The I-565 merge was backed up past the on-ramp at 7:26 last Tuesday, brake lights as far as I could see, and I realized I didn't mind. I had a library audiobook at the good part, a travel mug that was still warm and nowhere to be until 8. In my first month at this job, that same backup would have had me gripping the wheel and composing an email to nobody.
My commute is 38 minutes each way: from southeast Decatur, across the river, east on I-565 past Mooresville and the airport and into Huntsville's research park. I'm in the office Tuesday through Thursday, so that's 76 minutes a day and close to four hours a week. Over a year, it adds up to more than four full 40-hour work weeks spent in my 2018 RAV4.
I did that math in 2023, when I was deciding whether to leave the hospital for a project management job in Huntsville. The pay jump was $16,500, and the commute was the price. I took the job. I also decided that if I was going to spend four work weeks a year in the car, I'd plan them like anything else.
From the HR side: in exit interviews, the commute rarely made the official list of reasons someone left, but it came up in the conversation more often than you'd think. It wears people down quietly, and quiet things are easy to ignore.
Tuesdays are for books
Tuesday mornings are my favorite drive of the week, because I save them for audiobooks. I borrow them free through our public library with my library card, keep holds on three or four at a time and take whatever comes in. At my pace, a 10-hour book takes about three weeks of office days. I've finished seven since Labor Day, including two I would never have picked up in print.
Tuesday afternoon is podcasts, because by 5 p.m. I can't follow a plot anymore.
Wednesdays are for calls
Wednesday is my calling day. On the way in, I call my mom in Florence, who has been up since 5 and considers 7:30 the middle of the morning. We talk for most of the drive about nothing in particular, which is exactly what I need before a day of meetings.
On the way home I'm in less of a hurry, because Carol picks Harper up from school on Wednesdays and Ben works until 7. That's when I return the personal calls I've been putting off: the dentist's office, a friend from the career coffee, the man about the gutters.
I have one rule for work calls in the car: if it needs a screen, a document or notes, it waits until I'm at a desk. A quick hands-free status check, yes. A budget walkthrough, no. I don't join video calls from the car, and I've stopped apologizing for that. My phone sits in a dash mount, and if a call turns into something I'd need to look at, I say, "Let me call you back in twenty minutes from my desk." Nobody has ever said no.
Thursdays are quiet
Thursday's drive home happens in silence. No radio, no podcast, no calls. It took me a while to stop reaching for the volume knob, but it's become the most useful 38 minutes of my week. I go over what got done, what's waiting for Friday at home and what can wait until next Tuesday. By the time I cross the river, the work week is mostly closed out in my head, and Friday in my home office starts with a plan instead of a pile.
The small stuff in the car
A few things live in the RAV4 full time, partly because I park at the far end of a big lot, a third of a mile from my desk:
- A compact umbrella, and a cardigan for our cold conference rooms.
- A phone charger and a granola bar for the day I forget lunch.
- Sunglasses, since the morning drive points straight into the sun for most of the winter.
- An ice scraper, used exactly twice this winter, both times in January.
Gas for the commute runs a little under $20 a week. I leave at 7:15 instead of 7:25, because those ten minutes buy me an unhurried drive, and on the one icy morning in January I worked from home instead of trying to be brave. Seventy-six minutes a day is a lot of time. Most days now, it feels like mine.
