5 Things That Happen In Your First Year As A Commuter In NYC
1. You spend most of your time on public transportation – bus, train, etc.
If you graduate from school and live in New Jersey (or somewhere that surrounds NY) and you move back home, there is a great chance you’ll be commuting for a while. At first you’re all “Nice, I’m saving money and this isn’t going to be that bad”. Then, slowly but surely, part of you begins to die. A particular rage forms inside of you and you become jaded and miserable and there’s nothing you can do about it but sit in silence and tweet about it. The Lincoln Tunnel becomes the bane of your existence and you don’t even want to say the words “Port Authority” out loud. The train isn’t AS bad but still… that mass exodus of people rushing to the gate the second it’s announced on the little screen tends to riddle you with anxiety. Also the amount of money you pay for your monthly pass is disgusting… but it’s still less than rent so you continue to tell yourself that as you shell out copious amounts of dollars to NJ Transit.
2. You become a devout listener of the Elvis Duran Show.
Everyone knows about Elvis Duran and the Morning Show… Maybe you heard it growing up on your way to school when you were younger or when you drove to high school senior year but when you first start working in the #realworld you will rediscover the amazingness that is Elvis Duran & The Morning Show. It is literally the absolute greatest thing for commuters especially with the iHeartRadio app. Elvis Duran will literally save your life because he is amazing and the entire show is perfect. You’ll follow them on social media and call in all the time and you’ll basically feel like you’re besties with them all (especially Carla Marie who you want to go get wasted with on the reg). The ONLY thing wrong with listening to Elvis is that you will often dream of working there and by often I mean every single day. Elvis makes the commute suck a lot less but also makes you feel like your job is stupid and not nearly as cool as their job.
3. Limited time/options for exercising.
Gone are the days where you could go to the gym whenever you felt like it. That only happens on weekends now, if you can manage to drag your hung over ass over there. Eventually you come to terms with the fact that you have either two options: either wake up at an ungodly hour in the morning or work out after work. Both options suck… Waking up earlier than you already need to is masochistic but seriously it also blows to go after work. Really, who wants to put on their sneakers and drag their ass to the gym after not only a full day of work at your BS entry level job but also 2-3 hours of traveling on a bus or train driven by Satan himself. But if you don’t do it then you don’t work out, and if you don’t work out you’re going to turn into a whale. Lucky for you, you wake up so early on the weekdays that you’ll probably wake up at 7 am on the weekends and become one of “those people” at the gym on a Saturday morning.
4. You start dreading Mondays on Saturdays/Sunday night syndrome turns you into the most depressed person in the world.
Remember when you were in grade school/elementary school slash school in general and on Sunday nights you would start thinking about faking sick because Monday is tomorrow and Mondays mean the start of a whole new week? Well multiply that times a billion and a half for real life Sunday Night Syndrome. ESPECIALLY if you commute because you just spent two glorious days without the nightmare of NJ Transit/whatever you take to commute and tomorrow you have to do it ALL OVER AGAIN for FIVE WHOLE DAYS. Seriously you have a 40 hour work week ahead of you and a sometimes 2+ hour commute each way leading up to potentially 20 extra hours of your life spent on a miserable bus or train. It’s such a shame because Sundays should be a beautiful thing filled with brunch but instead they suck and are filled with tears.
image – Metro Centric[/caption]
5. You develop a codependency on your headphones.
Seriously if you look around a bus or train on the way to work nobody is NOT wearing headphones. I actually have THREE PAIRS OF HEADPHONES. I’m not even kidding… I have my regular headphones that I use daily, then an extra pair at the office just in case I forget mine at home somewhere, and then a pair for the gym because I think I’m the only person in America who can’t run with headphones. But seriously… leaving your headphones at home/the office or they break or something tragic along those lines results in an even MORE miserable commute. I mean you still have Twitter/FB/Insta/Pinterest/Thought Catalog/BuzzFeed/Candy Crush at your beck and call but HEADPHONES. ARE. ESSENTIAL.