2 hour commute twice a week
Compensatory time off is not allowed in lieu of pay for holiday call-back. Most people I know live within 10-15 miles of their job in my city, but it will still take them an hour to an hour and a half. My friends uncle did this for almost 30 years! Employer est. I was in the same situation when I started my job, thankfully I can now work at home part of the time. OK, I realize this is coming at the end of a loooong thread, but this all simultaneously made me weirdly homesick (Bay Area native) AND thinking about The Californians sketch on SNL and how true it is, Get on the 405 and never come back, Steeeewarrrrt!. These are my hard limits: The rage was real. I know some people that do 1-1.5 hour commutes from outlaying rural areas into my city to work; employment options are scarce in really tiny towns and until they have another oil boom they wont get anything for their house. OP, have you had bad experiences on LA transit that have led you to this anti-transit stance, or are you making assumptions? 1,040 extra hours a year of non-paid & non-free-time. This kind of commute sounds incredibly draining! I walk to work now (20 min! Id just say that you should see if you can find a new job before you quit. In the early afternoon, traffic isnt bad and I can make it from Irvine to Pasadena in about an hour. I ended up moving to a condo 10 miles away, and my commute became a glorious 20 minutes. Seconding this, having just escaped the bay area. I do NE Glendale to Pasadena (which is counter to the majority of traffic) and its 10-20 minutes. I would text my friend/workers a picture of myself sitting on my couch at 5:20, while they were still at the subway stop. Its easier when LAUSD is on their various school breaks and also during the summer, but 2 hours to get 30 miles actually sounds normal and about right, depending on which freeways you have to take. That commute leaves very little time for anything else. I am all for better public transportation infrastructure my coworkers are used to my bemoaning the USs lack of a functional train system whenever I have to book a plane, shuttle, and car for a 400 mile business trip :) I am totally prepared to be an early adopter of self-driving cars though as soon as there are safe options I can afford. If I were a person who minded, this would be a deal breaker. Story with Steve Martin, the movie itself is stupid, but the part where he drives to work is hilarious because its so true. Angeleno here and definitely not. Id take a pay cut to work closer to LB over living in the valley for ANY amount of money. I commute 1 hour each way to work (55 miles each way). So Cal commuting traffic is no joke it may be normal to some people but that doesnt make it ok!! Then I would pretty much go to bed and head out about 8:15-8:30 in the morning. 2 years ago, my husband and I bought a house in the Pittsburgh burbs and we both commute into the city. THIS. When I lived in DC it took me 50 minutes to drive 11 miles from Alexandria to downtown. Now I live 6 miles away from the office and have a 25-minute drive (on side streets only). On the road by 6AM Of course you can always try to live closer to work, but the rental/real estate prices seemed to be much higher in areas that could shave off travel time. ), and though the traffic there isnt as bad as LA, its certainly giving it competition. 03/01/2019 17:38 I commuted four hours a day five days a week for a while. OC is kinda huge, and the traffic and transit availability varies enormously. Its far more difficult to live close to work in southern California, because residential neighborhoods just werent built close to business districts or manufacturing districts or wherever the jobs were because everyone had cars. I have lots of friends who dont mind traffic and are willing to siting in it for 1-2 hours each way a day to work at jobs they love. Im sure 2 hours is a totally normal travel time for the distance the OP is driving. Then Id get rid of my car and take the bus everywhere. When its not, though. Or potentially both. Maybe in the Friday Open Thread? Four hours a day, or twenty hours a week just getting to and from work? (In a perfect world where there were adequate sidewalks, I was in good enough physical health, etc. I hate left turns, and theres only one to turn onto the freeway entrance ramp, and its pretty low traffic right there.). Yeaaaa id say a 30 mile by car commute is risky no matter where you live, especially if its a major city and ESPECIALLY if its somewhere like LA. Even if you ignore that a more or less direct route from (for instance) Huntington Beach to LA (30 miles) would take the OP through some pretty dangerous areas, like Compton, so cal drivers tend to be hostile to bicyclists in general, and the communities do not have well maintained or even designated bike lanes. The Census Bureau published a really interesting working paper on Mega Commuting back in 2013. Drive to bus station. Im currently at my shortest commute- 15 minutes from inside my condo to inside my office. Maybe a little more would be okay, but two hours, no way. This is making me really glad my wife and I decided to avoid the Bay and Silicon Valley, between commutes and housing cost. I dont know south OC as well, but its definitely a longer commute to LA. Hopefully you find something new soon! Another option for the OP, if she is up for it I have some coworkers who have a membership at a gym close to work. Public transit in San Francisco is really gross. For a couple of years I drove from the Hampshire coast to Bristol Monday morning, stayed in digs, drove home again on Friday evening. If not, I would have a frank and awkward talk with your boss. Yeah, Ive become very zen about traffic and crazy drivers after a year + of this commute, but my husband did end up getting me a dash cam after I recounted one too many crazy close call traffic accidents. I do a 6 hour round commute once or twice a week. I used to have that. Although moving is easier said than done. Completely agreed Im willing to pay more/live somewhere not as nice thats close to work because I get to actually be there. Not when I was in my best shape ever (which was pretty darn good) and certainly not now. In 2010, the Bay Area ranked 2 nd for fastest commutes, but since then the region has seen the largest increase in commute time among major metros. My husbands commute is about the same in terms of time, but he drives 32 miles. That does seem excessive, especially given the distance. Granted my commute is about an hour each way, but I spend none of that actually behind the wheel of a car so I could spend it doing any number of useful and/or interesting things so I dont mind it so much. I used to work about 10-15 miles further down the road, so maybe 45 miles total, and that was an hour and half each way, getting in at 7. Agreed! Work is close to the edge of its city so I dont run into much there either. Thats actually a huge thing for me on why I do not want to move. Joke was that it would take 45 minutes to get anywhere. I can also catch-up on personal things. I just imagined the idea of renting one of those dreadful micro apartments that are essentially dorms with a built in hotplate for cooking. Ive seen absolutely nothing since the dash cam was installed. I like my job a LOT less, but I have my sanity back. Do yourself a favor. 20-25 minute drive was the max Ive ever done and that was my hard limit. When hes gone on the train/tube it took him 2.5 hours. I also wasnt driving it was two hours on the train so I could relax, read, knit, sleep, whatever, and it didnt feel like completely lost time. I often fantasize about either getting a job closer to my home or getting an apartment closer to my work. fully agree on the audiobooks it saves me from road rage on my commute! I didnt read most of the comments, but I did want to give advice on how to survive that commute while you have to do it (hopefully, not for long!). I am looking to relocate next year and Minneapolis is in my top 5 cities. I dont think L.A. is even 30 miles wide. That area has decent bus support too for the times youre not feeling a 20 minute walk in the rain! Hey, fellow Washingtonians! Here is what makes it work: (1) I dont mind it. A 2 Hour Commute to Work is Nothing If You Know How by Rachel Lau January 26, 2018 Photography by Amin. Ancestry DNA - Am I being stupidly paranoid? I used to have a 65 minute commute for my first professional job. But at night traffic honestly doesnt clear up till like 7:30-8 pm here which is an hour before my bed time. They both kept going back and forth about which route is better, which one takes less time, etc. Im fortunate to carpool which cuts it down to 25-45 minutes using the HOV lane, but thats not always reliable especially when people have life changes. By 630AM, the 28-year-old project engineer is out the door of his Bishan flat and in his car, on his way to work. My commute is similar to Hannahs and yes, it is faster to cycle, so I do when the weather is good! Ouchhhh. If I hit traffic at the wrong time, it could take me 1.5-2 hrs to make what was normally a 25-30 minute drive. Orange County comes up in a search for LA in idealist.org, so I didnt even realize it wasnt the same as LA. So Cal native yup, 2 hours can be totally normal. The best commute I had was at my previous job, when I could go from desk to front door in 45 minutes practically unheard of here! I had no idea that kind of commute existed! Its more common/normal than folks think, though (this is the problem with averagesvery short commutes and long commutes offset each other). There was no traffic. even that is on the higher end of what i would prefer. Taking the train or local Staten Island bus, to the Staten Island ferry, to the Manhattan subway, could easily take two hours from south-shore Staten Island to midtown Manhattan if a subway was delayed or the ferry was running a modified schedule. And if you paid extra for the express bus, and there was an accident jamming up one of the highways or bridges it literally could take shorter to fly from JFK to Florida than to travel 15 or so miles from Staten Island to Manhattan. This makes me so sad. It doesnt have to be. I just cross my finger and hope I dont run into anyone too crazy. I live in West Los Angeles. *shudder*, Working remote is much better! It doesnt matter if its normal or not. Two deer and two totaled cars in less than a year. The longest commute Ive ever had was an hour each way, and I regret doing it even for the 2.5 years I did, because it really impacted my stress levels and quality of life. I used to live in Northridge and worked in El Segundo, 405 all the way. I know lots of people who work in NYC and have 1.5 to 2 hour commutes from Suffolk and even Pennsylvania because housing is way less expensive in those places. Although it make take the same amount of time to ride the train than to drive, its SO much less stressful and your company may even pitch in to pay for it. It just doesnt make sense for me to move closer to LA at all. The university was 45 miles away so of course it should take about an hour to get there. I think normal is relative to where you live. Im one of the rare people who live in the same city as my employer, although only because I cant afford to move. Its one of those things that you need to figure out what works for you. My husband and I are considering buying a house right now, and since we live in a city where walking is not common, our realtor seems bemused by the fact that we outright reject anything more than 2.5 miles from my office. The weather is compatible and for that distance it should be much, much faster. Right now my partner leaves for work at 5am so that he can beat traffic, which is kind of miserable but at least he has the ability to work flexible hours so he can do it. (As in enough for us to live comfortably close to where-ever we work, b/c h-to-the-no for that level of commute every day). Its totally fine. Agreed. . Good luck to you I hope you can find something without such a hard commute! Im from Sunnyvale and I go to college in Merced. I live on the East Coast and my commute is about 15 miles and takes me 20 minutes. Now Im in NM and oh my, its wonderful and I never ever want to go back to a big city. I live in LB and there is a subway but it goes through all the not so great neighborhoods Ive taken it during the day before and would just not feel comfortable being on a train with shady folks this early in the morning (Im 51 and look super young despite being 30). My commute is two miles each way, and I walk it 95% of the time. Even if it is closer/more flexible. But what everyone is saying is true this might be not as uncommon as you think but if its not right for you, its time to look elsewhere for a job thats closer or has flexible scheduling. Yep urban fantasy / paranormal romance is one genre, also high fantasy and some pure romance (but I would be way too embarrassed to listen to straight up romance books! Obviously theres a lot of variability, but it is not at all abnormal for people to commute 2+ hours to and from work here. Interestingly enough, the only sketchy/uncomfortable experience Ive EVER had on LA Metro was on the Expo line late at night on the weekend. Dont think of it as a sacrifice. is so funny (someone in the film thinks building freeways will make traffic jams a thing of the past). Groundwork cafe at the north Hollywood intersection of the redline and orange line has glorious gluten free baked goods(Im celiac, so I live by my map of places that I can eat). I go visit my guy up that way once a week now and I marvel that I did that commute 5 days a week for 5 years. People in my tiny, rural hometown thought she was crazy. When my family drove to Colorado from San Antonio, we popped those in and it helped the drive a lot. I also had one experience of an urban fantasy / paranormal romance audiobook getting a little heated while I was in the bumper to bumper traffic and have mostly sworn off listening to those in the car now, heh. With a handful of transitional weeks as the exception, Ive had anywhere from a 5-30 minute commute the entire time in LA. I finally settled into my long-term job with an hour commute each way and its a breeze to me. I work in Costa Mesa and it takes me an hour (16 miles away). A word of warning about looking for jobs within 10 miles of Long Beach. Ha ha. how much social media use at work is too much? Wow, 150+ comments and no one suggests using the Waze app? January 5th, 2022 show. It was because traffic had gotten that much worse. Yeah, I live in SD county, and we could have a shorter commute but we love the city we live in, it is a great space for our kids to grow up + close to the beach + affordable. Used to be hell (25 km in 1.5h, yay for bridges and never ending roadwork, sometimes 2h-2h30 for the 1st snow, or 1st snow after a 2 week spring people tend to forget how to drive in winter conditions in the spring, crazyness) but I changed jobs 5 years ago for one 5 km away. I cant offer any insight to the actual traffic because I have never been to California but I do live in Mexico City, where traffic and commute can be just as insane judging by what Im reading here. 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