Long Commute with Elementary Kids at Home

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - I'm originally from that area. My DH would leave the house at 6am, then leave the office at 4pm, home usually by 5. Can you swing this, have your DH take morning duty, then put your kids in aftercare? If you are home by 5 or even 6, you'd see them for a bit before bedtime.

I would do it for a year if I wanted a better career opportunity but that commute from SJ to SF is indeed a soul crusher.

Most companies out there are willing to provide flextime even for contractors. After a few months, can you ask about this?

+1 I've lived in that area for about 18 years. Really 1hr commutes are normal there. I lived out at the end of a BART line and with 15min drive, park, 45 train ride, another 10min walk to office. 2x a day. another 30min isn't really that much more than that if you think about it. As long as your husband is supportive I would be up for it if it was my dream job. I think as you get started, hopefully they see you do good work and then can hopefully accomodate an earlier start time. My brother for instance has a 1.5hr drive into the city each day, and he's able to reduce drive time down just a bit by getting there for a 6am start...I would NEVER be able to wake up for that daily, but he's can so it's really dependent on how you're able to handle the time shifts.

[Anonymous]

90 min. each way is too long. I get that you want a job, but this isn't it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - I'm originally from that area. My DH would leave the house at 6am, then leave the office at 4pm, home usually by 5. Can you swing this, have your DH take morning duty, then put your kids in aftercare? If you are home by 5 or even 6, you'd see them for a bit before bedtime.

I would do it for a year if I wanted a better career opportunity but that commute from SJ to SF is indeed a soul crusher.

Most companies out there are willing to provide flextime even for contractors. After a few months, can you ask about this?

+1 I've lived in that area for about 18 years. Really 1hr commutes are normal there. I lived out at the end of a BART line and with 15min drive, park, 45 train ride, another 10min walk to office. 2x a day. another 30min isn't really that much more than that if you think about it. As long as your husband is supportive I would be up for it if it was my dream job. I think as you get started, hopefully they see you do good work and then can hopefully accomodate an earlier start time. My brother for instance has a 1.5hr drive into the city each day, and he's able to reduce drive time down just a bit by getting there for a 6am start...I would NEVER be able to wake up for that daily, but he's can so it's really dependent on how you're able to handle the time shifts.

This is absolutely true. I work for a bay area tech company and I JUMPED at the opportunity to transfer to Dulles when a position opened up here. It is a bit comical when I hear people complain here about commutes and the COL.. Yea, I live in Ashburn and it is no Glen Park, but holy crap has our quality of life improved. Low mortgage, low commute, outstanding public schools, and basically the same income. Dream. Come. True.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks so much for all the replies. They're all over the map between "no way" and "suck it up for a year," but if nothing else, this tells me I read the situation correctly, anyway. It's just nice to hear that other people get it.

My husband's salary more than doubled when we moved to the Bay Area, so it's been worth it for us despite traffic and increased costs. But it's true that my former complaints about housing prices in Northern Virginia seem a little petty in hindsight...it's all relative, I guess!

And to the person who didn't like my use of TL;DR - deep breath, buddy. It'll be okay.

[Anonymous]

My vote is no way. Uber sounds better. 90 min x 2= 3 hrs a day in the car. That's 15 hrs travelling a week.

[Anonymous]

On every site I read, TL;DR is the short version

[Anonymous]

Would you take the job if you could telecommute a couple days per week? Or have a flex arrangement with every other Friday off? Is it the kind of job/industry where those arrangements are common? Could you ask about them in an interview without it being off-putting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP - I'm originally from that area. My DH would leave the house at 6am, then leave the office at 4pm, home usually by 5. Can you swing this, have your DH take morning duty, then put your kids in aftercare? If you are home by 5 or even 6, you'd see them for a bit before bedtime.

I would do it for a year if I wanted a better career opportunity but that commute from SJ to SF is indeed a soul crusher.

Most companies out there are willing to provide flextime even for contractors. After a few months, can you ask about this?

+1 I've lived in that area for about 18 years. Really 1hr commutes are normal there. I lived out at the end of a BART line and with 15min drive, park, 45 train ride, another 10min walk to office. 2x a day. another 30min isn't really that much more than that if you think about it. As long as your husband is supportive I would be up for it if it was my dream job. I think as you get started, hopefully they see you do good work and then can hopefully accomodate an earlier start time. My brother for instance has a 1.5hr drive into the city each day, and he's able to reduce drive time down just a bit by getting there for a 6am start...I would NEVER be able to wake up for that daily, but he's can so it's really dependent on how you're able to handle the time shifts.

Another 50% or 30 minutes is definitely a lot more. That's a full extra hour a day. San Jose to SF, I assume you're planning to take CalTrain, which is not the most dependable. Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather go the work my way up route. In a year, you'll still have the same resume, with just one added year of experience in a higher level job. That will not necessarily help you that much and you'll have to do another job search.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On every site I read, TL;DR is the short version

You must only read reddit then.

[Anonymous]

For one year I'd do it. Short facetime/phone call with the kids when they get home from school each day. If they offer you the job, ask if one telecommute day per week would be possible. When I got my first post-SAHM job, I negotiated more re: work hours/telecommute rather than salary and got what I wanted.

Use it as a step to another job at your level that's closer to home.

[Anonymous]

Personally I couldn't do it because I wouldn't be able to handle a 90 min commute. We had to move because my 1+ hour was too much in this area once we had our first child. Are your children in any extra activities and sports and can your DH handle the driving or arrange carpools? That would be my other worry. My DH travels a lot and I feel like unpaid uber these days driving them around after work. Working for uber sounds tempting. Thanks for the idea.

[Anonymous]

I really value having a career. Sadly I am divorced, so I think that is a factor. But I also think it's important for my children to see that mom's work (as in career jobs, not just "work at home" or "volunteer but call it work" etc.)

I'd say a one year commitment is a very good price to pay. For one thing, if things go well (and there's no reason to think they wouldn't) you might well get some telecommuting and/or other flex arrangement as your manager trusts you. For another thing, your children are reaching that age when it will mean more for your family to have more money.

[Anonymous]

So, what happens at the end of the one year? You said it is a one year commitment. At the end of that, are you hoping to find a job closer to home in the new field? I would just keep in mind that that may not happen instantaneously, so you are likely looking at more like a year and a half or longer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Summary: We have two sons, ages 9 and 7. I'm looking for some input/advice/anecdotes on dealing with a very long commute when you have children around this age. This arrangement would last for one year. Any thoughts would be most welcome.

TL;DR version: When my husband and I got married, I was an administrative assistant. Not exactly a superstar career, right? So when my husband started earning good money and we started having babies, it made sense for me to stay home for a couple of years. I've since dipped in and out of the workforce depending on where we were living at the time (we've moved around a bit for DH's career), but all of my jobs have been pretty low-level: bookkeeper, office manager, things like that. I've been bored with these roles for a while, but I never really went after anything more intense. These jobs were generally 9-5 or part-time gigs for family-friendly organizations not very far from home, and for a long time I was content with that tradeoff, and deliberately sought it out.

But six months ago, we moved again for DH's work (we are thinking for the last time until the kids are out of high school - fingers crossed!) and I started looking for a job. I wanted to try and push myself beyond office manager. I've got a master's degree now - I managed to swing that when I was working one of those admin roles - and I figured, why not at least try to aim a little higher now that I have this degree? It hasn't gone well, unfortunately. It's not like I'm applying to be CEO, but I think when hiring managers see my resume with all its low-level jobs, they dismiss me pretty quickly as a member of the secretarial pool.

One option is to take an Office Manager kind of role and try to move up the ranks, and that's what I'll probably do if nothing else works out. (Though realistically, how often have you seen that happen?) But in the meantime, I've managed to land one interview for a slightly higher-level job. It's a one-year contract with an amazing company and would, I think, be such a huge step in the right direction. It also pays significantly more than anything else I've ever done. I think having this on my resume could be the thing that changes the course of my career.

The big big big downside, however, is that it's a good 90+ minute commute each way. Ugh. I'm not in the DC area anymore, but if you know the Bay Area, it's San Jose to SF. It's the kind of commute people say NEVER to. I could use public transportation, so I wouldn't be sitting in traffic the whole time, but it's a hell of a lot of hours out of the week when I'm not with my children.

On the plus side, DH has a short commute and works for a wonderful, flexible employer. He could pick up a lot of the slack and is supportive. And I tell myself, it's only a year. A person can put up with anything for a year, and then going forward I can take this experience and use it to get a job much closer to home.

On the negative side, I'd be leaving the house before my children wake up in the morning and seeing them only after they eat dinner. I couldn't do anything with them during the week.

Part of me just wants to say "fuck all of it" and drive for uber or something. I'd make some money, if not a lot, and it would be completely my own schedule. But then I start thinking about the possibilities with this job and get really excited.

Anyone been there? Would you do it for a year to improve your career, or no way never no how? Is that kind of commute as terrible as I'm imagining it is?

Thanks!

I live in San Jose and have done that commute; it's not fun, but it's doable. And I don't as in the most southern part of SJ... if you can flex your time at all (either going really early or starting at 9:30 or 10 and leaving a little late (after 6:@0) the drive won't take more than an hour, hour ten most days. I would do it; what do you have to lose? If it doesn't work, give notice and then drive uber or whatever.

[Anonymous]

I would only do it if I had a driver so I could make phone calls, make dr's appt, email, grocery shop ect...