How did I end up with a job where I get up at 5.30am?!

[shouldntBeButIAm]

Just drinking my swift coffee and getting ready for work and wondering how I ended up with a job getting up at 5.30 and an almost 2 hour commute each way! AIBU for thinking there must be more to life?!

Urghhh. Getting ready for the same. I do two days from home though most weeks and that helps. For various reasons I can't think week and I know I'll be like a chewed piece of string come Friday. Friday is also the Christmas party and I'm not going to feel like it with the commute home hanging over me.

Grim. I used to get up at 4am OP. But that was to start work at 6am and finish at 2pm. It was also shifts so didn't have to do it every day.

I was lucky enough to got a job last year that is 10 minutes each way by car on a good day and 20 minutes on a busy day. I really don't know how I used to manage an hour each way before. Any progression within my organization would involve the long commute again. I am not even considering it again for another 6-7 years until both my DC are in high school.

I recently took a step down to allow me a shorter commute, shorter hours and less responsibility so I'm not being called out of hours. I am close by for when the school calls and it makes holidays a lot easier but I am very very bored. I can also see all the men with their wives supporting the home/taking a step back overtaking me. I'm resigned to it now though, simply can't work like that and have happy kids, plus I was stupidly stressed.

Ugh you couldn’t pay me enough to do that!

I've just resigned from a job where I was up at 5:30 to get a 6:30 train for the next 1.5 hours. It was better pay but I never really got used to it.

I'm doing about three hours driving a day and it kills me. I'm not even "properly" full time, I do 32 hours. I'm shattered and it's only Tuesday.

BUT I'm trying to see this as a ten year plan and am hoping to save, put a reasonable amount in my pension and overpay the mortgage so I can go down to three days when I turn 42. Whether that happens remains to be seen. Sometimes I feel like I'm living entirely for the benefit of my future self and it scares me to think I might not even be around to enjoy it, none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, after all.

Up at 5.15am with a 1.5 hour commute here. However, like a PP, I work from home 2 days a week (most weeks) to balance that, and I couldn't have my career (or the salary it brings) closer to home. Not sure how much harder it's going to be when DC is born early next year though!

Your commute must cost a bomb, OP! Is it really worth it?
I would either move the family closer to the job or find another job. Calculate a pay cut against the cost of commuting and childcare.

Yanbu. A huge problem with our culture is that we live to work, we don’t work to live. There’s a dreadful work/life imbalance and what’s more, we not only go along with it, we perpetuate it too! We give our jobs the best of ourselves while leaving the worn out scraps for our loved ones and personal interests. It’s bad for our physical and mental health, our relationships and our children. We squeeze our actual lives into whatever tiny pocket of time is left after a day of servitude to the man...and what’s more, we sneer at and judge other people who don’t do the same! We’re controlled by it and we preach it as an idealised way of life!

In principle I’m an advocate of the four day week. Imagine how much happier we’d all be if we had that extra time to fit in our actual lives and those we love?

It’s crazy but we all dance along to the tune.

I also get up at 0530. Have a 45 minute commute, one solid drive, which I share (my day to be passenger today!). I have done worse commutes and a few better. Not much choice if I want to live in the Lakes because the employment is on the fringes of the county, generally. I like to get in super early and leave early. I wouldn't like to rely on public transport.

Commuting costs really vary, passthegin, and are actually often high for shorter commutes, housing costs more near fast rail lines. The London end can be time consuming.

Pay differences can be huge, eg 50-60%

Could you work 2 days from home and stay a couple of nights in London?

. A huge problem with our culture is that we live to work, we don’t work to live

It’s more than cultural it’s economic. We can’t live without working in jobs with long commutes because, for so many of us, jobs don’t exist locally!

I couldn't do that. Commutes like that are unheard of here (I'm in Scotland). DH and I commutes are around 20 minutes.

I was going to say I quite like doing this (actually getting up at 5am) as I've done my 8 hour day by 2pm and am home by 2:40pm with loads and loads of day left to enjoy... (I used to do that in my previous job, and nowadays my DH has Flexi office hours and chooses to leave the house at 5:45am, start at 6:30am and 3pm when this works for the children around my shifts).

However then I saw that you have a mammoth commute rather than early start meaning early finish. That sucks

That was me for years. Not so bad when it was light outside, but horrendous in the winters.

I finally got an opportunity for the same job locally. I am now 20mns walk to the office. It is heaven!

I used to work one day at home and I assumed it might be hard to go back to 5 days in the office, but it's not until I started that I realised how utterly exhausting commuting was. It's the constant frustration, traffic, cancelled and delayed trains, rude people (rude because fed up just the same!), the constant noise, so much stimulation that makes it very hard to unwind from.

Hopefully you are constantly looking for something closer and your time will come when the perfect job finally appears.

*and leave at 3pm that should say

Early mornings and commuting (on an unreliable and packed) train line kill me too.

I live and work in London and my commute is often 2 hours. I’m really over it but feel very stuck

Thanks for all of the replies, I half expected to be told it's of my own making (which it is!).

I'm on the train now.

Moving back to London definitely not an option. One of the reasons we moved was for my son who has ASD to go to a small school (130 kids aged 4-11 rather than 750 at his old London school). Living in a village really suits him too, he is like a different child.

It sucks but it is strangely comforting to know I'm not alone! My earnings by going to London are double what they would be at best locally and DH is a stay at home dad (to be there for our son around school as when we were both working our son struggled hugely with wrap around care).

I wouldn't really want to stay overnight regularly as I travel for work at least every other month, sometimes monthly already and I miss the kids and they miss me (and DH goes a bit barmy although he doesn't complain!).

It is what it is but it's nice to feel it's not just me!

I did that once. It turned me into a geriatric.

Been there done that. It's the absolute pits isn't it?

My rail fare was also hideously expensive back then but I understand from friends who still do long commutes that the rail fares are astronomical now.

I hope you managed to get a seat on the train!

@iMatter I have a seat!

If you are able to get a seat, can you at least see the commute as ‘Me time’ for the day?

So many of us just end up automatically working / doing emails but if you can use it to read / listen to a podcast or music you can reclaim the time, although it doesn’t fully compensate for the cost or the early alarm!

I only work a 20 min walk away but get up at 5 anyway (5 hours before I start work!) as I like to have lots of spare time in the day. I read, write, exercise, play my guitar. It's my fave time of day