Living the Dream – Pretty much

  • by Brendan

Those of us blessed enough to live in the 92672 understand how great our little community truly is.

 

My favorite beach is no more than a stone’s throw away. Our home San Clemente is awesome and I enjoy spending as much time as possible walking the San Clemente beach, swimming, and surfing.

Unfortunately, I find myself in a commute driving in and out of town. This zaps my free time out of my reach and my daily to do list dwindles to a faint day dream right before my eyes. My productivity and free time are under constant strain. A simple drive to my office in Irvine quickly becomes a daunting nightmare with red  brake lights and the occasional friendly bird flipped out of some other drivers window. It’s time and I’m ready to do what I must to stop these soul sucking drives out of my daily routine.

If your commute sounds something like this you may want to consider a change. You may feel stuck with your employer and your marriage to your stop and go drive but there is a simple solution. Have you thought of working locally? I know the thought of a possible wage gap may scare you.  Prepare to be scared your long commute job does have a large monetary difference. Every mile you drive to work roundtrip for the average work week bites a whole out of your wallet and swallows $652 annually. This means if you drive 25 miles a day to work you are throwing out an average of $15,625 not to mention your sanity and time spent with your family. This is the absolute perfect example of dollar saved is a dollar earned.

Can we help you save more, earn more, and keep your time? Send your resume’ to jobs@sanclementehacks.com and our experienced recruiters will match you with local job offers matching your professional title and experience. We have an extensive history matching software engineers, IT experts, pharmacuetical techs, medical and dental techs and others.

Working Locally – Hiring Locally

  • by Mr204

Working locally- Hiring Locally.  Quantifying the Advantages.

 

Everyone seems to agree, working locally or from home is preferable to slogging 30-40 miles per day each way for a long commute.

While employers (and even occasional employees) debate the value and preference of working from home versus working in an office, surely everyone agrees that a short commute or no commute at all is an optimal advantage.  (This, despite those who claim that they “need the 45 minutes each way each day in the car to gear up and wind down from/for their work environment”.  That smacks of New Englanders justifying suffering through below freezing temperatures because they “just love the change of seasons”! J )

I’ve had personal experience on both fronts.  There is nothing very CHARMING about scraping the ice off my car and needing an extra 30 minutes to warm it up before dragging myself to the office every morning, and often having to repeat the process for the drive home.

Now that I live in CA, I get it.  And having recently moved to San Clemente, I get it even more. As a professional recruiter, I’ve always heard people complaining about their daily commute to their daily grind, but I find the sentiment even more common in San Clemente.  And why not?

San Clemente is a special case. A special place.  Isolated at the bottom end of Orange County, buffered from San Diego by Camp Pendleton, and bordered on the west by the beautiful Pacific and to the east by beautiful open country and mountains, who would willingly opt to get on The 5 every day and battle their way up to Irvine to work?

One can easily make a case for it being worthwhile to take a significant cut in pay in order to work locally.  How much does your commute cost, at $4/per gallon for gasoline, plus the car payment, wear and tear on the vehicle, maintenance, the cost of dress cloths, eating lunch out vs. eating at home, daycare, etc.

Even the stingy Federal Government allows for 50 cents per mile as a travel deduction.  That means a 60 mile round trip commute costs at least $30 dollars PER DAY!  That’s $180 per month, over $2,000 per year, only considering the first item on our list above.  Add in Day Care, Lunch, Clothing, etc, and you could easily justify a $10,000 per year pay cut as a lateral move.

And on top of all that, one has to ask, what is my TIME worth?   Getting back 90 minutes per day, 5 days per week, 50 weeks per year, to spend with my family or simply do as I wish?  Priceless.

No wonder studies show that people who work local last longer in their jobs, are more productive, and happier in their careers compared to those slogging it off to Irvine (or LA!) every day.  Employers take note- Hire Local! You’ll have to hire less often and you’ll have a much more productive team as a result!

Mark Bassett is a professional recruiter for eNamix Inc. specializing in placing local talent with local businesses.  He can be reached at 949.395.7793 or via email mark@sanclementehacks.com

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