That sounds like a bitch of a commute. I had a job in the past where I had to drive from just north of Boston to just south, so you could either go through the city on 93 which was a fucking joke, or go whatever crazy way Waze would have you go through like 5,000 different back streets trying to wind your way there. And then you had to pay for parking. I did that for almost a year and it was HORRIBLE. And so nerve wracking worrying about hitting a cyclist or pedestrian. We moved and I could take a bus from our new place, and that was such a relief. There was this bonkers woman on the bus who would voice-dial everyone in her family every morning and no one would pick up, or if they did they’d be like, Michelle, I have to go. She called the pharmacist one time and told them all her personal info including full name and address. And she’d talk about her period and stuff if she did reach someone on the phone. Once this trans person asked her to move her bag so they could sit down next to her. She told them this wild story about how she’s an artist, which she definitely was not, and then she said she’s thinking of becoming a man! The person was like, oh, uh, this is my stop. I used to live-stream about this bud ride on my stories.

We don’t even own a car!!! We have a garage space. We should rent it out.

The husband did the math after his college car crapped out. It didn’t make sense to buy, even with his Sunday suburban Uber rides to bowl with his dad.

Walk, public transit, rideshare, and he occasionally bikes.

The few times I do go into the office now, I bus there and walk home. It’s lovely.

I’m sorry you didn’t get the job, Copa. But it may be a blessing. My Chicago friends are suffering bc of all traffic lately (they often call me on speaker phone during their evening commutes and then complain about how awful it is). I briefly worked in academia (in Chicago) before I moved to NYC, thinking it could be a longterm career choice for me, and there are some perks, but the salaries are almost always much lower than you’ll find in the private sector. The trade-off could be worth it, but when you factor in a brutal commute, maybe not so much…

I’m at a nonprofit right now and I guess I had it in my head that I was leaving money on the table. But I guess my manager compensation where I am now is comparable or sometimes even higher than what low- to mid-level directors at a university might make. Both universities that I spoke to this past spring are private and I’m told by someone I know who used to work in higher ed that she thinks they pay a little less than public universities. I know the exact career move I could make to get my pay up pretty significantly and have considered it, but it’d be going back into the private sector and I don’t know if I care to do that. What I don’t make in salary, I make up for in benefits and excellent work/life balance.

There’s also an area on the 9th floor we call the Crying Corner. And every Wednesday at 4:30 I have a scheduled bitch session with two women no longer on my team.

If work is a nightmare and you’re in a position where you can rage quit… IDK, there are worse things. I also increasingly feel like broadly speaking, something’s gotta give. People are stressed, overworked, underpaid, unhappy, burned out. People have lives and obligations outside of work. Everything is expensive right now.

My sister went to visit our mom maybe a month or so ago and worked while she was there. So she was in the eastern time zone, someone she works with out of California fucked something up, which then became her problem. So it’s like 7 p.m. on a Friday and my sister is being hassled about how she needs to fix whatever the issue was ASAP and the guy in CA made a comment about how he wanted to leave the office by 5. Per my mom, who I guess was in the room, my sister went red with rage and went off on him about how it was past 7 where she was and she’d have loved to log off by 5 herself but couldn’t because of his incompetence. She’d be a great contender to rage quit, but can’t.