Wasn't entirely sure if this belonged here, but...
CW1: What are you going to be doing, then? Have you got another job?
CW 2 who is moving to another city 75 miles away for his wife's work: No, there's not much in [field] over there. I'll be coming back here two days a week and then looking after y son for te rest of the time.
Me: That's nice, some time off to be with your son.
Thinking: a two hour commute every day? So far so crazy.
CW 2: Yeah, you don't get this time back when they're young. And it's not like I'm working in a coal mine or anything physical. I can always work longer at the end to catch up. I'll be fit to work until I'm at least seventy.
WHAT THE FUCK? This guy earns £80,000 a year and his wife is an engineer for [Big Car Company]. I mean, it's great that he feels comfortable taking time off work (um, except the eight hours he will spend in a car in two days so that he can work for sixteen hours...) but WHY would he then need to work past retirement age to 'catch up'? Catch up on WHAT? He and his wife already earn a TON of money. I hope he's just smoke screening so people don't pry, but this epic commute makes me suspicious.
Maybe he'll just drive in one day, couch surf one day, drive back the next night?
But what FOR?? He has a one year old son. Why would he only see him 5/7 of the time? Or just get a job in [town]. Trust me, it's not so specialised that it's a one-town job. He might well take a pay cut as he has a pretty sweet deal here, but eight hours of driving/four hours of driving and one night away is surely equivalent to a life cut...!
Well, sure. But I don't have the details. I mean, I work for a company where we have several commuters.
One guy literally flies in every day. And flies home every night. And this is cheaper than renting an apartment.
One person drives the 6 hours down Monday morning, rents a room in a house (doesn't have kitchen privileges, doesn't keep anything there, I think the landlord does AirBNB on the room on the weekend), drives home every Friday.
Many people here drive several hours every weekend.
Some people drive 70 miles one way, every day.
I don't understand it - but the job market isn't too hot, so maybe they've done the cost/benefit analysis?
One of my coworkers told me that I could probably make $50k more if I got a job in the Bay Area (I think that's being conservative). "But I have kids!" I say. He said - that's fine, just work there Mon/Fri and come home on the weekends, your son is old enough, you can do it.
Um, my kids are 9 and 3, are you effing CRAZY?? Only see them on the weekend?