I had the misfortune of having to commute for training into London during the early morning rush, not my usual journey and early for me anyway. I caught the 7 am train from my local rail station into London Euston.
Commuting is not a pleasant experience at the best of times but early mornings brings about a whole new world of digital living watching
Not to be caught out twice, I had purchased my car park ticket the night before using the wonder of the digital world allowing me to buy it online. Did you ever think it would be so difficult to purchase a car park ticket?
This meant I was simply able to park my car, no fumbling around for coins or trying to call a number to pay on the day. I had finally incorporated the digital world into some aspects of my life saving myself those valuable few minutes.
I never realised how many people start their journey each day at 7 am.
Personally, it is not something I could ever imagine doing daily.
Sometimes it’ s good to do something out of the ordinary that we are usually used to doing, this gives you the chance to go back and look around, in many ways it helps to consider how lucky I am that my commute is only 10 minutes each day.
Anyway, as our train was about to arrive at Euston station, I noticed one woman who had been sitting beside me for the duration, she had pulled down the hood of her coat over her face and promptly shut her eyes at the start of the journey.
On the way out of the train, she hustled for a left behind Metro newspaper. I was really interested now why did she need this newspaper so badly.
It was soon revealed as the whole platform was filled with people trying to get out of the station. The platform was congested.
It was not just our train but several other trains all packed full with commuters all trying to get out of the station.
There were four ticket inspectors checking tickets and validating oyster passes. This meant that the queue stretched halfway down the length of the platform. It took almost 10 minutes from when we alighted the train just to get to the ticket checkpoint.
The woman I noticed beforehand, was totally unconcerned by all that was going on around her, whilst I, on the other hand, kept checking as to how far away we were and how fast the queue was moving, she was totally absorbed in her Metro newspaper.
I glanced around at me and I can only conclude that this is a normal occurrence as others were busy too.
One person watching a movie with headphones as they walked along to the ticket point. How do you concentrate amongst all this frenzy? How can you enjoy the movie whilst in the middle of hundreds of other people, packed around you like sardines inching forward bit by bit?
Anyway coming back to my woman with the newspaper, she went through the barriers (I was not stalking her she just happened to be walking in the same direction as I was). She then went to the escalator dumped her Metro newspaper at the start of the escalator, pulled up her hood and went to sleep for the journey on the down escalator to the underground train.
We all have to have coping strategies for our lives and guess this was hers, she had a daily commute and she had to manage it somehow.
If you want to end your daily commute, then why not check out this.
The Digital Mum spreading the word about the Digital Lifestyle
Because there is another way!
