Time & Punishment: The Dreaded Commute

No...but really...THIS IS MY LIFE

Almost one year later of participating in the 9-to-5 grind, and I can't say that I've become accustomed to my commute or work-week schedule. When I first started coming to work, I was assured that the mind-numbing hours spent in traffic would eventually become so ingrained into my everyday life that the overwhelming irritability and anxiety I was (and still am) experiencing, trapped inside my car twice a day to-and-fro, would become a distant memory. Well, just shy of hitting my one-year-mark of Boston traffic, I beg to differ. If anything, the anxiety continues to mount as my car inches along the highway -- a discouraging 50MPH under the speed limit -- cursing myself for listening to those previous naysayers. Trapped in my Hyundai, staring at fellow commuters through their windows, hoping not to see anyone pick their nose, I hope that my right foot doesn't give out on me. Even worse, I try not to let my mind wander, while sitting in this temporary highway parking lot, for fear that I will put my car in park and see if I can run home faster than my car can drive there.

Inevitably, when you're stuck in a little steel casing for over three hours a day for your commute, you tend to wonder what you're doing, well, with those three hours a day that you will never get back. I am left having a "Sisyphus" moment, wondering about the futility of it all -- driving back and forth to work, only to wake up the next morning and do it all over again without any sense of purpose or mission. Ah yes, typical Angela, veering towards over-dramatic and revealing all of her neuroses -- but when you're spending all of this travel time to drive towards an entry-level job with an entry-level salary with entry-level work... Well, not to sound ungrateful for having a job (I am lucky to have a good job), but you might become a bit frustrated. 

I have to make tentative time commitments after work -- frequently falling victim to the spontaneous and unexplainable two or two-and-a-half-hour commutes home, causing me to cancel appointments scheduled after-hours. I've missed dinner reservations, been forced to make friends wait over a half an hour for me, and ultimately, arrived home giving me only 12 hours before I needed to get back into the car to drive back towards work. Sure, the 9-to-5 is filling up my wallet, but it certainly has emptied out my bank account of time. A stressful drive means I arrive to my destination aggravated, stressed, irritated and ultimately, fuming. My free time -- my life -- is pushed to the wayside all so that I can arrive at a cubicle, answer phone calls and click my mouse around a few times a day. While I appreciate my job and the opportunity it is giving me, I feel as though I fight to figure out what this is all really for and if it is worth this much anxiety.

Again, I don't mean to sound like a whiny brat (although, I'm sure I do right now) -- but I think this draws upon a bigger issue for post-grads accepting these entry level jobs. We essentially end up putting up with less than desirable conditions (low salaries, long hours, bad commutes) because we simply want to have jobs. We graduate with degrees that provide this illusion of security and success. Our degrees promise us that we will find something for which we are qualified and at which we will use all of our learned skills, drawing upon so much potential. And yet, we wind up doing data-entry for eight-hours a day. Is this okay? I don't know, really. After all, you need to start somewhere, and it isn't going to be at the top. You need to put in time and hard work before you can expect to be sitting pretty. That's the way things work. Certainly, I am still here putting up with my commute, but I can't say I am happy with sitting my car for upwards of 20 hours a week.

Clearly, having a job with a bad commute comes at the cost of my personal life (and, more importantly my sanity.) Like I said before, I can't always commit to something after work. Even when I do, I have to make sure it's late enough to insure that I am not inconveniencing other people. The longer I sit in traffic, the more irritable I become and the less likely it is that I even want to do anything -- just feeling defeated and useless. My commute ends up taking away the free time I need to insure that I arrive at work the next morning feeling refreshed and ready to be productive. Instead, I feel as though I wind up being resentful and exhausted -- definitely not the fore-bearers of efficiency and productivity. (You can even ask my mom...you do NOT want to talk to me while I am in traffic or after a long ride home...)

So what is the solution? Obviously, many people would suggest either moving closer to my job or find a new job closer to my current living situation. Is that possible though? With my budget being what it is (and my meager salary), an apartment closer to the city means having to forego food and furniture (are those things really that important anyway?). And finding a new job? Well, that is opening a whole other can of worms (dive through my blog's earliest posts of yesteryear). Then, there's always the option of working earlier hours; however, that doesn't actually solve anything -- it merely shifts my time in traffic and forces me to wake up earlier and go to bed later. I wish I could opt for telecommuting, but that seems to be an option allowed for employees with seniority rather than plebeians living life at the bottom of the food-chain.

And that leaves me... here...heading back to my car to fight traffic per usual. So tell me, how do you preserve your sanity while in traffic? What do you think is the best option for those of us who deal with lengthy and tiring commutes? Is there any option?

Or should I just stop ranting now?

This has been a public service announcement sponsored by my over-listened-to-playlists and tired right foot.

Working Girl

I did it -- I survived my first week (well, three days) of work! Does this make me a full-fledged adult? Maybe not, but I certainly seem more like one. I will be getting a regular and consistent paycheck, making a commute into the city and becoming part of a new team. I can't say I'm not looking forward to a bit of consistency and stability. I can finally add something new to my resume, afford to buy that new car and gain a bit of financial independence in general. Though I am excited to move on to a new chapter in my life, I have to admit that the transition from college life to work life is a challenge. I spent my last semester enjoying the perks of a late morning start, being with my friends all of the time, and immersing myself in my classes. Now, I have to be up and in the car before 8 o'clock to insure a punctual arrival to work and spend the day inside an office. It's a shock to my system, to say the least.

I suppose I'm being faced with this reality much sooner than my other 2012 counterparts, but I know that everyone else has and will go through this. My four month stint of unemployment lulled me into a false sense of comfort. Even with my part-time job, I had minimum responsibilities. I could stay up late, wake up late, leisurely go about my daytime schedule and still have time to spare. Now, I'm adjusting to a brand new routine. I've never had to factor a lengthy commute into my day and plan my lunches ahead of time. Sure, I realize that all of this might sound petty and trivial when pretty much everyone needs to work, but I only mean to say that I was used to one sort of lifestyle for basically 3.5 years and now, that semi-flexible schedule has turned into a regimented dosage of reality. I have no doubt I can do it and adjust -- I am a hard-worker and I am determined -- but that doesn't mean it's not a challenge.

One day in particular was especially hard. I'm still a bit unfamiliar with the area I'm working in, so I need to use my GPS to help navigate around the city. I was late to work that morning due to traffic and it took me an hour and a half to get home that night (without traffic, I live about 20-30 minutes outside of the city.) I was so frustrated. All I wanted to do was get home, go to the gym and eat dinner, but I saw my time frame to do those things getting pushed back as my car slowly inched along. By the time I got home, I was beyond stressed out. I went straight to the gym to try to exercise my frustration away, then came home, ate dinner by myself, showered and basically went to bed. I know that, for many people, this is reality, but this hadn't been my reality before. I felt slightly imprisoned by my own schedule -- but I knew that I was going to have to make a new schedule and get used to my new daily routine.

I'll admit, this whole change is overwhelming. My entry-level job isn't exactly what I thought it would be. It isn't a bad job -- but I think I failed to take into consider what an entry-level job is: a point of entry into a career. I'm not going to get a ton of responsibility or exciting assignments because I haven't had the chance to showcase my capabilities yet. That responsibility may come eventually, but it won't come in a week, and that's something I'm going to have to work towards. I did really well in school -- I have the GPA to prove it -- but that's because I was so good at it and I knew what I needed to do to excel. This job thing is a bit different. I'm tackling a few new elements here: a commute, an office environment, new people and a whole new set of tasks.

I will call upon a ridiculously hackneyed, yet useful saying for now: Rome wasn't built in a day. I'm not going to become suddenly acclimated to my new routine. BUT, in time, it can happen -- and it will. It's certainly a learning process for me, but then again, what in life isn't?

I'll be sure to share more of my work week with you in the mean time... I will have to figure out where blogging fits into my new routine :)