When I was a young man I rarely thought about how long it took to go to school and I never gave a thought to how long my parents had to travel to go to their job. It wasn’t until I was finished with high school that I understood what a huge concern commuting was.
My father had a job that required him to be gone 3 weeks at a time due to the 24 hour a day cycle of emergencies in metropolitan areas. Putting out fires in a city the size of New York required many firehouses and many firefighters and around the clock protection was essential to health and welfare of the citizens. The schedule was 3 weeks on duty and one week off and by the time one sleep cycle began to get on track another one was about to start. Families of New York City firefighters understood “night tours” were not negotiable and it did no good to complain…it was simply part of the job.
Many firefighters worked in the city but lived further away from the city limits…a trend that was fairly common with those that had families…there were practical reasons like bigger houses, privacy, yards and schools but it came at a price..both literally and figuratively.
My father would drive over 100 miles each way to get to his firehouse and by the time he got out of the car it was all he could do to stay awake. Surely that created the need to go to work a day early than scheduled so he could be fresh the next day.
In those days there were limited ways to get to Manhattan and whether you took the expressway or train you were at the mercy of more cars than room on the roads to put them.
Today’s culture has changed dramatically and it is a much more mobile society in the sense that people relocate and pursue their careers with wild abandon instead of being rooted in the same town they grew up in…which in turn, make them hang on to their lifestyle and tradition as well as the home they might have grown up in…but then they would sacrifice by taking a job with a long commute if it meant maintaining stability…whereas people that move across the country for their careers seemingly have as many choices as there are cities.
In my experience I seem to hit a wall after a 45 minute commute…anything more than that and I seem to fatigue easily and am less productive.
My experience with a long commute was a job that took over 2 hours of travel time by bus but much longer when I took into account the time waiting during transfers.
People I worked with all took the bus because they were afraid of nodding off while driving due to the monotonous terrain where there was nothing to look at…just wide open spaces that created a trance like effect.
I have reevaluated my stance a little since then…I may hit a wall after a 45 minute commute but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t make the necessary adjustments for the right job.
