Commuting

One of the first things you learn when you commute every day (at least in Brussels) is that it is extremely complicated to know the time you'll get to the office. Leaving 5 minutes earlier doesn't mean you're getting there 5 minutes earlier, neither the other way around. Knowing this, getting up earlier is completely unrewarding. In my experience, leaving earlier or later doesn't make any difference. While the time I get the office doesn't vary, the later I leave, the more crowded it tends to be. And that is probably the most annoying part of leaving late: being stuck in a crowded wagon listening to Romanian singing in Spanish and trying to find some room to read.

I guess that, in a way, that's the biggest incentive for leaving earlier: avoiding the crowd. But not even this is constant. Several days are unusually quiet. At 8.15 there may be only 10 people in my wagon. The day after at the same time, there may be 200 people.

 

I've decided to assume this whole commuting story is non-sense but, as long as I have enough space to hold my book and read that's fine.