I am uniquely lucky in one respect: I live in the Los Angeles area, and I almost never face rush hour traffic. This is because a) I live two blocks away from my office building, and b) I'm a night owl who rarely sees the sunny side of the AM hours.
So today, I was required to show up for jury duty at a courthouse in San Fernando Valley. I woke up at 6am (which was painful) and belatedly realized that I was going to get stuck in morning traffic. Yup. I sat amidst cars in the smog-filled morning haze of L.A., and since I wasn't doing much else, I got to thinking about how much it must suck to have to commute every day.
Wouldn't the rush hour traffic be lessened if businesses adopted different schedules? Other night people like me exist; not every employee would voluntarily choose 9am till 5pm. I don't see why other businesses can't shift their schedules in an effort to alleviate traffic congestion. If some of the major corporations were to adopt 11am to 7pm shifts, that would help a lot. And please don't tell me "no one would agree to those hours." That's pure bullshit. If you think that way, then you're one of THEM ... a morning person.
And by the way, I spent my entire civic duty as a potential Juror reading a book. The trial was postponed or something, so they didn't need a jury. I guess that happens a lot! The free time was nice, though; my only complaint was having to wake up at 6am.
No comments:
Post a Comment