Long Commute to Work

LegacyUser

Just thinking, for the past 6 years I've been comutting 2 hours to work in the morning and 1 1/2 hours in the afternoon.

I comute by train and now they are fairly reliable.

I'm up at 5am and home at 6:30pm, i know it could take this to get 2 hours to get home in Dublin as well.

I'm at the stage now where i'm just saying is it all worth it, i'm tired, on the go non stop all the time, little time for hobbies, i used to have a job where it was 15 mins commute. Granted i've a better job now and thankful, more money, better prospects, etc.

Is it just me or does everyone with a long comute just get fed up with it

mikemac

There are some things you can never get back and time is one of them.

But it depends what your situation is.
If you're single and getting home for you means watching TV then realy you're not missing much.

If you have young children and they are asleep when you leave and asleep when you get home then you are missing out and a change may be worthwhile.

LegacyUser

That means that you travel 17.5hrs a week which is nearly half the hours you work but which you don't get paid for.

I'm lukcy in that I choose to work close to where I live.

What are you going to use that extra money for and what is the benefit of those prospects if you've only got your weekends to yourself?

I could never understand how people could commute those distances/times.

Unknown Unknown

I finds that having a book and some tunes helps. Though not if you driving, maybe you could rent closer to work that way youd not have as far to travel.

R.D. aka MR.D

I spent 3 months living somewhere that the commute to anywhere was 1.5 hours by bus. I didn't have car and couldn't afford taxi's (a pain when you have to be in town for 8am on a bank holiday!)

They were the most miserable months of my life and I vowed never to do it ever again. My point is that sometimes your happiness is the most important thing.

If your single with no ties/obligations then do what makes you happy. As another poster said time is one thing we can never get back.

Cormb

Hi OP,
I hear what you're saying. I was in a similar situation in the current job - spending hours travelling, having little time for anything but work and being absolutely shattered coming in from work. Luckily in my case, the roads between home and work are drastically better now and my commute is not so bad and more manageable.

You ask if it is worth it. Well, if the commute is having a massive effect on you (mentally, physically) then it would certainly be worth thinking about alternatives to that job. However if the job itself is something you want to do and makes you happy, I wonder could you move closer to it? I realise the feasibility of this depends on the family/home situation (e.g. uprooting kids may not be an option).

At the end of the day its largely whether or not its just the commute that affecting you or if its the commute AND the job.
Good luck.

tenchi-fan

My commute used to be 5 minutes in the morning and 5 in the evenings. Crap money, crap job.

Now it takes between 1.5 hours minimum to get to work and the same again to get home. I would be dreading the summer being over, dark evenings, everyone driving because of the weather and schools being back. Luckily I'm heading abroad in October
I hope things will have picked up a bit by the time I get back so I can get a job closer to home.

Actually I felt really trapped with the (bus) commute because my evenings were gone. Now I have a car so at least I have a bit of freedom in the evenings.