I'm all about finding the good things that come out of this pandemic, and one that I share with many is not having to deal with my work commute.
As commutes go in Northeast Ohio, mine is on the long-ish side at about 40 minutes each way. I know many people who go longer/farther than that, and many more whose drives to work aren't even half that long.
My office is just shy of 35 miles from my house. That means, in an average week pre-pandemic, I would put 350 miles on my car just to earn a living. Take away six weeks or so each year for vacation and being out of town for my job, and that meant 16,000 miles a year on my car in commutes. I was regularly putting 24K+ total on the odometer annually.
Again, I know people who log more miles, but for me, relative to my past commutes, that was a lot of miles.
Now I end up in the office for one reason or another only about once every 2 or 3 weeks. And when I do drive, there is less traffic on the road than there used to be, as many others are working from home like me.
The downside is that I used to use that drive time to listen to my classical music. Symphonies, in particular, can take 40 minutes to an hour or longer, and now I have to deliberately make time for listening to them. I also haven't listened to an audiobook in more than nine months.
But given the savings in gas and wear and tear on the car, that's a really small price to pay.
Once this thing is over, if I can continue working from my kitchen table a few times a week regularly, I'll feel like something good has come from it.
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