Working From Home Is Great When It Snows

I started working from home over three years ago. I have a little office with two phones and a desktop PC. My office is a bit smaller than I would like but it’s good enough. I can remember when I had to do the daily commute into Leeds city centre. It is only about 5 miles from my house. Outside the rush hour period it takes about 12 to 15 minutes to drive to the centre of Leeds. Driving that same distance in the rush hour  takes at least 30 minutes. All it takes is a minor accident or an obstruction and the whole area can grind to a halt. The problem is that there is too much traffic and the roads are not good enough to cope with the amount of traffic, so it does not take much to reach crisis point.

When you add snow to the equation it makes matters even worse. I can remember driving home from work about 15 years ago and it took me about 3 hours to go 5 miles ! Luckily we have not had much snow over the last few years, but this Monday especially was fairly bad, but I have seen much worse. There seems to be this mentality as well that when it snows more people use their cars rather than use public transport. I can see their logic to an extent. It is better to be sitting in your own warm car listening to the radio rather than sitting on a smelly bus with nothing to do. This, of course, adds to the problem as there are then more cars on the road.

So, it is times like this that I feel smug sitting in my little office at home. I look out of the window and I can see drivers struggling to get grip in the icy conditions. They rev their cars up thinking that the faster their wheels go the more chance they will have of keeping going. I don’t have any worries about getting to work, so I actually have started to like snow now. Yesterday, I even walked out to the shops. I put on my thick socks and walking boots, scarf, hat and gloves and off I went. I didn’t have to worry about not making it to my destination. The shops are only about 400 yards away. I didn’t slip in the snow and I had no trouble getting out of my driveway !

So I say bring on more snow. We don’t see it very often. I think it is great. I do feel sorry for you Londoners who yesterday couldn’t get to work because the bus drivers decided they didn’t like snow, but when you look back on it you will be able to laugh about it and that is just what we all need at the moment !