Jan WünschThe trials and tribulations of the early-morning worker
I’ve been working from home for years, but recently I’ve started commuting to work again for the first time in ages. I’ve got good reasons for this, but I’ll save that for another time. What’s important for the context of this article is that I’m so happy about it. But every coin has two sides; yin has its yang, and shit has its arse. Some things probably never change, and some things will never stop pissing me off. I’ve got a few of them linked to my morning commute – let’s have a proper rant about them here!
I used to commute to work in the past, then I decided it was a right pain and started working from home. I worked like that for a few years and let me tell you, it’s no walk in the park; it’s got its perks, of course, but also its pitfalls, which stand out more for some people than others. I suspect it’s got something to do with each person’s personality and how easily distracted they are – in short, it’s not for everyone.
So, after a few years, I started working from an office again. Basically, every morning I head out of the house, make my way somewhere – in my case, to the station – take the train to a big, prosperous city, and create value there. I’m so happy; I manage to be productive and it fulfils me. What doesn’t fulfil me at all is the morning commute. On the contrary, various external factors regularly get on my nerves with unwavering consistency. I try to take it in my stride; I know I can’t change it, but you know how it is – I’m only perfect on Sundays after breakfast. And I’m coming to terms with it through this diary format.
The morning rush hour of frightened, terrible drivers
To get to the train, I have to drive from our picturesque village through one town to another village, from where the train departs. As in many other places, the town has its morning rush hour, which varies depending on the time of day you’re passing through. And, logically, each such rush hour involves, in varying concentrations, drivers of differing abilities and levels of alertness.
Rather than writing a long-winded essay here, I’ll list the things I regularly come across:
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Drivers who drive at 37 km/h where you could easily do 50 km/h. This isn’t some bloody sightseeing trip; this is the morning rush hour, when people are rushing to work and to catch the train!
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Drivers who pull up to a roundabout and stop just before it so they can look around and see that there’s space for four cars to enter. By the time they’ve checked this and set off again, of course, there’s no space left. The result is that everyone’s stuck, the flow of traffic has ground to a halt due to the incompetence of road users, and it’s driving me up the wall.
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Tractors, diggers and street cleaners travelling along the main roads during the peak of the morning rush hour, causing queues to form behind them. I understand that tractor and digger drivers are working and are road users too; let them be forgiven. But sending a cleaning crew out onto the streets during the morning rush hour is nothing short of amateurishness on the part of the authorities. WTF.
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Drivers who, on the open road between towns where you can easily do 90 km/h, drive at 50 km/h and then slow down to 37 km/h as soon as they enter a town. That always makes me laugh. So what if another car is tailgating them with a touch of passive aggression? No one is ever in a hurry during the morning rush hour, and that queue behind you is just for fun…
We have to live here together, so why make things unpleasant for one another? When I want to take a scenic drive and enjoy the view, and I see a queue forming behind me, I pull over to the hard shoulder and let those behind me through. I simply try not to hold anyone up. I’m not going to selfishly think: ‘I have the right to drive slowly!’
Is your street dirty? And could I have a look at it?
If anything is turning me into a bitter, angry man in the style of Dan Vávra, you nobodies, it’s the authorities, the civil servants, the state apparatus and the ideologues preaching to others how to live.
Take a look at the photo at the start. For context, that little lay-by in the photo behind the sign is a car park in Bohušovice nad Ohří, near the railway station. An estimated 60–70 cars park there every day. There’s another, nicer, paid car park by the station, but it only fits about 10 cars. So, in terms of capacity, it’s completely inadequate; that lay-by is often barely enough. The surrounding streets are residential and there isn’t much parking space there either. The lay-by isn’t a concrete or tarmac surface, but more of a gravel area with potholes, full of puddles.
And guess what – some official, exercising the powers entrusted to him, decides three times a year that it’s a good idea to completely ban parking in the lay-by for a whole day at a time to allow for street cleaning. Quite logically, given the surface of the lay-by, cleaning it is absolutely pointless; it’s a grubby, gravelly mess both before and after cleaning. But the poor 60–70 cars have nowhere to park that day, and if they do manage to find a spot, they scatter across all the residential streets in the neighbourhood, where they struggle to park and thereby inconvenience the residents.
Why anyone would clean something that can’t be cleaned is a mystery to me…
Shut up and get on with it!
Out of curiosity, I posted a question on the Bohušovice nad Ohří Facebook group.
“Hi there, can anyone explain to me what the point of this is? It’s the car park by the station. Around 60–70 cars park there every day, and three times a year someone at the council apparently decides it’s necessary to block it off for the whole day and ‘tidy it up’. Of course, there aren’t many parking spaces in the surrounding streets, and whatever spaces are taken up end up blocking residents’ access. The car park obviously doesn’t have a hard surface – just gravel, clay and puddles – and there really isn’t any difference before and after it’s been tidied up.“
I suppose I’m biased towards my own posts, but no matter how I look at the post above, it strikes me as decent and objective; in short, it’s a direct question to the residents of Bohušovice. Well, I got quite a bit of flak for it, as you can see from the comments in the link above. Here’s a selection of the replies:
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Just keep digging into it and you’ll end up parking in front of the Bohušovice sign. When the authorities decide to act, you’ll be in a right mess. Sometimes they should ban those people from posting anything anywhere
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*We just don’t get why that one day in two months is, with all due respect, getting on your nerves so much! 🤷
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If they hadn’t cleared it up, you’d be writing again that they weren’t doing it.
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So, given that this isn’t a local or national road, it’s up to the owner of the private road to decide when and how often to clear the area – i.e. it’s not a car park – and one stupid clerk who spots a smear of oil on the road and you’re in a right mess!! I’d happily trudge over from the other end of Bohusovice once every two months, because it’s announced in advance, so I’m prepared for it with plenty of time to spare, and… I’d keep quiet because…
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It’s private land and you should be glad you’re allowed to park there, and that at least someone picks up the bits of paper and cigarette ends; if they didn’t tidy it up, you’d be complaining again that it wasn’t being kept clean! 🤦♀️
There are a few more reasonable replies too, including an attempt to explain the situation to me using some logical reasoning, and I appreciate that – that’s why I asked. However, I don’t understand why a large proportion of commenters take issue with someone asking a question or pointing out a council action that isn’t entirely clear. I’d probably have expected people to start taking an interest in where and why the council is spending our money. Instead, the anger is directed at the person asking the question. As if I’d dared to ask at all… :D Fair enough, it’s their choice. It doesn’t strike me as particularly astute, but who am I to say…
And how it all turned out
On the clean-up day, I got up early and set off an hour earlier so I could park within a reasonable distance of the station. It worked out. On the way back, I had a look to see what the much-publicised clean-up had achieved. The signs were already gone, and the only visible change I noticed was the mown patch of grass behind the sign in the photo. It’s about 10 square metres, and it’s worth noting that even before the clean-up, the grass there was about 10 cm high. After the event, it’s only 5 cm!
And that’s all. Because of the mowing of 10 square metres on that fateful day, in a spot where no cars park, 60–70 cars were barred from parking on the gravel patch. Sure, it’s private land and the owner can, for all I care, erect a giant statue of a middle finger there. I wouldn’t have a problem with that.
I tried to find some logic in the actions of the authorities and the private owner, with the help of local residents, but I didn’t quite manage it. I suppose I’m just a complete idiot.