Excessive travel time?

Robert

Robert

Robert

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
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North West
I've just had a call about a job, however the daily commute is 4 hours.

The pay isn't great as it's my first FT job out of uni and travel expenses would probably be around £25 a day.

The job is in IT recruitment and would involve some cold calling (which put me off straight away), which I'd rather not do.

I'm tempted to just take it as it's a job...but the travel time would kill me (leaving before 6 and getting home at about 8-9) as well as the travel costs.

Any opinions?
 
Don't take it to be honest.

You're only going to end up doing a job that pays little and you don't want.

If you're DESPERATE for a job, then it's a hell of a lot easier getting a job if you're already in one, but if you're not that desperate, seems a bit daft to be honest.
 
Well with all the plus points you are certainly selling it to me.

I pretty much took the first job that was offered to me when i left Uni; I stayed for 18 months I and hated it.

The money was rubbish the commute was 3.5hrs a day and I wish I done something else instead, but I was desperate for the cash at the time.
 
4hours? thats 4 UNPAID hours you will in effect be working, think of it like that. Its just not worth it, look for something closer to home. Or move.


If you're desperate get shopwork or something, then do some overtime or bar work.
 
I am currently doing about a 4 hour commute, its boring and a pain, especially if the traffic gets really bad.

but then i get paid half decently for it. If its a first job and the wage is pants, i wouldnt take it, find something closer, especially if you need the cash :]
 
dont take it is the easy answer

you need to take into account traveling expenses and the time taken to travel verse the amount you are getting paid and from the sounds of it you will be during the week just living to work from awakening in the morning and then by time you get home its straight to bed kinda thing, also you are likely to spend £125 just on traveling which is going to be a hefty chunk of your take home pay after the tax.

Find something closer which may pay a little less but infact you will be taking home more due to cutting down travel costs and you wont have to spend 4 hours per day just traveling
 
cold calling..

I wouldn't take the job if I could do it whilst in my own bed tbh.
 
Target based with some cold calling and not great pay? Sounds like a great job not!
Don't do it, at first you'll be able to live with the commute but it'll get you down very fast. If the pay was decent or it was something you really wanted to do, then by all means go for it. But it doesn't sound like you do.
 
Im 17 and i manage to get up at 6 30am get to school at 8 15 and then leave school at 5 17 and get home around 7 ish, its a long day but once you get into the routine it honestly doesnt affect you at all. Its quite nice being tired at the end of the day, having great sleep.

However travel costs me 13.50 as i get a pass which only covers 10% of my journey, found out that they actually never check the passes on the trains, and when they do they only look at the expiry date, realisticall the pass should cost 50 quid a week :D
 
2 hours each way is doable imo. I used to do a 1 hr 45 min commute each way, and it wasn't that bad - I was going out of London though so the trains weren't in cattle mode. The delays used to really get to me though - personally I wouldn't do it again. You say you'd get £25 a day expenses - is that actual expenses or travel overtime?
 
My friend travels about 2 hours aday and it kills him, he ahs no social life during the week and gets up at 6 every day to make it to work for 9. Personally i wouldn't
 
cold calling all day + 4 hours travel.

You are working 12 hour days. I find 1 hour there and 1 hour back is bad, when I move house I am looking for 30 mins each way. Any less and i would still be asleep at work/couldnt blame lateness on traffic :D
 
When i started in IT on a helpdesk i had to travel from Warrington to Wakefield each day. Only 70'ish miles but to get to work for 9am, i had to leave at around 6am every morning to get past manchester at any decent time, then getting home i used to just sit at work or do overtime for a couple of hours at night rather than getting stuck in traffic on the way home. Managed to last it for 2 months until i found myself a place to rent. All that for £9k per year! I shudder to think how i managed it and still kept sane.

You could look at what places are like to rent where the job is, if you can get one for £3-400 per month then it's going to be better than paying £25 per day to travel/park, even better would be to see if you could get a shared place for a bit less.
 
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