Commuting to work

I remember you from your last post where you were wondering whether to leave your last job or not. I'm glad to hear you finally made a decision and it sounds like you like this new hospital.

I used to live in the desert and had to drive only 30 miles one way to work, but it still was quite a drive through areas of nothingness. I always worried about what I would do if my car broke down in the middle of this nowhere. My biggest problem driving home in the morning was the fatigue. Tedium when you are driving makes it very easy to drop off to sleep if you are real drowsy. I fell asleep one time while waiting at a stop light. It's a miracle that my foot didn't come off the brake and allow the car to roll into the intersection! After that I changed my sleep times. I decided in my mind that I was going to treat going to my job like someone who was getting up in the morning and going to work. So, I started going to sleep at around 1pm in the afternoon and getting up at 9pm, getting ready and going to work. I found that I wasn't as tired in the morning coming home. I also learned that it was real important to try to get the 7 or 8 hours of sleep in at one block of time, if possible, to help avoid the fatigue later.

Eating in the car is usually a good way to stay alert. Sometimes I would stop and get a breakfast sandwich and OJ and eat it on the drive home. My mother used to keep potato chips in the car. She said that the crunching of the chips kept her awake. That never worked for me. Sing along with the radio. Find a talk station with really outgoing personalities on it that you can either yell at while you're driving or are so entertaining that they really capture your interest and take your mind off being tired. We have a couple of morning stations here in L.A. where you either want to hit the talk host, or they keep you listening with all kinds of interesting phone calls, polls and a donut guy that goes to an office of the day and serenades the workers with his guitar! The Rushbo and Dr. Laura would keep me awake! I used to also rent from Books On Tape (also on CD). I'd get a good murder mystery and had that going in the car while I was driving. I often stopped and did my errands on the way home, if I could. That included grocery shopping and stopping at pharmacies. If you feel real drowsy like you are about to fall asleep at any moment, pull over and get out of the car. Put your face to the wind for a few minutes. Take one of the off ramps on the freeway and explore what is there for a few minutes. You might find an interesting place to shop in for a few minutes just to get you back awake and alert.

It's also a good idea to know where the motels are that are close to the hospital where you are working. I always kept $100 in cash in my car in case of an emergency. If the weather is really bad, it's much better to just get a motel room and stay put if you can. The hospital will be so thrilled to have someone who is able to get in to work that they will usually let you wear a pair of their scrubs the next day. I used to always put out dry food for my cats in case I might not get home to feed them on schedule. Another tip my truck driver brothers told me years ago was to learn the routes that the public busses take. Those routes are designed so the busses keep on their schedules. They tend to be routed onto main roads that are going to get the first attention after some weather disasters (i.e., plowed first during snowstorms). Bus routes are going to avoid as much rush hour traffic as possible and yet still be convenient to their users. A bus route may be the fastest way to get though town before getting on the freeway during rush hour.

Hope you can get some ideas from that. Congratulations on your new job. I hope it turns out to be everything you hoped.

I lived 116 miles from my job at one time, so I was driving 232 miles roundtrip on a daily basis.

All I can say to that is WOW:eek: How long did you keep that up? Did you stay in the area when you worked a few days in a row? Wow. I'm speechless (and that takes a LOT!).

I drove 232 miles daily roundtrip for 2 years. That's why my screen name is 'TheCommuter'. I went home nightly, so I did not stay in the area where I worked. Worst of all, I drove into the traffic-congested Los Angeles area daily. I love driving on the interstate, so commutes are no big deal to me. All I needed was coffee or caffeinated cola and a 90-minute music cassette tape.