I celebrated Earth Day today by ending my carpool. How lame.
I've been carpooling with the same person for about two years. It has gone pretty well overall. I have appreciated my reduced gas and car maintenance costs as well as the shared responsibility for our 35 mi one-way commute. However, my carpool buddy has to work a fairly strict schedule because of his childcare situation. The nanny for his two small children must be relieved by 5:15. That means we have to leave work by 4:00 (to give enough padding for frequent traffic jams). We're supposed to leave home at 7:00 am, which should put us at work by 7:45. But sometimes there's traffic, and dude's almost always late in the morning and on the rare days that he isn't, I am. So most days I barely get 8 hours in.
This schedule has been terrific in some ways. I sit in a lot less traffic than I used to because our schedule forces me to get up and out before the peak of rush hour and to leave work before the worst of the afternoon congestion. Also, the shorter day has made me much more efficient since I know that I can't stay late to compensate for goofing off. I'm more focused and spend much less time on the internet while at work. Those changes have been great for my quality of life.
But right now, a spare 8 hours is just not enough. I want to defend in the fall, but I still have a lot of work to do. I calculated some milestones based on a loose timeline that would get my dissertation finished by September/October. I think I'm at a point where I'll be okay if x, y, and z are done by mid-summer, but that means a big push now to get the last of my data collected and analyzed. And that means I can't carpool.
My carpool buddy seemed disappointed when I told him today, but such is life. The arrangement is more important to him than me since his family has only one car and his wife needs it sometimes. But the carpool isn't totally dead. His wife always needs the car on Fridays, so I said I'd continue to carpool two days a week so he doesn't have to drive on Fridays and I get a day in return. Plus, I only canceled through July. Who knows -- at that point, I might be burned out and welcome a return to bankers' hours.
5 comments:
I had to cancel my carpool so I could work more efficiently on my dissertation too... For nearly the same reasons. Ahhh.. earth day.
I'm sorry you had to end your carpool (and your 8 hour days). But, I'm sure you'll be glad you did when you are able to graduate in the fall.
Good for you. It's tough to make decisions that are best for oneself when they know it adversely affects another. And it's great you accommodated the Friday car issue. I hope your productivity stays high.
hey you do what you got to do to get through grad school! and hopefully in a few months, you'll be back on the carpooling bandwagon.
Wow, yeah, I could never have gotten through grad school on 8-hour days. Most of the stuff I did needed long incubations, so I tended to be there for 10 or 12 hours, and leave in the middle to go to the gym, get dinner, or even see a movie and then come back later. Couldn't have done nearly as many experiments if my day were too short to get everything to the stopping points.
Now, however, I have pared down my schedule a lot because I'm way more efficient than I was then (and just never go to the gym). It can be done, but it depends on what you're doing. Some days are just longer than others. If you've got stuff you wanna do, go for it.
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