Goodbye I-4! I won’t miss ya!

Today sees the end of a phase of my life that has lasted pretty much uninterrupted for 32 years. In 1981, I got my first real job and, naturally, that meant that I had to get dressed and ready to drive to work…my first commute.

Over the years, the ride (or walk) to work has taken on many forms. It’s been at various times of day, as with going to the Hogan Road McDonald’s in Bangor…opens, closes, and shifts in between. It’s been short, as with the jaunt across the old Brewer bridge to a bank processing center. It’s been long, as with the drive down to Northeast Harbor to an insurance company’s office. It’s been done on pleasant spring mornings and in treacherous icy snowstorms. It’s been in cab rides to the airport in the wee hours of each Monday morning. It’s been in a carpool with a buddy. It’s been part of a circle of dropping kids off at school and of being dropped off and picked up myself.

Today is the last time I will need to do any of that for the foreseeable future. Tomorrow, my commute is from my bed to my PC, as I join the ranks of the work-from-home nation.

I might miss my time to listen to podcasts and music, but I won’t miss the traffic, and I will certainly enjoy getting back the couple hours of prep and drive time each day. It will be nice to save money on gas and food. There will be less social time at lunch, but there will be less money spent on it, too. And I will have time to cook dinner rather than dragging butt home around 7pm each night and saying, “Screw it. Let’s go to McDonald’s or order pizza.”

I might revisit this after a few months and come to hate it, but I don’t think so. I’m comfortable sitting at a PC and communicating with people via the internets. And technology makes it such that I could go to Panera or Starbucks and do the same thing in a different setting (with lattes!). So, I’m betting that this will work out just fine.

But for now, I gotta go. It’s foggy out this morning, and that means slow traffic and accidents on the road…

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10 Responses to Goodbye I-4! I won’t miss ya!

  1. Les says:

    My job is the sort where I could only do about half of it from home. The other half requires me to interact physically with the PC I’m working on. So while I do occasionally have “work from home” days when I’m sick or the roads are bad, I’m limited in what tickets I can work on as a result.

    About the only way my commute will come to an end anytime soon is if I win the lotto.

  2. Ric The Schmuck says:

    Which of course prompts the obligatory response….

    This means you could do all of that back here, right?

    {ducking}

    Congratulations. It sounds wonderful.

  3. Solonor says:

    Why, yes…yes, it does… 😉

  4. ChariD says:

    ::JEALOUS:: I work in downtown Orlando and live east of it, so end up navigating SR408 each morning and evening. It’s gotten a lot better now that the construction is almost finished, but still…

    Congrats on being able to work from home! I’m hoping your company has recognized the savings for our environment (and your pocketbook) rooted in that privilege. 🙂 I get to work from home every other Friday, so there’s that at least.

    Enjoy!

  5. Karan says:

    As someone who has worked from home since 1995, let me give you a few hints…place your work space in a nobody allowed without an invitation zone. Make your computer and pencil box off limits. Keep your desk clear of clutter. wear pj’s if you want to but do the shower and vitamin taking first thing in the morning or they get lost in the day. Be careful at telling folks that you work from home because envy is an ugly thing. Keep up your social life so you don’t feel isolated from human companionship but get a dog to keep you company at work. Don’t ever drink more than one beer during the work period. Make your own lunch, as fancy as you want, in your kitchen and take as long as you want to eat it. Take a bath in the middle of the day and….

    Take as many breaks as you want and as much as possible, schedule your work around your life,…otherwise aside from saving gasoline, what’s the benefit?

  6. Karan says:

    And btw, congratulations!

  7. Solonor says:

    Those are my thoughts exactly, Karan. My temperament has always been “tell me what needs to be done, then go away and let me do it.” So, this is great. As long as the work gets done and I’m available for conference calls and customer support, my boss has never been one to care how I work. This is just one less restriction on it.

    My job basically can be done anywhere there is a phone and an internet connection…so, the “home” part of “work-from-home” isn’t even a restriction.

  8. J says:

    Just think Brother, if you moved back here you wouldn’t have to go out in the snow at all. I am jealous, think of the money you’ll save on wardrobe. Can we say sweatpants?
    Enjoy!

  9. Kim says:

    Congrats, Solly and welcome to the ranks of the great unwashed! I mean that. finding time to shower seems to get harder when you work from home. Karan has some great advice there.

  10. Scott says:

    Congrats! Just got over here — been meaning to check in on all the old blogging crew. 🙂

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