commuting to aberdeen

[crazy]

Anyone commute to work in Aberdeen? How do you find it affects family life etc?

[Rheghead]

Are you crazy? It takes 5+ hours to drive to Aberdeen from here!

[Solus]

Depends, how far your commute is, where you live, hours you work ? be a bit more specific and i can try and help, spent the last 6 years doing a 70 mile commute daily,

[crazy]

What about flying from Wick to Aberdeen Mon & back on Fri?

[Solus]

Think you are about £120 return, then on top of that you have rental costs in the city which can be steep depending on where you stay.

[crazy]

what I really want to know is : Is there anyone out there who does commute back & fore & how do they find it affects their home life, especially if they have young kids? I know quite a few folk have left Dounreay & are doing it.

[Solus]

Having stayed away from home for long ish periods when i was working, it took some time to get used to it ! after a while it became the norm and slowly it became a pain, you yearn for your home life, you comfy seat, your telly , wanting time with your wife/partner. From there if your marriage/ relationship is not strong all sorts can go wrong, bitterness with the other partner at home with the kids having to put up with them all the time, while you finish work return to your digs and put your feet up. Relationships have to be solid for something like that to work, both of you settle into a routine and when you come home you upset your partners routine. You get home late on friday evening, you are away on sunday night, it becomes tiresome. Then if your plane is delayed on the friday !!!

Sorry to paint it all doom and gloom, it works for some not for others, me i hated it, i prefer my home, my dogs, my life. By all means give it a try and see, you never know it may work.

[emb123]

I wouldn't recommend it.

I used to do a similar journey to work for about 6 months. I used to get home about 10 pm (if I was lucky) be in bed by 10.45 after grabbing a quick bite to eat and trying to unwind. Then I'd be up again, groggy and grumpy around 4.45 a.m..

By the time I got into the office and been there a month or so people learned not to speak to me for at least the first couple of hours, or look at me in the wrong tone of voice (!). I was like a poisonous thundercloud sitting the corner.

Unless you have infinite patience, the meekness and disposition of a saint, can get by with 4 hours sleep a night - permanently, don't mind not having a social life, or seeing your wife and children other than when you're (always) at your worst, and they don't think you've abandoned them or that you're horrible now, I advise that if you are thinking of taking a job in Aberdeen, then you should move a lot nearer or give up the whole idea as a guaranteed way of ending your marriage and potentially driving over a cliff, literally.

If the job pays well then you could rent a room and go back weekends. I think that would be the only realistic way to do it - until it became certain the job was ok at which point your family would have to relocate.

Best of luck whatever you decide

[emb123]

Are you crazy? It takes 5+ hours to drive to Aberdeen from here!

Just spotting the username, apparently he IS crazy!

[Angela]

From experience I can only say that commuting always turns out to be harder than you imagine it will be.

For one thing, you just get SO tired it affects everything.

For you to travel to Aberdeen Monday morning and return Friday evening would be the only possibility I think, and certainly less exhausting than even a shorter daily commute. It might work as a short-term solution, i.e. if you were offered a fixed-term contract, or if you were doing it until you made the decision to relocate.

I don't personally think it could be viable in the long-term, especially with young children. There can be such a lot of pressure to make the weekends extra-special rather than just normal, and if you have a bad weekend, that can carry on through the week away. Your family get used to you being away during the week -they have to -and then they have to re-adjust to your return.

Sorry, probably not what you want to hear.

[scaraben]

Try Proverbs 3:5 & 6