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The best thing about travelling around Australia on a working holiday visa is when the working part is done and the holiday can start again.

I’ve just completed a seven week job fest. We decided against picking apples for $20 a tub and I got a job in corporate litigation with a national law firm. The work was reasonably varied and paid quite well, so we have refueled our vehicle and are setting off tomorrow up the coast for the North of Queensland.

This brief working interlude is one of the reasons why I’ve been relatively quiet on here over the past month or so. The other reason is that I have a few other pots on the fire which have taken my spare time and have pushed writing in here to one side for a while. I also added some more pots too, and have set up yet another website, planned several others, discussed the corporate structure of our business(es) and looked into several partnership and other opportunities. In short, I’ve been busy. I’ll write a post about all that stuff today, as I’ve got a day off to myself for a change and it is on my to do list now.

Working in the CBD and commuting each day really is hard effort. The trains are usually full to bursting at quarter to eight in the morning, or delayed, or both. Going home isn’t much fun either, as everyone else is trying to escape the business district simultaneously.

As I travelled on my last commute home last night, standing on the 5:17 Cleveland bound train from Central Station in Brisbane, I was thinking to myself…

After being pressed rather too close to another man’s groin for comfort for five minutes and standing on the foot of woman behind me the third time, I wondered, and not for the first time, if life wouldn’t be better if I could just ‘fast-forward’ twenty minutes to when I would be at home.

That is the main problem with commuting. It is behaviour which is solely for one purpose: to get from one place to another.

All other considerations, like comfort, aesthetics and  conversation are literally out the window. We just sit, or, rather, stand in silence, trying not to look anyone in the eye, or look stupid when the brakes come on and we are not holding on.

I also wondered whether or not I would use a ‘fast-forward’ to get me through the entire working week – i.e. miss all of Monday morning to Friday evening – and I thought that I probably would. How many others feel the same way? I’d be interested to find out. It’s not that I hate working, or even hate the job that I was doing, it is simply that it is not as interesting as the things that I choose to do in my own time (including, interestingly, working on websites and businesses of my own, which I’ll happily spend 14 hours a day doing).

The past two weeks, since deciding to move on from Brisbane have been turgid. The work is no more boring (it is actually quite varied and interesting) and the people no less interesting (they are all good people to be around and talk with), it is simply that there are other things I’d rather be doing.

This was my point when I said I didn’t want a job all those months ago, and I still don’t.  I really don’t want a traditional go-in-at-9-and-out-at-5-every-day job. That is not to say that people who do these are in any way disenlightened or misinformed, it just isn’t for me. Though, not being an other person than myself, I really can’t say what drives everyone else. For me, if I’m wishing my time away, or my life, I shouldn’t be doing it: if I’m bored, I’ll find something else to do. The same goes for work.

So that is what I’d like to find out – leave a comment at the bottom – how many of us, given a magic fast-forward option, would simply skip out the whole working week? And, if you would, why? Or perhaps you’ve found a great career / work from home / are independently wealthy. Tell me about it and I might have a better idea what to do with myself.