I have been driving from West Texas to Venice La (803 miles, 1 way) every 2 weeks. Work offshore for 2 weeks and drive home. Thats 14 hours 1 way. I love my job and I don’t mind the drive.
I’m confused. He only works one day a month?
Simple solution: don’t make the commute every week.
Reading all these items, it seems there’s an opportunity or two for handymen or other household helpers in Janesville. Commuting stinks, but not as much as being unemployed. Seems also there should be some car/van pooling going on.
Not unlike the Migratory Herd of Itinerant Engineers.
What an idiotic article about an idiotic person. He can’t move? Or can’t he just get a different job? I suppose as an autoworker, he’ll never find anything that pays half as much for doing so little, but what rule says that you next job has to pay as much as the current one?
Sometimes you just have to follow the job.
Kansas City is a nice place to live. Just move there. If you prefer rural areas, there are some just 15 minutes from the Kansas City, KS plant.
My dad does a week in Idaho, a week in North Dakota, and a week in Seattle. Home is in Boise. He flies though, doesn’t drive.
Do they expect me to feel sympathy for their plight, when they’re going to get a lifetime pension and medical benefits, things I’ll never have for myself, and which I’ll be subsidizing for them as a taxpayer as long as I live, all if they can just hang on to their union jobs a few more months or years? Sorry, go somewhere else for a shoulder to cry on. Or man up and require your family to make their own sacrifices and move to where you are. If GM’s such a “good company”, you should have nothing to worry about.
They’re not moving because his kids are involved at their school and his wife likes her job.
That’s really dumb. Good to know that daily fatherly involvement in the kids’ lives is less important than their school.
However, at least he took a new job instead of whining about not having an jobs in his town.
Sounds like a good gig IMO. Keep the insurance and job, and hope of a buyout in a year or two. HIS CHOICE to not move the family. I had the same choice, after BEING LAID OFF, and chose to move the family and take the loss on the house, and I had no chance of the early retirement. ...
Happens all the time in all kinds of jobs. Had a guy commute 350 miles from St.George Utah to Dugway. One guy that worked for me drove 120 miles each way every day. I lived as close to my work site as was possible, and my commute was 50 miles each way. Sorry, it might make for a great story back east somewhere, but out west it is common.
.....Bob
Only once did I find a hint, in this article, that the UAW even exists; then, it's attached to one of the spotlighted characters in the story.
Logically, then, this article was spoon fed to the press by union agents. All of the commuting men, in order to have any job at all, must be union, have high seniority, and be prominent in their local. I have great respect for these men and their commitment to family, but I feel the UAW had a great deal of influence in their current predicament.
Thinking even more, When the Alaskan pipeline was going in, the worker worked, I think 2 weeks on, and 1 week off. Because of the high cost of living in Fairbanks, the pipeline workers went straight to a plane and went home to their families in Houston and Dallas. Now thats a commute!!!!
.....Bob
Ya know, there’s a lot of jobs like that.
For a while I’d drive my wife to the airport early Monday morning, she’d fly about 500 miles, stay there most of the week, fly back and I’d pick her up Thursday evening. (I actually drove her to work a couple times; was amusing.) Such is the life of a traveling consultant. Another friend has been doing a similar 640 mile commute (each way) for years.
Guy in the lead article is also doing it weekly, just by ground instead of air. So he averages what amounts to a 50-mile-each-way commute; that’s not unusual, he’s just lumping it all into two drives per week. I did a 70+ mile commute (each way) daily for about a year.
You choose your lifestyle and deal with the requirements & consequences. Those with short commutes have less option in where to live. Those with long commutes are away from home more. Sorry, life is tough.
That’s what I’m doing ...
I live near Sacramento and work in Phoenix ... I go home maybe once a month ... once I know that the job is permanent I will make the move and Bye-bye Kalifornia
America has become a nation of wimps