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Leaving Early May Cost You Time
markmcb writes "OmniNerd has an interesting traffic article demonstrating how leaving early for work may cost you time. Brandon Hansen uses a year's worth of data collected on his urban drive to and from work along with statistical analysis to show the effects of varying departure times and considering external factors like nearby school districts' schedules. In the end, a minor shift in his departure time results in saving driving hours equivalent to over a third of the vacation time given annually by his employer."
I do remote sysadmin so it takes me a few seconds to get from bed to where I work (about 40 centimeters). The problem is the time it takes for me to actually wake up.
It doesn't really matter if you leave work earlier or later, as long as you leave slightly different from the rest of the pack, the road will most likely be empty.
However, your employer will always notice if you leave early, so the idea situation is to leave late.
Please stop entering code 2,2,7,6,6,4
the answer is to just sit there and do nothing :D
Unfortunately, he did not take into account the time it took to do this analysis, and now he has even less free time.
It'll cost you time if you live in the same city as TFA's author...
/.
This is such a half baked study and conclusion that I wonder why the hell it's on
That avoiding rush hour traffic could save you time? I appluad this excellent study, and I hope this team continues their fantastic work!
Look at me. I come in early to get coffee and leave late to avoid traffic. I'm a good worker, la-dee-da.
If you leave early enough, you are likely to avoid most traffic altogether. Therefore, you would save time. Also, if you arrive to work early and finish early, technically you can avoid all rush hour traffic, saving much more time. Or you could just within walking distance to work.
I'm sure this is a genuine detailed research, but anyone who's tried to get out of central London between 4 to 7 pm will tell you the madness that ensues as part of "traffic". god forbid if you have to drive - forget the dreaded congestion tax, the best you'd do is 5 to 8 miles an hour...
http://efil.blogspot.com/
Geez, all that effort working out how much time can be shaved off the *drive* to work, when you can just ride a motorbike and get there in half the time.
Two wheels, the *only* way to commute.
As for me, I walk to work, which saves me time on a treadmill inside some gym club.
That is why I am leaving in late April.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
Wow, site is already slashdotted.
I work in IT, and a specialized form, around a metro area. Rush hour is typically from 8-10AM, and 3:30-6PM. I live 45 miles from my work, and have tried for years to find the best time. The best solution I found was getting up at 5, leaving by 5:30, and cutting my 1-hour commute to half an hour. And, it works great! I get in by 6:00AM, and have nearly two hours of quiet with a few coworkers before the loud masses come in with their whining and requests for help.
I just wish that coming in earlier meant leaving earlier.
is completely misleading. Good job with marketing this article to me, Slashdot!
No karma whoring link to the article.
http://www.networkmirror.com/QmlonkirybL8mCvu/www. omninerd.com/2006/04/21/articles/50.html
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
this article would have been Slashdotted before I thouched TFA
i'm moving to a new job next month. one of the primary considerations i put into housing, was to be as close as possible to work. commuting sucks. we are moving into a smaller place but i figure i could get as much as an hour or two a day more in time with my family. (and the smaller housing is forcing us to get rid of a bunch of junk and simplify)
with the price of fuel and maintenance, and time with kids that wont be kids long, it was worth it to really make an effort.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
"... In the end, a minor shift in his departure time results in saving driving hours equivalent to over a third of the vacation time given annually by his employer."
;)
In France, this means you would gain 2 additional months of free time.
It's not leaving later that saves you time, it's not driving when everyone else is driving. Not only does this ignore anyone who doesn't drive to work -- my subway commute is a lot faster during rush hour -- but it totally misses the point.
At a previous job, leaving 15 minutes early would save me 30 minutes of commute time, since I would get in before rush hour traffic.
"Spread out over 50 work weeks, that results in a total savings of over 30 hours a year - the equivalent of about a 38% boost to my existing 80 hours of vacation."
Now I'm always hearing how "good" we have it in Europe, what with 25 days (187.5 hours) holiday each year plus 8-10 bank holidays.
Finally something us Brits do better than the Yanks (even the US version of our Office is better).
...results in saving driving hours equivalent to over 26 times the vacation time given annually by my unemployer.
now my boss can site statistical analysis in his list of reasons as to why I should work more overtime.
thanks a lot, guys.
I can say that what this guy found is completely reasonable. I commute from central Los Angeles to Malibu, and if I leave for work at 8am, and leave work at 5pm, it takes me about 50 minutes each way. If I leave an hour later, I can shave 10 minutes off both ways on average, and an hour after that, I can cut it down to 35 minutes each way.
However, I'm lucky in that my job has very flexible hours. If I wanted to, I could go in at noon and leave at 9pm. MOST people do not have such a liberty, either because their bosses won't let them, or because they can't be as productive during non-business hours (Especially people who collaborate extensively).
The other issue is that a lot of my friends DO work the regular hours, and since I get out of work 2 hours after they do, it's difficult to coordinate after-work activities. So, there are ups and downs to both methods. It depends strongly on your personal situation.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
And how much time would I save if someone would mirror this site so I can read the article now that it is slashdoted?
Someone needs to refresh this guy's understanding of statistical analysis.
Of course you could always just take the train :)
(assuming your civilization has bothered to research Mass Transit)
WTF?? Maybe you should read your own articles before posting them. Slashdot should change its motto to "we don't need no steenking English skillz."
we will end no whine before its time
Where you live and work is a choice, and I don't want to have to listen to anyone complain about a situation that is his or her own fault. If you don't like the commute, live closer to work or use alternative forms of transportation. Personally, I choose a long commute to live where I play and commute about 45 min to work, but I made an informed decision (taking into account traffic, my schedule, etc.) before committing myself to both locations. If you can minimize your commute, great; if not, do not complain about the situation you have chosen.
I could possibly squeeze out a few more minutes of savings by scheduling my vacation days to align with the potentially longest commutes (e.g., non-Friday school days in the months of November, February and April)
Easy, just have every Monday and Friday off if school is in.
Didn't someone once try and get the working week down to three days?
Common sense is not so common
So he has proven that to HIM an early leave makes that ;}
that kind of difference
To get the full handle on things everyone will have to
condict their own tests, and just think about that accumulated
waste of time!
Anyway, around four years ago my commute time in the car was optimal
leaving home before 0715 (around 35 minutes) and on average I'd
say it added 5 minutes of traveltime per 10 minutes I left late
until about 0845 when it ebbed out again...
Cheers!
It's not that leaving early is necessarily worse; it's that leaving at the same time as everyone else is definitely worse. This greatly depends on individual circumstances. When I used to work at Sandia National Labs, for example, some people would come in to work after everyone else had left, since you are usually allowed to work whenever you want. As a result, they avoided absolutely all other traffic, and got to park right up front (which is a big deal when the parking lots are the size of football fields). Not only that, they avoided dealing with random people bugging them about random things throughout the day, saving more time. Of course, something like that is more suitable for the antisocial types, but this is an example that clearly saves more time.
1. I promise not to slam people who have done interesting work just to self-aggrandize.
2. Even if I disagree with the article I will not behave like a petulant 4th grader.
3. In pointing out errors, omissions or other faults I will not call anyone an idiot but will rather offer constructive criticism.
4. I will count to ten before posting anything
I expect there will be additions to this list, but it would really be nice if they were civil. A fella can dream....
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
I don't think that the bike would fit up the stairs.
The rule is that your work start time and end time should add up to 13.
The submitter simply wrote something that, to me, made no sense the first time I read it. Then I read a bit of the article and it made sense. The article is about how it may actually take you longer to commute home if you leave early from work. Took me a second but I was wondering if the article was talking about how it would cost you or your employer extra man hours or something or reduced your efficiency at work? I thought this because #1 slashdot loves to post "lost productivity" articles and #2 slashdot would be as dumb to post an article about common sense would they?
This is worthy of a first year college student science project at best, or maybe a civil engineer project to improve traffic, but it's not news. Everyone who has at least a small smattering of logical power knows that it's if everyone else is on the road when you drive, not how soon. I take back roads to work. Why? Because everyone else is on the main road, duh! I work 9:00 to 6:00 as well, so the backroads almost never "overflow" during those times when there is a particularly nasty snag either.
I fail to see how these facts and figures teach us anything about the world we didn't already know. It doesn't belong on any news website. This must be the slowest news day ever
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
what kind of self serving edifice to self glorification is this? i live in ny, and because i picked a good place to stay i commute 10 mins to work without headaches.
everyone's got to learn their own local gridlock times and chose the best time to leave their house. who cares about one person's self study and proclamation of intelligence. someone needs to just use common sense.
I work from home - my commute is done in house slippers, takes about 15 seconds no matter how many kids are in the hallway.
With SSH, VPN, VNC, and WebCam I only need to be onsite in realtime once a week or so.
Saves gas, saves time, saves money (no office space required), saves my sanity.
10 If everyone read that article, then everyone would start leaving late, and the problem would remain.
20 Now, how long would it take before someone came up with the astonishing discovery that "Leaving work on time instead of late saves you time"?
30 That would work too, until someone would come up with... wait, do you see that perpetual cycle too..?
40 GOTO 10
15,000 miles a year taking 100 hours? 15,000/100 = 150 MPH. If you can go 150 miles per hour, the traffic can't be that bad.
I have a funny recollection about one programmer I've worked with. He's just got hired. He asked to allow him to arrive to work *really* early so to beat the traffic, and got ok. So he was coming to work around 7 am. The rest of the bunch was showing up sometime between 9 and 10. From 7 to 9 am the guy was practically doing nothing, and I mean nothing: reading newspapers and playing Solitair on PC (that was the time before the company got connected to Internet). Of course he was always promptly leaving at 3 pm. So not only he's managed to beat the traffic but had about 2 hours at work doing nothing. He was so successful in that that eventually he became a consultant (in the same company). No kidding.
But I'm a lazy sod who would rather spend an extra 20 minutes in traffic than an extra 20 minutes in my cubicle.
...take public transportation. I'm not going to go on about the whole cars are evil/polluting/gas guzzling argument, I'm sure you are all familiar with it by now. Take public transportation because you can make it a more productive time than driving.
Rather than focusing your attention on the road you could be sitting on a bus or train listening to your music or reading a book, or even catching up on some work on your laptop.
If you live far from where you work you might as well make your time commuting to and fro more useful and interesting.
When starting a sentence with a number, the number should be written as a word. Sorry, but things like that really raise my blood pressure.
By the way, do you remember that saying about living in glasshouses and throwing stones?
the *real* solution is not to drive at all. I know this will make me sound like an unpatriotic communist, but (disclaimer - I live in a relatively small Australian city of about 1 million poeple) I can definitely commute much faster in rush hour traffic than I can in a car. I get to work in about 1/2 the time of driving, and about 1/3 the time of public transport. Cycling's very cheap, and it turns an otherwise stressful time into a pleasant experience. And it gives exercise!! What a deal!! :-)
The other plus, is that finding parking for a bicycle is always easy. No more hunting/paying for car parking. My fiance and I both cycle, and this means that we only run one car. A big economic saving. I highly recommend it.
Analysing his traffic patterns...
That guy has way too much time on his hands...Oh wait..
AT&ROFLMAO
If you live in a city with a significant traffice problem, you'll note a couple things:
1) Where you live has a huge influence - if you live on one side of the river or the other, the bridge may be the limiting factor
2) The time of year makes a big difference and has a huge impact on traffic - during the summer, you can leave later, but during the school year, you have to beat the school buses, because they determine when parents leave for work (mom/dad can't leave until the bus picks up the kids)
3) Traffic will vary based on things that are hard to determine because the system of traffic is so complex as to defy simply analysis
4) Your speed has a huge impact. If traffic moving, you can cut/thrust in and out of traffic and probably save 5-10 minutes over times when traffic is creeping along
5) Things vary tremendously during the week, month, year.
To make this analysis anything like meaningful, you'd need to track each person's origin/destination/time of departure/time of arrival and then make a model to determine optimum leaving times based on day of year and origin/destination. And of course, you'd need real-time information on accidents, weather variables and road closings to complete this model. I suspect we will have this information within the next 10-20 years as cell phones are tracked and we have real-time information about road conditions available centrally.
I suspect for most people who commute in their cars and have some flexibility, they've done a crude test and understand when they need to leave. For some people, they don't have that kind of flexibility. If your boss says you must come in at 8 and leave at 4, then that's your commute time. If your boss says "be in before 9" then you have the flexiblity.
But this guy driving into work and timing it for a few weeks and then trying to come up with a general model for everybody? Might as well use a Ouija board, because it's going to be just as accurate as this analysis.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Try for high tech workers living in Seattle. The commute to Redmond or Bellevue is horrible.
Varies from 45 minutes to 2 hours. 15 minutes difference in start time makes a HUGE difference in how long it takes to get there.
What really sucks is that this summer I have an internship at Boeing lined up, for their Everett plant.
That is a 90 minute or so commute each way. 3 hours a day, bleck.
And this guy complains about his 20 some minute commute! Sounds lovely to me!
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Whenever i make a delivery for work, its usualy in the afternoon, and on the 91, looots of traffic. So i work my way to the 5 and head south a bit, spend a couple of hours at disneyland, then head home in very little traffic :D
is the wind and my warmup. I usually have a headwind in the morning, and I'm not warmed up, so it takes about 28-30 min. A good tailwind on the way home and I can make the nine miles in under 26.
And of course, everyone knows that "mom" is really "mum".
--
AC - Helping the community with words since 1998
Unfortunately this article doesn't seem to be as applicable as one might hope: for those of us not living in Huston or traveling different routes it's hard to get more out of it than "don't drive during rush-hour," which most people could figure out on their own anyway.
I get off work at 4, which is about the time the commuter rail starts ramping up for rush hour. When I've left work early, I usually end up waiting between 10 to 15 minutes for the train. After 4, one comes every 4 or 5 minutes.
This guy's the limit!
I was agreeing with the author of the article, and thinking it was pretty interesting, until I got to the part at the end advocating mass transit.
Efficient mass transit, unfortunately, requires that we all work in a dense downtown area where a critical mass of people shows up. I don't think that's true of most of Houston. Mass transit is also unpleasant to use and generally very slow. Despite billions being thrown at it, mass transit still has an average market share of around 3%. More and bigger roads, logically enough, would be the better solution. Reducing congestion would save an enormous amount of money, almost certainly more than we could ever save from an impossible task like increasing mass transit market share to, say, 10%. This web site has lots of information on this and related issues.
When I got a new, high-paying job when I lived in California, my solution to the problem was to buy a house that was 10 minutes from my office. I highly recommend that as the fastest and most ecologically sound solution. I could drive my 1991 Mercedes 420SEL (14mpg) with a clear conscience, knowing I was using less gas than many Prius drivers with long commutes.
Now I work out of my home in the country, with about a meeting a week in the city, and that works out fine too, especially since my boss is fairly nocternal. Late night commuting is, of course, very fast.
D
First post
I'm a teacher in a high school, so this is different for others I'm sure. Still, I find that arriving early is often just as time-consuming. I get there early and so I don't HAVE to get right to work, so instead, I fool around online, look at the important stuff on /. and otherwise keep myself from getting started. If I show up with a lot less time on my hands, I frantically dive into work. Of course, I might just be weird...
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
2. Leave fifteen minutes earlier or ten minutes later.
3. Wonder where everyone else is hiding.
Or just wait until 9:00, when most other people are already at work.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
I used to commute 40 miles to work directly through a city, going through several large highway intersections. I could save 15 minutes by driving swiftly through the slow lanes, dodging traffic that was entering and leaving the highway. SO MANY slow drivers clogged up the fast lanes I could cut my commute significantly by avoiding it completely.
Funnypics
Want to know what raises my blood?
People who start sentences with the numerical form of numbers.
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
For those who work in the Bay Area, but live in Tracy or [shudder] Holister, it is well known that if you don't leave work before 3:00PM, you might as well work until 6:00PM.
You'll get home at about the same time.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
The difference between us and Europe is not that our poor are poorer, but that our rich are richer, and so is our middle-class. Perhaps the worst five percent in Europe is better off than the US, the next 20% is roughly equal, and the remaining 75% is somewhat to substantially poorer.
I will play the odds in the states, thank you very much. If you are worried about being in the botton 5%, buy insurance or move to Canada.
FYI, I have lived in both Europe and Asia, and thank God I am lucky enough to be an American. We have it better than anyone else. Also, as a side note, many Europeans appear to be rich because they are childless. Their birthrates are well below replacement levels, making such a society unsustainable. Instead of having kids, they are wasting money on travel and fashion. Does this make them richer?
According to Google Maps, I have an 8 minute commute. That seems right on.
I have no problems commuting 8 minutes a day when I take 15 minute restroom breaks during the course of the day.
I feel fortunate.
Live nearby. This US style of doing things is going to turn earth into venus.
Do not downmod posts "overrated" simply because you disagree with them.
He could also save a much larger amount of time by putting in 5 days' worth of time in 4 (eg, 10 hours per day instead of 8 for a standard 40 hour work week). This would save two commutes per week, and give him the benefit of a three day weekend every week! The time savings on commuting would be about 40 minutes per day, or an additional four days vacation time per year.
I get to work late and leave early. whenever my boss asks me why do i so early i just say that i don't want to be late at both times.
when smart people start mentioning about how to "save" time, I just can't stop myself from wondering... How do you "save" time when everyone has equal 24 hours a day to start with and ends up with 0 hours at the end no matter what we do?
Can you really save "time"? or is it just another way of saying "even more things to do or not to do in given time"?
So what if there is traffic? Sometimes delay caused by traffic is just another way the universe is trying to say, "slow down" to deal with overflux of commuters on the road which is natural occurance due to lack of mass transporation or lack of use of it.
A wise physics professor once told me, travelling from point A to B is not just a matter of when, but how and why.
If it makes any sense, next time when you are stuck in the traffic in the morning, turn on your radio to your favorite tune and start singing your lungs out. Or just take another longer route to work to avoid getting stuck in the traffic. That might make spending time little "easier", because better of us know deep inside that Time can never be saved. After all, if you can't enjoy spending time, you might end up stressing yourself trying to "save" time.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
a minor shift in his departure time results in saving driving hours equivalent to over a third of the vacation time
Which was spent doing a study on driving departure times...
The job where I have to deal with bullshit like "be here at 8 sharp" and "sit until 5" is a job I would be changing... fast.
So, frankly, I wouldn't care how late I would arrive. This is very useful, however, in terms of gas money. You don't want to sit in traffic for hours on end. That costs.
The actual numbers for traffic, from his source, are 1.6 million man-hours and 8 million gallons of gas. The average American makes $16.49 per hour, and gas costs $2.78 per gallon. So traffic consumes $48 million dollars per day.
(Note that at 800 million gallons a day, the gas alone would cost $2.22 billion per day, or $812 billion a year - or 6.5% of GDP.)
http://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
That's why flexible time work schedules have a great benefit. Come before and after traffic and leave before or after traffic. I remember when times I had to drive into our out of the city during rush hours and what usually took 20mins would be increased to over an hour.
HD Trailers
you live 20 minutes from work, and yet you DRIVE!?!
and the world wonders why Americans are so fucking fat!
here's a tip, fatty. those 20 minutes are not a waste of time. those 20 minutes are an opportunity to lose some weight. (as an added bonus, once you are no longer fat you won't have to worry about breaking into a sweat requiring a shower after a tiny bit of exercise.)
Is it me or is this guy with way too much time on his hands? He speaks of saving 30 hours in a years time but I wonder how much time he actually lost 1) recording the data and 2) waiting through the periods of time where the traffic was longer than his normal route.
Geesh.
There's a gorilla from Manilla whose a fella that stinks of vanilla and has salmonella.
This guy is an idiot... All that work. To save less than 10 minutes a day. I take shit breaks longer than that.
He sums the article up nicely: By taking mass transit to and from work, you reduce the amount of time you spend behind the wheel. No shit. And by walking to work I'd reduce my drive time also, but that doesn't mean its a better idea.
This is the stupidest thing I've ever read in my entire life.
In the early 1990's, I worked for a company in the NW side of Indianapolis by the three Pyramids that was a strict 8am to 5pm schedule. Where I lived at, I was about 15 miles from work. I usually left for the office around 6:45 and I usually arrived at 7:05. Before 8am, I got quite a few things done before the phone calls start coming. I did programming at the time. I was the primary person who supported the company plants on their software. At the end of the day, I would leave around 4:35pm. A wave of people leave at 4:30pm and 4:45pm from other businesses in the area. I took me about 20 minutes to get home when I left at 4:35pm. If I left at 4:45pm, I would not get home until around 5:20pm. If I left at the standard 5pm, I would get home at almost 6pm At the time, flex time was not prevalent - almost all companies worked on a 9 to 5 schedule.
In my current job, our company is pretty generous with flex time. I usually get into work ranging from 5am to 6am. There is little or no traffic and because of that, I don't have any road rage dealing with idiot drivers. On Mon and Tue, I usually work until 3 to 5pm to get some hours built up. Wed and Thu, I leave earlier and don't have to deal with the traffic on the way home and Friday is my short day.
In my previous job I left from back in October, our company worked with another company who is the prime contractor - gov't contracting for inquiring minds. The company I worked for was generous but the prime contractor was not. They were basically a 7am to 4pm operation. They do not like people leaving early especially on Friday. Some of our poeple had to go work at their facility and the first things they were told was they were expected to be there during normal business hours and comply with a dress code - dress slacks/pants were required, no jeans.
I was told this at one time, "It doesn't matter how early you get in, it is how late you stay that counts !". In some companies, even if the company offers flex time, there would be unwritten rules against taking it or it would be an unwritten rule that it was a perk for those who management liked.
I'm not sure how something that falls under the common sense "duh" category qualifies this as news.
Isn't the employer/manager the problem? If they demand 9 -5 minimum then your stuck in the rat race. I'm a late bod, but can do early if I must, but I've been on teams where my equivalent turned up at 7:30am and would leave around 3:30 pm, me I wander in around 10:30 and leave at 6:00pm or when the work was done. No overtime payments etc. However one company I worked for (at they time I was an IBM Sys Prog) we had a new (read green with no idea)d manager who decided to clamp down and demand we worked core hours - giggle - The result was paralysis, huge overtime payments and delays. For example, before we could swap overtime for time off in lieu but if we have to be in the office 9 -5 and as a sys prog al lot of work had to be out of hours so costs went up. When problems happened because of the 9-5 rule if you were in before or after those hours you would have to wait (work to a rule can be fun). That manager left (some psychotic problem I think - joke) as he didn't understand the main point of it all - get the job done. Yes I can be in the office at 7am but if I know the courier with the specs isn't turning up till 11am and apart from management ego what is the point! I've had brilliant managers who understand this and also complete prats who are ego and marker driven I,e. the project manager says start to develop at 9am with anticipated specs at 9am but they know the specs will be late and still get the developers in as it's a tick on there spread sheet - sick. Do what works is my motto. I may work a 15 hour day or a 5 hour day - do the job thats what counts. (But if your doing more than 12 hours a day for 14 days in a row - STOP - it works for 2 weeks after that your doing 12 hours work for 8 hours real work - look at extreme programming those guidelines are thee for a reason)
Maybe a 38% boost in vacation time by saving several minutes a day commuting but try to feel the effect of your extra five six minutes a day. It's too short and gets lost in the day. You're going to cause youself more frustration fretting over your six min./day savings especially if the statistics start shifing, which of course will cause you stress and health problems and you'll die that much sooner. Forget about it. Instead start thinking about REAL vacation time. E.g. How can I get an extra week of minutes successfully off this year ...
An even better solution is to sleep in your office and put your kids in a desk drawer .. a la the Japanese in Seinfeld.
"Dewey, you fool: Your decimal system has played right into my hands!"
With the price of gas now (and what it may become, soon) an analysis like this makes senes. It's one thing to imagine saving 3 weeks' time, but it even sounds worse when you put it as, "if you don't change your commute time, you'll have to spend three weeks' worth of extra time driving and pay for the gas out of your own pocket."
Yikes!
Come on, it was a little funny...
I used to have to drive 15-20 minutes from Goleta to Santa Barbara. Now I climb 21 steps from my living room (where I catch up on the Daily Show and drink my coffee) up to my home-office.
Ah, the joys of telecommuting.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Um, you all do realize that coming in early DOESN"T mean that you have to punch in early. Depending on were you are. You could spend the time between getting in early and check-in time at a restaurant eating breakfast, or time in the break-room reading the paper and drinking coffee.
In a big city, leaving work on time only gets you stuck in 'rush hour'. Having a short lunch and leaving 15 mins early can save you lots of time and hassle on the trip home.. Or leaving an hour late..
Same idea for coming in, coming in 15 mis early relative to 'business hours' saves a LOT of time. Coming in late, gets you more grief in traffic.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Not much of a nerd if that didn't ring a thousand bells as it was written. That figure is flat out impossible. Daily gasoline consumption in the USA is estimated at almost 9 million barrels, far less than 800 million gallons.
In my case, I sort of shifted my schedule so I leave home at 9:30 and get out of work at 6:30. In the morning, I encounter nearly no traffic. Leaving at 9:00 will add at least 20 extra minutes to my drive. This works because no one really cares at what time I show up as long as the code is flowing.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
My gf lives in Riverside which is an hour outside of Los Angeles.
Do you have any idea how much a house in LA costs? You can't find anything under $1 million dollars unless its in the hood and now even Riverside where she is costs $400,000 for a house in a drug infested neighborhood.
Many los angelinians are moving an another hour and putting up with 4 hour communte times spending 2 hours each way to work so they can get a house for under $250,000.
In many places like Los Angeles and New York you can't move closer to work. Its just not affordable.
With gas prices going up it looks like now everyone is getting screwed unless they bought property 5 or 6 years ago when it was only worth half as much.
http://saveie6.com/
I'm not sure on what basis you're drawing your conclusion that French, German and British's worker productivity per hour is "way higher" than US worker productivity. The comparative statistics released by U.S. Department of Labor shows that American worker's productivity per hour in manufacturing has been significantly higher than France, Germany, and UK in recent years.
Regards,
Spock_NPA
Want to know what raises my blood?
People who start sentences with the numerical form of numbers.
Really?
Do they live on a blood farm?
How does that work?
Does your blood grow on trees?
http://jesus.everdense.com/
I used to have a 3 hour (each way) commute from San Jose to San Rafael (north of San Fransisco). I was on the night shift, but that happened to have me leave at the "going home" rush hours and coming back a bit before the "leaving home" rush hours.
I first started by avoiding the city entirely... hitting 237 to 880 and up. But the milpitas junction was always such a crawl that it took far longer than just driving through the city. Then I took 101 up, which would slow to a predictable crawl and take a very long time. Then I started taking the secret route: 280 up through the foothills. Speeds are always in the 90's and there is never a jam unless someone flipped their porche. It still dumps you out in the city, but you avoid the 101 SF traffic jam.
Going back, that route is a nightmare of drunk drivers and morning traffic. Ironically, coming up 580 to 880 to 237 gets you in at ludicrous speeds... I've been going 110 and getting passed by cops on a fully empty 5-lane road.
A three hour commute chopped down to just one hour by judicious exploration of possible routes.
The same has been true in Boston. I used to drive my girlfriend to work from Porter Square to the Cambridgeside Galleria. After experimenting with Mass Ave, Memorial Drive, and a few other routes, it became clear that the fastest way to get there was by taking Somerville to McGrath Highway... both underutilized throughfares that nobody needs to commute on in the morning. A 1 hour commute chopped down to 1/2 hour.
I guess what I'm saying is experiment with your drive. Every place I've lived, from Boston to LA to the silicon valley, has had alternate routes that (once discovered) chopped commute time down tremendously.
The ______ Agenda
Hmmm... I'll post this anonymously. Seriously though, that's the only way I've found around the traffic.
Now, travelling I-17 down to Phoenix, that's another story. I-17 gets backed up (both northbound and southbound) every friday afternoon, starting at about 2 or 3 pm, going until past 7 or 8 pm. Usually backed up from the Carefree Highway all the way to the Loop 101. Once you get on the 101, it's ok, but be careful for those Scottsdale Speed Cameras that like to take your picture for going too fast (or just smile when you go past ;-) ...
Come to work at 10:30, leave at 7-7:30. No traffic at all. I pity the fools who come to work at 9 and leave at 5.
100 hours to work - assuming it's 100 hours from too, this commuter's averaging 75 mph, so I don't really understand why they're moaning about the traffic.
though you would have a better shot than doing it in Asia. If you have a problem with the bay area, feel free to move elsewhere. In the town I am moving to next month, I can buy a median family home with less than two years of my starting salary, before bonus. Of course, the weather won't be nearly perfect as it is in CA, but such is the trade-offs we all face.
Strangely enough, you try to imply that Europe is better than the US by comparing it to the Bay area, which is about as European a place as you can find in the US, though much richer and productive.
Sure boss, we're doing the same amount of hours, we're just coming in 2 hours late and leaving 2 hours later than we normally do. What I'm fired?
God spoke to me.
I do. I lived in a crap-hole apt. for several years while saving my bucks and then bought a house at precisely the perfect cycling distance from work, between 7 miles http://tinyurl.com/a2b3p and 9 miles http://tinyurl.com/8meqf. Now i have two 25~35 minute mini-vacations every day.
Seriously: the worst day bicycle commuting beats a good day car commutting. YMMV, but it may be an option for some of you. If it is, thimk about it.
The timing of traffic lights has been one of the biggest factors for me, though that's mostly been since I live near downtown and have commuted out to suburbs/exurbs for work for the last few years. Highway congestion usually wasn't a big factor since I was generally traveling out in the opposite direction of most folks, but traffic lights could easily destroy any headway I had. Their cycles are hard to pin down, and shift of just a few minutes in departure time can mean you're stuck at nearly every light rather than seeing green. But maybe my normal departure times have led me to visit intersections just before or after the point where they switch from "rush hour" mode to "normal" mode. Of course, traffic lights in some areas are biased to allow more traffic inbound to downtown areas, which makes sense, though it effectively penalizes people like me who commute outbound.
Fortunately, I now work at a place that is only about 3.5 miles from where I live, and I can get doorstop-to-doorstop in just over ten minutes and only deal with one traffic light. I'm moving soon, and my commute will be even shorter.
Perhaps a conversion to the more useful metric of LoC's can be made by converting both to joules. Basic stoichiometry?
Hm.
... I, too, live in Houston and the areas in the study are by no means the highest/worst traffic areas in this sprawling metropolis. This is not to say that the traffic there isn't bad - no doubt it exists just about everywhere - but just pointing out that it may not reflect Houston accurately. Just ask anyone who has been anywhere near the I-10/I-610/59 Hwy tangle if you're interested in new ways to string together a few expletives.
I really don't know if the results can be applied generically or really can only be pertinent to the same area studied.
Interesting project, though.
if most people will leave outside of the rush hour, then i guess, they will all be stuck in the same type of rush hour traffic and this will no longer be true.
maybe there should be a way where offices are opened and closed gradually. maybe like schools be open at 7, government offices at 7:30, manufacturing at 8:00, others at 8:30. (i am not sure about the volume of traffic for each segment but you get the idea.) closing time will be graduated too. i guess the problem is with the peak loads. distribute the surge and it will be better for everyone.
employers should try to consider telecommuting as much as possible in this case.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
Wow, so advance planning (or lack of it) may save (or cost) time. Holy Shit.
I live 25 minutes away from work. During rush hour, that number goes up to an hour 30 (anyone asking, this is the dreaded commute from Caguas, PR to San Juan, PR). What I do to beat the traffic is that I wake up at 3:30. I usually leave my house around 4, 4:15(at 5am, there's already transit going to San Juan). I get to my office at 15 minutes to 5am. I get the best parking spot(no parking in the building), plus I get around two and a half hours of sleep in my car before getting to the office (>3 min walk). I start my day relaxed at 8am after a nice breakfast, and I am very productive during the day.
When I go back home, I usually bite the bullet and take the hour long (hopefully) trip back home. I have a lot of advantage over the other drivers because I only go through rush hour once. They have these desperate faces, and I am just relaxed with my iPod-iTrip combo, listening to some tunes while I get home.
--MaxPowerDJ
Moto Guzzi California Stone.
Hydraulic lifters
Air cooled
Shaft drive
It even has the rake and trail of a standard, not a cruiser, and a good stiff frame.
When the going gets tough, the tough split lanes.
From the Article: "... the average U.S. commuter spends about 100 hours a year driving just to work ...more than 15,000 miles and 1,000 gallons of gas every year"
Yeah, I'd also get about 15 mpg commuting at 150 mph.
I write my own sigs! Ask me how!
...and spend those hours waiting for a late train next to a guy who smells like the bathroom after my dad uses it. No thanks.
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First of all, look at 2005, not year 2000. Second of all, look at the federal government, without social security (which is screwed up) for a reasonable comparison of federal government services. Note that many of us live in tax free states. Now let's compare:
US top rate: 14.8% / UK: 23.1%
US med rate: 12.2% / UK: 18.9%
US low rate: 10.0% / UK: 17.4%
US lowest rate: 7.4% / UK: 15.0%
I could never figure out how I could leave for work 10 minutes earlier and still get there at the same damn time. I knew traffic patterns were killing my commute time.
Dilbert is that you? This is your boss speaking. Get your ass back to your cubicle.
Just a word, please use your time wisely now that you're closer to work and plan to spend more time with your family. And be determined to carry out your plans. To my experience, I've seen countless employees who live close to work wastes time the same way instead of on a bus, on something else.
Spending quality time with family takes dedication, much like everything else, as Morgan Freeman says in Bruce Almighty: Turning water into wine isn't a miracle, it's magic. A mother who works 2 jobs and 1 more at nite and still be able to spend time with her kids and go to their baseball games, is a miracle.
Is is a measure of the difference between what you earn and what you spend. Telling me that the rich are saving more than the poor, or more than they did in the past, doesn't tell me much that is useful, and surely doesn't imply there is a problem. INCOME, or the potential to spend, is the only measure that matters in this type of debate.
Who is richer? Someone who makes $1,000,000 a year and spends $1,050,000, or someone who makes $50,000 a year and spends $30,000. Who is has more "wealth"?
I commute by train (when not telecomuting, that is). It's a 1.5 hour trip in each direction. It would be 45-50 minutes to drive it. In my busy life with a new family, this actually gains me time for reading a book, or watching a DVD, or even (if I'm extremely bored) catching up on email! I would not get this at home, trust me! Here's some quick math: 3 hours per day, 5 days a week for 50 weeks = 750 hours all to myself (about a month - 31.25 days per anum)! Even if I had to work for half of that time while I commute, it's still an extra 2 weeks every year, for reading a good book. I highly recommend it for people who would otherwise not get a spare hour or two to themselves. That is, if trains or other public transport which you do not have to drive are an option to you.
“Our opponent is an alien starship packed with nuclear bombs. We have a protractor.” — Neal Stepnenso
What planet do you live on that says that any low wage employer like fast good chains or Wal-Mart give any vacation at all? I have had a few jobs over my working life so far and my current job is the first job in 14 years that gives any paid time off whatsoever ... including sick days. You know why they do? It's a government job. We get 80 hours per year and all of my friends are envious because they don't even get paid sick days.
First of all, look at 2005, not year 2000.
... Note that many of us live in tax free states.
I'm with you there.
without social security (which is screwed up) for a reasonable comparison of federal government services
Uh, sorry, you lost me. How can you ignore social security??? It's over 7% out of your paycheck, for Christ's sake! If "it's screwed up" is a valid reason for ignoring a tax, then let's just ignore federal taxes too because they're "screwed up" too. I'm with you on ignoring the employer's portion of FICA, because that doesn't really come directly out of my pocket, but ignoring the employee's portion is just horse hockey.
Second of all, look at the federal government
That's why they list the AVERAGE tax rate. And as an aside, there are only seven states in the U.S. that levy no income tax, and another 2 that don't tax wage income. So that leaves 41 states that have their hand out for your hard-earned. Given that half of the 9 lucky states are quite small population-wise, that means the vast majority of Americans (over 80%, by my quick calculations) live in states with an income tax.
One big problem of the GP's table is that as far as I can tell it ignores sales tax or VAT or whatever you want to call it. So Canada's tax rate may look low, but their combined PST/GST is around 15% depending on the province. It also seems to ignore property taxes, local income tax (NYC charges income tax on top of what the feds and the state want), and any other tax you can come up with. In other words you'd be stupid to do anything useful with it.
that's a valuable admonition and i'll tuck it away. thanks.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
I live in a small city (less than 500,000 people) and there is a short, sharp "rush hour" from about 0800 to about 0850. I have concluded that leaving for work any time from 0800 to 0840 means you will arrive at work anywhere at much the same time as the centre of the city catches everyone at about 0845 and this section of the trip is what takes the most time to traverse.
I now leave for work at 0900 and it takes half the time as the roads are clear.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
What's a newspaper?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
And I always thought people were just afraid of the moon, which meant less traffic in my way at midnight, and that the sun caused bad mojo because it hated me, and therefore it produced delays just after sunrise and a bit before sunset. (It still likes ot burn me if I taunt its power by staying outside all day and blind me if I look at it for too long.) Now I can beat this new-fangled, city expressway business!
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
The hell with traffic. Get an apartment close to your job and walk to work instead of being another gas-guzzler. It's good for your health too. Suburbia is a waste of time between the commute and taking care of a totally useless lawn and living quarters vastly larger than necessary.
Check out my women's designer clothing store.
I carpool to and from work about 20 miles each way. Interestingly, my non-scientific observation of our commute times and what affects it matches pretty closely with the linked article:
1) Friday mornings are usually pretty smooth. Mondays are often smooth too.
2) Evenings are always terrible. It doesn't matter the day of the week, they're just consistently awful.
3) Days/weeks without school are lighter.
4) Leaving at 8:40 gives a pretty consistent 30 minute commute. Leaving an hour earlier guarantees bad traffic.
The author did miss one key point though, which I call the Nielson Law of Traffic Dynamics (named for my carpool buddy who discovered it):
Traffic on the evening of October 31st is unquestionably always the worst traffic of the year, every year.
Every year we forget about this law, and every year we curse the thousands of parents who *have* *to* *be* *home* *before* *sunset*.
Neil
With your family, that is.
The primary goal isn't to minimize the time spent driving (though that would be nice). The goal is to maximize time with your friends, family, hobby, etc. Staying late to avoid rush hour is pointless if you have somewhere you want to get to.
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
**puke**
It's a lot of fun living in the city... if you don't have kids, and can afford to live in an area where you won't get mugged.
Kids are lots better off with fenced backyards (sandbox, garden, treehouse...) and quiet dead-end streets.
Nobody needs a lawn, though it can be useful for sports. Plant your yard with trees.
We do have the best health care system, but...
We like to eat. We invented McDonalds, and we supersize everything.
We drive everywhere. We won't even walk to a bus stop.
Life expectancy varies by race; we are mostly not Asian and, obviously, we are much less European than the countries in Europe.
Did I mention we like to eat? We really do.
We smoke.
We drive great big trucks that tend to roll over. It's fun.
So, that's the story. Relax. Grab a beer, some potato chips, and a cigarette.
Greetings from Germany! :)
In different news this posts captcha is 'jealous'.
Dude, that works if you live alone. The more people in your house, the more space you need just to not get on each other's nerves. I agree with you about lawn though - I like our good size house but we use the outside space about ten times a year, hardly worth it.
:P
As for close to the city, out in the burbs, suburbia is boring and a long way from anything, but if you have kids you never go anywhere anyway so it really doesn't matter
All available data suggest that regardless of any of this, the sun will still come up tomorrow.
Living near downtown Chicago, I can walk half-an-hour to work if it's a nice day or take the train in fifteen minutes if it isn't. I can also walk or take the train to about a thousand restaurants, etc. I can't begin to understand why anyone would live way out in suburbia just for a bigger house.
Depends on where you live. I live in a city of ~1.6 million people. Firstly, I've never heard of anyone getting mugged in the center of the city. And there are plenty of parks here, so that would cover your kids' sandbox needs.
And if you so desire you can live about 10 km from downtown in a house with an attached garden and your mentioned quiet streets, about a ten-minute subway ride from the center.
I'm not in the US, though.
Scheduling vacation time to avoid long commutes.
Excuse me... did we just hit a new low?
-=sig=-
if you don't what a newspaper is, reading Slashdot is also a viable solution. :)
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
But the real question is, can you still reproduce or has cycling reduced bloodflow to your testicular area? ;-)
Libertas in infinitum
There are also advantages to living in a large city (Mumbai: pop 20,000,000 in the urban conglomeration, 12.5M in the city proper). The commute time varies between 90 minutes to 120 minutes from anywhere to anywhere by mass transit, and 150 minutes to 240 minutes if you drive (unless the city gets flooded by rain like it did in July last year - 37 inches in a single day).
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
Breakfast served all day!
I found the article rather interesting, and it is probably interesting as a hint for a city planner.
.. 35 days.
Not personally really relevant, but generally interesting, but what made me laught was the conclusion at the end.
30% increase in hollydays ? hum, even ignoring the fact that 7minutes in the evening is not the same as 7minutes on the beach during a hollyday, reality hit home when I read that it is 30hours in addition to the 80hours of "normal hollydays", that is 10 days ?
In continental europe the normal number of hollydays for IT people is at least 25 days, and typically 30
Therefore the result is not only that since there are less work days the 30 hours gain would be about 10% lower, but it would have to be compared to a much higher number of hours.
In europe (where the typical worker productivity is higher than in the US) the news would be:
By careful planning of your commute hours you can gain about 10% of additional "free time minutes", wich would of course be a great conversation piece in front of the coffe machine.
---------
Work less, work smarter
15,000 miles in 100 hours - that's an average speed of 150mph in his commute
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
That the earlier you, the earlier you arrive. Whatever the traffic is. Of course, maybe if you leave at 6 you'll be home at 7 where you could have left at 6:30 and be home at 7:10, but there will never be a situation when leaving later will make you arrive earlier.
The earlier you leave, the more time you will spend with your kids and wife. The "it costs you time" argument is true only if you consider that you can trade family time for work time the way you want.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The second car is a Hayabusa Turbo. Yes, it's in mph.
Get your own free personal location tracker
You insensitive clod, I work in Seattle, I have to leave work practically the next day to not get caught in traffic.
BoomerSooner: The US economic system grows very quickly compared to european nations. Would anyone here be happy with a 0.8% productivity increase or GDP annual growth (here in the US)? Hell no, people would be freaking out.
You're picking your figures to match your argument. Sure, the US economic system grows very quickly compared to some European nations - but others do better. The UK annual growth rate for Q4 2005 was 1.8% - faster than the US annual growth rate for Q4 2005 at 1.7%.
I work for a company in their UK HQ, with US offices; I am consistently horrified by the miserly 2/3-week holiday allowance that my US cow-orkers seem to consider "normal". The raw minimum in EU states is 4 weeks and most companies offer nearer 5 weeks for established employees.
The thing is, though, that if the cost of living is cheap enough compared to your net salary, you can afford to take unpaid leave. With the cost of living and taxes being much lower in the US, many more US employees can afford to take unpaid leave than UK employees.
So any argument comparing growth to paid leave doesn't hold water; we aren't comparing apples to apples.
Ditto unemployment. Not only do unemployment rates vary enormously across the EU (mass unemployment in France; hardly any in the UK), but the benefits paid also vary enormously.
Treating the EU as one homogenous mass, just because it's relatively small, densely populated, some bits of it share a single currency and some (different) bits of it share a single border control system, is going to completely kill any statistical argument. You can't pretend that rich countries such as Denmark and the UK are in any way economically similar to poorer nations such as Portugal or Poland. The EU exists to make trade easier and regulations more consistent, not to make the dozens of member countries into one country called Europe.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Europe has less space in its cities (cities being old, from medieval times and hence been made with tightly packed narrow streets to aid defence, and complex like maze) and many people. They started using smaller cars first, then they started to use mass transport more and more. (in fact they always used it keenly). I think that the congestion is unavoidable for any nation that tends to use cars to commute - on average 2 person for 1 car, around 2 seats going to waste. I believe we should demand that mass transport should be made more luxurious and more common and start using it.
Read radical news here
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It's posts like this that make /. worth the trolls.
:) *
*notes that his country has fifth highest GDP and is only 5bn in the red
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
Now the interesting thing, which I have noticed is that when I throw the usual routine on its head and add some mutation to my search, everything works completely differently. You wake up at an insane hour of the morning and drink coffee. You then get on one of the first few trains to depart, these are invariably on time; I suppose the train drivers responsible enough to get up early are the most competent and the least likely to end up in Scotland by accident. This train is empty and free of smelly arm-pits. It is also fast and direct, requiring no further changes. Why this is not the case with the later trains, is beyond me.
The general spirit at this time of the morning, is one of champions. "I woke up before the world, therefore I am a man of power, ambition and lots of loud alarm clocks." You then stroll at leisure from station to work place with a trendy coffee in hand. The work done on the train is then casually uploaded onto workstation and you continue on a roll, glancing at those lazy sods strolling in at 9am. Your spirits are on top of the world. Come mid-afternoon, you're tired, but you've been there since the early hours. If you can't cope you can responsibly excuse yourself due to hard work and head home, stating that your work will be continued on the train. This is then valued, given that the announcement is made up front.
Somehow leaving early gives you a buzz. One should be warned, however, that insanely early starts for more than two days in a row can be hazardous to your health and lead to death by foolishly strolling in front of an old granny's very slow push bike.
[1]( George Michael lives there, and obviously never takes the train. )
I know this wont work for large distances (20km+) but I just got a bike this week and I drive ~10km a day with it to work and home. ;)
In a green city like mine (Munich, Germany) it does not only make driving to work fun, its healty, I am just as fast as with a car in a urabn environment and since I own a smart roadster it doesnt make much difference on what I can carry with me.
An additional plus: you can take shortcuts through parks and industrial sites where no car can get through wich cuts the distance even further.
Duh.
Leaving early for work can get me to work 20 minutes early and earns my car a free parking space.
Leaving 'On Time' for work hits rush hour, and a 20 minute drive becomes a 50 minute battle for survival,
and a $5 to $22 parking fee.
I'd rather save gas cruising into work early (and get free parking) than listen to this guy.
Sitting in traffic doubles my auto's fuel consumption.
The extra 20 minutes at work gives my brain a chance to absorb all
the high octane extra caffeine that speeds the day onward and upward!
Mmmm, Coffee...
It doesn't really matter if you leave work earlier or later, as long as you leave slightly different from the rest of the pack, the road will most likely be empty.
I've found this to be mostly true, but in some circumstances I've actually found rush hour to get me there as quickly or even more quickly than when the road is clear. It all depends on the nature of the traffic during rush for you. Despite having to stop or slow down at a few particularly congested points, I can zip along during rush hour at 75+ and not have to worry about getting pulled over because I'm far from the fastest person on the road. At mid-day or late at night I get the opposite effect; I can't drive as fast because the road is full of people who either don't know the road well or are just not in any particular hurry.
m0nstr42.blogspot.com
Well, it's not just the USA. Look at Brussels for example, the capital of the European Union, where you can get killed in broad daylight in the centre of the city.
I live in Chicago. There ar e a lot of great neighborhoods with parks, great schools(the parochial ones), houses have backtards and there's great public transportation. Why people who work in the city want to live in the suburbs is a complete puzzle to me.
I have a half an hour commute each way by bike spring through fall, and ride the el in the winter for a 40 minute commute.
I've lost weight since I started riding, and feel great. My kids love the city, and when we visit friends in the burbs they do that 'are we there yet?' thing because of all the traffic snarls out in that suburban wasteland.
I've lived in a rural town with fewer than 10,000 people. I've lived in a city with several million people. You won't get me to live in the suburbs. It has nothing good to offer.
When I lived back in Dallas area, I noticed that if I left 10 minutes earlier than my normal 7AM, my commute would take 10 less overall minutes. Leaving at 6:50AM, I would arrive at 7:10AM taking only 20 minutes. Leaving at 7AM, I wouldn't arrive until 7:30AM. (the time I was due at work) Now, I live in NY my job is a mile away and it takes me 2 minutes! Though now instead of leaving at the same time everyday it tends to very about 45 minutes each day. (Leaving at 8:15AM to leaving at 9AM which is the time I'm due at work)
"Home is where the house is"
At least in the NYC area. I travel in to the city by train. I usually travel at peak hours when the trains run frequent express services. If I was to come in later and leave later (or earlier), the trains are less frequent and stop at many more stations along the way.
Of course, when I can, I work from home.
while the housing bubble bursts, then move back to the Bay. Or brush up on your Chinese and get out before the dollar and US economy collapses. We are in for some pain real soon, methinks. We have been sending out tons of green paper for years, and sooner or later, it is all going to come back.
Which corporation are you CEO for? Prudential? I'd almost put money on your being in the INSURANCE business. I'm positive that you're not a doctor, nurse, or medical tech.
Let me tell you about Jim, asshole.
Jim Dawson was my best and oldest friend. I knew him since high school.
Jim came down with apendicitis. He had no insurance, as his employer (you, asshole?) didn't carry it. I don't know if you've noticed, but normal working class people can't afford health insurance unless it's subsidized by an employer.
He went to the hospital when his appendix burst.
It took years to pay down the bills. He almost went bankrupt, and his credit was ruined.
Two months before his 40th birthday, he confided to a mutual friend that his "insides are messed up." He wouldn't go to a doctor, because he didn't want to go through what he had gone through before.
He told his 13 year old daughter he wasn't feeling well and was taking a nap, and to wake him up in 2 hours.
He never woke up, having suffered a massive heart attack.
Lack of health care like every other indistrialized nation affords their citizens killed my oldest and best friend.
If you are against universal health care, you are against me and I hate your ZGod damned fucking guts. I hope you catch something your insurance dosent cover (bipolar disorder or depression would be SWEET) and you go bankrupt, become homeless, and die of something worse than Jim died from.
Again, your views are fighting words. If you espouse them in the same bar I'm drinking in, we're probably boith going to spend the night in jail.
Better yet, I hope your CHILD comes down with an expensive but uncovered disease, asshole.
" ... don't bother showing up on Monday."
Homer : Woo-hoo! Four-day weekend!
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
Am I missing something? The article says the average commute is 100hr/yr, 15,000 miles, 1,000 gallons. I want to drive this average commute since you average 150 mph and still get 15mpg. I could probably make money having folks pay to drive me to work.
I think the point of the article is that you can use your time more efficiently if you pay attention to how your commute duration correlates with departure time. When I got my job and moved from another state, I specifically chose where to reside so that my commute would be counter to most of the traffic.
Over the years I've also discovered which routes are clearest during which hours and which months. For example, there are 6-lane roads that are split 4-2 inbound in the morning, 4-2 outbound in the evening, and 3-3 at other times with parking in the outer lanes. If I time my travel so that I hit those roads just as they become 3-3, then the traffic moves smoothly and the outer lanes aren't full of parked cars yet.
It takes a genius to figure out that statistical analysis of clock management. Different times mean different commutes? I can save time by leaving earlier or later then the rest of the pack? I figured this same thing out when I overslept one day, but I didn't think I needed to analyze this strange phenomenon. I simply realized that I was late and my boss (if he actually looked that day) would sigh to himself and say...damn techies are always coming in late. In fact, after doing this same thing a few more days, I realized I like to sleep in and that I could shift my work schedule to a more technical 10am to 7pm and totally miss the commute. At this time I had plenty of free time to SLEEP longer, and SKIP the daylight after a normal workday ends at 5 pm (when everyone else was at the gym, HH or some other clever location....read...not work). The thing is, I always knew how long it took to commute because I was able to look at that handy device called a clock on the way in. ...what a worthless study. Its like the Geico ad for commuters. I left late today, but good news...."I just saved 10 minutes on my commute."
Fortunately where I live we have good public transit where the trains run on tracks that don't cross any streets (at street level). I can commute quickest in rush hour because a new train comes every 2 minutes, as opposed to every 8 minutes later at night. Of course at night I'd get a seat instead of having to stand.
He believes that by changing our behavior on the road, each one of us has the potential to seriously affect traffic waves.
As a republican I feel it my responsibity to manufacture criminals. People need punished!
.. George Robbins who managed Amiga low end systems, and sadly isn't with us anymore, pretty much lived in his office at the Commodore West Chester plant for an extended period.
if you don't what a newspaper is, reading Slashdot is also a viable solution.
If I read slashdot before my workday begins, then what am I going to do all day?
What he is saying is very simple: how much time you spend in traffic depends upon when you leave the house. He suggests that leaving earlier for work can actually make your commute last longer because the traffic (from school, for example) is much worse.
This is a valid argument for staggered work times--for not demanding that your employees commute at the same time that everyone else is on the road.
I personally like my commute on the Washington Metro train. I ride my bike to the local station, play video games on my laptop for 30 minutes, then ride my bike in to work. I never have to mess with traffic, and I can get my daily regiment of game play in.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7503638729 249272041&q=ferrari+paris&pl=true
I used to live in DC and new people who went in early to avoid traffic. The problem was EVERYONE had the same idea. So everyone gets stuck in traffic early going to work. Then they all work 9 hour shifts so leave at the same time as the 8 hour people and sit in the parking lot.
I found the easiest thing was to work 8 hours a day, come in at 9am and leave at 5:30. People started to filter out from 3:30-4:30 so that from 4:30-5:30 I could work uninterrupted. People couldn't keep me longer because 5:30 was the longest you could legally set your hours to and no-one made meetings past 5:30. I didn't have to come in on my AWS day for a meeting w/ someone I couldn't blow off because I didn't have an AWS day. And by 9am there is no traffic, (or in my case, congestion on the public transportation). Same with traveling home from 5:30-6:30, almost no-one is still traveling so there is more than enough room.
I do security
"OK, go on then, if you don't live at home, where do you live? "
I guessing maybe some people might not consider their parents' basements "home"?
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
I live only 4 miles from my office. Depending on the time of day/year that I leave, it can take anywhere between 5-15 minutes. During the summer months it is typically less congested in the morning, and the same is true for winter/spring break - no buses or parents frantically trying to get their kids to school.
As a side note, the Oregon legislature decided almost 2 years back that little Timmy should be protected at 2AM on Christmas morning if Timmy so decides to visit the school grounds. This means that some school zones (areas that are normally 25-30mph) are in effect 24/7/365, meaning all traffic must bottleneck down to 20mph even if school is not in session at that time. I've heard they may be reconsidering this law, to lessen the time constraints.
Prove it.
Great idea!
so how do I get a 90% raise to afford that $5600.00 a month 900 sq foot apartment?
Oh... you forgot that tiny part that it's impossible to live near work in today's metro areas unless you are either rich as hell or willing to live in a crack house.
I'll live in the suburbs and drive in thanks.. It's much cheaper even at $4.00 a gallon.
(Note: I acutally quit my high paying job in Detroit and moved way north to work for a small company at 1/2 the pay but gaining 3 times the house and an extra 4 hours a day with my family as well as lowing my expenses because of being out of a metro area. I drive the same distance as before but in 15 minutes instead of 1+ hours.)
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
you forgot that states levy taxes too.... Also you would have to compare the income at which the rates kick in....
Are you bragging? You may not be bragging, but I just read it as such since I envy you.
I personally would love to move out of metro-Detroit to northern Michigan. Reasons I can't:
- Wife wouldn't want to. Our families are mostly in metro-Detroit, and she doesn't want to stray too far. Although she might not have a choice if our economy doesn't improve.
- Job opps are limited. I, like you, wouldn't mind the pay cut too much, especially if I gained some serious acreage. But if I lost my job, the options are pretty limited. They're bad enough in metro-Detroit (for IT anyway).
That said, my commute for living in Wayne county is pretty atypical (and not bad). It typically only takes me 20 minutes to get to work in Ann Arbor (~13 miles), and is about half-rural (no expressway). Though that time doubles if I get caught in rush hour traffic. I'd rather live in Ann Arbor and ditch the car but the cost of living is absurd...
When I used to work (instead of helping to look after my granddaughter) I found it took me 40 minutes to get to work no matter how I went. Walking took 40 minutes. Driving (because of parking and then walking from the parking lot) took 40 minutes. Taking public transit (because of waiting for the street car) took 40 minutes. Taxis (because they didn't come immediately when I phoned) took 40 minutes. Maybe I should have tried roller skates.
900sq foot?? 140sq ft is plenty.
Check out my women's designer clothing store.
It's a lot of fun living in the city... if you don't have kids, and can afford to live in an area where you won't get mugged.
One of the classic unjustified fears that causes white flight. Your chances of getting mugged are neglegible if you have half a clue (don't walk alone in the dark, etc).
Check out my women's designer clothing store.
I'm not sure about commute times, but PJ O'Rourke has noted:
"The key to success in business is to arrive early, stay late, and take 8 hour lunches."
Is it a bad 'hood or something, crossing busy roads? I live a mile and a half from work, and my car usually doesn't even get started unless it's the weekend... It is a great, relaxing way to get to work, unless it is in the dead of winter, then I usually take a nice warm bus...
The average person walks 2-4 mph, so 1/4 mile at 3mph is 5 minutes, or the time you are currently taking to commute...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
you can do it, and there are IT jobs available. It's jsut that you need to look a bit outside the box.
I do not do IT for a major corperation anymore. I am now the IT/Programmer/Wire puller/network installer/everything else technical guy for this company. I looked for over a year to find it and that is what it takes. Go in with more experience than they can find in northern michigan asking for the pay that the greenie-cert holders are looking for, you are almost guarenteed to get the job. Be sure to let the company know that you are looking to slow down and get away from corperate life or they think you will bolt on them for the big corperate $$$$ again in the future.
Also, let the wife know that being farther away means that the relatives come to you for holidays and that means she get's to host more parties... that was the selling point for my sweetie.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
He neglected to include astronomical factors. At some times of the year he may be experiencing sunrise and sunset slowdowns, as drivers slow due to glare from the sun being directly in front of them. The spring period when he noticed a slowdown in the evening could be due to driving nearly directly west (he did not describe his route, but his house is to the northwest). My guess is that on his drive home he uses the major road toward the west which has a few curves in it, with drivers being bothered by the sun just after each curve.
Let's explore here how the income tax and societal wealth really affects us...
"Sometimes politicians, journalists and others exclaim; "It's just a tax cut for the rich!" and it is just accepted to be fact.
But what does that really mean?
Just in case you are not completely clear on this issue, I hope the following will help. Please read it carefully.
Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand.
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.
"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20." Dinner for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to eat their meal.
So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.
And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start eating overseas where the atmosphere might be somewhat friendlier."
Libertas in infinitum
Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids In fact it's cold as hell And there's no one there to raise them if you did And all this science I don't understand It's just my job five days a week
I'm a rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
When he heard that 78% of all injury accidents occur within 5 miles of the home,
he moved.
My Heart Is A Flower
You know, if you haven't read the article why would you assume he's saying something that's impossible instead of assuming you must not be getting it?
The concept is pretty simple here. Most people who commute realize that at different times of the day there is less traffic than at other times in the day. The amount of traffic has an effect on the amount of time it takes to get from one point to another. Most people who commute say things like, well if I leave at 4:00pm it takes me 20 minutes to get home. If I leave at 5:00pm it takes me 40 minutes. If I leave at 6:00pm it takes me 30 minutes.
All this guy did was record what time he left and what time he arrived and then correlated the data across different days and different times of the year. In addition he factored in student holidays. He just did a more rigorous examination of the casual observations everyone else makes and concluded that leaving 30 minutes later than normal results in spending the least amount of time in the car.
He in no way said that a person who leaves earlier won't arrive at their destination earlier. You see, that would be stupid.
I am consistently horrified by the miserly 2/3-week holiday allowance that my US cow-orkers seem to consider "normal". The raw minimum in EU states is 4 weeks and most companies offer nearer 5 weeks for established employees.
...
I get 2 months off in the summer. Of course, its called "layoff" so
and I'm a bus driver!!
"Wealth", when used in a political context, means the total value of your assets minus your debts. There are a large number of people with very high incomes and negative net worths, and likewise there are a large number of people with modest incomes but large net worths.
Thanks for the advice! If nothing else, it'll give me something to chew on.
Other places ration by waiting list. As the list grows longer, people will:
a. give up (live with the condition)
b. go to the USA for care
c. die
Resource allocation is highly political. Medical facilities are not located according to where the customers are. They are located according to the political power of your member of Parliament. This has been a huge problem in Canada, except for the people living in Quebec who got all the brain scanners.
Some of us like walking alone in the dark, though.
(disclaimer- this past weekend I mowed myself about a quarter mile running path in the field out behind the house because I want to get into shape by running a little)
Some people might need to visit an US hospital. A large fractions of the MDs are educated outside USA, including many American citizens bored by the high-debt "education system" which actually relies on Kaplan. Then a large part of the MDs working is USA retire outside, usually in Europe (I bet none of the American slashdotters have as a neighbour a retired MD.) Put it the right way, MDs in America are just visitors.
I love the UK. That being said, it's crazy expensive to live there. I've looked at my options and there are almost none that can meet 1/2 my standard of living here in the US. I have no desire to ever work for anyone else again. But if I were to live overseas it would take a pretty hefty salary to get by on.
A currency union (in this case using the Euro) means all the EU countries have to maintain the same economic policy regardless of their own countries economic hardship or gain. Contractionary & Expansionary fiscal policy must be implemented collectively so the GDP of the EU altogether is relevant (as is the growth rate).
The GDP growth in the US is important. The productivity gains are as well.
From: http://www.amasci.com/amateur/traffic/traffic1.ht
"Have you ever been driving on an interstate highway when traffic suddenly slows to a crawl? You inch along for many minutes while waiting to see the accident which must have caused the jam. At the same time you also curse the "rubberneckers" who are causing the whole problem. But then all the cars ahead of you take off at high speed. The jam is over, but no accident, no police cars, nothing. WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?!! A traffic jam with no cause? In the rear-view mirror you see all the poor saps behind you still stuck in the jam. But why? If all those people could just speed up at the same time, the whole traffic jam would evaporate. Why don't they ever do that? What caused the mysterious slowdown in the first place?"
I live and work in Chippewa Falls, WI.
What's all this talk about "rush hour?" Worst thing that can happen is getting stuck behind a tractor pulling organic fertilizer for a mile.
Want to live a better life? Move out of the soul sucking cities and work where the air is clean, and you have Mega Fauna in the woods. (of course, your kids have to know enough not to poke the bear. The REAL bear.)