Having to travel an hour and half to work
- Thread starter Shevek
- Start date
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
My blind dad used to travel from London to Woking for HOURS AND HOURS every day, for a very average paid job. Sometimes in the snow
Stop your whining.
On that basis, we'd bring back the 12 hour day at t'mill in a flash
It's one thing to accept life for some people is very shitty indeed, and some people don't realise how lucky they are.
It's quite another to say that a shitty life is somehow a 'good thing'.....
Life wasn't and isn't shitty for him. Commuting is just a part of life. Deal with it.
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
I fail to see how this policy creates a single extra job. OK when the economy is good, it's reasonable to expect people with very specific skills to commute to where they are needed. For example, when Rover closed its factory in Brum, a lot of workers commuted to work for Bombardier, Toyota or Rolls Royce in Derby.
But are you seriously suggesting a general office job in Bolton or Bury couldn't be filled locally, especially at the moment?
(OK here comes the final rant....)
Remember in the days of long days down t'mill, most workers lived within spitting distance of work. OK working conditions may have improved, but an 11 hour day of 8 hours office work, 3 commute may well be *worse* from a health point of view than 12 hours in a nearby factory. Why? Because people who are spending 11 hours away from home don't have time to excerise properly or cook decent meals.
This policy is insanity, from a health, transport, community and sustainabilty point of view. And I firmly dis-commend it to the house.
But are you seriously suggesting a general office job in Bolton or Bury couldn't be filled locally, especially at the moment?
(OK here comes the final rant....)
Remember in the days of long days down t'mill, most workers lived within spitting distance of work. OK working conditions may have improved, but an 11 hour day of 8 hours office work, 3 commute may well be *worse* from a health point of view than 12 hours in a nearby factory. Why? Because people who are spending 11 hours away from home don't have time to excerise properly or cook decent meals.
This policy is insanity, from a health, transport, community and sustainabilty point of view. And I firmly dis-commend it to the house.
Boris Sprinkler
Dont be scared
or get the tax back on your travelcosts.
Shevek...
Dude...
Srsly.
This seems to be another thread that's - basically - staring at an obstacle, instead of looking for solutions. It's - tbf - one massive whinge, to an extent that I haven't seen you whinge before. Yeah, you've stared at obstacles before. Yeah, you've chosen not to look for solutions. But this is just looking (from where I'm sitting) one big, fat, huge, monstrous whinge.
It isn't fair. It's all so horrible.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you haven't actually been offered anything that's 1.5hrs travel away yet? Have you? If not... then ffs, this is a hypothetical whinge about a hypothetical situation. With even more whingeing going on than usual.
And, well... in one post you say you want your partner to support you whilst you do *interesting* work experience; in another you say that you want to keep on claiming JSA, and that you need the money. Man up, ffs.
If you want an interesting job, fucking well find one. You've been whingeing on these boards for long enough, dithering about whether or not anything is good enough for you, or if you are good enough for anything. If you'd taken firm, emphatic, decisive and continuous action when you frist said you would - way back when, when it was all about social anthropology - you'd have... what? A year? Two years? Of solid, hard-arse, evidenced job searching, academia searching, purposeful life-building. Instead, we've had... what? Ten? Twenty? Thirty threads? All saying - essentially - I don't want to play. It's not fair. The world is horrible. I'm taking my ball home.
Tough tits, mate. All this time, your partner's been working. My heart goes out to him, it honestly does. You seem like a bloke with so much potential... Yet everything becomes bogged down in mawkishness, self-pity, fatigue, and playing the victim.
You don't want to be a victim of the Jobcentre's mean pollicy? You want to find a job worthy of a graduate? Well fucking well get looking, then. Crack on. Get sending applications. Shouldn't be hard to apply for anything, everything, whenever, now. Here's a hint: they're not going to find it for you.
If you want the job you want, you have to stop dicking around and get your arse into gear. If you don't want to be in this situation, YOU have to stop dicking around, and start getting your arse out of this situation.
If you don't, then - frankly - more power to you. We each of us live the lives we deserve, we each of us bring about the consequences of our own behaviour. And end up having to endure them. One thing I learnt in my drinking, in an all too literal way, is that if I've shat in my own bed there's no fucking point sitting wallowing in shit, screaming about how unfair it is that someone else has shat in my bed, and bewailing the fact that no other fucker is going to come and clean it up.
If you don't want to carry on wallowing in shit, then for the love of god - please either stop shitting in your own bed, or else begin cleaning it up. And if you decide to keep on wallowing, to change nothing, to keep on plugging away at the same old, same old - then hey, more power to you. But please understand that it is emphatically your choice, your decision to stay there.
Action, action, action.
Good luck.
Dude...
Srsly.
This seems to be another thread that's - basically - staring at an obstacle, instead of looking for solutions. It's - tbf - one massive whinge, to an extent that I haven't seen you whinge before. Yeah, you've stared at obstacles before. Yeah, you've chosen not to look for solutions. But this is just looking (from where I'm sitting) one big, fat, huge, monstrous whinge.
It isn't fair. It's all so horrible.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you haven't actually been offered anything that's 1.5hrs travel away yet? Have you? If not... then ffs, this is a hypothetical whinge about a hypothetical situation. With even more whingeing going on than usual.
And, well... in one post you say you want your partner to support you whilst you do *interesting* work experience; in another you say that you want to keep on claiming JSA, and that you need the money. Man up, ffs.
If you want an interesting job, fucking well find one. You've been whingeing on these boards for long enough, dithering about whether or not anything is good enough for you, or if you are good enough for anything. If you'd taken firm, emphatic, decisive and continuous action when you frist said you would - way back when, when it was all about social anthropology - you'd have... what? A year? Two years? Of solid, hard-arse, evidenced job searching, academia searching, purposeful life-building. Instead, we've had... what? Ten? Twenty? Thirty threads? All saying - essentially - I don't want to play. It's not fair. The world is horrible. I'm taking my ball home.
Tough tits, mate. All this time, your partner's been working. My heart goes out to him, it honestly does. You seem like a bloke with so much potential... Yet everything becomes bogged down in mawkishness, self-pity, fatigue, and playing the victim.
You don't want to be a victim of the Jobcentre's mean pollicy? You want to find a job worthy of a graduate? Well fucking well get looking, then. Crack on. Get sending applications. Shouldn't be hard to apply for anything, everything, whenever, now. Here's a hint: they're not going to find it for you.
If you want the job you want, you have to stop dicking around and get your arse into gear. If you don't want to be in this situation, YOU have to stop dicking around, and start getting your arse out of this situation.
If you don't, then - frankly - more power to you. We each of us live the lives we deserve, we each of us bring about the consequences of our own behaviour. And end up having to endure them. One thing I learnt in my drinking, in an all too literal way, is that if I've shat in my own bed there's no fucking point sitting wallowing in shit, screaming about how unfair it is that someone else has shat in my bed, and bewailing the fact that no other fucker is going to come and clean it up.
If you don't want to carry on wallowing in shit, then for the love of god - please either stop shitting in your own bed, or else begin cleaning it up. And if you decide to keep on wallowing, to change nothing, to keep on plugging away at the same old, same old - then hey, more power to you. But please understand that it is emphatically your choice, your decision to stay there.
Action, action, action.
Good luck.
If you want to change something, for the love of god change it!
You have so much potential - yet waste so much energy on complaining about things. Worrying about consequences, instead of doing things. Turning over hypotheticals, instead of getting on with life.
If you don't want to be in this situation - which, again - is ENTIRELY hypothetical at the mo - then make sure it doesn't happen.
No one is in control of your future, except you.
If you want something, make it happen.
If you don't make it happen, don't be surprised if it doesn't happen.
There's HUGE hope in that message, if you want to listen to it, Shevek. But only if you're willing to look beyond the obstacles, to look beyond the whingeing, and to begin taking control of your life. With action.
You're not a victim, ffs. You're a grown adult who's capable of being whoever the hell he wants to be. Just as soon as he stops whingeing, and starts focusing on hope, enthusiasm, optimism, options, ACTION.
A huge, huge amount. It's a bugger, but what's the alternative? No job?
Oswaldtwistle
Banned
I'm talking, specifically, about three or four hour a day commutes here.
Just looking into this, according to Wikipedia, (which as we all know is *never* wrong
) the 1874 Factory Act set a working day in the textile industry of 9.5 hours. With everyone living near work, that would have meant 10 hours out of the house.Living conditions, health care, wages,health and safety at work were shit in 1874... but these things all improved massively in the following 100 or so years.
So potentially, yes, I think at least some of us would be better off if we all still worked down t'mill.
And that really is enough of my voice for a while.......
_angel_
.
well, if after you pay rent you have no money to eat - yes !
If it's costing £20 a day to travel city to city I can't see how it could work on the minimum wage, unless your travel is being subsidised.
Hours on a local bus - that's one thing, commuting to another city is another.
Theoretically I could get from Leeds- London in 2 hours on the train, but the cost of the train fares means I'd probably have to earn in the region of £40k to even think about it. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
Actually, some min wage jobs don't even cover peoples rent never mind food and transport. Which is crazy.
_angel_
.
It is simply not possible in some cases. I really take exception to the fact that just because something is happening in a modern country it cannot be worse than something that happened in the past.
Once upon a time rents were supposed to be 1/4 of a person's rent and transport was dirt cheap - now rents/ mortgages are sky high and so is public transport, yet people seem to want to stick their heads in the clouds and declare they "used to do it in the old day" and people should "shut up moaning"
Not only, in the past did people not get expected to travel so far everyday, if they did have to travel to work, it cost significantly less than it does now.
And then people whinge about commuters for travelling so far to work everyday for environmental reasons.
_angel_
.
It's the cost of the commute I keep trying to tell you about - if I had to go to York or somewhere on the train, it might actually be quicker than getting a two bus across Leeds, but it would cost me about £100+do it and if it's like the min wage job I went for paying £170 a week, that means I wouldn't eat after paying rent.
Some people's rent wouldn't even be covered by that. How would I or the kids eat? It isn't a choice at all.
People travel whole continents, frequently live away from their loved ones to support them, often to supply us with our cheap goods.
In that context I find it a bit hard to sympathise with the inconvenience of traveling an extra half hour or so commute each way. Gawd, even in London it's comparatively rare not to have to allow nigh on an hour for travel.
I know that sounds vaguely harsh and doom mongering, but it doesn't need to be a permanent arrangement. There will be other jobs to apply for locally in time, or moving can become a possibility. Either way you're better placed than feeling sorry for yourself at home.
In that context I find it a bit hard to sympathise with the inconvenience of traveling an extra half hour or so commute each way. Gawd, even in London it's comparatively rare not to have to allow nigh on an hour for travel.
I know that sounds vaguely harsh and doom mongering, but it doesn't need to be a permanent arrangement. There will be other jobs to apply for locally in time, or moving can become a possibility. Either way you're better placed than feeling sorry for yourself at home.
Wookey
Muppet is not a slur
I would never travel for longer than about half an hour on public transport, each way. Anything more and I would start to feel like a hamster on a wheel!
For my current job, I got a map out and looked at where I could feasibly walk to from my house, and used that to guide me.
I am however quite lucky, in that people tend to fall over themselves to employ me - I'm THAT fabulous that if I was any better, I would have to be twins!
For my current job, I got a map out and looked at where I could feasibly walk to from my house, and used that to guide me.
I am however quite lucky, in that people tend to fall over themselves to employ me - I'm THAT fabulous that if I was any better, I would have to be twins!
_angel_
.
People don't travel across continents daily though.
The OP says he thinks he'd be made to commute across cities - I don't think that would happen because of the stupid cost involved. I cannot see how anyone can think making a long national rail journey every day on £5.80 an hour is even financially possible never mind something to be accepted.
Looby
Well-Known Member
The time is not really the main issue here it's the cost I'd imagine. I'd be more than happy to commute a couple of hours for the right job that paid enough to cover it but I couldn't on my current salary.
I can get to basingstoke in 90 mins but I'd be looking at about 20-24 quid a day in train fares if I couldn't afford to buy a season ticket up front.
That's nearly £500 a month and I earn £1000 a month. There is no way in the world we could afford to do that. It's not about gritting your teeth and getting on with it, it's about surviving on a wage. That's the reality.
This however is nothing to do with Shevek who is being a big old whingebag.
I can get to basingstoke in 90 mins but I'd be looking at about 20-24 quid a day in train fares if I couldn't afford to buy a season ticket up front.
That's nearly £500 a month and I earn £1000 a month. There is no way in the world we could afford to do that. It's not about gritting your teeth and getting on with it, it's about surviving on a wage. That's the reality.
This however is nothing to do with Shevek who is being a big old whingebag.
I fear we've strayed rather from the OP, but sometimes surviving on a wage IS gritting your teeth and getting on with it - there was no alternative for my dad (to use him as an example) as his job was very specialised, and a long daily commute and expensive transport really was the only option. It's not just lying down and accepting it, it's supporting your family and doing what you have to do.
If you're in the position where you can choose between a few jobs, you obviously have more choices.
There are a lot of people in his position. It's a lucky few who get to choose where they work, also earn a lot and do something fun to boot.
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