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Tag: commuting

Commuters agree to be deprived of life for eternal slumber

Published April 16, 2011 by Jo Jordan

Frustration by greencandy8888 via FlickrfYesterday evening, the M1 motorway heading north out of London was closed – for 24 hours.  Thousands upon thousands of commuters going home and people heading north for the weekend were stranded.

Staying in London overnight is a large expense for a commuter.  Outgoings will be at least 100 pounds.  Your dogs and cats back home remain unwalked and unfed.  And I put that first because I am British.  Your partner and children might be ill amused too.

There is no insurance for commuter travel.   And no liability for the operators or the utility providers.  The commuter bears the risk as an Act of God.

Yet we don’t treat our commuter travel as part of the reason why we travel.

@documentally was grumbling.  I don’t blame him because I would have been worn out with frustration too.  And if I am honest, I’ve cut down my use of public transport to the minimum.

But the irrelevant frustration, the signs that we are going along with senseless commodification of our lives that only hurts us led me to wax lyrical.

My tweet of the morning that infuriated @Documentally even further

@Documentally We’ve been duped into believing that several hours travel isn’t an adventure – deprived of life for eternal slumber?

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The welcome illusion of Monday morning

Published December 13, 2009 by Jo Jordan

Too Much Weekend

I’ll like my week better for a tidy room

A golden rose cheerfully in a crystal tube

But with a day spent alone

Working on streams distant from the streams of others

I yearn for the strains of the world outside

If I had a TV, I would switch it on

I’m glad I don’t

It would not give me what I want

The compulsive tug of collective movement

People going somewhere, maybe nowhere

Do I mind our destination when we move together?

I’m ready to join the surging throngs of people in the morning

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We can’t run our banks or trains BUT we have raised a fair and decent GEN Y?

Published October 7, 2008 by Jo Jordan

Life in the 21st century is a little grim

One of the pleasures of living in the UK is long commutes on overfull trains.  I am not talking overcrowding Mumbai-style (aka Bombay) to be sure. But there is a more than 50-50 chance in the UK that I will find myself standing for an hour, or finding a free wall and sitting on the carpet – damn the higher dry cleaning bills.

Two trips back, I plonked my teaching file down on the aisle carpet and sat on it, embarrassing the 50-something who had a seat next to me.  When I declined his kind offer to change places, he retorted, so you can tell your friends about how things used to be better!

But I think it has got better

Actually, I don’t think things have got worse.  I’ve been away from UK and because I pop in and out, I see change intermittently and I think have a less distorted view.  UK is cleaner and quicker than it was 10 years ago and much cleaner and quicker than it was 20 years ago.

And more optimistic

I also don’t think things have got worse for another reason.  I teach (college).  And teaching brings me into contact with Gen Y twice a week.

Gen Y may be many things.  What you can count on is that they want to do a good job.  They ask questions.  They are knowledgeable about what they have been in contact with.  They want to run fair and decent businesses.  They are intensely interested in any curriculum to do with being a good manager or a good leader.  I can hear a pin drop when I get onto topics like charismatic leadership.  It may be narcissism on their part (and mine), but I like to think differently.

So why have we done so well?

So lets pose  a question.  We see so much shocking leadership and management in today’s world.   Steve Roesler pointed to the obvious today.  Many of our workplaces seem to reward bad leadership.  The collapse of the financial system seems to be a case in point.  The post mortems will tell us eventually.

How is it that

We cannot provide decent commuting trains in the 6th richest country in the world, or fair mortgages in the 1st richest country,

BUT

We have raised our children to be intensely interested in being decent, fair and engaging?

Why did we do so well? I am asking sincerely.  What did we do to bring up such a pleasant, decent, energetic, and fair generation of youngsters?

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