OPM FAIL: Commuter hell

I don't ride Metrorail, but by all accounts, it was not really ready to take hundreds of thousands of Feds and others who follow OPM snow rulings to work this morning. I got to my bus stop (sidewalks in Downtown Silver Spring were pretty good), and the J3 pulled up, which was surprising since they were only supposed to be running J2. NextBus said the J1 (much faster route to work) was coming in 8 minutes, so I decided not to take the J3.

NextBus then proceeded to show the wackiest series of arrival times for the next 40 minutes or so. 8 minutes, then 6, back to 8, 7, 6, 8, 6, 9, 7, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 4, 5, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1... and then the bus (which approaches as a Z9 at the end of its run) zipped on by. Despair. But it came back around 5 minutes later. I could have ridden the long bus and gotten in around the same time (and been warmer). The bus was pretty jammed the whole way to work. Where nothing was really shoveled. The base almost never gets around to shoveling the outside sidewalk for days (good neighbors). There was a path shoveled, except there was a huge mound of snow right in the middle. Mostly I had to walk in the road. If the base can't get its act together and clear the sidewalks they should close or at least email everyone so we can opt to work from home.

After all that, I needed second breakfast, a blueberry muffin and more coffee.

It's not easy to focus this morning, but I'm sure I'll get in the swing of things. Usually we get 59 minutes off at the end of the day before a 3-day weekend, but I have a feeling that is not going to happen today. The only reason I came in was for a seminar on the new NIH grant format given by our esteemed VP for research -- it hasn't been cancelled, which is a good thing.

I wish I could be somewhere warm.