterday. I will be doing quite a bit of work from home so I feel quite good about that, especially as I have some grown out spinney/woodland "next door" that I can do pretty much as I please in. Only about an acre, tringular with a road on each side, with my house at one point of the triangle.
Gotta be better for me!
Dave
Well teaching takes me all over the place, but generally its under an hour .... which is nice :-)
Ed
I did it quite quickly today - less than 2 hours! AND I got a seat no the train and the tube all the way to the office! Oh joy of joys!!!
I've got that Friday feeling!!! Just 3 more hours til core time is over then home and freedom!!! :naughty:
stuart f
23-07-2004, 12:31
I don,t commute as such,but i travel all around Scotland and it can take some time,it depends on where we are heading, for examlpe we,ll be heading to Durness soon and that can take about 6to7 hours to get there but on average it,s usually about 3 hours travel time.The upside is that i get to see a lot of the Scottish countryside.
Keith_Beef
23-07-2004, 16:08
I live in Paris, and work in an industrial estate south of Paris.
My commute is 5 minute walk, 10 minute metro ride, 40 minute "RER" (sub-urban rail network) ride, 10 minute walk.
That is, when everything is on time, and I don't have to wait for the connection.
Sometimes, things go wrong: signalling failures, power cuts, jumpers (suicides), passengers fainting, bomb alerts, real bombs (St. Michel station in 1995 and Port Royal station in 1996, both on my line)...
A problem usually means about an extra half hour, but a couple of times, it has made my 1 hour journey into a three hour journey.
I can put up with the smell and heat most of the time (I've had to move seats very occasionnaly), but the ignorant R-Soles who insist on spreading their bags over three seats when they get on the train at the start station (Ch. de Gaulle Airport) really annoy me. They get the "Paddington Bear hard stare" treatment, followed by a sarcastic comment.
But the good thing about my commute is that I am practically guaranteed a seat, and I can read a book (OK, so I just join the dots).
Keith.
ditchfield
24-07-2004, 16:47
I walk about 300 yrds down a country lane. Its only part time though.
Justin Time
24-07-2004, 17:12
I walk about 300 yrds down a country lane. Its only part time though.
Sometimes you hop? :super:
I walk about 300 yrds down a country lane. Its only part time though.
Oh how I long for those country lanes!!!!!! I trust its a quite country lane, with nice verges, liberal sprinkled with wild flowers, and a broad range of living fauna - rather than the country lane where I live where the farmer has destroyed the hedgerow, replaced it with a barbed wire fence, cuts the grass with a nasty zzzrrrrrhgggggheeeeeeeeeekkkkk k machine, and the only fauna is dead roadkill??? NOT THAT I'M BITTER!!! :nono:
Anyways, the journey in this morning was quite nice! I stayed in bed for an extra 30minutes (due to a heavy night), and caught a later train. Infact, signal failure meant I caught the normal train which was running 30minutes late. Unfortunately this meant it was heaving with people, no sitting room, and barely enough space to breathe. Still, those 30minutes in bed made it all worth it!!!!
However, the good day has turned bad... Oxford Circus is closed and there are severe delays on the Bakerloo line. Security alerts. I HATE LONDON SO PASSIONATELY!!! :cry:
Depending on how much training I've been doing during the week, I try and bike from Kingston (London - not Jamaica, before any smartarse says so) into the centre of London. Takes abut 45 mins. If not, I take the train in and read a book/magazine - takes about an hour but I don't usually have to shower at the end of it.
I think the cycling-in-London experience reminds me what it feels like to be (still) alive on a regular basis and tends to wake me up quite quickly...
ditchfield
28-07-2004, 21:01
Oh how I long for those country lanes!!!!!! I trust its a quite country lane, with nice verges, liberal sprinkled with wild flowers, and a broad range of living fauna - rather than the country lane where I live where the farmer has destroyed the hedgerow, replaced it with a barbed wire fence, cuts the grass with a nasty zzzrrrrrhgggggheeeeeeeeeekkkkk k machine, and the only fauna is dead roadkill??? NOT THAT I'M BITTER!!! :nono:
Anyways, the journey in this morning was quite nice! I stayed in bed for an extra 30minutes (due to a heavy night), and caught a later train. Infact, signal failure meant I caught the normal train which was running 30minutes late. Unfortunately this meant it was heaving with people, no sitting room, and barely enough space to breathe. Still, those 30minutes in bed made it all worth it!!!!
However, the good day has turned bad... Oxford Circus is closed and there are severe delays on the Bakerloo line. Security alerts. I HATE LONDON SO PASSIONATELY!!! :cry:
Well, its not bad :-D. I'm glad its a short walk though because I just finished a 9 hour day of loading lorries non stop with no breaks, no lunch, no food and only 2 cups of water to sustain me. Phew.
Thanks guys you have cheered me up. :o): although i hate my job with an unholy passion. my commute is a meer 30mins am and 40 pm. the route is fairly pleasant sussex countryside and i get to watch Kestrels look at the sea etc. i used to travel to Southampton for uni that was hell.
my commute is a meer 30mins am and 40 pm
I feel an uncontrollable urge to swear, stamp my feet and shout at the top of my voice "tiz not fair". However, I shall restrain myself otherwise the people in the office may well ask me to leave!!!
(the daily drudge this morning was fine - until I got stuck on the tube for 10minutes going nowhere - which made alot of people go very histerical and start screaming... it just made me hot, sweaty and a bit pissed off!!!)
I live literally 20 miles(?) crowfly from work, and it takes me 1 1/2hrs to 2 1/2hrs to get here. :?:
1 1/2 mile walk to station followed by 2-3 trains and the works bus or a bus a train and the works bus. All totally unreliable.
The only good point is the walk, keeps me from being too unfit and I get to see kingfishers, kites, sparrowhawks, longtail tits, blackbirds galore, wild roses and other such things on my bleary eyed way to the station.
I'd rather spend the time in the morning in bed, and the time in the evening enjoying the countryside, watching a movie, meeting a friend for a drink.
Anyone got the lottery numbers?
ditchfield
29-07-2004, 21:06
Well, its not bad :-D. I'm glad its a short walk though because I just finished a 9 hour day of loading lorries non stop with no breaks, no lunch, no food and only 2 cups of water to sustain me. Phew.
Oops, just realised thats illegal. Oh well. Ssshhhh
tenbears10
30-07-2004, 15:33
I suppose I'm lucky my commute takes 20min in the car (less now schools have finished, little buggers) and my office is in a farm building so the view is of fields. The best bit is I get to drive away from bedford town centre, which I live on the edge of, out to the counrtyside. I'm moving soon so I won't have to go near town which will be a big bonus.
I have commuted further but swore not to do it again. The best thing about the army was that you never have to commute to work.
Bill
ChrisKavanaugh
30-07-2004, 19:07
I'm currently " at my leisure" a fancy term for unemployed and looking. My last long term survival job caught me one day with a worn out car and no funds to replace it. Our public transportation system is a disastrous, underfunded mix of buses and a feeble train system- virtually useless. I had to walk twice a day for 1 hour and 45 minutes at a military pace with two timed stops for a cool drink. I got into great shape, found nature in the strangest places; birds nests, a family of squirrels that I fed. The people were interesting too. A New Age bookstore along the way had this fundamentalist Christian outside waving a bible and quoting scripture against their evil ways. I stopped once, there was a whole herd ( wiggle, string, spool?) of earthworms stranded on the rapidly drying sidewalk. My buddhist studies from long ago kicked in, and I rescued them all to the cool planter. This moron starts screaming at me about worshiping the earth. I gave him a big hug, kissed him on the cheek and said "God loves me, but he can't stomach you." He fled, never to return and I got a free vegan fruit drink everyday from the store. The kicker was our store had to promote ride sharing or alternate transportation to fullfill a minor state mandate. They encouraged this by offering points and the promise of a racing bike at the quarters end. I had 978 points. My nearest competitor had 17. My department manager gave me a PARTIAL ride home one day and claimed 1 point. I really NEEDED that bike. They held the drawing, and quess who magically won?
I'm lucky I live out in the country and only have to go into town to work.
Thing is we have to move soon and look for somewhere new to rent , all the nice ( ie affordable ) cottages are taken so it looks like townie for me
i only got to cycle like 12 minutes to my job, i used to cycle that long to school too, but now (ok, in a month time ) i can jump in to the tram which is right next to the flat i live in and i can step out right next to my new school: The Hague University. :)
i just heard that my wifes cousin has bought a house in Ryde on the Isle of Wight. he works in Croydon :yikes: He leaves his car overnight in Porstmouth (not a wise move i used to live there). Walks 15 minutes to the ferry. Then drives to work. How long must that take? The mans mad.
bushwacker bob
01-08-2004, 00:48
He leaves his car overnight in Porstmouth (not a wise move i used to live there).
:rolmao: :rolmao: Does he take the wheels off the car?
I work less than a mile from where I live, I also work shifts, so the roads are clear when I'm travelling. It usually takes me around 7 minutes to get to work. Problem is, I live in the middle of a flamin, dirty, great city and when I'm home from work, I'm still less than a mile from where I work. You cant have it all ways. :(
Still, I'm luckier than some as my job is very flexible, my skills are in demand and I can get work quickly and easily pretty much anywhere in the country. I'm hoping (actually, I'm gagging) to move back to somewhere green in the next couple of years (in fact if I dont, I think I'll go insane!). It's just a question of finding the right job with the right salary and the right place to live at the right price - easy peasy. :D
:rolmao: :rolmao: Does he take the wheels off the car?
Or does he leave the natives to do it???
:rolmao:
I think I might have set a record yesterday. I left work at 16:15, and got into Aldershot Station at 20:15. Four hours for a journey that usually takes one and a half!
Two of those hours were spent just outside Clapham Junction station in a queue of trains waiting for the signals to start working again. But that wasn't all...
I hadn't managed to get a seat on the train, so I spent the majority of the journey crouched in a corridor between carriages with 10 other people.
Ok, there's a target - Beat that!!!
Yesterday I had a similar competition beating incident. Poor weather stopped the trains from leaving London Paddington - but not until I'd boarded one AFTER LEAVING WORK EARLY!!!
So, from 1615 til about 1800 we crept our way towrads Reading station. Then, after 2 trains home had been cancelled, the whole platform decended on the arriving train. The guards were literally pulling people off the train so it could leave and was less overcrowded!
So, i waited for a further train and finally got home at 2015.
Thats the same time as you Womble... but i had a 20minute tube journey BEFORE i got on the smegging train!!!
And its no better this morning. Left home at 7, got to work at 9:35.
All due to yesterday's rain and areas still flooded, signals and points damaged by the rain (why haven't the idiots who make these things realised that occasionally they might get wet, this being England... :?: ).
Think I need to quit work, find some woods, build a cabin and turn into a hermit...
Thats the same time as you Womble... but i had a 20minute tube journey BEFORE i got on the smegging train!!!
CURSES!!!! :wink:
jamesdevine
04-08-2004, 12:32
I have one too.
Back in January I left were i work in Blackrock just South of Dublin City centre at 5pm and arrived home at 2200pm. No explanation of the cancelled trains, and it seemed like one of the coldest days of the year. I had too walk two miles from one station to another just to prevent hypertermia(sp).
The journey usually only takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours.
James
Today is a simple entry for my commuting blog. It reads...
"AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG HHHHHHHHHHHHHH" :?:
Today I got to work 20minutes later than usual. This was caused by our trains being delayed because of kids on the line between Newbury & Reading. I suppose the only good thing about this is that it wasn't "bits of kids" on the line!
RovingArcher
21-01-2005, 03:06
Dang, sorry to hear about the nasty commutes. I retired a while back and do a little income on the puter. Never have liked the cities much and spend as little time as possible in them.
I used to drive 54 miles on the freeway just to get to a back breaking, though not very routine job placing reinforcing and structural steel on the San Francisco bay area. Most of the work in SF. Now I walk from my bedroom to the kitchen for a cup, then to the livingroom where the puter is set up. Then I walk down the road, cross the river and into the hills where I belong.
Here's the view from the deck of our 2nd story tiny apartment. The hills in the background are just across the river.
http://img90.exs.cx/img90/3799/deckview0010tu.th.jpg (http://img90.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img90&image=deckview0010tu.jpg)
Here's the view from the deck of our 2nd story tiny apartment. The hills in the background are just across the river.
http://img90.exs.cx/img90/3799/deckview0010tu.th.jpg (http://img90.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img90&image=deckview0010tu.jpg)Nice view! :super:
I've got mountains out of my window (when they're not hidden in the clouds, which is most of the time!). Sometimes it's nice to work with a view. Very relaxing and aids creativity. Other times it's just plain distracting. I used to teach at a college with a terrific panoramic view of Snowdonia and all the students' eyes would gradually wander out the window as the lesson drew on. Eventually I'd find myself staring out there too and realize that trying to do anything constructive in that lesson was useless...! :o):
I really feel for all you guys with the commute ahead of you (or behind you) each day. I once worked in North London and had to drive through the traffic daily from Surrey. I found it quite exhilerating - sorry! (but then I'm a country bug and it all seemed pretty exciting at the time. :roll: :?:)
does anyone else's commute time vary if the tide is in/out??? :naughty:
The sector in which I work has generally meant that my employer is likely to be City [London] based. For years I commuted from the 'burbs in Essex and Middlesex and counted a 80 minute one-way commute as a good day.
I finally realised that, for me, the offense that the journeys presented [road-rage, delays, overcrowded tubes, etc] was having a greater negative impact on my well-being than being in the burbs was having in a positive direction.
So, we moved to the City. Sure the flat is a bit crowded, but the wife and I are just 15 minutes from our respective workplaces by bicycle. We have all the amenities you could wish within 10 minutes walk and arrive at the weekends stress-free and enervated for whatever outdoorsy jaunt we have planned.
Dave Farrant
21-01-2005, 13:16
If I need to go to the office it takes 2.5 hours. But I am one of a 'team' of two. We cover the whole of the UK. So sometimes I drive for 4 hours or more to my first appointment. :yikes: