Commuting is perhaps the true necessary evil in the life of an office goer. Even for those of us lucky enough to love our jobs, the physical act of getting there and back can be a protracted torture of delays, frustration and unwanted intimacy. Sure enough, sitting cooped up in an uncomfortable car in a horrible posture, struggling with leg room, snoring cab mates and braving the pollution hasn’t been the least of my worries. So if like me you travel in a cab, or a combination of buses, metro, autos and cabs to get to your workplace, you will relate with these 12 reasons I hate my loooong office commute.
1. You go into an infinite loop of walking, taking autos, buses and walking to get to your office
Sometime it’s not a straightforward way to just walk out of your home and into a cab and get out at the office foyer. If you live in a remote area, chances are you first walk to a point you could grab the cab, and/or change multiples buses/metros/cabs etc. It makes the simple task of getting to work feel like a drill.
2. It eats into your salary
At 13 rupees per km, not to mention the “Meter pe extra” whims of the auto guy, getting around in autos could be an expensive proposition. At the end of the month, you realise what a sizeable chunk of your salary has gone towards getting TO it!
3. You have to leave your house and office at a certain time
There’s no concept of sleeping in a bit longer on that great-weather day, or staying back in the office because you’d rather just finish work at work and go home unburdened. Enter a long and complicated commute and you’re a slave to the timings of the office cab. When everyday your life follows the exact schedule of leaving home, leaving office. And repeat.
4. You have to deal with the impunity of the cabbie
While at office you may be the boss, and order your juniors around, the office cab is a great leveller. If the cabbie decides to go faster than your stomach can digest, or takes a detour citing “shortcut”, you suck it and sit. There have been times my own cabbie has even reprimanded me for sitting with my feet behind his seat saying not in the politest tone “Madam please sit properly”. Not to mention that sometimes you’re at his mercy to make it to work and in time and if he decides to go AWOL the last minute, enter chaos.
5. You either love or absolutely hate your cab mates
There was this particularly annoying person in my cab who citing some weird health reasons would always hog the window seat. There was just no budging. So on days the cab was full, you were resigned to being sandwiched between people and sometimes the smelliest of the lot. Then there’s always that one guy who won’t stop talking on the phone loudly, regaling or rather disrupting your peace and concentration with the minutest details about his pet hamster.
6. The pollution wreaks havoc
God forbid if your office cab doesn’t have an AC and you’re no mountain dweller, that long commute could soon begin to feel like Cancer on wheels, with all the pollution the city has to offer. Not to forget the effects it has on your skin and hair.
7. Your end up in office looking like a mess
You’d love to turn up at office in your starched whites, just-done hair and those pants pressed to perfection just this morning, however after that marathon of the office commute, you end going to work like something that the cat brought in.
8. You barely get any leg room
If you’re short and tiny, this probably isn’t the most pressing concern, however god bless you if you’re vertically blessed and are made to sit cooped up in the cab with your knees bent down in a right angle for what seems like eternity.
9. You’re given to road rage
Even if you drive to work yourself, navigating on city roads, in a hurry to make the first meeting with the boss isn’t exactly a romantic drive. To make matters worse, on days you’ve had a bad day at work, smallest things during your office commute could get your to flare up in a raging road rage.
10. You have no time for anything else
Even if you worked at office for the 8 hours, the cab ride probably added another 2-3 hours to it. Even if you’ve had a fairly decent day at work per se, at the end of this long day, you feel exhausted and have no time or inclination to do anything else. This feeling only amplifies and becomes much worse if you’ve had a particularly long day at work too.
11. You waste all the time you could to do something more productive
All the time you’re in the cab struggling with the above, you ponder about all the better things you could be doing in those precious hours, like sleeping, getting a pedicure, meeting friends or hell even working in peace.
Phew! Just going through this list makes me dread my next cab ride to work. However not all of us have to suffer from it. Before you continue to die a slow death in the office commute every single day, consider the options of living closer to work, working from home, or hell even taking up a job closer to where you stay. And if nothing else is feasible, here’s some fun ways to make that office commute less dreadful.