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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not want to walk for an hour?

208 replies

Summering23 · 16/03/2023 21:44

This is a question regarding travel to work during public transport strikes. One of my in office days fell on a tube strike day but my boss insisted that I still go in via bus.
As expected I couldn’t get on a bus for ages due to overcrowding and then the actual bus itself took three times longer than it should have. This meant I was over an hour late in.

I wasn’t in trouble but a comment was made that I should’ve just walked. The walk would have been around an hour according to Google and I don’t know the route at all. Plus to be perfectly honest I’m not up for an hour long walk after getting kids up and fed, walking to the station and a train commute.

AIBU?

OP posts:
Copperoliverbear · 16/03/2023 23:07

You should have just commented back maybe I should have just worked from home.

Luredbyapomegranate · 16/03/2023 23:08

The protestors are find and aren’t going to interfere with a person walking. Loads of people walking today (obviously)

notangelinajolie · 16/03/2023 23:09

For one day only I would have got a taxi but if money was an issue I would have got up early and walked.

Tinybrother · 16/03/2023 23:13

lipstickwoman · 16/03/2023 23:03

The reasonable adjustment should be perhaps starting 30 mins later. Not not turning up at all.

She did turn up though

Startingagainn · 16/03/2023 23:14

Summering23 · 16/03/2023 23:02

I feel there’s quite a lot of people commenting that they’d enjoy the walk but I wonder if they’d enjoy it on top of having got up and got kids fed and ready, animals sorted, self ready, walk to station, 45 minute train commute etc. plus there’s a big difference between a nice hour long walk through London for pleasure with no time constraints than an hour long walk trying to get to work for a certain time following a map on your phone when the streets are literally full of thousands of people.

YANBU at all. I don’t know why people are being so sanctimonious. Personally I love walking in London if the weather is pleasant, but an hour would be on the longer side of what I’d be prepared to walk in work clothes and a heavy Laptop to carry. And depending on how well I had slept or how mud energy I’d expended that morning I may not be up for it.

The real question is why is your boss ordering you to go into the office on a tube strike day when you could have easily WFH. He is being unreasonable, not you. I can’t believe people are justifying this.

OnTheBoardwalk · 16/03/2023 23:21

I’m thinking it's a lot of posters that walk up Mount Everest every morning who think an hour walk is nothing

Google map time doesn’t include all the roads you have to wait and cross or the people walking at a snails pace in front of you

i wouldn’t walk an hour to work

Tinybrother · 16/03/2023 23:25

I happily walked over an hour to and from work years ago when I lived in a big city, and I only had to look after myself and didn’t need to drop children off at childcare that didn’t open until 30 minutes before I was due to start work, and closed 50 minutes after I was scheduled to finish.

Original poster
Summering23 · 16/03/2023 23:27

I didn’t think the protestors were going to interfere with me but it’s a lot of people to try and navigate around .

OP posts:
Lou670 · 16/03/2023 23:30

It depends on how it was said? If I was held up in traffic for whatever reason and spoke about it later I may say 'oh I should I walked', not meaning it literally but in a sense of it would have been quicker to have walked in hindsight. Like you if I was in work attire including footwear and carrying work paraphernalia then I would not have walked. People are pointing out to you that you were aware of/should have known about the strikes, same goes for the employer who should have expected some delays from people trying to get there.

EnidSpyton · 17/03/2023 00:05

As a one off I wouldn't have had an issue with walking an hour to work. We've all experienced strikes before and know what it's like. Getting the bus on a strike day just means sitting in gridlock, so I would have prepared in advance to walk and planned my morning accordingly. I live in central London and walk 40 mins every day to get to work, but then I don't have kids and that is the only journey I have to do - if it were 40 mins after a train journey and having to get to a station and so on I'm sure I'd feel differently about it, so I do get where you're coming from.

I do think though that you shouldn't have been put in this position in the first place. You work in a role that allows wfh, so your boss was being unreasonable in not allowing you to swap wfh days to avoid the strike. They'd have got a better day's work out of you by not making you face a stressful and tiring journey. Really poor management. I let all my team wfh on strike days this week, and we replanned our schedules accordingly. It's not as if this strike came out of nowhere - we had plenty of notice.

Your boss forcing you to come in and then making a snide comment about how you should have planned the journey better would make me reflect on whether I really wanted to work for such a person, to be honest.

viques · 17/03/2023 00:10

To use “ I don’t know the route” as an excuse is pretty pathetic. If by some miracle you don’t have a phone, then you spend a few minutes writing it down on a bit of paper.

Ambata · 17/03/2023 00:10

Surely if you'd walked all the way you'd have been late anyway so I don't see what difference it would have made.

You were late because of the strikes, regardless.

lobeliasb · 17/03/2023 00:11

Nimbostratus100 · 16/03/2023 22:00

good grief! My children chose to walk that to school most days instead of getting the bus- during the pandemic I walked 2 hours to work. and 2 hours back. During previous tube strikes I have walked 3 hours

3 miles is nothing at all, it is quite shocking that anyone thinks it is a big deal for a one off strike day

Did you walk ten miles through the snow each way to school back in your day as well?

ShapesAndNumbers · 17/03/2023 00:14

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

googgodno · 17/03/2023 00:16

On the London threads everyone bangs on about how "walkable" it is. Apparently so easy to walk. Also, there's a bus every 5 minutes etc.

Hmm 🤔

DontMakeMeShushYou · 17/03/2023 00:18

@Summering23
Plus to be perfectly honest I’m not up for an hour long walk after getting kids up and fed, walking to the station and a train commute.

Why would it be an hour's walk after walking to the station and a train commute? I thought the point was that there was a train strike?

googgodno · 17/03/2023 00:18

Dead leg 🤣

googgodno · 17/03/2023 00:20

"Are people not understanding the extra time out of the day."

No, everyone understands. But the OP was over an hour late to work because she spent hours waiting for a bus when she could've just used her brain and started walking

Ambata · 17/03/2023 00:22

Nimbostratus100 · 16/03/2023 22:00

good grief! My children chose to walk that to school most days instead of getting the bus- during the pandemic I walked 2 hours to work. and 2 hours back. During previous tube strikes I have walked 3 hours

3 miles is nothing at all, it is quite shocking that anyone thinks it is a big deal for a one off strike day

They not have busses where you are?

Seriously, what is this I Am Legend crap?

JennyDarlingRIP · 17/03/2023 00:23

I would walk an hour to work on a nice crisp day, but not when I've already walked to the station and then been on a train for 45 minutes and have to lug a heavy backpack whilst wearing work attire.
Yanbu

freckles20 · 17/03/2023 00:24

Providing you don't have mobility issues I would absolutely expect you to walk for an hour or more ontop of your commute in order to get to work.

DontMakeMeShushYou · 17/03/2023 00:26

Summering23 · 16/03/2023 22:55

It was a power trip thing I’m sure as I regularly wfh and we all usually do when there’s a train strike but the tube strikes don’t affect him!

I could easily do an hours walk if not dressed for work. But in work clothes and work shoes laden down with my laptop and the other stuff I have to lug in yes I’d be sweaty and my feet would hurt.

Dead leg may not have been the right term but I get this thing where the muscles in my leg feel like they go hard like a plank of wood and then I’m struggling to walk. Like one of those dreams where you are running but getting nowhere. Anyway it tends to happen when I’m rushing because I need/want to get somewhere in time. I’m a naturally fast paced walker anyway but I need to try not to rush too much.

Cramp? Is that what you meant?

If you genuinely get cramp whilst walking, you ought to see your GP sooner rather than later.

Spiderboy · 17/03/2023 00:28

i definitely would have walked but I am not Walk shy and can use google maps. Can you?

you wouldn’t have been so late otherwise surely?

DontMakeMeShushYou · 17/03/2023 00:29

Hotvimto3 · 16/03/2023 22:32

Are people not understanding the extra time out of the day. When you have kids its impossible to lose that time

Impossible to lose it whilst walking, but acceptable to lose it whilst waiting for a bus?

Whataretheodds · 17/03/2023 00:31

Summering23 · 16/03/2023 21:57

Maybe I’m just lazy then! If it was just the walk it might be more palatable but it was on top of my commute. Plus walking through London on a strike day with thousands of protestors/ picketers wouldn’t have been the nice stroll I think some of you are imagining.

I did, it was fine.