The Commute

Excerpts from a previous journal:
The car, the Road and I must again become one and I will again feel nothing, show no emotion, professionalism is all.

And I'm thinking back to that cold December night in 1990, looking out of my bedroom window at my big black car with the frost glistening off it, thinking "Maybe it's tomorrow, maybe, when I turn the key I am already dead and everything else is consequence."

For the past 10 years I have never had to commute to work on a daily basis by car more than about 1 mile. It was a conscious decision on my part not to risk my life or waste my time.

Well as you might expect I hate commuting to ARM’s new Sunnyvale office. Spending up to 2 hours a day competing to stay alive against the traffic is not my idea of time well spent. 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, 47 weeks a year = more 25 days of my waking life wasted sitting in traffic jams.

The one upside is that I can work from home and avoid morning commute 3 days a week. Do I like working from home? No not really: If I liked working from home I would have been doing for the last 10 years but now it is better than the alternative. I liked working at work, in my office with a door that I could close when I wanted to think. All that’s gone now and the only way to get peace of mind as I sit in the multi-cultural cubic hamsterville of ARM, Inc’s new US headquarters is to wear my headphones until my ears hurt so much I have take them off and endure the noise.

Still I like this place better than many of my colleagues who really, really hate it.

And one thing I would add is that the people at our new headquarters are really friendly and open. Despite all my woes, their smiles of greeting and friendly ways feel good.