Only in Ancaster could I get a job!

Heyyy!



(This is me doing my Richard D James impersonation. His music is quite good albeit scary, especially when he writes under the name Aphex Twin.)

So, I've landed this job working for the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board. I got the call on Monday that I'd be signing papers on Friday (now tomorrow) so that sounded pretty certain. Of course, until you see it in writing you can't be absolutely sure there won't be a hiccup of some sort. However, today I went into the office to meet some of my will-be co-workers, and they gave me "the key"! That means they're serious! (And I only have to wait a day for the contract anyway...) So, it's time to celebrate! Hooray!

I'll be working for a research division in the school board called the Evidence-Based Education and Services Team (E-BEST) as their resident statistician. After doing this job for a while, I'll be able to call myself a statistician in earnest (instead of a survey methodologist which sounds pretty impressive and is actually hard, but people don't know what it is ...). It's a year long contract with the possibility of renewal, and it pays better than my ABS job at home which is a very pleasant surprise.

The hardest part has been figuring out how to get there. Ancaster is like Dundas - a bunch of rich-person's suburbs loosely attached to Hamilton. Both Ancaster and Dundas were small towns in their own right up until the last decade when Hamilton's growth has extended to their border. This means of course that public transport goes from Hamilton to Dundas, and from Hamilton to Ancaster, but not from Dundas to Ancaster. So I've got to catch 4 connecting buses to get there. In spite of this, I've calculated this will take only just over an hour, and appears to be the best option available for next Monday.

My options are:
(a) drive;
(b) taxi;
(c) get lifts (from neighbour)?
(d) buses;
(e) cycle.

I've just ruled out (e) upon establishing that the office building doesn't have a shower facility. Cycling was already looking iffy because it's about 14km and up hill in the morning. Hamilton also gets really humid in summer, and I work up a sweat sometimes just eating a hot meal ;-) Attempting this in a suit would be impossible. (Although I have also established that casual wear is acceptable. Hmmm, too bad my wardrobe consists of suits and ragged t-shirt and not much in between - add clothes shopping to the list for tomorrow!)

(a) is out of reach for the time-being. I will be taking the driving test in a couple of weeks and then we can think about getting a car, but we still don't know how we'll actually get to the car yards, nor how we'll organise insurance for a potential purchase on the fly. I expect I'll be run off my feet for the first few weeks getting to know the job anyway.

(b) is the fallback position if nothing else is possible. I figure it's worth 2 taxi fares just to get established in the job in the first place. So long as I'm earning more than the cost of the fares, it's still more money than I'm getting now unemployed. In combination with some of the other options, this could be a good gap-filler. Of course, it's not really a long term option. (Or is it? When I know how much the fare is, I can do some sums and see if it actually works out to be less than owning and running a car. Given petrol and insurance prices, there's a chance this is competitive.)

(c) has come through nicely. My neighbour Helen drives through Ancaster on her way to work and has agreed to give me the odd lift for the first few weeks until I get set up, if she happens to be going in at the same time as me. This will probably work out to be 2 or 3 one-way lifts per week, and every little bit helps. May I just add here that Helen is a total legend ;-)

(d) looked bad at first. It's 3 connections: one from Dundas into Westdale near the University (part of Hamilton), then one to Meadowlands (a shopping district on the near side of Ancaster), then one across Ancaster to the office. The problem is that the third bus goes on a big loop "the wrong way" in the morning, and again "the wrong way" in the evening. It's designed for people who are trying to leave Ancaster in the morning and return home in the evening, whereas I'm trying to do the opposite. So I end up having to catch the bus and follow it to the end, wait 10 mins, and then follow it back about half way before it gets to my stop. And I don't gain anything by getting off on the first leg and walking because the nearest stop point is about 1.7km from my destination (maybe 20mins march). My original time estimate for this series of buses was 1.5 to 2 hours. However...

...today after Helen gave me a lift into the office to meet my co-workers, I tested out the bus system. It was still AM, so at least on this occasion there was a bus going the "short-way" to Meadowlands. I asked the driver his advice and he said my proposed route of going to the end of the line and coming back would be about 55 minutes (yuck!). Then he thought a bit and suggested that I actually change buses on the same route. There's a spot on the route where you can get off and catch the earlier bus going the other way, thus saving about half an hour. Now I haven't tried this yet, and if I miss the connection I lose the half-hour again, but according to the schedule it looks promising. So if I go up to 4 connections, I save half an hour!

The actual time it took for me to get home today was 95 minutes, but that included missing two connections I could have made, partly so I could duck into McMaster and pick up the bus schedules with maps (rather than relying on my hand-scrawlings from internet timetables). In theory, with the buses going the "right" way, I could have been home in 35 minutes. It will be longer than this in practice as the buses usually go the "wrong" way, but it's still much better than 2 hours.

Then I can shorten the trip further by not following the bus all the way to Meadowlands. Bus #2 and #3 share about 2km of road that goes to Meadowlands, and I'm lucky enough that if I get off at the top of the common route, I can catch a bus that's half an hour earlier than if I went all the way to Meadowlands. Once again, if I miss the connection I can add half an hour to my trip, but the times look good. Also, it's occasionally possible to ask the bus driver to radio to the other connection and ask them to wait. Don't know how this will go in peak period, but again the potential for a half-hour saving.

The connection between buses #1 and #2 is really really tight in the morning. The schedules say I get to the connecting stop at exactly the same minute as the transfer if it's before 8am, and a couple of minutes too late if it's after 8am. I have a choice here: I can get off the bus a couple of stops before the routes merge and basically run down the road to another stop and hope I get there in time, or I can take a slightly earlier bus. Fortunately at that hour I can get one that leaves 15mins earlier, but the pickup point is further from my house. At least this guarantees I'll make the connection. And on the way home, the timing is right on, and I can catch the right bus without hassle.

So summing up, it looks like 70 minutes in the morning, and about 60 minutes on the way home. That's not bad for 4 connections. The ride home is more like 90 minutes if I don't catch the 5.30pm bus, and the 6pm bus is effectively the last as one of the connections drops out, except on Thursdays and Fridays. I guess if I'm working late I'll be getting a taxi home.

Anyway, I think this calls for celebrations!



This is a random photo off my hard drive where I happen to be holding a glass of wine with my lovely sister Leonie (celebrating another recent special occasion ;-). Rachel is home tonight so I can take a now photo of us clinking glasses!

Once again, yay!