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Man Commutes 1,000 Miles To Work
At the end of every week Michael Hanley leaves his job in Kansas and starts his 530 mile trip back to his home in Wisconsin. After the local GM plant closed down, his family couldn't afford to go without his $28 an hour job or his health insurance. Now Hanley drives over 1,000 miles round-trip weekly with his brother and two brothers-in-law who find themselves in the same situation. "I like to say I gave up an eight-minute commute for an eight-hour commute," he says.
He's just one of thousands who do that. Same thing happened at the Spring Hill, TN plant (old Saturn). Kind of hard to sell everything and move when hundreds of other people in the same community have to do the same thing. All I can say is get your years in and retire ASAP.
I work near Washington, DC, and I know of several people that commute all the way to Central Pennsylvania or even New Jersey every weekend. Sure, it's not quite 1,000 miles, but it's a pretty far "commute" nonetheless.
Personally, I'd hate being away from my family for that long, but I suppose you have to do what you have to do.
I have a bad feeling about this...
He could probably get a small fast airplane for about $20,000 to cut his commute time two thirds. If he resold it after he got another job or moved, it might only cost him a few thousand.
Morrison will have 30 years at GM and can retire with a full pension. He'll be 49 then.
That's why manufacturing jobs are disappearing in the US: BigCo's like Ford & GM will have to pay him a full pension for 25 years, which just about doubles their costs.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Most people think that a commute is a daily thing (not me BTW ; my commute is variable, monthly or several-monthly), so let's put it on a daily basis :
530miles each way, once per week is 1060miles/week. Between 3 people, that's 353.3 miles per person per week.
Assuming 5 working days per week (hah!), that's 71 miles per day. Equivalent to a 35.5 mile round trip each day.
For the average Brit, that would mean someone getting into Leeds from Huddersfield, or Rochdale, or Sheffield.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
I commuted sometimes 600 miles a week, sometimes 1500 miles a week for Chrysler but it was in very different times. they gave me an airline ticket, a hotel and an unlimited per diem as a consultant. I always found it amusing that they spent THAT much money to get me to work and back. Then the unlimited per diem went to 45 dollars. then the airline tickets price had a cap. then I could only fly if it was over x number of miles or rent a (chrysler) car under x number of miles. Then it went from 3 days a week on site to 2. Eventually, I and all my colleagues lost our contract. It was a veeery different time back then. and we consultants got to watch/experience the decline.
I can understand this person's situation. I started a new job almost 2 years ago, I was driving approximately 550 to 635 miles per week (not including around town driving), now this mileage could vary depending on driving conditions since the weather(I live in Upstate New York) could actually affect the route I would have to take. I've thankfully got friends that let me stay at their home during the week which brings my commute down to about 140 miles per week(again, weather permitting). Unfortunately, I can't afford to change my living arrangements currently and I've been doing this for nearly 2 years. It's the culture that we live in now that forces us to do these types of things, the guy in this article is lucky enough to have other people to "carpool" with, some of us don't have that luxury. I can say that the benefits of my employer are great which is the reason why I gave up a 30 minute round trip commute to a 3 hour round trip commute.
Who knew life could be this funny?
There are about 10k workers who "commute" 6000km (3800 miles) between work and home. But since it isn't daily, the line between commute and working away becomes blurred. (These long "commutes" are done by plane about every other weekend.)
It is fairly normal from what I gather for Mine workers to be flown from all corners of the country on the mining company's expense to and from the site. Though of course it is normal for these workers to do VERY long shifts and something like a 3 weeks on 3 days off schedule. Expenses incurred attracting skilled workers are probably a non-issue for a large mining company.
I live in New York City and work in Los Angeles. This is a 4950 mi round-trip commute for me every two weeks. I'm sure this is not that unusual.
Calgary to Ft. McMurray and back. Round trip 1470 Km or 910 miles. Many workers have done this on a weekly basis over the years.
Me: I used to commute monthly to the mideast: round trip of greater than 16,000 miles.
ho hum.
Seriously. Not news--not even idle worthy, people have been doing this in Canada for years. I know people who commute from Trois-Rivieres(QC), to London(On) and Windsor(On) every week.
Back about 10 years ago, a buddy of mine commuted from Hamilton(On) to Winnipeg(MB), every week for over 4 years.
Om, nomnomnom...
All of us know (and some are) high-paid consultants who fly to work in some distant city on Monday, work from noon Monday to Thursday and fly back on Friday. This is a little bit different. It shows how messed up the economy is though, and this is a great example.
Put yourself in this guy's shoes. If you graduate high school and don't want to or can't spend the time and money on college, the best thing to do is get a nice safe manufacturing job. He has union protection, what he thought was a guaranteed job, and guaranteed retirement. If my plant closed and I was a year away from a full pension, I think I'd do the commute. Some people can't move, and it would be stupid to lose the biggest retirement income stream he probably has. (Defined benefit pension plans cover a percentage of your salary in retirement...they're what used to make up the difference that Social Security didn't pay. Now everyone's betting their own future and money in the stock market casino...no wonder market volatility is so bad.)
Despite what you think, it's not too far a leap to this scenario... You're a high-earning IT professional living in New York, Boston, Chicago or (pick your high-cost-of-living city.) Your company says, "Sorry, we're outsourcing most of our IT work to India, and the rest is moving to our contractor's East Redneckland, AL office. You can hire on with the contractor, but you'll have to move to East Redneckland." You might say, "OK, I guess I'll get another job." But what happens when every single company in your area moves their operations to East Redneckland? This very scenario has happened to me several times, and I'm running out of companies to jump to. Luckily I'm not completely tied to my employer like this guy is, but I definitely don't want to move unless there's no other way to make money in the future. I'm just saying that those who scoff and say this will never happen to them are not thinking things through to their logical conclusion.
People who make economic policy decisions need to understand that not everyone is a highly-skilled corporate employee, and when people's jobs are taken away, not everyone is an entrepreneur-type. I hate it when people say, "Why can't these lazy idiots start their own businesses?" If you don't have the skills, starting a business is a huge waste of time and a ticket to bankruptcy court. Small retail businesses are a total dead end due to large competitors, restaurants are a dead end because no one has the money to eat out anymore, etc. etc. I say we go back to a previous era where large,, well established businesses provide guaranteed jobs for an entire career. We should also stop encouraging 401(k)-style savings, and go back to pension funds. Fund managers in a pension have 30, 40, 50 years to make up for any losses they have in the market...once your 401(k) is gone, you're broke.