OK, this is starting to kill me. As big a metropolitan area the Twin Cities is, never in my wildest dreams did I think that it would take an hour during the middle of rush hour (both of them) to go from two distant points in the MSP. And even after I made a dry run from home to this new workplace, the extra layers of traffic I have to face while getting there has made this commute damn near unbearable.
As I alluded to before, there are three main choke points as I go south for work: Getting onto 694 West; the 94/35W junction; and 35W to Crosstown East. I went through those areas before the project began to make sure I built enough time in the morning to endure them. That's why I leave about an hour before.
But these traffic jams and commute times invariably mutate, and with it I get misled. Friday, for some reason, all three of those areas weren't as bad as they were when I started the project. I actually got to work 15 minutes earlier than planned. So maybe I don't have to leave so early. Therefore, to give myself as much sleep time as possible, on Monday I began setting my alarms for 7:05, five minutes later than before.
Big mistake. I don't know why or how the fuck it happened, but on Monday the traffic jam getting to 35W metastasized like runaway cancer. I was stuck in that area for about 20 minutes, and so once I got free I had gunned my car up to 80 in order to make it on time. I was lucky that the Crosstown East choke point wasn't so bad that day. I wound up being about five minutes late, but rounding to the nearest quarter-hour I say I was on time. My supervisor hasn't given me shit about it yet.
On Tuesday it was even worse. Not only was 35W bad, but getting to 694 West proved to be a damn challenge, too. How in the hell did it take me 15 minutes to get to the on-ramp? I flew that morning, and I was once again fortunate that I wasn't too late.
But now this morning was different. I thought I would finally be too late to get to work on time after I decided I had to fill up my empty tank in the morning. And the 694W traffic was bad. But it wasn't as bad as the previous two days. Much more surprising: The 35W traffic was as light as it had been all week. Plus there was no Crosstown East traffic. Therefore, I went from thinking I'd be 10 minutes late to being just on time (even though I decided to take my time and go to the break room to store the lunch Mother made for me and get a cup of water; that made me as late for work as I was on Monday). Best of all, coming home from the Twinks game tonight (they lost, by the way, even though they almost came all the way back from a huge hole in the 1st when starting pitcher P.J. Walters gave up hits to the first four Philadelphia batters and then left the game without recording an out) I saw that gas prices indeed spiked by about 20 cents a gallon. That totally justified me getting gas this morning. In fact, even if I were late I would think filling up was worth it.
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Compounding the issue of being afraid of coming to work late was the issue of me losing my badge. I need it to get in; it has a keycard that opens up the secure doors outside. Without it -- and I realized I didn't have it beginning of work Monday -- I would have to wait for someone else to get me in.
And that really sucks if you're running late to work. Imagine that you're cruising down the highway with little or no time to spare. You park, get out, get your things ... and you realize that all that rushing is moot if you have to sit on your ass outside as either a receptionist or a co-worker also running late happens to see you at the front door.
I was lucky all three days this week that I didn't have to wait more than half a minute before getting in, although the co-worker today gave me a little shit -- "I'm not supposed to let you in," she said before letting me in. Whatever, thanks for making me not late to work.
I still didn't want to ask for a new one, but I went through my whole trunk Tuesday after work and couldn't find it. Not wanting to lose work because of this, I finally relented and this morning told the secretary I lost my badge. She gave me a new one that afternoon. Now my old one will pop up.
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