Long commutes stink. Even on the best days, they add stress to our lives and keep us from doing the things we love. As we discuss our updated mission with our communities, I can’t help but think about my own Live & Work story.
Seven years ago, as I was sitting in traffic in what felt to be an impossibly long traffic stall on the Bloomington Ferry bridge, I started to speculate about how many hours I was spending behind the steering wheel.
My family and I live in Savage and during this time my job was in Golden Valley, translating to a 45-minute (or more!) commute each way. My mind started to do the math, and I was spending over 400 hours a year commuting.
400 hours!
It’s not only about the commute. In order for both my husband and me to get to work on time, we needed to get our young child to daycare by 7:00 AM and with work not ending until 5:00 PM that meant 11 hours every day she would be spending there. Compare that with the measly 3 hours of awake time I got to spend with her each day … not cool.
It was becoming more and more important to find something close to where we lived, and at that time, I wasn’t sure about finding something that would be the right fit. While I knew little about jobs close to Savage, I was eager to learn more. Flash-forward a few months, and I discovered a job that was not only an incredible step in my career but also minutes away from our home.
The quality of life improvement since the move has been the most important part. If I get a call during the day with a sick kiddo, I’m just a few minutes away. I can stop home over the lunch hour to pop things in the crockpot to be ready for dinner. And then there is this one, one that happens most regularly for this self-described commute-hater: I’m not in a bad mood when I get home each day because I haven’t been sitting on Hwy 169 for what felt like endless time…and my kids and husband noticed the difference in the new normal.
Without sounding too much like an infomercial, I took back a big chunk of my 400 hours, and you can too! We have nearly 54,000 jobs right here in Scott County at over 3,300 businesses. With careers ranging from manufacturing, tech, healthcare, and so much more, there are so many incredible possibilities here.
If you’re getting tired of your commute, feeling crummy about the lost family time, or considering your environmental impact, I invite you to check out the jobs right here in your backyard.
