revjim.net

Yesterday, I fully intended to work from home. Unfortunately, my intentions do not always line up with reality.

I got up just after 5:00am, jumped in the shower, made some coffee and was "at work" by 5:45. I only had one meeting — a conference call — scheduled for the day. I can do conference calls from home, but, I was pretty sure it would be cancelled anyway. So I started work: sending emails, building report, performing reviews, etc.

At 6:45 the message came in that the meeting was cancelled. I jumped over to my calendar to move the meeting and that's when I saw that I had forgotten about another meeting: a face-to-face with my boss and his boss at 10:30. I can't do a face-to-face from home. I'm pretty good, but I'm not that good. Depressed, upset, and knowing what lay in wait, I changed clothes quickly and was on the road by 7am, an hour later than usual.

My trip into civilization requires me to pass through small towns on small roads. These small roads run pretty smoothly most of the time. But, as soon as the number of people on them exceeds a certain threshold, the timing on all of the lights becomes problematic and traffic nearly stops. By delaying my departure by one hour, I increased my commute from 40 minutes to 90 minutes.

What really confuses me is the attitude some people take when making this bumper-to-bumper to commute. The roads are packed from 6:30am until 9:30am everyday. So as long as you've made the trip even once, it should be no surprise to you. Additionally, for a large portion of it there's only one lane in each direction and the cars continue on for miles. So passing people or tailgating in an attempt to get ahead or get people to speed up really serves no purpose.

The lady behind me had an utter lack of understanding of this principle. She would race up on my ass every time traffic would move as if riding closer to me would make the cars in front of me go faster.

There's one light where everyone going straight gets into a long line on the shoulder because the center lane is left only at the light. This lady considered this an opportunity. Instead of lining up like everyone else, she raced forward and then, one she got to the light, stopped with her blinker on. Now she's holding up traffic turning left and expecting someone to let her "cut" in line. She started out directly behind me and, when I got to the light, the car in front of me let her in. In other words, all of her frustration and trouble earned her a two space advance. Big deal.

Once a second lane was added she started weaving and dodging through the already sardine packed cars. 10 miles down the road at the big intersection where traffic finally lets up, I could still see her, her constantly tapping breaks a dead give away.

Silly lady.