The traffic hasn't gotten any better since my last post. If anything, the consistency of its awfulness was putting me into a funk. After the first couple days on my job with so little traffic, perhaps my expectations were just out of whack. Then again, my coworkers were also telling me that the past few days had been particularly bad.
Regardless, my boyfriend made a suggestion that I have been trying and have found so far to be immensely successful. Like Tim Gunn says, I'm "making it work" with a few tweaks.
Every morning I had been waking up early, going to the gym, coming back home to get ready for work, and then heading into the office. I was getting up at 6:20am and getting into the office by 9am. Well, my boyfriend's suggestion was to go to work first thing in the morning and then head to the gym after work. Basically, I'd go in at 7:30am, and be able to leave at least an hour earlier than I was before. With the blessing of my boss, I tried it out a few days this week, and voila! it works!
I haven't been missing the traffic altogether. But the drive home for me has gone down from an average of 70 minutes to 25-30 minutes. Yay!
And with that extra time, I can do a little more work, spend a little more time at the gym, and take a little more time at home to chill and do other things I care about. It's a fantastic rearrangement. :-)
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Miserable
I'm just four days into my new job, and already I'm realizing that all that talk about "LA traffic" really is appropriate. Granted, my commute doesn't exactly skirt the busy roads - in fact, it takes me right through one of the busiest and most congested thoroughfares - but the past couple nights of desperately seeking alternatives to avoid what were terrible traffic jams on the freeways have only made my drive that much worse... and worn me out in the process.
I never cared for the inconsistency of the Muni in San Francisco. It was always a crapshoot, and more often than not it involved a ride that I could have biked faster. It was slow, and yet it worked. I suppose that's why I continued to take it, even as it drove me bonkers on a regular basis. About the only thing consistent with Muni was its inconsistency. When I lived out in the Sunset, which was just 6 miles from my workplace downtown, my commute often took an hour each way, on a good day.
Los Angeles traffic is another beast entirely. Rarely have I seen four- and five-lane-wide stretches of highway with nothing but brake lights as far as the eye can see... until now. I thought I knew what I was getting into when my commute the first few days took me little more than 25 minutes each way. Easy peasy, right? Not so fast - literally.
Last night my drive home took an hour and 20 minutes. Tonight, an hour. Now, to be fair, last night there was a major accident on the freeway that I would normally take, which turned a typical nightmare into a collective version of hell on earth for all those with the unfortunate experience of being on the road at the time. And, what I also didn't plan on was running into traffic for the Lakers-Clippers game as I tried to skirt the freeways by taking sidestreets across downtown. But tonight there was no accident. Just normal traffic. Which apparently means an hour-long drive. To go 10 miles.
So, yeah, everyone outside LA who says "oh, I hate the traffic," you got me. Whoop it up. The traffic can definitely be bad. Painfully so for this driving neophyte.
And, frankly, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I came home in tears last night and close to it again tonight. I really am not prepared to spend upwards of two hours a day in my car. One hour, I can handle, but two?
Oh, and for those of you who know how much of a transit geek I am, don't think I hadn't already tried to figure out what it would take to do my trip on the train/bus. It's a minimum of 90 minutes each way. And when I know that I can do it in my car for a possible 25 minutes if traffic permits (which it has a number of times), and 80 minutes in the worst case scenario, well... you get the picture.
So, what now? I don't know. I'm just kvetching because I hafta. This week has been super fun for me at work, and that's been tainted by a drive that has left me really upset on several occasions.
What would you do?
I never cared for the inconsistency of the Muni in San Francisco. It was always a crapshoot, and more often than not it involved a ride that I could have biked faster. It was slow, and yet it worked. I suppose that's why I continued to take it, even as it drove me bonkers on a regular basis. About the only thing consistent with Muni was its inconsistency. When I lived out in the Sunset, which was just 6 miles from my workplace downtown, my commute often took an hour each way, on a good day.
Los Angeles traffic is another beast entirely. Rarely have I seen four- and five-lane-wide stretches of highway with nothing but brake lights as far as the eye can see... until now. I thought I knew what I was getting into when my commute the first few days took me little more than 25 minutes each way. Easy peasy, right? Not so fast - literally.
Last night my drive home took an hour and 20 minutes. Tonight, an hour. Now, to be fair, last night there was a major accident on the freeway that I would normally take, which turned a typical nightmare into a collective version of hell on earth for all those with the unfortunate experience of being on the road at the time. And, what I also didn't plan on was running into traffic for the Lakers-Clippers game as I tried to skirt the freeways by taking sidestreets across downtown. But tonight there was no accident. Just normal traffic. Which apparently means an hour-long drive. To go 10 miles.
So, yeah, everyone outside LA who says "oh, I hate the traffic," you got me. Whoop it up. The traffic can definitely be bad. Painfully so for this driving neophyte.
And, frankly, I'm not sure how I feel about it. I came home in tears last night and close to it again tonight. I really am not prepared to spend upwards of two hours a day in my car. One hour, I can handle, but two?
Oh, and for those of you who know how much of a transit geek I am, don't think I hadn't already tried to figure out what it would take to do my trip on the train/bus. It's a minimum of 90 minutes each way. And when I know that I can do it in my car for a possible 25 minutes if traffic permits (which it has a number of times), and 80 minutes in the worst case scenario, well... you get the picture.
So, what now? I don't know. I'm just kvetching because I hafta. This week has been super fun for me at work, and that's been tainted by a drive that has left me really upset on several occasions.
What would you do?
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