Move to Melville

I’ve officially spent my first week traveling back and forth to Melville every day. I forgot how exhausting it is to commute. My cushy 15 minute drive to Shirley has truly spoiled me. I’m used to waking up at 8am and putting on the bare minimum of makeup on my face before heading out the door. Now, I’m waking up at 7am to catch a train that arrives in Babylon by 8:30am so that I can take a Lyft to my new office. I’ve been 10 minutes late everyday to work, but I don’t care because I can’t leave the office to go home until 5:30pm since the latest train to Speonk is not until 6:13pm.

I’ve been panicking all week because of how expensive this commute is. The train is $15 round trip if I can’t get away with avoiding the conductor on my way home. The Lyft ride is $20 each way from Babylon to Melville. I refuse to do the Ronkonkoma route. I just can’t go back to that life. Luckily, I talked to one of my co-workers and she offered to carpool with me since she’s in Medford. The only downside is I have to wake up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 in the morning. She changed her work hours from 7.30am to 3:30pm understandably. It looks as though almost everyone in my department opted to utilize flex hours so that they could get a head start on traffic on the evening commute home. As you can imagine, most people I work with reside out east, closer to the Shirley facility. Once 4 PM rolls around, the office is a ghost town, which is actually pretty nice if you want peace and quiet while you work. I asked my manager if she was OK with me switching my schedule and she said she was totally fine with it. Luckily, my coworker Peter is now the one with the 15 minute commute, and so he is fine with staying until 5pm. I may have to take a Lyft from Medford to my house still, but the cost is more manageable than before. 

Speaking of Lyft, during my panic, I applied for a Chase Sapphire Reserve card because they were offering a free one-year subscription to Lyft Pink. LOL. With a subscription to Lyft Pink, you receive 15% off on all rides among other perks. I will also be earning 10x total Chase Ultimate Rewards points for every Lyft ride by using my card. I know, this may have been an impulsive decision on my part because this card has a hefty annual fee (for me at least) and is more for traveling, BUT the Lyft offer seemed too good to pass up right now. I also need a credit card that has no foreign transaction fees and it works well with the Chase Freedom, so, in the long run, this card may still be a good choice for me. Luckily, my efforts in raising my credit score has allowed me to acquire cards like the CSR now. I feel like it’s a step up in adulting. I have a big girl credit card now lol. Like this card came in two days via UPS with tracking... this is a whole new level for me.

Back to the Melville office… The building is actually really nice. My cynical coworker in Accounts Receivable joked to me, and said, “well, of course, it’s nicer than Shirley.” I was like no, this is nicer in comparison to the Estée Lauder office lol. The cubicles are spacious and the environment is bright. Shirley feels dreary, bleak and depressing lol. Although, the cubicles do not provide much privacy. There are see-through windows on each side of your cube. I can basically see into Peter’s cube in front of me, and if I look back, I am able to see into my manager’s cube. You can also see the person sitting in the cube directly across from you. Like you can actually see their face LOL. Luckily, the cubicle in front of me is vacant. You really have to be mindful of what you’re doing at all times because people can see you. It’s very weird. Also, I initially thought that sitting by the window on the fourth floor was nice, but the sun makes the room blazing hot. We have blinds to block out the sun, but it still doesn’t fully combat the heat that seeps through. I can only imagine what it will be like during the summer. I can’t wait. 

I have now acquired a laptop, a wireless keyboard, and a wireless mouse to go along with my two monitors. So, I am basically back to Estée Lauder days in terms of technology. We also have new phones, which I find so fascinating because my old phone was probably from 1985 or so it looked it. There’s an actual screen on these phones with the company logo that will tell you if you had a missed call. We have centralized printing at this office, which requires you to scan your badge. Unfortunately, we have to remember to take our badge because the printers are pretty far from us. I wouldn’t really say it’s a con because at least, you get some exercise during the day instead of sitting there for 8 hours straight. I like it this way because you can send documents to your personal queue throughout the day, and then physically print it when you finally decide to get up. Gone are the days where you have to sift through everyone’s papers to collect what belongs to you.

As you can see the Melville office has its charms, but also has its disadvantages. I hope I can adjust well in the coming weeks. It seems that we’re getting close to working out most of the kinks in the office. Now, it’s time for me to adjust to waking up early. This whole week I’ve literally been going to bed at 9pm because that is how tired I am. It’s sad because I’m only waking up an hour earlier than I usually wake up. I’m probably also exhausted from the stress I’ve been feeling. I’m probably going to die next week getting up at 5:30 am. I hope my body can adjust to it soon, but I feel I am going to be that old person going to bed at 8 o’clock at night LOL. Now, it’s really time to get my license so that I can actually drive myself to Melville.