let’s talk about carpooling for work … and how it can go wrong

by Alison Green on February 6, 2025

With more people working more days in their offices, let’s talk about carpooling for work. Did you have to share a multi-hour car ride with a coworker who insisted on listening to a bad recording of his own choir practice? Get stuck carpooling with a disgusting nose picker? Fall in love with your carpool partner after he accidentally got fired by pretending to be bad at his job so he could sit with you all the time?

Let’s discuss work carpool stories in the comment section.

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  1. Dr. Rebecca*

    Carpooled with a friend who worked at the same university, from Northern Indiana to Chicago.

    Their partner got a job in a different part of Chicago, and would occasionally ride in or out with us (generally not both).

    It turns out that while I like them both separately, I cannot *stand* even a hint of bickering, (1) and having to deal with the two of them together so early in the morning/late in the evening made me pray for the sweet relief of death.

    (1) They weren’t even that bad! Just the general touchiness of two people who live with each other who are also commuting through heavy traffic, expressed via a few cross words, and easily/quickly stifled! And yet, I was so uncomfy…

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    1. Juicebox Hero*

      My sister and her husband are like this. They constantly low-key snipe at each other so when I have to be around them both at the same time, I want to hide under the floor. Granted, they’ve been married over 3o years and are totally devoted to each other, and my sister constantly low-key snipes at everyone so I’m glad she married someone who gives as good as he gets. It just makes me all prickly.

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      1. MSD*

        A married couple I knew once told me that their friends often called them “The Bickersons”. They thought it was funny. I thought to myself “yeah, that’s why I don’t like spending a lot of time around you”

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        1. Seawren*

          I was also friends with a married couple who were great individually but horrible to each other. I don’t see them anymore because I couldn’t stand the constant verbal vitriol.

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        1. LifebeforeCorona*

          I had to drive family members and told them 10AM meant I was leaving at 10AM and not a minute later. Otherwise 10 11 12 would pass and they would be “ready in a minute.”
          I was not a popular driver but I left on time.

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      3. Cedrus Libani*

        I know a couple like that. When I first met them, I had just started dating my now-husband – and I was like “these two people I’ve just met are about to have a messy breakup right in front of me, because of course they are, so I’ll just awkwardly pretend to be fascinated by these snacks”. Turned out that no, they were just…like that. 12+ years later, they’re still together.

        I don’t get it. I value my peace way too much. But it works for some people, I guess.

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    2. Mentally Spicy*

      Oh man, I used to have a manager who would drive us both to various client sites. Often his wife would call him and he would put her on the car speaker and have interminably long conversations about the minutiae of their daily existence which often devolved into … not arguing, exactly, but that sort of passive-aggressive sniping that some couples engage in. And I would have to sit there listening to it all, desperately wishing I was somewhere else. It was excruciating.

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      1. FricketyFrack*

        Oh my god, I carpooled with a guy who would do that with his wife. They never really argued, but he would literally call her the second he left his house, hang up briefly when he got to the carpool meeting place, call her back as soon as he changed cars, and talk to her the entire way to the office. It was literally just, “oh what are you having for breakfast? Oh that sounds good. Then what are you going to do? Oh I need to do ___ when I get to the office.” Same thing on the way home.

        My dad was also in the carpool because we worked at the same place, and he’d complained about it before I started, and I was NOT prepared. I wanted to light myself on fire about a week in.

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        1. Martin Blackwood*

          im imagining a protest in ghe car pool where everyone calls their significant others and narrates… “Ohhh, Bob said he forgot to check the mail before he left, did you hear? Anyways, I threw out a flyer for that expensive grocery store this morning.” Would get prwtty chaotic pretty fast

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    3. juliebulie*

      That was my whole childhood. My parents constantly bickered in the car. my personal tolerance for bickering is zero.

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    4. BC Cryptid*

      When my partner and I used to commute together, we are both VERY much not morning people, so we had a rule that anything said before 9am didn’t count. Obviously there were limits to that, but that rule saved us a lot of hard feelings. We could always look at our bickering in the morning and remind each other, “This is why we have the rule!” and then laugh at how bad we were at mornings.

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    5. Alicent*

      I had to travel in a foreign country with my sibling and their partner for WEEKS. I didn’t realize how much they hated each other until several days in when we were all trapped in a vehicle together. They alternated between spewing about how much the other person sucked when they were apart to being ridiculously over the top cutesy at other times. I was going to leave them on the side of the road if I had to hear the word “babe” one more time 15 minutes after hearing what a hosebeast that person was.

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    6. FunkyMunky*

      my in-laws are like this, coupled with aggressive breaking at yellow lights which makes me car sick, it’s AWFUL!

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    7. Green Goose*

      Ugh yes, I actually remember a lot of awkward bickering when I’d carpool on field trips or with siblings. It was always so uncomfortable to sit in a closed space with two people arguing.

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  2. Whale I Never*

    To supplement a part-time steady job, I once took on a freelance position that was a 2.5 hour train ride and a 20-minute bus ride from my home, helping out an older woman who ran a business out of her home office. She offered to give me rides back to the train station, because she also worked an evening shift on the library on the days I worked for her, and it was on the way. The first day, I gave her half an hour’s notice of when I needed to leave, and fifteen minutes, and five, but she was chatting incessantly and taking care of her dogs and we were late setting out. About halfway through the drive, she asked what time the train was scheduled to leave. Five minutes before.

    She apologized and offered to take me to the library or a coffee shop to wait, but I assured her I could wait at the train station. The next train wasn’t for 45 minutes, but this woman had been chatting at me for the majority of the day and my brain was totally fried. Then she asked me if I enjoyed freelancing, and without thinking, I answered with a flat “no”!

    Thankfully, I managed to recover and clarify that I was happy to be working for her and enjoyed the project, but I was EXTREMELY grateful that the project only lasted for about six weeks, at the end of which my part-time job offered me full-time hours at a location less than a mile from my apartment. I am now free of the perils of both carpooling and freelancing.

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    1. Wendy Darling*

      This is my mother in law. Every time you need to leave at a certain time she’ll get distracted in little 3-5 minute increments and before you know it you’ve been trying to get out the door for an hour and you’re irredeemably late.

      I offered to drop her off someplace on my way to work one time and was late for a meeting that happened 45 minutes after I was SUPPOSED to have gotten to the office. Now when she’s visiting we don’t even entertain the thought of me driving her anywhere on my way to work (at my husband’s direction, because he knows she’s not gonna get better about it). She takes the bus if she wants to go into town.

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    2. I Have RBF*

      My late grandmother used to call my mother and her late husband “Slow Poke and Dilly Dally”. It drove her and me absolutely nuts.

      Currently, one of my roommates is someone we swear will be late to her own funeral. She regularly buys train tickets for a trip then futzes around until there is now way to get her to the train on time, and she misses her train. Then she has to try to get the tickets rebooked, and lather, rinse, repeat. Drives my other roomie, who is often her ride, absolutely nuts.

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  3. Tradd*

    Years ago (late 90s) a coworker who smoked wanted rides for a day or two while her car was in the shop. She wanted to smoke in my new car I’d just gotten a week before. I didn’t want her in my car even if she didn’t smoke. She reeked of smoke and it was like an invisible cloud wafted around her like Pigpen from the Peanuts cartoons and his dirt cloud. I told her exactly why I wouldn’t be giving her a ride.

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    2. Ka*

      I don’t blame you AT ALL! My spouse’s cousin was dating a guy that smoked. When we were planning to invite people to our house for a get together the topic of the bf came up. They didn’t live together so it seemed odd that anyone would assume he’d be invited just cuz the cousin was. Anyhow, rather than argue about not wanting to invite the bf, I just told spouse the had to tell his cousin that the bf could NOT smoke while at our house. I didn’t care if he was going to go outside. I didn’t want butts left on my porch, smoke wafting in every time he came in, and the fresh stench of smoke clinging to his clothes and then to our furniture. Cousin said bf would not be coming. They broke up shortly thereafter. :)

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    3. Hroethvitnir*

      Oof. Late 90s is way too late to think it was acceptable to smoke in the car, too! (And yeah, I’d die if I had to explain it, but I wouldn’t be driving anyone who reeked of smoke, either.)

      I remember in the early to mid 90s my parents stopped smoking in the car, and my friend’s terribly addicted mother at least made the not-very-effective effort of holding it out the window. That’s your own, definitely not new, car!

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    4. Cynthia Simpson*

      I hear you. I’m a nonsmoker, and lighting up in my car is a good way to be left on the side of the road. I had a close friend who was a smoker, but she respected me enough to not smoke in my car or my house.

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    5. JanetM*

      I attempted to have that conversation once with my mother about not smoking in my car. I was over-ruled (as her child, I “had no right to tell he she couldn’t smoke”). I did not enjoy the experience.

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  4. Wallaby, Well I'll Be*

    I don’t have a specific horror story, but it’s more that giving coworkers rides anywhere is one of my major fears. I’m not the most socially gifted person, and being trapped with someone I don’t know super well just makes my anxiety go wild. Also, my car is my safe space! I love driving, and having this little capsule to be alone and listen to my favorite music and have no one asking anything of me is one of the ways I deal with the world.

    I once had a coworker who refused to drive. He could, he just didn’t want to. I know this because he talked about it a lot. He was always trying to corner me for rides, which made leaving work super stressful for a long time. I’d try to wait until he went to the bathroom or something, and then pack up my stuff super fast to get out of the building before he came back, so that he wouldn’t ask me for a ride. I even started lying about going to the gym after work. I have never gone to the gym after work.

    I will avoid giving coworkers rides in any way I can!

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    1. NothingIsLittle*

      Oh man, I get this! I find it wildly distracting to have a passenger in my car, so any time I do my normally very safe driving becomes noticeably worse. My past job I had to take long drives to our other sites with my coworkers and was very lucky that one of them preferred driving as it kept her from getting carsick!

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      1. ADCollins*

        For years I drove a small pick-up truck and then a Smart car. One of the advantages of both was that when several of us coworkers went somewhere, no one asked me to drive.

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    2. Not Australian*

      I once had a co-worker – a boss, in fact – who refused to drive anywhere and racked up insane amounts in taxi fares paid for by our organisation. On one particularly embarrassing occasion early in our acquaintance he suddenly decided I was going to drive him somewhere – without asking me first, of course. It was just “Where are you parked?” My answer was deeply disappointing to him – 1. I don’t have a car 2. I don’t have a driving licence and 3. I walk to work.

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    3. NotAnotherManager!*

      My commute is also my private time. (Most of it is via mass transit, but I drive to/from the train station closest to my house.) I would have to really, really like someone (or owe them a favor) to include them in my commute – random co-workers cornering me on my way out of the office would be a no-go. All I want to do is put my headphones in and have some quiet time to myself before I have to go into parent mode at home.

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    4. Twinklefae*

      Ooh this. Plus I work in my second language, and the majority of my coworkers don’t speak much English. Which can make even radio stations a fraught decision. Plus, last time I had to ask her to stop talking when we hit big traffic, because I couldn’t drive and think in second language at the same time.

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        1. I Have RBF*

          There are certain periods when I will literally say “Quiet please, I’m [merging|changing lanes|turning]” to my passengers, because I know that I need 100% of my brain cycles for a tricky driving task or tracking of multiple high speed variables. Slow traffic is fine. Bumper to bumper at 60 miles an hour is nerve wracking.

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    5. Dust Bunny*

      I had a friend-ish who hated cars for environmental reasons but was always bumming rides (we’re in a big city that has non-stellar but functional bus service, but she was impatient). But then would complain about how selfish car-owners were, etc. I finally told her that the extra mileage I incurred by going out of my way to pick her up and drop her off was bad for the environment.

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      1. Sparkles McFadden*

        Oh yes…these people. They ask you to go out of your way and then berate you for owning and maintaining the vehicle they’re riding in. They narrowly edge out the people who Marie Kondo-ed their house and then ask to borrow stuff from you because they no longer have basic tools or household supplies.

        You handled it perfectly!

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      2. Just Another Cog*

        Good for you for that dig! My BIL always has something negative to say about our two cars, but then always needs a ride somewhere. He loves to rub in how holier than thou he is because he bikes everywhere … well, not everywhere because he’s always asking for rides. Grrrr.

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  5. raincoaster*

    I do petsitting as a side hustle and, back in the day when the rural bus system existed, would take jobs all over and get to see lots of the country. Once, I got a short notice booking in a small town 200 miles away, and no bus could get me there fast enough.

    The old army buddy of a friend of mine was, as it happened, headed that way for construction work and was happy to have a plus one in his van.

    For four and one-half interminable hours I had to listen to Alex Jones and Joe Rogan and the rest of them, at ear-splitting volume, while the driver ranted and raved along with them. Occasionally he’d spot a person of colour and ask me if he should run them over “HAHAHAHA.” So amusing.

    He was pretty surprised when I got out of the car while he was gassing up. There was a Greyhound bus in the parking lot, and the signboard said it was going to my destination. Best $40 I ever spent.

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      1. Juicebox Hero*

        In my headcannon, the bus is surrounded by an etheral glow and a chorus of angels is singing.

        Also, the bigoted arse’s credit cards were all declined and he didn’t have enough cash to cover his gas. Then the muffler dropped off his van as soon as he got back on the highway.

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    2. Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk*

      My oldest is a freshman in high school, which is when kids tend to switch to private schools if they’re so inclined, and one of his good friends moved to a private school, to which he carpools with another family we’re friends with (although less close). The mom, evidently, is a big right-winger and listens to talk radio/podcasts in the car. Evidently my kid’s friend has his head on his shoulders pretty well, because he came home and just described her listening habits as “Weird s**t.”

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    3. Hroethvitnir*

      Yiiiiikes. I’m glad you escaped. The worst I’ve dealt with was a short period of an Uber driver complaining it wasn’t fair for mosques to have guards after the mosque shooting in Christchurch (Aotearoa). I felt incredibly bad for not going off on him, but being trapped in a car with someone does *not* feel like a good place.

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  6. IJustWantedToSaveMoney*

    I carpooled only once. The coworker did not tell me that she would drop her Great Dane at the dog daycare. I could not sit in the passenger seat because apparently that is her husband’s seat (?), and only he can. I should have just said I changed my mind then and there, but no, apparently young me was a glutton for punishment.
    I had to sit in the back of the car with the enormous dog, which kept trying to push his muzzle in my face, full force.
    I asked my coworker to help me, as I was covered in drool, and she told me—seriously, and I’m quoting here—” My husband lets him put his tongue in his mouth; that calms him down.”
    I took a taxi to go back home after work.

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    3. CherryBlossom*

      Oh my god, what?! I am so sorry you had to deal with that, but also “My husband lets him put his tongue in his mouth” has fully flabbered my ghast. Dear lord.

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    5. Anon a dog lover*

      I’m so sorry this happened to you! I love dogs, but this is seriously beyond the pale. I would never ask my friends, much less a COWORKER, to tolerate my dog climbing all over them, and she weighs just under 11 pounds. Everybody who meets her is instructed, “you don’t have to let her jump on you or anything else, push her down if she does and she’ll get it”. I would never be able to go to the office straight after being slobbered on by my family members’ sloppiest pups. I love them, but not on my work clothes.

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      1. ThatGirl*

        yeah I LOVE my dog, and he’s a licker, but no way in hell is his tongue voluntarily going in my mouth. And he’s pretty well trained to only climb over those of us who call ourselves his parents.

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      2. Lurker*

        “you don’t have to let her jump on you or anything else, push her down if she does and she’ll get it”.

        Or, as the dog’s owner, you could train your dog to not jump on people. Or preemptively prevent your dog from jumping on people instead of making it the other person’s responsibility.

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          2. secretrebel*

            Please don’t be defensive. Lots of people don’t like the onus having to be on them to push a dog off. Dogs are highly trainable so it is preferable to have them respond to a command like “sit” instead of needing to touch them to get them off you.

            I’m sure your dog is delightful but some people are scared, allergic or just don’t like having to take responsibility for other people’s dogs.

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            1. Jellyfish Catcher*

              My dog has a harness and doggie “seat belt” that snaps into the regular seat belt lock.
              I used to think I was weird and ocd about this…until another person with a dog, just driving locally, got in a wreck.He recovered, the dog, no. He loved that dog, was a good owner, maybe it would not have mattered, but…

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          3. Laura1*

            I mean, I don’t like it when dogs jump on me and I think owners SHOULD train their dogs not to do that. I don’t even want them to do it once, which is what happens in a scenario where the person tells me to just push him down.

            Also a lot of dogs don’t actually get the message when I push them away.

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    6. Hotdog not dog*

      I am a dog person, and that is ridiculous! I will occasionally kiss my dog on the top of his head, but that’s as far as it goes!

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      1. Observer*

        Huh?

        If it were *just* that comment, that could make sense. But CW made @IJustWantedToSaveMoney sit in the back seat with that dog, and did not warn them that the dog was going to be in the car. And she also did not come up with any *other* suggestion for keeping the dog at bay.

        The better question is whether the CW was actively trying to bully them or just trying to find a way to “offer” a ride while making sure that @IJustWantedToSaveMoney never actually drove with her again.

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        1. Strive to Excel*

          I think Empty Nester was asking because this is *such* a gross situation it sounds more like a bad dream than an actual thing a sane human would say!

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    8. Juicebox Hero*

      Dog drool grosses me out as few substances on this earth can, and I’m completely ready to vomit just thinking about this. I just make a catlike hurking noise.

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    9. HugeTractsofLand*

      …what.

      There are things you should never know about a co-worker. Including that this dog’s germs have traveled from his butt to her husband’s mouth to (presumably) hers.

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    10. MSD*

      The dog drool/tongue is so gross that it overshadows the equally weird part about not allowing you to sit in the front seat because it’s their husband’s spot and he’s the only one who can sit there. He’s not in the car! How would he know? Why would he care? What a strange rule.

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    11. Dust Bunny*

      I JUST PHYSICALLY RECOILED FROM MY MONITOR.

      I live 28 miles from work and I would walk all of them home to avoid that.

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    13. Toot Sweet*

      This made me think of Janeane Garofalo in “The Truth about Cats and Dogs”: “We can love our pets… we just can’t LOVE our pets.”

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      1. Ama*

        Yes to me that part is the most mystifying — I’ve met plenty of dog owners who don’t get that how *they* handle their dog isn’t how *everyone* wants to handle their dog, but I’ve never met a car owner who wouldn’t let me ride in a completely empty seat because it “belongs” to someone else.

        (Exception made for cars with infant seats that the owner doesn’t want to unbuckle, but I don’t really consider that “empty.”)

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      1. Liane*

        Me too, and I adore my 2 doggos. Totally crazy about them but not happening. Yuck!! I need brain bleach & the Nope-topus meme.

        Wouldn’t be surprised if this is #1 on Alison’s upcoming Carpool Crises post.

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    19. Sparkles McFadden*

      I’d like to think this is just a great piece of fiction, but something so bizarre just has to be true. I would spend the rest of my career trying not to cross paths with that person.

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    20. Hroethvitnir*

      That is WILD (bad wild). While I would be stoked to hang out with a great dane, every aspect of that was severely messed up.

      “Husband’s seat”?? I even sit in the back with the dogs for my equally dog mad father, because guests don’t get stomped on unless they really want to!

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    21. Selina Luna*

      I have two very, very large dogs, and when I have to travel with them, they sit in the very back of the car with a safety cage to keep them from being flung everywhere when the car stops or if there’s an accident. I cannot imagine traveling with dogs in the human passenger area (anymore; I used to do that, and then the dog tried to crawl into my lap because we were driving through a thunderstorm).

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    23. Magnolia Clyde*

      I had to read this story three times — just to take it all in. So many “No!”s, followed by one big “NOPE!”

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    24. LaminarFlow*

      OMG WHAT?! I would take the homemade choir tape alllll day over this nonsense!

      I generally don’t like carpooling with people bc it usually turns into an extended meeting about work. Ugh. I once agreed to drive a friend to a non-work event, and I had to listen to her work drama. We didn’t work together, and I had no idea who these people were, or why any of it was relevant to me. After about 45 min of trying to change the conversation, I just had to straight up ask her to change the subject. She was a little irritated with my request, lol.

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  7. RedinSC*

    I used to carpool with two others when we all worked at a university. It was great as it seriously reduced the price to park!

    BUT one woman hummed. She didn’t really even recognize that she hummed. AND she hummed Christmas carols. ALL. YEAR. LONG

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  8. Keymaster of Gozer (she/her)*

    (Not sure the term for it in the UK – we don’t use ‘carpool’ and I cannot remember what we DO call it! Menopause brain)

    Used to get a lift from a manager from the nearby railway station to the office way back when and he’d pick up about 3 of us who commuted from out of town. On one particular day we were stood outside the train station shivering in the december rain and he showed up with all the windows down on his car and refused to close them.

    A mile into the VERY wet and cold journey we discovered why. He’d definitely eaten something that didn’t agree with him and to be fair he was doing his best to not gag us all.

    Still not sure if I’d have preferred breathing through my mouth for 5 miles as opposed to arriving soaked and shivering..

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      1. Clisby*

        That makes sense – to me, “getting a lift” means a one-off thing, like your car is in the shop and a co-worker gives you a lift. “Carpool” implies something more regular (at least to me.)

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    3. Mentally Spicy*

      Born in the UK and lived here all my life – I don’t think I’ve ever used any term other than “carpool”.

      I was going to say that “car share” and “car pool” are different things. But then I couldn’t remember or work out what that difference was! Huh.

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      1. Buni*

        I think ‘car share’ implies it’s the actual driving of the car you’re sharing, like the car itself is communal property. I used to work at a place that had a small fleet of 6-7 cars and when you left for the day you just grabbed any key off the board, took that car, drove it back the next day and hung the key back up for whoever.

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        1. iglwif*

          To confuse things further, here in Canada a “car share” is like a short-term car rental/hire situation where there are cars parked all over the city and if you belong to the car share, you can book one for a specific time — as little as 30 minutes — do the thing you need a car for, and then drop it back. Some have specific cars in specific places, others you can just locate a car via GPS and then park it anywhere legal for the next person to find.

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          1. Rocket Raccoon*

            My brother lives in San Fransisco and he belongs to one of these, and that is what I would think of if someone said “car share”.

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            1. iglwif*

              Good to know! I can never tell which terms are Canadian and which ones other people will also understand (she said, pouring out the last of the bag of milk and pulling up the hood of her bunnyhug)

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              1. iglwif*

                In Ottawa, they have one called CommunAuto. Because in Ottawa you gotta have names that work in both English and French!

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    4. Hroethvitnir*

      We use car pool in Aotearoa, but I’m very defensive that it’s not a “pool” if only one person is driving!

      I still call it catching a lift or getting a ride if it’s regular. People generally offer petrol money for regular lifts, but it’s still not the same thing as alternating cars to reduce wear.

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      1. iglwif*

        Yeah, as a non-driver I would be hesitant to refer to catching a ride with someone — even if as a regular thing — as “carpooling” because that term definitely carries connotations of sharing the work!

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  9. kate*

    I carpooled for about a year twice a week with a coworker twenty years ago. Luckily it was great, and she’s still one of my best friends. But I would definitely choose wisely. :)

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  10. Retired State Worker*

    Before we both retired, my spouse and I worked for the same state government agency – different divisions but the same location. Parking in the area was both scarce and expensive, so we sought and found an absolutely great carpool – two women, longtime friends, intelligent, interesting conversationalists, similar political views to ours, and we were very happily a part of their carpool for a number of years.

    Now, my spouse and I are kind of goofy/nerdy in an “old married couple” sort of way. One of our goofier habits is that when we are out in a vehicle, if one of us sees a Volkswagon Beetle, the person who sees it will make a loud smooching noise and say “red one” (or whatever color it is), because it’s less painful to play Smoochbuggies than it is to play Punchbuggies.

    Our two carpoolers found this harmless little game absolutely hilarious, and the vehicle was often filled with laughter as we rode to and from the office each day. Of course that wasn’t the only thing we laughed about, but it was a rare week that went by without at least one or two Smoochbuggy sightings.

    Well, apparently our silly little game was contagious.

    A couple of years after we had joined the carpool, one of the other women was in a regular one-on-one with her supervisor. Her supervisor’s office was on the fourth floor and had a big window facing the main road that came into downtown. As they sat there discussing various important business topics, our carpooler friend glanced out the window and saw a bright yellow VW Beetle.

    And she gave a commendably loud SMOOOOOOCH sound and announced “Yellow one!” to her mystified boss.

    I would have given half my paycheck to have been a fly on the wall in that office that afternoon….

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    2. Hey Nonny Mouse*

      I have a similar story, my husband and I will say “Dog!” when we see a dog, so the other person can look at the dog. Now I just sort of do this automatically if I’m in a car with people. Thankfully, most people enjoy having dogs pointed out to them.

      Reply ↓
      1. Mallory Janis Ian*

        We play “zitch-dog” like Ted and Marshall on How I Met Your Mother, but we switch it up to “zitch-fall” if it’s raining and we can see little waterfalls; or “zitch-boat” if we’re looking for people hauling any kind of watercraft, etc.

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        1. Sharpie*

          My niece likes diggers and similar things so I always make sure to point them out to her when we’re out in the car.

          I can just imagine doing the same for my brother, who is in his forties. :D

          Reply ↓
      4. LegoSucculent*

        I have a coworker who can’t help but point out every dog she sees. Even if she has to interrupt herself. Traveling with her is both hilarious and delightful.

        Reply ↓
    3. Indigo a la mode*

      My family has a “cow counting” road trip game that comes from my mother’s childhood. If you pass cows on your side of the car, you ‘get’ them. Sheep and goats are worth three cows. Horses are worth ten. If you pass a cemetery on your side, you lose your cows. My husband and I play cutthroat cow counting – whoever claims the cows first, on either side of the car, gets them, so this can get reasonably competitive (except that we absolutely don’t keep count of how many cows are in our stash, just bask in the pride of having found them first).

      All this is to say that people have definitely been in our car and been mystified when we drive past a cemetery and one of us says sadly, “Awww. I’ve lost my cows” while the other goes “HA!!!!”

      Reply ↓
      1. Kay*

        My family does the competitive version too, including cemetery spotting. Whoever says “all your cows are dead!!” first, is the only one to keep their cows. Great game.

        Reply ↓
        1. Alumnus*

          Our variant was that the person in the middle could count road kill, and was therefore in charge of zombie animals which are immune to graveyards.

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      3. Name (Required)*

        We have the same game but we call it Cow Poker. Each horse is 50 cows and a cemetery loses you 50 cows, not all of them.

        I’ve never heard of anyone else that had the same game! :)

        We also played “Volkswagon” – the cutthroat version where if you spot the VW bug first you yell Volkswagon and it’s yours. Safer to play with brothers and sisters than Punch Buggy which is what my husband played.

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        1. Polyhymnia O’Keefe*

          We used to play “Padiddle” — when you see a car approaching (our rules were that it had to be in oncoming traffic), you hit the roof of the car and yell “Padiddle!”

          You also lost points for confusing a motorcycle for a car.

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          1. Mary (in PA)*

            My group of friends used to play Padiddle in high school/college, but it was for when you saw a car with one headlight out.

            …also, everyone else in the car who didn’t call the Padiddle had to remove one article of clothing. Unless you called a motorcycle – in which case, you had to remove one article.

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          2. Magc*

            The only person I knew who did this was a friend in high school, but you were only supposed to say it if the car had one of their headlights out.

            Growing up, on long drives we either played the license plate alphabet game or used signs (road, business, &c) to create spoonerisms. NEVER heard of the cow game, but it sounds delightful and I’m sad that I missed out as a kid.

            Reply ↓
            1. thatlibrarylady*

              TIL I learned that people were saying padiddle. We played this too, but I always thought everyone was saying badiddle.

              Reply ↓
      4. My Wimsey*

        Ooh! I played this in Ohio back in the 80’s (and from time to time after that). Our rule addition was that if you passed a cemetery, you had to give your best dying-cow moo. My go-to was usually a moo that choked off into a dying cough.

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    4. Lyn*

      We do this with cows. It started when our kids were small and we were making the 1 hour trip to grandma and grandpas. First one to see a herd of cows would say “Moo cows!”. Our kids are now grown, but occasionally my hubs and I will be driving somewhere and one of us will say “Moo cows!”

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      1. Chocolate Teapot*

        I used to play Stobby and Nobby on long car journies which involved trying to spot heavy goods lorries from the companies Eddie Stobart (Stobby) or Norbert Dentressangle (Nobby).

        Reply ↓
      2. Artemesia*

        Ours was — see a white horse and you lick your thumb and put it in your palm and then you cannot speak till you see a haystack at which point you flap your hand and can speak again. My parents loved this to keep us shut up on long trips and we did the same with our kids.

        Reply ↓
    5. Seawren*

      We had a rule that you had to hold your breath going through a tunnel. My daughter’s friend misheard ‘breath’ as ‘breasts’ and gamely clutched her chest in tunnels for years.

      Reply ↓
      1. Koala*

        We played that you had to hold your breath when passing a cemetary because it’s rude to breath when others can’t. Although I think my friend’s dad just made that up so we would be quiet briefly.

        Reply ↓
    6. Road Tripper*

      We, as a family, play cheese: a yellow vehicle (no school buses or construction vehicles). We have included kayaks, lawnmowers and bicycles. If you see a yellow camper, it’s a “cheesyweezy” and that person wins. There is one specific vehicle that is a “sneaky cheese” as it kept popping up in a road trip a few years back.

      I have played this game with commuting to another office with others. I had to explain, and a few others joined in.

      Reply ↓
  11. Anonymous Pygmy Possum*

    I’ve only been in a work carpool once and it was usually fine – it was me and three to four other interns from other departments at the same huge, multi-national company, which was located about an hour’s drive away from our college campus in a big city. There was a shuttle that went to a bus to the nearest commuter rail, but that took an hour and a half total travel time, so I was glad to find a carpool. 80% of the time, the other interns would just talk in one of their native languages (they were all from India) while I sat there listening to the radio and playing on my phone. The only real gripe I had with it is that occasionally one or more of the other interns would want to work late, leaving me still waiting at the office until at least 6:30 PM. On some days, I would have choir practice that starts at 7, so I had to really push everyone to leave on time on those days. On my last day, I was so done with my team and that company (it was a really tough internship and I was struggling) that when it hit 5 and the carpool leader told me that one of the other interns wanted to work late, I got really upset and decided that I was going to find my own way home and got on the bus. He tried to backpedal, but by the time he had gathered the rest of the interns, I was already on the train.

    Reply ↓
    1. Fluffy Fish*

      you were so much politer than i would have been. optionally choosing to work late, last minute, and holding up others is about the rudest thing someone can do.

      Reply ↓
      1. Frank Doyle*

        Right? In that case the late-staying person should take public transportation home and let the rest of the group leave without them.

        Reply ↓
      2. ferrina*

        Absolutely! I used to carpool with a coworker when I didn’t have a car (we lived in a rural town that didn’t really have a transit system), and I was always ready to go as soon as he was. If he was my ride, I was on his schedule.

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  12. TechWorker*

    Not sure this counts but when I was ~16/17 my first job was as a church organist. The folks at church never questioned my religion (lack of, as it happens), I never went for communion in the services so they knew I wasn’t CoE at least.

    I occasionally did work at other churches and on one occasion got a lift with a vicar who, before I got out of the car, decided to take my hands and pray for me, telling me how my music was spreading Gods word, or something like that. Whilst I, a fairly fervent atheist as a teen, tried to sink into the car seat.

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  13. RLC*

    Early in my career I travelled to remote jobsites with a colleague infamous for his poor driving skills (he proudly and stubbornly refused to let others drive). Knowing his reputation still did not prepare me for the terror I felt as the passenger when he raced a freight train to a crossing, swerved around the lowered crossing arms, and passed in front of the train. I had my seatbelt unfastened and my hand on the door release, fully prepared to take my chances with road rash versus train moving at 90 mph.

    Reply ↓
      1. RLC*

        Management was inexplicably tolerant of his actions (he was also extraordinarily incompetent at his job), and he’d announced his retirement, so no consequences.

        Reply ↓
    2. Roy G. Biv*

      “he raced a freight train to a crossing, swerved around the lowered crossing arms, and passed in front of the train” My hair sprouted more grays just reading that!

      Reply ↓
    3. MsM*

      I hope your carpool guy and my carpool guy are the same person, because I don’t like thinking there’s two of them. (I know there’s more than two of them; I just don’t like thinking it.)

      Reply ↓
    4. Harper*

      It absolutely infuriates me to ride with a reckless driver. It’s so effing inconsiderate to gamble with someone else’s life and safety.

      Reply ↓
    5. Hroethvitnir*

      Wow. I have been driven by someone being (emotionally) reckless, and it was so scary at a way, way lower level than than.

      The train thing specifically is horrifying – I live down a long road with about 4 train crossings, and people *have* died trying to race the train. They cannot stop!

      Reply ↓
  14. CzechMate*

    Right after college, my friend Jane, my boyfriend Fergus (now husband) and I all moved to the big city. We all lived in low-rent apartments on the outskirts of town and had fancy adult jobs downtown, so hey, why don’t we all carpool to work everyday?

    The thing about a carpool is it only works if you have the same or similar schedules as your pals in the pool party. Jane, though I love her, wasn’t willing to adjust to other people’s schedules and insisted we adjust to hers (to the point where I had to leave work early to take her home when she had a hangover). Fergus and I talked it over and decided that we would commute together, but we wouldn’t be able to travel with Jane anymore.

    This is how the exchange went down (while we were sitting in traffic heading into downtown).
    Fergus: Jane, I get the impression that this carpool causes you a lot of stress.
    Jane: What do you mean? I like being with you guys.
    Fergus: But I feel like the carpool isn’t sufficient to meet your commuting needs every day. CzechMate and I aren’t able to provide you with the transportation you need to be successful and happy.
    Jane: …you think so?
    Fergus: I think it might be better if we go our separate ways. Commuting-wise, I mean. We still want to be friends. Maybe we just shouldn’t be carpool mates anymore.

    I do appreciate Fergus for being so diplomatic, but as soon as Jane got out of the car she texted all of our friends, “I think Fergus and CzechMate just carpool broke up with me.”

    Reply ↓
    2. Arrietty*

      I’m not sure I’d see that as diplomatic (at least, not to my ND brain) – more confusing. It was working fine for Jane! It was you and Fergus who found it stressful. I’m glad she got the message though.

      Reply ↓
      1. Rusty Shackelford*

        Saying “I can’t meet your needs,” with the unspoken important part being “because your needs are outrageous,” is more diplomatic than saying “I don’t want to carpool with you because you make outrageous requests such as us leaving work early because you have a hangover.”

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      2. MigraineMonth*

        Yeah, at least throw in an “It’s not you, it’s me” or “We need to be the only two people in the car for now” if you’re going to rely on break-up cliches.

        Reply ↓
      3. CzechMate*

        Actually, Jane is also ND, although none of us knew that until many years later (including her). And yes, I do think she was confused about why we would want to break up the carpool when it seemed to be going so well. Looking back, it also makes sense why we had the troubles we did with time management/scheduling/being on time. Fortunately she DID get the message and we did remain friends.

        Reply ↓
      4. Laura1*

        yeah, i’d find this passive-aggressive. I hate when people won’t own their feelings and try to frame things this way. If it’s working fine for me, they need to tell me it’s not working for them. Otherwise I’ll just argue that it’s fine and not stressful for me and I don’t think we need to end it.

        Reply ↓
  15. Constance Lloyd*

    I carpooled with a coworker to a day of field work. She chain smoked the whole 2 hour drive and at one point, handed me her phone so I could jot down a quick note from her boyfriend. He was soft spoken, and a recorded message kept interrupting the call so it was a little tricky, but after a couple of tries I got it down. It turns out her boyfriend was in prison and the note was a cash app handle belonging to a fellow inmate’s girlfriend. They were exchanging commissary funds for small favors.

    Reply ↓
      1. Constance Lloyd*

        A fact that made me DEEPLY uncomfortable once I had enough information for the pieces to click together!

        Reply ↓
  16. CubeFarmer*

    Not really a carpooling story, but somewhat relevant. Many years ago three of us had several meetings just north of NYC, and having a car would make it easier. Instead of renting one, we agreed that we would meet at a colleague’s house and travel in her car. One of my colleagues lived somewhere in New Jersey. He said that he parked his car in a commuter lot and asked if, on the way home, he could be dropped at the station. Yeah, sure, no problem.

    Meetings happened, and we’re on our way to drop off New Jersey colleague at his car. This was partially our fault for not asking WHERE the car was, but honestly? My New Jersey geography is so poor that I probably wouldn’t have appreciated the location if I had heard the name. This was also well before smartphones. His car was basically 30 miles out of the way. So, we drove there in NYC rush hour traffic, and then needed to get back into the city. Took us almost two hours.

    The next time we did this, we made sure that everyone was responsible for their transportation to/from the shared vehicle.

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  17. Zyzzx*

    This one is a failed carpool: my husband started a new job last year with a 5-day a week, 40 minute, traffic-y car commute. On his third day he came in all excited because he had discovered one of his new coworkers lived five houses down from us. Great, they’d be able to use the carpool lane!

    Well turns out the coworker is a lovely guy, but extremely passionate about his field and regularly works 10-11 hour days (not required by any means, he’s just that into his work). Since my husband is more of an 8-hour type, that carpool never got off the ground.

    Reply ↓
  18. anytime anywhere*

    In college I was in a leadership role in the same organization as my crush. There was a conference at another college campus not too far away for student leaders, and our advisor encouraged us both to go, and even found funding to pay for it. So my crush and I got in his little car and went. It was a great day, including a free lunch and meeting college students from other nearby campuses. When we left my stomach began to turn- I’m not sure what was in the lunch! But when we stopped for gas partway back to our campus, I could barely wait for my crush to climb out of the driver’s side door before I farted. It was AWFUL. And because I didn’t have time to get my door open, I couldn’t air the car out. He definitely smelled it when he got back in, and called me out on it. MORTIFIED.

    Reply ↓
    1. Workerbee*

      College Me would have been mortified, too.
      More-Adult Me tells College Me (and College You) that human bodies do things and it isn’t your fault your crush wasn’t mature enough to be gracious about you being a human being.

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  19. carpool woes*

    Carpooled to work with someone, who while nice, was so annoying. After work, she’d called her husband (no matter who was driving) and tell him about her entire today (which usually I already knew about since I was there for it). There was no detail too small for this conversation. Why she did this? I don’t know, he was home before her, so she was driving home to see him! It didn’t seem to bother her that I heard the entire convo, more so when she was driving and it was over her car, so I heard HIS responses too. They also often talked about other things (the drive was 30 to 50 mintes depending on traffic) so I learned a lot about their lives, unwillingly.

    I tried to say something once making it seem like I was trying to keep her from being embarssed I heard the whole thing and she was like oh me and husband don’t mind you hearing this!

    But I minded, I minded very much.

    Reply ↓
    1. WeirdChemist*

      I had an old roommate that did that with her mom! Every afternoon, she would camp out on the couch and talk to her mom on speakerphone for what felt like hours about the most minute details of their day. She also told me she didn’t mind if I overheard, but I very much did not want to be hearing that level of detail about her parents’ acrimonious divorce!!! Gah!

      Reply ↓
    2. Archi-detect*

      I do that with my wife, but in the sanctity of a private vehicle. it is a nice way to decompress and preemptively solve a lot of conversation needs of the day, and coordinate any needs when I get home and make it easier to go home and start relaxing

      Reply ↓
    3. Slow Gin Lizz*

      I haaaaaate when carpoolers talk on the phone during the drive. One time I was playing a gig and someone else in the group (I’d never met him before) lived near me and asked if I could drive him to the performance. He gets in the car and immediately calls someone on his phone and talks to them for the entire 50-minute drive. He did this on the ride home too. Worst of it was that it was in his native language, which I do not know, so it wasn’t even possible to be entertained or learn any juicy gossip.

      Next time he asked for a ride I told him I was coming from another location, which is my go-to excuse when I don’t want to drive someone somewhere.

      Reply ↓
  20. Discombobulated and Tired*

    A long time ago, I had a job in an office building in the middle of an industrial park one town over. I had to bus-train-bus every day. One day a coworker offered to drive me to my train station because she passes that way on her way home. That sounded wonderful until we got to the road that the train station was named after and she said cheerily “Here we are!” Except the train station was nowhere in sight. I asked her where the station was, or even which direction it was and got another cheery “No idea! But I have to turn here so you better hop out!” (Note she hadn’t even pulled over, she was just at an intersection waiting to turn right.) Basically I was in the middle of nowhere, no clue where I was, on a busy road with no sidewalks. Luckily I guessed the right direction and after a LOT of walking got to the train station. I never accepted a ride from her again.

    Reply ↓
  21. Zona the Great*

    It was discovered by my boss once that we lived in the same neighborhood. So I got a call 5 minutes before I left the house “asking” me to pick him up on my way. Wouldn’t you know that the very next day my car was inexplicably down and, darn it, I had to take the – direct – bus to our job from then on. The bus was beneath him so at least I didn’t also have to share a bus ride with him. He took Ubers everyday until he bought a new car.

    Reply ↓
  22. The Wild Fergus (pantalonicus bananensis)*

    In my first job out of college, I started carpooling with two colleagues, a man about my age and a slightly older woman. It was fine at first, but soon enough the guy drove me bonkers! I, dear reader, am NOT a morning person, in any sense. But this guy. He never. Stopped. Talking. Usually about fascinating topics, and I often love a good thought-provoking debate, but like – not at 6am before the first cup of coffee’s kicked in, ya know? He even once printed out a several page article about one of our “lively” morning discussion topics and left it in my mailbox for me later in the day. Thanks, but dude – sun’s not even up yet, and I barely remember my own NAME. I was at least grateful for the other woman in our carpool who could absorb some of the mental demand of thoughtful interaction at screw-this o’clock in the morning.
    Eventually, he and I got opportunities to talk at later times in the day when I was a fully functioning human, and I found out that I actually enjoyed his conversation and company (when I was awake enough to participate.) We got on famously everywhere EXCEPT the early-morning carpool.
    20 years later, we no longer work at the same place. However, he’s still a hopeless morning person, and I still have to remind him regularly that, really, I CANNOT absorb an in-depth analysis on the state of foreign politics before my first cup of coffee. He’s an excellent cook and the kids are adorable, though.

    Reply ↓
  23. Definitely not me*

    About 18 years ago I was a field rep for a small org that provided an important service to local government employees across our state and which often required us to travel and give presentations about that service. I’m female, and one one such trip, a male employee I didn’t know well traveled with me so we could present to two groups in one trip.

    I knew that the younger female employees in our office thought this guy was lecherous, but I was about 40 and wasn’t intimidated. And, we happened to be traveling to the small town where I grew up. During our 2-hour drive to get there, I struggled to find things to talk about, but as we got closer I decided to pointed out some rock formations that happen to be made of “basement rock,” the oldest rock that’s usually buried under newer rock but is exposed in some areas by erosion, faulting, etc. My hometown is a haven for geologists. That seems interesting, right? Oh, no. Turns out this dude was a fundamentalist Christian who insists the earth is only 6,000 years old. He condescendingly lectured me for the next five minutes, saying he couldn’t believe I could say something so ridiculous as rocks being millions or billions of years old, and that I just needed some education. He actually said he blamed my parents for teaching me that nonsense. I was seething! The last 30 minutes of the drive was mostly silent.

    After our presentations, he kept asking if I wanted to stop and visit my parents before we headed back to our city, since we were in my hometown. My parents, whom he had “blamed” for my “lack of knowledge.” Oh, Hell-that-I-don’t-believe-in NO! I wasn’t letting him with in five miles of my parents. I said they were out of town.

    Reply ↓
    1. Definitely not me*

      Oh, and this great Christian not only made skeevy comments to the young women on our staff, he also told me on that same trip how disappointed he was that his wife had gained weight. **shudder**

      Reply ↓
    2. VP of Monitoring Employees’ LinkedIn and Indeed Profiles*

      Did he add that the universe was created at 9:00AM on October 23, 4004BC?

      Reply ↓
  24. MsM*

    School story rather than a work one, but one of my professors invited our upper-level seminar class to his home two hours away for an end-of-semester celebration. I didn’t have a license at the time and still don’t particularly enjoy driving, so when a classmate offered rides, I happily took him up on it.

    The instant I close the door, he tells me “Buckle up; I’m from New York.” What followed was a real life game of Frogger/Tetris as he zipped into any available opening between the cars ahead of us, honks trailing us all the way. I spent most of the event alternating between trying to lower my heart rate and begging a ride home with other friends.

    Reply ↓
    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      I lived the inverse of this: being from the midwest, taking an interest in hypermiling, and working for New Yorkers for a decade. When I rode with them, it was exactly as you described (and automatics make things worse; you don’t have to work for speed, just hold the pedal down. I’ll testify in court that either one pedal or the other was always flat against the floor).

      They’d doze off when I drove, and we’d arrive only like 3-5 minutes later. I could get 600 mi/tank (~20 gal, but the low-fuel light comes on with ~5 gal remaining) in my Accord with minimal effort; they’d be lucky to get 120.

      Reply ↓
    2. WeirdChemist*

      I recently rode in a coworker’s car for an off-site event. The drive was fairly short, and involved being on the highway for one (1) exit, or approximately 1-2 mins. Said coworker got on the highway, zipped through any tiny opening he could in order to get in the left-most lane, and then immediately had to repeat the process to got back in the right lane to exit, with a chorus of angry honks in his wake. A both baffling and terrifying experience!

      Reply ↓
    3. I Have RBF*

      Ugh. I can’t stand the constant “one-car-hop” form of driving. It’s dangerous, and doesn’t really save any time. Sure, if someone in front of me is going 50 and the rest of traffic is going 60, I’ll pass them. But if they are keeping up with the flow of traffic I just pick my lane and stay there.

      Reply ↓
    4. Koala*

      I live in a mid sized southern city. My boss learned to drive in NYC. Going places with him is always an adventure.

      Reply ↓
  25. Carys, Lady of Weeds*

    I have the best/worst story for this.

    In my early twenties, I worked at an office with coworkers who had NO boundaries (like, I heard things about a coworker’s sex life I still shudder over). I had a major crush on a single guy on a different team. When my coworker (the one with the incredibly inappropriate sex stories) got married to her second husband, I offered to drive my crush as we’d both been invited and he lived somewhat close to me. In hindsight, I feel SO BAD for this guy. I had a scrappy Mazda Protege 5 with uncomfortable bucket seats, one CD playing on repeat the whole time (Carolina Liar’s Wild Blessed Freedom), and stars in my eyes for the entirety of the hour-long drive there and the hour-long drive back.

    After that day, I continued to crush on him from afar and he continued to be politely ignorant of the fact that we were obviously meant to be. Every time I think about that interaction now I just cringe. Self-awareness was not one of my strengths at that time.

    Reply ↓
    1. Clisby*

      I often think of the hordes of people who were “politely ignorant of the fact that we were obviously meant to be.” Fortunately, I never informed them of it.

      Reply ↓
    2. Observer*

      Self-awareness was not one of my strengths at that time.

      Hey, you had enough self-awareness to crush from afar! That’s not nothing.

      Reply ↓
      1. Carys, Lady of Weeds*

        To be fair, I didn’t hide it very well, and my work friends all knew; I’m sure he knew! But you’re right, I was at least self-aware enough to have it be a semi-distant crush and not something I made his problem lol

        Reply ↓
  26. NotDanica*

    Pre-pandemic, I worked in San Francisco and lived across the bay. There’s a steep toll to get over the bridge into SF, but it’s reduced by about 2/3 or so if you have 3 or more people in your car. And you get to use the express lanes, so you don’t have to wait in the toll lines like everyone else, and the metering lights prioritize you. Cue casual carpool. If you’re a driver, you go to one of a few designated spots, pick up a few passengers, drive fast across the bridge, and drop everyone in another designated spot downtown. If you’re a passenger, you just show up, get in line, and get in a car when it’s your turn. Sounds sketchy as hell, actually works really well. I got chauffeured to work in some *very nice* cars.

    If you ride as a passenger long enough, there are some cars you learn to recognize and decide not to get into. It’s different for everyone. You learn which car owners typically have back seats covered in dog fur, or which people play music you hate, or whatever.

    For me, it was a white Honda Fit. The first time I encountered it, I got in behind the driver. A woman, probably no more than 5 feet tall, she had the seat all the way pushed *back*, the seat back reclined so far that she couldn’t reach the steering wheel. Whatever, it’s a long wait in line. But the Fit isn’t a big car, so she’d taken up all the leg room in the back seat. When I got in behind her, I — also not a particular tall person — was so scrunched up that my knees dug into the back of the drivers’ seat, which she then had the nerve to complain about.

    She was also eating a bowl of cereal. A huge bowl. Ramen sized at least, white, made of ceramic, full of cereal and milk, metal spoon and everything. Again, something I thought she’d take care of before setting off to handle rush hour traffic on the Bay Bridge.

    BUT NO.

    She put the bowl on her lap, did nothing whatsoever to the seat position, and proceeded to drive away. Now, I’d said she couldn’t reach the steering wheel and this was true. So in order to drive, she used the wheel to pull herself up and she clung to it the entire 30 minute drive into the city.

    At this point, I must mention that I race cars. It sounds like I’m being pretentious as hell, and I probably am, but the thing is when you learn how to drive fast you spend a lot of time talking about driving posture. To drive a car, you want your body to be as supported as possible, as upright as possible, and probably no more than about 12-24 inches from the steering wheel, depending on how long your arms are. Your arms should be slightly bent and they shouldn’t be taking any of your weight. There are lots of reasons for all of this but the one relevant for today’s discussion is that this puts you in the best possible position to see down the road as far as possible and notice hazards and avoid them. By supporting yourself with your seat, you leave your arms free to steer suddenly and precisely should the need arise.

    Also, the Bay Area is ground zero for distracted driving. Assholes texting, watching videos, making video calls, all while driving their cars at 80 mph.

    So: this woman couldn’t see down the road to anticipate accidents and couldn’t steer out of the way to avoid them. And she wasn’t paying attention.

    Also, in racing, you secure absolutely everything in the car because in a crash, anything not nailed down is going to become a missile. Ceramic cereal bowls for instance.

    The drive objectively fine, but I spent it in physical pain, trying to keep my knees out of her back — did I mention I’d had recent knee surgery? I’d had recent knee surgery — and mental anguish imagining all the ways I was going to end up dead and covered in froot loops.

    It was fine, I said nothing, no harm no foul etc, but I also decided it would be best for both of us if I never got in that car again, so I didn’t.

    Reply ↓
    2. HugeTractsofLand*

      Nooo, I’d be subtly trying to shove the seat forward with my crushed knees. What a horrendous way to drive.

      Reply ↓
    3. nekosan*

      That is insane!

      As someone who is just a bit under 5 feet tall, I reflexively tell people that the seat with the most legroom is the one behind me (the driver).

      Reply ↓
    5. Slow Gin Lizz*

      OMG this is awful. And you, NotDanica, are a brilliant writer. I became aware of how much stuff moves in a car crash when I was in one a few years back, skidded headlong into a jersey barrier after someone cut me off. As soon as the car stopped I was like, OMG, I can’t see, my vision is all blurry, I must be badly injured! Turns out I was fine (totally fine, thank goodness!) but my glasses had gotten flung off my face and into the back seat. It took me putting my prescription sunglasses on to eventually find them.

      Reply ↓
  27. James*

    Brit here. Didn’t own a car, didn’t need one – good public transport where I lived, 6 buses an hour from 100 yards of my front door to 100 yards of my office, also a railway station quarter of a mile away, with the other station a quarter of a mile from the office. Why drive at rush hour with that service?

    I was asked to go work for 3 months at a far-flung rural outer office. No public transport connections at all. I turned it down, but management were really really desperate. Not enough to get me two taxis a day, but enough to try to facilitate a carpool with a colleague I vaguely knew who worked at the out-office but lived in the same town as me.

    It got weird very slowly, over the course of 2 weeks of pass-the-parcel messages – I wasn’t allowed to speak to her, management wanted to arrange it all.

    First feedback: yes, she’d do it, but only if I paid half her gas money. Not entirely unreasonable, even though she was doing the journey each day anyway, but sure, I was in.

    Next: she wouldn’t come to my door to collect me. I would need to walk half a mile to the car park of the local supermarket and she’d meet me there. Um, okay, I suppose?

    Next: No food in the car. That’s an easy one, I agreed. No, no food in the car at all. No bringing lunch with me. No lunch boxes, no snacks, no mints, no candy. Nothing edible whatsoever at all. There was no canteen or café near the out-office. Deep sigh, but yeah, okay.

    Next: I must bring spare trousers so I wasn’t sitting on her car seats in my own suit trousers. A pair just for use in her car. That’s really weird, right? I still said yes.

    Next: No talking in the car. I was to say nothing to her other than “hello” on arrival and “goodbye” getting out. Awkward, but I agreed, what the hell.

    Finally: she changed her mind about paying half her gas money. She now wanted the full money, and would fill her tank each morning on the way to work and I would go in to the petrol station and pay. Plus she wanted extra for wear and tear on the car. On a journey she did every day anyway.

    That was the point I did what she couldn’t: I said no. Management told me I was being unreasonable. I didn’t end up working at the out-office.

    Reply ↓
    1. Hlao-roo*

      Management told me I was being unreasonable.

      Oh, I’m sure Management would have been perfectly happy to pay 100% of the gas money, change into their special car trousers, walk a half mile to the supermarket, and not eat all work day (/sarcasm)

      I’m with you: first two feedbacks are OK, and then things went off the rails with no food at all! o.O

      Reply ↓
    2. Glad I’m Not In the Rat Race Any More*

      This person did not want to take you and kept making up crazier requests until your management or you backed out. Sorry your management was that desperate…

      Or she was just plain bananapants.

      Reply ↓
      1. Ama*

        Yeah I have to think that’s what was happening here. She either said yes and then realized she wasn’t comfortable doing it or got pressured into saying yes (given that management wouldn’t let OP communicate with her I suspect it was the latter and management was trying to keep her from telling OP she couldn’t do it after all) and then made up as many wild things as she could to get OP to say no since management wouldn’t let her back out.

        Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        Bananapants count as food and would not be allowed in the car as the car-pants OR suit pants for use at the job site.

        Reply ↓
    4. Tasha*

      Reminds me of Sheldon Cooper and the bus pants: pants you wear over your normal pants so they don’t touch the bus seats

      Reply ↓
    5. Calamity Janine*

      i think i must congratulate you on your restraint, and by that not paying the money just once to show up in one of those disposable tyvek clean room jumpsuits with facial mask and everything. and while you climb into her car looking like the Poundland rendition of Spaceman Sam, profusely thanking her for letting you know about the potential hazards of her car and that nothing in the environment was suitable for your businesswear.

      this would have been the absolute worst way to respond to it but if your life ever gets turned into a sitcom…

      Reply ↓
  28. Texas*

    I carpooled for a few years with a rotating cast of characters. We had about an hour drive, so people would often chat, and you’d get to know them better. One gentleman was relatively new to the workforce. He had negotiated having Fridays off for religious reasons but would often complain that he was paid less than others in the office, who worked full time. We gently explained that when you work 20% fewer hours, your salary will typically be lower.

    Reply ↓
    1. Texas*

      Another time, one of our carpool mates, who was pregnant, came into the carpool with a partially unzipped dress. She couldn’t get it zipper fully because of not being able to bend certain ways. She figured we would help, and we did!

      Reply ↓
  29. Spooky Shotgun Rider*

    My boss was driving the two of us to a meeting about two hours away, in a town neither of us knew well, and we took a backroad to avoid construction. It was fall and it was BEAUTIFUL – there were huge, wooded, rolling hills on either side of the road, it was a warm and sunny afternoon, we had the windows down and were chatting about how nice it was, but gradually lapsed into silence.

    I’d started to feel weird and unsettled, like I was being watched or something bad was going to happen. It was still a beautiful sunny day, but I broke out in goosebumps. My boss silently rolled up the windows. Eventually, the feeling got so strong that I said “Hey, this may sound weird but-” and my boss interrupted to say “No, you’re right, something is wrong.”

    We came around a curve and saw a huge abandoned building nestled in the hills. He said “That’s it. What is that place?”

    I approximated our position and found out it was an abandoned mental hospital from the 40’s. The bad feeling abated about half a mile down the road. It was so, so strange.

    Reply ↓
      1. Spooky Shotgun Rider*

        As a fun followup, as soon as we got past the spooky part of the drive, we saw one of those big metal bigfoot cutouts in someone’s yard, and five years later the two of us still blame everything on bigfoot, including that incident.

        Reply ↓
    4. HugeTractsofLand*

      Yikes, that’s one of those moments you’re glad to share with someone else. It makes the situation simultaneously weirder and better that you both noticed it.

      Reply ↓
    6. JanetM*

      Not carpooling, but there have been a few times in the car with my husband that we’ve gone through places that Just. Felt. Wrong.

      For a while, there was a really bad stretch heading up into the mountains, where road construction had dug up a Native American burial site. The vibe improved after a local delegation of elders showed up to apologize to and pacify the disturbed.

      Reply ↓
  30. Soprani*

    A positive carpool story: I (she/her) had an hour long commute by car every day and discovered that a nice, polite accounting new-hire (he/him) lived 20 min past my town. I offered to carpool with him. On the days I drove he would park his car at my house and on the days he drove he would pick me up at my house. He was a delightful ride companion and after the first day we settled in on listening to the clean comedy channel on Sirius with classical music when comedy just wasn’t the mood. The tone of the conversation was always professional and light. We were in separate departments so I encountered him sparingly throughout the work day.

    He found an apartment near the office after 6 months and we remained work friends until I moved on from the company 4 years later.
    I can highly recommend carpooling with polite accounting co-workers.

    Reply ↓
  31. Odyssea*

    I had a coworker once who asked me about carpooling, which I wasn’t necessarily opposed to, except that her version of carpooling is that I would:
    – Drive 30 minutes from my house to her apartment and pick her up
    – Drive ~25 minutes from her apartment to our work
    – Drive her back home from work
    – Drive myself home from her apartment

    And she wouldn’t ever come get me. I told her nicely that sounded like chauffering, not carpooling and declined.

    Reply ↓
    1. Old Woman in Purple*

      That would only be reasonable if her apartment was actually on your way to work, an in: [your house] to [her apartment] to [work] makes a straight line. If the 3 points make a triangle instead, & she doesn’t take turns, car-pooling is a no-go.

      Reply ↓
  32. Blondehistorian*

    Was a lowly National Park Intern with a crazy boss who liked to fall asleep WHILE Driving. She refused to be a passenger as she got car sick, and so we had to endure her driving twice a week going to and from DC. Think five lanes of traffic and she would not only doze off but then swerve from the full left lane to the right because she wanted to stop and get a Coke with no warning. Myself and the other intern took turns sitting in the back so we could try and sleep through her driving as the passenger usually got really bad car sickness. Her manager got to drive with us one day and afterwards he allowed us to sign out a car and drive ourselves.

    Reply ↓
      1. Calamity Janine*

        the body can find new and interesting ways to fall asleep if sufficiently tired! or full of medication induced tiredness! or both!

        i am glad it’s a lesson i learned playing computer games with approximately 23 other people instead of a lesson i learned while driving. only virtual avatars died thanks to my microsleeping blips, and of those, it really was just my own character deciding to make out with the floor to the point where in one burst of lucidity i begged everyone to leave me there and remember me fondly for my terrible decision to go “i have enough time to do this before my medication that makes me sleepy kicks in”…

        Reply ↓
  33. Sweet Summer Child*

    I have a story about coworkers who carpooled. It was fascinating to watch.
    Coworker 1 had worked there five years when Coworker 2 started. 1 was good at her job, but was a bully. Won’t help new employees, holds grudges, that stuff. She lived a good 30 miles away from the city in different county that had a morning and evening bus. Coworker 2 is hired and lives on the border of that county and wants to drive. They carpool with a plan for alternating 2 days driving/paying parking and three days riding each week. OK. First couple months, no problems. 2 turns out to be Coworker 1: 2.0. Coworker 1 took an unplanned sick day on her driving day. 2 said you will make it up and drive today. OK. Couple weeks later, 2 had vacation days scheduled. She was supposed to drive three days that week and Coworker 1 was scheduled two days. Thursday and Friday, in drives and pays to park Coworker 1 even though she’d had to drive and pay for herself for three days. “It’s your two day week.”
    They decided to split a parking permit for a nearby lot. That worked well until half days or errands after work came up. Then they would both drive. 2 would pull up and key card in then meet 1 on a side street, give her the pass and she would pull in after. “Just tell the attendant there must be a problem with the card.” That worked twice. Then 1 just ended up paying each time.
    They continued this love/hate relationship (meaning they loved how they each hated everyone else) until Coworker 2 left.
    I know this because bully coworker 1 would come to me to complain about the injustice and could I believe that someone would be so petty? Why, no, person who told boss that she finished the special project that begged me to “help” with. I can’t believe that people suck.
    I felt like Jane Goodall, but with talking subjects.
    and yes, I outlasted them both. And two more iterations of them. We moved to a satellite office. Everyong has to drive. NOBODY carpools. We get along wonderfully.

    Reply ↓
  34. Catherine*

    I had to drive with 3 others coworkers to a clinic located 3 hours away from our office. To get there on time, we had to leave earlier than our normal work day, but only around 7am so not too crazy. One of the coworkers got to the pickup location 15 minutes late, hopped in the backseat, threw a jean jacket over her head and promptly fell asleep for almost the entire car ride. She only awoke to 1. Ask that we not listen to music so she could sleep 2. Take a rather long phone call with her doctor about scheduling another MRI.

    Reply ↓
  35. Upside down Question Mark*

    I drove to see my team for the first time in a year and my boss asked me to pick her up since she planned to get drunk at the party. I was so nervous, and also in a city that has a very different public transport system, that I not once but twice drove over the in-ground train tracks (that are meant to be driven over in my city), into the designated tram stop lane that is separated from the rest of traffic, going about 10kmh. There was no tram nor people about but she freaked out (also, I should mention she also does not drive and says it’s bad for the environment except for when she wants rides). I just pulled out and back into traffic but according to her I was wildly reckless. Once we arrived she told everyone about it while getting plastered and then begged for a ride home.

    Reply ↓
    1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      I need to know. Were you able to leave and pawn her off?
      PS: I love the people who criticize a tool they don’t want to bother with like it’s a great sacrifice on their part. No, it’s a great sacrifice on the part of everyone else who has to pick up your share of the work. You don’t want a car? Good for you. “Well, it’s just that it’s so BAD for the environment. I can’t imagine owning something that I know is bad for the environment.” So you use public transportation? No, I ride with people. Eff all the way off.

      Reply ↓
      1. pally*

        Yep!
        Hypocritical.
        I would have left without her. Clearly, she has expressed the notion that she does not want to ride with Upside down Question Mark again. Right?

        Reply ↓
      2. The Gollux, Not a Mere Device*

        That attitude still seems weird to me, as well as selfish. Walk, bike, or get on the bus or subway with us, or stop claiming you’re helping the environment.

        Yes, mass transit is less convenient, funny how that extra travel time is too great a sacrifice for them.

        Reply ↓
  36. Katie*

    Not work but school. I lived 3 hrs or so away from my college and on holidays/breaks I would carpool back home. These people did not talk much, which would have been fine if I was prepared and knew to just bring a book or something. On Thanksgiving break there was a terrible accident and our normal 3 hr drive was 8 hrs. No talking, just sitting there, and the dad turned off the radio (I think he was stressed??). Torture!

    Reply ↓
  37. Jackie Daytona, Regular Human Bartender*

    A carpool that didn’t happen. A colleague and I were to attend a professional conference about 30 mins from the office. I suggested we carpool to the conference from the office. He declined because he had promised his wife never to be in a situation alone with another woman. I was shocked to be treated like this in a professional setting and also wondered if there was something wrong with him (won’t control himself or something, yikes). From then on, he only got icy civility from me. I often wondered how he managed closed-door conversations with our female supervisor in the office.

    Reply ↓
    1. Anon Today*

      That can be 1) a religious thing or 2) an “insecure wife” thing, too. I have a dear friend who has a Very Insecure Wife who doesn’t want him riding/working/doing things alone with other women. He is the most respectful person ever (I’m a cis female in a male-dominated sport, and he is one of the most respectful people I’ve worked with over the past 20 years); she’s just super insecure, and their marriage works better if he holds that boundary HARD. If she observes what she sees as him breaking it, she cold shoulders him for days. Otherwise they seem to have a healthy relationship, and it’s not my circus or my monkeys, but it’s definitely a thing.

      My church also strongly discourages riding alone in a vehicle with a member of the opposite sex that isn’t your partner, for its staff members/elders/leaders in volunteer positions/people who work with kids and youth. They don’t forbid it, but they make frowny faces about things that could be misinterpreted as impropriety. When I’ve had meetings with male staff members, they are done in the lobby (or, when privacy is required, a glass room that can be clearly seen from the lobby), not in a closed office. Those who are raised some form of Baptist, or raised in the Religious South, or…insert your strict religion of choice here…it can be a religious thing. Can also be a “respect” holdover from very religious parents. And trust me: I’ve been called to the carpet for a suggestion of impropriety (my husband had *gasp* a beer…in our house…when a kid who was in a ministry I was serving with was there to hang out with my kid, not be ministered to by me), it’s a pain in the rear end that no one wants to deal with.

      FYI, I did not tolerate the calling to the carpet or apologize for the incident, and in fact had strong opinions about where the minister could take a step back if he wanted me to keep serving in that position, and there was a…teenage mistranslation…that contributed to the mess; but I could see where someone who is in a leadership position, wants to keep it, and has seen people in trouble over allegations like that before, would just draw a hard boundary.

      All of that is a very long way to say, “It may not be that there’s anything icky about this guy, and he has the right to say ‘nope, that’s across my personal boundaries’ even if it feels like discrimination.”

      Reply ↓
      1. ferrina*

        “…even if it feels like discrimination”

        If it is only happening to one group within a protected class, it is legally discrimination in the workplace. (protected class being gender, race, country of origin, if they are over 45, and sometimes others based on local laws)

        Reply ↓
      4. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        It’s a very long way to say that discrimination is OK for the person who discriminates against a protected class because he doesn’t want to have a grown up conversation with his wife.
        Discriminating against a protected class is a violation of federal law. You don’t get to set a boundary against a law. Oh wait, you can. You should just have to deal with the consequences. Like not being in a management position if you are not going to treat people equally.

        Reply ↓
        1. MigraineMonth*

          It sounds like the colleague wasn’t a manager and wasn’t affecting the OP’s job opportunities/duties. So he’s behaving in a discriminatory way, but as it’s outside of work it might not be legally workplace discrimination.

          If their manager decided to send someone other than OP because the colleague didn’t want to attend the professional conference with a woman, or if the colleague were a manager and had closed-door meetings/spent social time with male reports and not female ones, those would both be clear-cut cases of legal workplace gender discrimination.

          Reply ↓
          1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

            I understand what you are saying. Because, being peers, Fred doesn’t want to drive Betty to the offsite. Mr Slate can’t really make Fred take a peer in his own car. I can see the perspective of: being mad if my boss did that. I’m not a taxi. I’m driving for my own reasons, the company can provided transportation for others. I am opting out.

            Reply ↓
      5. MigraineMonth*

        There are many relationships that “work better” when one partner appeases the other’s insecurities by giving them extensive control over their life and social contacts. Those same relationships undergo a lot of stress or even fall apart when that partner tries to establish boundaries or escape the relationship.

        You might want to check in on your respectful friend, especially when his partner is emotionally punishing him for not following her rules.

        Reply ↓
        1. Another Kristin*

          If the husband really respected his wife in this case, he’d tell her to get over her irrational fears instead of babying her. It’s not doing her any favours to be allowed to treat her husband like a doormat.

          Reply ↓
      6. Ginger Cat Lady*

        It feels like discrimination because it IS discrimination. Your church teaches discrimination. You just spent a lot of words making excuses for discrimination.
        Just stop making excuses for people who discriminate.

        Reply ↓
  38. Mortgage Payer*

    My high school was about 45 minutes away by car, and getting to school on time using transit was not feasible. So we carpooled, with parents driving.

    One of the dads would screech into the driveway and start blowing the horn if you weren’t out the door by the time he came to a stop. He was a nightmare on the road too, tailgating and cursing what he saw as the slow drivers in his way, in his eastern European accent. His favourite insult? “Mortgage payer.” As in, “Look at all these mortgage payers!” He would swerve between lines, accelerate hard in heavy traffic, and bang the steering wheel. His occupation? Brain surgeon.

    Reply ↓
      1. PatM*

        Maybe he meant mortgage payment? He was a brain surgeon, people who were messed up in the head were how he paid his mortgage.

        Reply ↓
        1. Ama*

          If he was a brain surgeon, he probably meant it as “look at these people who only work to pay their mortgage” (because he, the brain surgeon, worked because he was brilliant at what he did).

          I used to work with doctors.

          Reply ↓
        2. Hlao-roo*

          My guess is that he had paid off his mortgage or bought his house outright (so never had a mortgage) and “mortgage payers” was an insult along the lines of “look at these low-class people who have to pay their mortgage every month!”

          Reply ↓
      2. Kay*

        If he was a safe driver, I could see him calling out reckless driving like that. “People who drive like that are the ones who crash, and the damage allows me to make my mortgage payment!” A family member used to say a version of that in regard to his kids’ college funds. So maybe he’s a hypocrite?

        Reply ↓
        1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

          I can support this. He’s a surgeon. Amazing reflexes, hand eye coordination. He’s not being reckless. He has the skills to keep his car out of accidents caused by other people (who are reacting to his driving like an ass).
          So yes, hypocritical. “I’m not a bad driver, so I can do X, Y and Z. Everyone else sucks, they need to keep out of my way.”

          Reply ↓
  39. Lab Snep*

    I cannot remember where we were going but it was something related to classes, I had s classmate who could not. Let. There. Be. Silence.

    She would talk and talk and talk and talk and talk.

    Then take a break for 20 seconds, I would think it was done, and then it would start again. Not a conversation, I was being talked to. Monologued at.

    One day she found out I was going somewhere she wanted to and I was “no sorry car is full”.

    Readers, I was driving alone.

    I have no idea why but I (he) ended up dating someone who not only did the same but complained when I had music on because we couldn’t talk and he would also try to do eye contact and say he was not when I was like “dude”.

    I use music to stim and focus on the road.

    My ex is still my friend, but no longer gets upset when I am like “Dude I need to concentrate” and turn up the music.

    Reply ↓
    1. Dr. Rebecca*

      My BEST friend and I took a vacation together and while the vacation itself was great, the carpool back from the airport was not. It was like ^^^^that. It was a long drive, starting at 11pm, and she could. not. shut. up. I was EXHAUSTED from the flights back/my disability, and rather than snapping at her I just played the mental game of “how long between random bullshit comments on things that absolutely don’t matter,” and I think the longest was 2 minutes, the shortest something like 20 seconds. I know she was probably trying to keep herself awake, but ahhhgggghhhhhhh, I had contemplated getting a hotel room at the midway point and just taking the train home the next day, and I seriously regretted not doing that.

      Reply ↓
      1. raincoaster*

        That sounds awful. Not work-related, but I once had a ten hour car ride with a woman who insisted on playing car games the entire way. Including Punchbuggy. She would not stop, and if the rest of us didn’t participate, she would complain and insult us. We made her agree to No Car Games before we let her get in the car for the return trip.

        Reply ↓
  40. Blue Spoon*

    I almost spoiled a classic novel for my boss while carpooling. I, he, and two others were carpooling to a conference a couple of hours away, and he and I got talking about Agatha Christie while the other two coworkers were having a different conversation. He mentioned that he’d been reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and I, being a big Christie fan, started talking about how groundbreaking that particular book was.

    For spoiler-free context, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd has a twist at the end that was very innovative at the time, to the point that if you’ve heard of that one, it’s because of that twist, Darth-Vader-is-Luke’s-Father style. Or at least that’s what I thought, because he had no idea what I was talking about and asked what I meant. I had to backtrack in a panic–I think I made up something about how different it was to have it be written in first person and how one of the side characters was a sort of proto-Miss Marple.

    Reply ↓
    1. ferrina*

      I love that twist! It is one of my favorites, and as soon as I finished the book, I immediately read it again. Absolutely epic.

      Reply ↓
    2. Heidi*

      I also did not know the twist the first time I read “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd!” When I got there, I just paused and said, “Whaaaaaaaaat?” Then had to go back and read the whole thing over again to see if it was actually possible. I wish I could read it again for the first time.

      Reply ↓
      1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

        My mom gave me the book in college. Read it. Came downstairs walked into the kitchen. I looked at mom; mom looked at me and said, “she cheats.”
        We laughed and talked about the book for quite awhile.

        Reply ↓
    3. Shellfish Constable*

      I finished that book at 2:00 a.m. and yelled “WHAT?!” so loudly that I not only woke up my roommate, I woke up the people in the next apartment over LOL.

      Fortunately, my roommate was a huge Christie fan and totally understood when I explained it to her. The neighbors? Not so much.

      Reply ↓
  41. Anonymous today*

    I used to carpool to work with a few other coworkers. It was over an hour drive each way. It turned out saving on gas money wasn’t worth it, as they drove me nuts. They talked the whole drive. Talking alone would be a bit much but nothing technically objectionable, but it was at least 90% complaints and other negativity (about “kids today,” about contractors hired for house repairs, about spouses, about work, etc) I like to relax and space out, especially in the morning when the caffeine has yet to kick in, and I would occasionally pretend to sleep if I could, but often it was hard to find a natural time to pretend to doze off.

    It was only for one year, then I invented a schedule change and got out of it. But while it was happening, the only thing I did to make myself feel better was incredibly petty and small. When it was my turn to drive, I’d put on an oldies station that often played some truly abysmal songs from the 60s and 70s, and I’d let the terrible songs play in their entirety, taking solace in the fact that the coworkers I disliked so much also had to suffer through, say, “Afternoon Delight.”

    Reply ↓
  42. SunnyShine*

    This doesn’t apply exactly, but I thought it would be funny to share.

    When I was at college, my apartment was far enough away that they provided a bus service to the school. It saved me a mile walking up hill.

    The bus is often full of college students and kind of noisy. The bus grew completely quiet when a scooter with three young men with backpacks passed by. Yes, it was in the US. No, they weren’t from countries where this may be common. And it was cold outside.

    Reply ↓
  43. Jane Bingley*

    I carpooled for years with an otherwise lovely colleague who simply could not be on time. No matter what time I asked her to be ready, she would be at least five minutes late. The excuses varied from “I slept in” to “my kids are sick” to “I had to redo my hair”. There was always a reason, an apology, and a promise to do better the next day that would inevitably be broken. This really stressed me out because we worked for a micromanager who hated when employees were late.

    She lived about a 5-minute drive from my home, so I started texting her “I’m outside” when I was getting ready to leave. She never ever caught on because I was still there before she emerged, with an excuse and an apology and a promise to do better the next day. We carpooled for years.

    (No regrets – she paid me in free Starbucks and it was worth it!)

    Reply ↓
    1. Silvercat*

      This is why I don’t carpool. I would be the person who is always late and I don’t want to inflict that on anyone

      Reply ↓
  44. Alex*

    I have a good story about carpooling! When I was a broke grad student, I signed up to go to a workshop that was a couple of hours away. Desperate to split the expenses, I emailed the organizer and asked if there was anyone else signed up from my area that I could carpool with.

    She paired me up with another broke young person, and we were instant BFFs and ended up living together for years :)

    Reply ↓
  45. Jane UnusualLastName*

    Not everyday carpooling but – my teammate and I were driving home from a nearby state where we had just met with a client. My teammate was driving and going 85 in a 70 mph zone, when she got pulled over. The cop came over and was in the middle of talking when my teammate interrupted him to say, “You have the same last name!” Yes, the cop was wearing a badge that said Officer [Same Very Unusual Last Name as Me]. It was the first time either of us had met anyone with the same last name who wasn’t family, we got to talking about how I had distant relatives in this state, and my teammate got out of the ticket.

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  46. Texas*

    Another carpool mate was so fun. He had a very particular routine (think: laundry on Tuesdays, grocery shopping on Wednesdays), that sort of thing. Fridays were, without fail, for pizza and a cocktail. We would always ask him what this week’s cocktail was. He was partial to Dark & Stormys, but had a whole repertoire he would cycle through, depending on mood. He was a fun, interesting human.

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  47. Safety First*

    I was carpooling back in the 80s when people just rode around in the back of pickup trucks. About 6 of us were driven by one person who had a pickup truck. I was taking my place in the truck bed, and just climbing in when the driver started moving, someone caught me by the arm as I fell out and I got dragged down the road until someone got the driver’s attention and got her to stop!

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  48. Bad Janet*

    Not quite carpooling but this topic made me think of this. In one of my post-college retail jobs, when I was promoted from cashier to office worker, one of my jobs became depositing the bags of cash from the registers. Usually every 2-3 days, I’d drive to a bank 5 miles away with several thousands of dollars in cash. (They used to have a bank truck come get the money once a week but to save on money, now made employees drive it down in their own vehicles and get no gas money back) I had to take a buddy with me to make sure I didn’t pocket the money and usually took a woman who was a “specialist” in the store with a lot of down time.

    We always took my car and she refused to buckle her seatbelt. I tried asking her to buckle up at first and she refused. Her reason was she had a relative who only survived a car accident because they weren’t wearing a seat belt and were thrown free from the wreckage rather than have the belt choke them. I told her I had family that were saved because of seat belts but she still refused. She was older than me so I didn’t feel like I could tell her what to do, even though it was my car and my duty to the cash that we were fulfilling. My manager wouldn’t let me take anyone else with me to the bank, only her because she didn’t have much to do as a rarely called upon “specialist”.

    She also reeked of cigarette smoke. Though she didn’t smoke in my car, she would smoke in the parking lot of the bank while waiting for me to make the deposit so my car stank of cigarettes every time we went to the bank.

    Reply ↓
      1. Artemesia*

        She belts them behind her.

        I would not drive with someone who won’t buckle up. And don’t. They either buckle up or get out.

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  49. Peanut Hamper*

    Not sure this counts, since nothing really went wrong, but here goes…

    Back in college, I took sailing as a PE elective. (This was at a large midwestern public university, not a fancy private college, by the way.) We normally tootled around on a local lake on small, one-person sailboats, but our final exam was to go sailing on a large sailboat on Lake Michigan. Our final exam was to basically ride around on a sailboat all afternoon, while people who actually knew how to sail manned the boat. You got an A by basically showing up.

    However, Lake Michigan was a good two-hour drive from our university, and our two Malaysian exchange students didn’t have a ride, so I offered to give them a ride to Lake Michigan and back. They thanked me and said they would bring snacks.

    As it turns out, they had developed an inordinate fondness for Cheetohs, which maybe weren’t available in their country back then? Anyway, they showed up with a cooler full of soda, two large paper bags filled with nothing but Cheetohs, and we ate Cheetohs the entire way there and back. And they told so many funny jokes and stories. It was just nothing but laughter and Cheetoh dust the entire afternoon!

    To this day, whenever I eat Cheetohs I think of them and wonder how they’re doing. I hope they’re doing well and that they can now get Cheetohs in Malaysia.

    Reply ↓
    2. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      Thank you for sharing a fun story. This is adorable. “We are going to share this delicious discovery we made.”
      PS: they are not wrong.

      Reply ↓
      1. MigraineMonth*

        Nothing is quite as amazing as sharing in someone’s new discovery, even if (especially if?) it’s old news to you.

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  50. Sabrina*

    I fondly think of the coworker who, when I offered her the aux cable to play music off her device, looked hesitant and then said “Look, I need to warn you, there’s going to be a lot more kazoo music then you’d expect.”

    I’d take her kazoo heavy playlist over 95% of my friends Spotify lists, it was so much fun!

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  51. Momma Bear*

    Years ago a neighbor noticed that we worked in the same building. Due to parking restrictions, I could not get a parking pass, but they had one. I was taking the bus, which took twice as long and worse in the winter. THEY offered to carpool, and for a while it was fine. However, one day they decided it no longer worked for them and rather than talk to me about it, they simply kept their car locked at the usual leave time. When I went to their house to see what was up, they said they didn’t want to carpool that day and it was very awkward. I got in trouble for being late that day because they didn’t warn me so I missed my bus. I resumed my bus commute and never spoke to the neighbor again.

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  52. Sunflower*

    Rode with a coworker who smoked and her car smelled like it even when she didn’t light up when I was in it. It was also a mess. I don’t mean cluttered; it was disgusting. I had to squeeze myself tight to touch as little of the garbage as possible.

    Another coworker looked everywhere except the front of the windshield. Took lots of hard break stops. I guess it works for her since we made it to work, but it was terrifying.

    I didn’t ride with either of them again.

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  53. Goose*

    I was responsible for leading a monthly community meeting an hour away from the office. I did not own a car, and there was no convenient public transit as I was also responsible for picking up breakfast for everyone. I had a run of colleagues (who also had to attend) shuttle me back and forth for five years–thankfully we were all poor 20 somethings, but I cringe now at the wear and tear on their cars that was not compensated (they got millage to the meeting but not on the way back for some god awful reason.)

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  54. VanpoolDropout*

    A decade ago, I joined a vanpool to get me thru DC traffic. We left the lot at 5:30 am and one rider would smoke in her personal car before we departed, then douse herself in White Diamonds to cover up the cigarette smell. I have a tender tummy in the early mornings and it made me nauseous every day! I was newest rider in the established vanpool, plus I was 20 years younger than everyone else so I was too intimidated to voice my discomfort. I remember one day she brought a Starbucks cup and asked, “is the coffee smell going to bother anyone? I know some ppl have a sensitivity to strong smells.” It showed she cared but again, I punked out from mentioning that her perfume was the real offender.

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    1. Sleeping Panther*

      You have my sympathy. Those ‘80s/early ‘90s floral bombs are punishing enough without adding the smell of cigarettes to the mix.

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  55. Beth*

    Back when I lived in Seattle, I gave a lift back to one of the other attendees at an off-site gathering. I pulled a mildly stupid and careless driving move in light traffic (I no longer remember what — cut another car off at an intersection or something). Being overly socialized, I apologized out loud to the other car as I moved on — a reflex, since the other car couldn’t hear me!

    Well, my passenger heard me, and proceeded to chew me out for apologizing . . . for something I had actually done that was actually not a good thing to do. WTF? Apparently, in his universe, apologizing was for wimps and losers and damaged the soul or something, so you should NEVER apologize even as a matter of private acknowledgement. The episode wasn’t horrible or traumatic or anything, but man, he really annoyed me.

    Never offered him a ride again. (And didn’t apologize for not doing so.)

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  56. Beboots*

    I used to carpool to work with a few friends and a roommate who all worked at the same site, about 35 minutes’ drive outside of town. We didn’t want any problems from work or carpooling affecting our friendship (or living situation in the roommate’s case), so we had a few rules in place we all agreed upon. We would all be on a rota for being the driver – we all took turns, and kept track. We knew if we let ourselves, we’d talk way too much about work while we should be decompressing, or having a clear division between work and private life. So we had a rule: we could talk about work at work, and we could talk about work in the car on our way to and from work only, but once we were out of the car at home, no work talk, ever. And that worked really well for us. The key thing for me was we all agreed on the boundaries, communicated clearly, and we were all on board to sharing the driving time equitably.

    Reply ↓
    1. Artemesia*

      This should be the rule for any joint venture — living together, vacationing together, driving together regularly, marrying. Everyone makes assumptions about how things should work that are obvious to them and don’t match the partner — always. I credit my first 3 year marriage with a failure to do that and my second 53 year and counting marriage with our good sense in working out how we would manage the small and big demands when we first moved in together. (I was surprised that my first husband expected me to work, go to school and do all the housework while he went to law school; dropped that sucker the day after he passed the bar.

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  57. Casual Observer*

    When I was around 22, I was completing the practicum component for my education degree. Another student from the program was placed at the same school as me, which was located about a 45 minute drive away from the university. I didn’t have a car at the time, but this other student did, so he kindly offered to drive me everyday since we lived close to each other and would be at the school the same hours.

    I didn’t know him prior to our carpooling sessions, so it was a bit awkward at first. Over time, we got to know each other, and had built a nice, friendly rapport. We were both in relationships at the time, so I never got the feeling like he was interested in me in any way, but there was level of familiarity between us just from the amount of time we spent together during the week.

    One day when we were driving home from the school, he was complaining about the busy day he had had, and how he was feeling hungry and stressed. He then stated very matter of factly, “I could really use a BJ right now.” I was stunned. I immediately turned red in the face, unsure what to say. After a long silence, he finally realized what he had said, and how I must have interpreted it, that he clarified. “Oh my God, I meant Booster Juice! I could really use a Booster Juice right now!” We both promptly burst out laughing, and I was relieved he wasn’t requesting oral sex from me. We eventually got past it, but for a few days afterwards, our carpools were very mostly silent because he was too scared to talk to me.

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      1. Casual Observer*

        It’s possible, but it would have been so outside of normal from the types of conversations we normally had. We’d joke around with each other, but never sexually. His facial expression upon the realization of what he said also made it seem like his mortification was genuine.

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  58. AnonMiniDriver*

    I once had to carpool with a coworker to go and visit a client in Newcastle, which is in the North East of the UK. Our office was south of London, so it was going to be a Long drive.

    For context, my coworker was six feet and four inches of gymbro. He was a nice guy, and a big guy. His height and build will be important in a moment. As for me, by contrast I am five feet and three inches of slight built woman.

    Normally we would take a fleet car, but the day we were due to go, the car we had booked to use was unusable. I can’t remember exactly why as this was a while (think mid-90’s) ago, so we opted to go in my car instead. My coworker did have a car but as he assumed that we would have a fleet car that day, he took the train to work.

    At the time, I had a Mini. An OLD Mini, from the 70’s. It was a bit of a heap to look at but it ran beautifully and it was no slouch on the motorway.

    The problem was… my coworker didn’t exactly fit. So we spent multiple hours on the road with him with his knees essentially up by his ears. It was not comfortable for him, and every time I went to change gear, I ended up almost grabbing his leg.

    He was so grateful when we finally arrived at our hotel, but it was actually hilarious watching him get out of the car. The return trip was just as uncomfortable for him, and he was extremely stiff for a few days afterwards.

    That was many years ago, but I am still in touch with this coworker. We sometimes meet for coffee and occasionally conversation turns to that horrifically uncomfortable journey. The Mini was sold to a collector a few years later and I got a larger car, much to my coworker’s relief!

    Reply ↓
    1. Not Tom, Just Petty*

      My husband’s best friend is 6’4″. No problem, I (5′ even) can drive you on a beer run.
      I had a regular sized 90’s Dodge sedan…with a bench front seat.
      His knees were practically touching his chin and that was only for 20 minutes round trip which he swore never again!

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    2. Sleeping Panther*

      In my university’s ROTC program, it’s a tradition that the seniors take the freshmen to the local barbershops for their first cadet haircut. My classmates and I failed to consider the freshmen’s heights and our cars when assigning passengers, which is how I ended up driving three guys who were all 6’2” or taller in my 2002 Celica.

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  59. Sassafras*

    Carpooling is so helpful in so many ways that I’m sad to see a push for bad stories about it.

    I’ve carpooled off and on for years all around the country and never had any issues. I always volunteer to drive when we go to group lunches etc. Again no issues.

    I do communicate expectations directly up front. Things like, I will arrive by X time and leave by Y time if I don’t hear from you. If you aren’t someone who’s comfortable being direct and sticking to your agreed schedule then carpooling probably isn’t a good choice for you.

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    1. Dr. Rebecca*

      These threads are a lighthearted response to people’s struggles, which allow them to let off steam in an anonymous and supportive setting. And many people DO struggle. If you don’t want to participate, there’s nothing forcing you to do so.

      Reply ↓
    2. Definitely not me*

      Maybe you don’t mean to imply, “If it’s never been a problem for me, then I can’t believe it’s a problem for others” but it sounds that way

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      2. Dinwar*

        “Normal” is a very plastic concept. This comes up all the time here–it’s one reason why people are pushed to get out of toxic work environments as soon as possible, for example. There are also extremely frequent comments about how people expect the worst after reading this blog (the Clinician Fallacy in action).

        Similar things can happen with things like carpooling. If all you hear is negative stories about it, you will inevitably end up having a negative view of it. Your perception of what’s normal will be the horror stories, not the 99.99% of situations that are pleasant and don’t warrant discussion. The efficacy of this tactic makes it a favorite for various media outlets (anyone who’s wondered how a loved one could fall for whatever nonsense they did, this is the mechanism).

        (To be clear, this process is neutral, not evil. The dramatic rise in acceptance for LGBTQ+ people is due in part to such tactics, for example. I’m not saying it’s all due to such shifts in perceptions of normalcy, but it certainly happened–you can see it in sitcoms, for example–and it helped.)

        Given that cars contribute significantly to urban sprawl, urban air quality issues, and global climate change, shifting perceptions on carpool in a negative direction is going to have negative consequences. Carpooling is one of the few even semi-plausible options for many people in the USA at least (large distances and rural areas mean that public transportation is often not an option). By highlighting the negatives to a large audience, you diminish the viability of this alternative to single-commuter transportation.

        Does that mean that there are no problems with carpooling, and that it’s perfectly fine with no serious issues ever ever ever? Of course not–we’re humans, put enough of us in any situation and you’ll get negative outcomes. And some of those outcomes can, obviously, be really, really bad. But highlighting the negatives without concern for the damage it does certainly warrants discussion.

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        1. Dr. Rebecca*

          “If all you hear is negative stories about it”

          One internet thread is not “all you hear,” and if it is you need to get out more. This is a massive overreaction to a standard thread on AAM, which is, let’s remember a blog about (mostly negative) workplace issues.

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          1. Dinwar*

            I’m not saying it is–and to be frank, I don’t think any honest reading of my statement can lead you to the conclusion that I have. You are misrepresenting my argument to straw-man it. There’s a nasty three letter word for statements of this sort, but I prefer Roman rhetoric tactics in these cases.

            In point of fact, I was thinking of how car pooling is generally portrayed when writing my post. Comic strips like “Bumstead”, cartoons, and various sitcoms have all portrayed it negatively. It’s cheap laughs, much like the homophobic humor in early 1990s sitcoms was.

            Let me break down my argument.

            The issue is “Should the problems associated with bad-mouthing carpooling be discussed?” I’m not defending or attacking carpooling at all; I don’t need to care about the pros or cons here, except in as much as they contribute to the issue at hand.

            My conclusion is “Yes, we should discuss the problems with these.”

            My reasons are the bulk of the post–and boil down to two fundamental arguments. First, that badmouthing things without such discussions tends to shift perceptions in measurable, demonstrable ways that we should be aware of when contributing to these discussions. Second, in this particular case we’re bashing something that is probably the best option available to most people to deal with real problems, making those perceptions shifts particularly problematic.

            Could I be fighting this in some other, grander way? Sure. I’ve spent my entire adult life doing environmental cleanup; I’m well aware of the options. But, well, this is fun too. I enjoy rhetoric when it’s done well. This blog absolutely is contributing to the negative perception of things like carpooling, pot lucks, and general office socializing (it’s a perennial complaint about the commentariat), and it’s worth pointing out on occasion.

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        2. Dust Bunny*

          Well, so far not all of the comments are negative, but also this post is specifically about how it can go wrong so let’s assume people are sensible enough to realize that it is preselected for the negative, but that these are not representative of the whole experience. If it was a post about dogs, I wouldn’t be mad that nobody was talking about their cats.

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          1. Dr. Rebecca*

            This. I’m really genuinely curious about the uptick in pearl clutching comments/commenters, and beginning to wonder if it’s actual sincerity, a more sophisticated type of trolling, or a lack of understanding that not everything on the internet is for every person and they could literally just scroll by.

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            1. Sassafras*

              I think Pearl clutching is a bit of a stretch for what I said, which is that I’m sad to see a push for negative stories about something that can be so beneficial.

              In the end she can amplify whatever she wants on her blog, and if she wants to amplify the negative side of carpooling that’s of course her perogitive.

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        3. MigraineMonth*

          I agree. I wish the prompt had invited success stories as well. After all, one of the stories Alison shared to kick this off was a love story!

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      3. Dust Bunny*

        Yeeeeah.

        Not carpooling, but an acquaintance begged me to petsit for her because it “wasn’t that far off of my commute”. Distance-wise, yes, it was not that far off of my commute, but it was during rush hour and at big-city traffic volume. Morning and evening visits could easily have added another hour and a half to my daily commute time.

        I told her to pay for a real pet sitter, or board her dog.

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    3. JB (not in Houston)*

      I see what you mean, but I think of it the same as when people talk about dating. Just because people share dating horror stories doesn’t mean that they and others don’t also recognize that dating can be fun and relationships can be great.

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    4. Anonymous today*

      There are a lot of ways carpooling can go wrong besides just being direct about scheduling. Also, plenty of things are good as a general concept, but also worth venting about when they go wrong. Like, for instance, ways management tries to reward employees, or work holiday parties, or simply the concept of work itself (like, if you complain about something bananas at your job, and someone took that to mean you were suggesting having any job is bad, that would be ridiculous).

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    5. Name (Required)*

      Those declarations are fine and easy to uphold when you are the driver – harder if you take turns driving and others don’t adhere to a schedule as well.

      Reply ↓
  60. Comma Queen*

    Not me, but a story from a friend. Paul carpooled and worked directly with George, John, and Ringo in a llama grooming firm. Paul gets frustrated with something John did during the workday that messed up Paul’s work and was desperate to not have to talk to John at all.

    Lucky for everyone, Ringo is a long-winded, socially oblivious but nice guy, and loves to tell “back in the day” stories. Paul starts the hour long commute by asking Ringo if he’d ever encountered a chocolate feeding trough during his time as a llama breeder, and did he think they would work better than the spun sugar troughs that were more common 20 years ago?

    Only one person talked for the rest of the ride, but Paul arrived home with the satisfaction that he didn’t talk to John even once.

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  61. tw1968*

    I have a good story! ~20 years ago I had a coworker who lived nearby. Once she asked if I could drive her to work, car issues, no biggie. She wanted to pay me something for gas but since it was truly on the way I said nah, maybe save me a couple cookies next time you make some (she did). Some time later there was a road construction project that made a good part of the commute a real PITA. My wife got tired of hearing me gripe about it and said why don’t you and Tammy (real name) carpool? So we started carpooling for the next year or 2 until I moved. And we LOVED it. We switched off every day or 2, saved money on gas, and would gab about all kinds of things…fav foods and cooking usually. Having someone to talk to made the lousy parts of the commute go by much easier. Tammy, if you’re out there, I hope you’re doing well!

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  62. Cabbagepants*

    Low key and cute.

    When I was first dating my now-husband, we both were students at the same university. He would offer to give me a ride to campus, which was very gallant, and I initially would always accept in order to spend that little extra bit of time with him. But the issue was that it took much longer! I lived on a direct bus route that ran every 6 minutes and essentially took me door-to-door to my building on campus. On-campus parking was very limited, on the other hand, so when he drove us, he’d park at least a 20 minute walk from my building. He was (and still is) too Canadian to drop me off at the bus stop (technically a “no standing zone”!!!) Thus by “giving me a ride” he actually doubled my commute time.

    Fortunately our relationship survived my gentle “thanks but no thanks” to ongoing carpooling.

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  63. NotAnotherManager!*

    I feel like this has to include some that slugs in DC – I have always been fascinated by this concept and that it has worked for a very long time without major incident. Basically, because a lot of our roads have HOV restrictions or tolls that can be mitigated/eliminated for multi-occupant vehicles, there are places (including the Pentagon commuter lot) where you can just line up and pile into a random car going to/from DC near where you need to be. Driver hits the HOV requirement; passengers get close to where they need to go at no cost.

    I understand that there is an informal etiquette to slugging that is intended to avoid the usual issues with carpooling – talking/cell phone use, music/radio choices, controversial topics, etc. I’ve never done it, but I have several coworkers who have slugged for years and would rather do that than carpool with people they know just to enjoy the silence. I am personally weirded out by getting in cars with people I don’t know – I have similar hesitations about rideshare apps.

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    1. PatM*

      NotDanica had a story up the page that involved a similar casual commuting set up, but you are the first mention of slugging I’ve seen here.

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  64. underpaid admin*

    There was a period of time when I didn’t have a car and was taking the bus to work. My coworker was Very Concered about walking from the bus stop to work being wildly unsafe (it was not) and insisted on giving me a ride on her way in in the mornings. Unnecessary, but a nice gesture. Except that any time she was running late or out sick, she would wait until the last minute to text me, meaning the bus had already left and I would be forced to spend money on an Uber if I wanted to get to work on time. Luckily I live close enough to my current job that even in a worst case scenario I could just walk there.

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    1. iglwif*

      Oh dear :(

      I don’t drive, and there are several people I will not accept offered rides from unless I genuinely absolutely cannot get to the destination via transit (like, it’s in a different city or something) because of this kind of thing.

      Being late makes me anxious, and having no control over the timing of the journey makes this worse! If I’m travelling by transit and am concerned about being late, I can leave earlier. But when someone says they’ll pick me up at 18:50 and oop! they don’t arrive until 19:05, not only will I be late, but I will know that I could have been on time if I was on my own, and will feel I can’t say anything about it because the driver is doing me a favour.

      And at the same time, it’s very kind of people to offer, and I feel incredibly rude saying “no, I would rather take the bus.”

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      1. i like hound dogs*

        I guess it’s kind of them to offer but people should also be able to accept a gracious “oh, I appreciate that, but I’m used to the bus. I’ll see you there!”

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        1. iglwif*

          MOST people can! I’m just very awkward. And sometimes people just simply cannot fathom the concept of taking the bus, for some reason? (They do not feel this way about the subway — even drivers know that if a place can be reached by subway alone from where you are, that will almost always be the fastest available means of travel.)

          Frequently I’ll say something like “Oh, I have to run some errands on the way, I’ll see you there”. There’s always some errand that needs running!

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  65. Not a Penguin*

    This is hardly catastrophic levels, but I found out that one of our team members lived only a mile from me, and our office was 12 miles away (a solid hour one way in our urban area). She was otherwise stuck with the very inconvenient bus line, so she’d hit me up at least a couple times a week. I was and am an audiobook listener, so I would always have one on. I settled on a cozy mystery series with no fewer than 16 books in it at that time to listen to, but only while she was with me. The chances that she actually liked this series were slim but better than us making forced conversation for 4-5 hours a week.

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  66. L*

    I live within walking distance of my office, which is lovely in the summer, but can be pretty miserable in winter. I used to have a colleague, who has since retired, whose driving route went past my home. On the worst winter days, at her invitation, I would text her to pick me up on her way past, but even on days when I decided to brave the elements, sometimes she’d pull up beside me and offer me a lift. All good, except the place where this would happen was right before a left turn onto a busy road, followed shortly after by another left turn across said busy road into our parking garage, plus the neighbourhood was full of construction. It often took more than triple the time I would have spent walking the rest of the way!

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  67. MagicEyes*

    When I was much younger and very naive, I carpooled to my summer job with a woman who put on a full face of makeup WHILE SHE WAS DRIVING! She would twist the rearview mirror around so she could see her face in it, put on lipstick, blush, and yes, mascara, and then she would curl her eyelashes! Somehow she never wrecked the car.

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  68. Rusty Shackelford*

    A coworker and I carpooled to a meeting about an hour away from our office. We took one of the fleet cars and agreed that they would drive to the meeting and I would drive back. This coworker was tall, and I am short, so on the way to the meeting the driver’s seat was set very far back from the steering wheel. Getting ready to head back, I tried to adjust the seat closer and couldn’t. It was broken. I asked the coworker to drive back since I literally couldn’t reach the pedals. “Nope, I drove down here. It’s your turn.” So I drove an hour back, perched on the edge of the seat.

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  69. Harper*

    Not a carpool gone wrong, but kind of a fun carpool story. A few years ago, I was on a work trip to Waco, TX and there were horrible thunderstorms across the state the afternoon/evening I was flying home. When I got to the Waco airport, I learned that my connecting flight from Houston to home had already been canceled, so if I took my first flight, I’d be stranded in Houston. The gate agent told me there was a flight from Dallas to my home later that evening, but no flights from Waco to Dallas. A group of people standing nearby had the same dilemma, and someone suggested all of us sharing an Uber to Dallas. We did, and we made it just in time! It was really out of character for me to jump into a car with total strangers for a 90 minute drive in a different state, but desperate times call for desperate measures! And I always love how random people come together to help one another when we find ourselves in the same predicaments. Sometimes these little inconveniences can bring out the best in humanity.

    Sadly, my flight in Dallas was delayed about 5 times and eventually canceled at 1:00 AM. I didn’t get home until 10:00 AM the next day, which was Saturday. :(

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    1. Lady Lessa*

      I have a similar story. My flight to CA was delayed, so we had to fly into Los Angeles instead of Orange county (Quiet time for residents). Some nice folks gave me and my cat a ride, but poor Lady had to go, and left a wet spot on the car’s carpet. I offered to pay, but they refused.
      (FYI, it was a soft sided carrier, so it couldn’t stop a stream of liquid).

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    2. Alexandrine*

      My dad was at a work conference out west (I think maybe Utah?) when 9/11 happened. Since all flights in the US were grounded for an unknown amount of time, everyone was scrambling to figure out how to get back home (in my dad’s case, to Connecticut).

      Every rental car agency was getting booked out, so people starting banding together with anyone who was in a state vaguely near them to fill up the available cars and drive back home. I think my dad paired up with people from Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

      Must have been a surreal experience, especially with everyone having no idea on whether another big, scary, tragic thing was going to happen.

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  70. Her My Own Knee*

    I carpooled once with a coworker who lived in my neighborhood. I didn’t even realize he lived near me until he approached me one day and asked if I would like to carpool. Gas was hideously expensive, so I thought why not. The next day, before he dropped me off at home, he swung past his ex-wife’s house. He pulled over to chat with her for a minute and heavily implied that he and I were an item. When he actually took me home after that I told him I would be driving myself in the future.

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  71. Sevenrider*

    At my workplace the most senior person is the one who drives. I am not senior and I HATE riding in other people’s cars for many reasons. I need to have the fan on, not a/c, just the fan. I am a larger size and feel very uncomfortable in cars that have smaller seats and don’t fit very well in most backseats. I also just generally dislike the feeling of not being in control. Any tips for getting out of it when someone says “oh, I’ll drive” in a work setting?

    Reply ↓
    2. Hlao-roo*

      If the place you’re driving to has plenty of parking, I think you can just cheerfully say “I prefer to drive myself” and hop in your own car and drive yourself.

      If the place you’re going to has limited parking (so it wouldn’t make sense to drive yourself), I agree with Yikes that a white lie about carsickness can work.

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      1. Strive to Excel*

        My mom actually gets carsick when she’s not the driver. The only person she’ll happily passenger for is my uncle, who is a lover of extremely nice cars and frequently leases Porsches or similar. Apparently her hindbrain trusts him!

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    3. i like hound dogs*

      I have no advice but I just want to say I commiserate. Some things I just prefer to do on my own because I have specific preferences. Also I’ve always felt awkward riding in the cars of people who aren’t close family and friends (no, I am not the most socially gifted person).

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    4. Dontbeadork*

      I’ve found a simple “no, thank you” to work well, but I get that sometimes you have to carpool because of parking or permits or whatever. In that case, “I get carsick when I’m not driving” is very helpful, as mentioned above. In my case, it is also true.

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  72. H.Regalis*

    I once carpooled with a guy who was extremely critically of every single other person on the planet. For the entire ride, he would be on a nonstop monologue of why each other person on the road was a bad driver and why he was an awesome driver. He would also not slow down if pedestrians or other cars were crossing our path because he was convinced that if he kept going at the same speed, that would cause them to move out of the way. Came very close to hitting people a few times.

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  73. RIP Pillowfort*

    So I get majorly motion sick if I am not in the front seat driving. It’s a serious issue. I can’t really read, focus, or do anything if I’m a passenger or I’ll get violently sick. So my work involves a lot of driving and if you’re going to a job site you’re often car pooling with 2-3 people in a work vehicle. I often volunteer to drive and explain my motion sickness issues. Most people have no issues with it.

    My very first grandboss was very much insistent that I, as a junior employee, read project files and work from the back seat of the vehicle. I explained the situation and that I would be violently sick if I did this. He did not believe that I couldn’t do something to be productive during the car ride. It was a very contentious discussion. He finally said he was giving me a direct order and I said fine.

    I made it about 10 minutes down the road before they had to pull over. I vomited on the side of the road and ruined at least one of the files. I know he judged me for it but he never asked me again.

    Not the only problem I had with carpooling with co-workers. Many were insistent on awful talk radio. People can guess what type.

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  74. Horrified and Embarrassed*

    I used to carpool along with a couple of other teammates with someone who had atrocious levels of road rage. The thing that made him angriest though, was if people cut him (or others) off at an exit ramp. Understandable that it isn’t great driver behavior, but he would essentially start frothing at the mouth when this happened. He would curse up a storm and hit the steering wheel.

    One day, someone cut HIM off at a very busy exit ramp, and he rolled down the window and started screaming profanities at them, mostly of the genital variety, and what they could go do. He proceeded to take his middle finger and pretend to gag on it, miming….what they should do. They laughed in response, which set him off even more. Meanwhile, I slowly sank down in my seat as I was sitting up front.

    I found a new person to carpool with within the next 2 weeks.

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  75. StressedButOkay*

    My dad in the ’80s worked night/long shifts as a young government employee on a base. Since they were young, my parents only had one car so dad did a carpool with folks in the neighborhood, with everyone pitching in to drive.

    One day they left work and dropped everyone off. It wasn’t until it was him and one other person left that they realized they’d forgotten someone back at the office.

    A colleague who was seven months pregnant.

    They RACED back to the office and found her outside, things on the ground, arms crossed over her very large belly, with a glare that haunts my dad to this day.

    They started to do headcounts after that.

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  76. Emotional support capybara (he/him)*

    One from the dysfunctional OldJob. From the same lady who convinced me to start job hunting by asking me if I’d enjoyed my vacation after I’d taken a week off to bury my dad!

    When this happened the shop was walking distance from my apartment which was great, because I didn’t have a car. Usually great, except one day when a freak thunder- lightning- sideways rain storm blew in around quitting time.

    “I’ll give you a ride,” the lady, who I’ll call Prunella, offered. Which was great!

    So I got in the car, thanked her profusely, even offered a couple bucks for gas even though my apartment was literally one (1) single mile away. She waved it off. Everything seemed great.

    And then Prunella stopped the car a block from the shop. “I’m only giving you a ride to your street,” she said. “Your apartment is too far out of my way.”

    My gasts were so severely flabbered I could do nothing but mumble “thanks, I guess” and walk the rest of the way home in the rain. :/

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  77. Jonathan MacKay*

    Here’s a relevant question that comes to mind – How do you address the driver using their cellphone while driving?

    I’ve had it happen once or twice, which is enough for me to seek alternative modes of transit.

    Reply ↓
    1. Hlao-roo*

      Methods I have used in the past:

      (1) “Do you want me to [text that person/put on music/call that person/etc.]? You’re driving and I’m just sitting here.” – Usually 50% success rate. About half the time the driver will go “sure” and hand over their phone. The other half the time the driver will say something along the lines of “nah, I can multitask” or “nah, it’ll be faster if I do it.”

      (2) Start talking about how dangerous distracted driving is – I only tried this once (after trying the above strategy), and the driver said “yeah, I only text and drive on the highway so at least I don’t hit any pedestrians” and then continued to text and drive. While we were on the highway. So, 0% success rate with this one.

      (3) Never accept a ride from that person again.

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    2. Kay*

      When it happened to me, it was with a coworker I was pretty close with. I started with “how are you able to multitask like that?” (She was better than most, but not good!) And, once we were chatting about it in general, “Can you not? It just makes me nervous.” Allison has mentioned in the past that blaming something on a weird little personal issue tends to go over well and get results.

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  78. Pillow Fort Forever*

    Car trouble and the executive assistant to the CEO offered to pick me up on her way into the office the next day. Great!! Totally appreciative of the ride. First 5 minutes were uneventful and then, um, this seemingly refined, somewhat prissy lady thought someone cut her off (I didn’t see it that way) and the EA decided to “get even with this B___” and tailgated her, honked, flipped her off and then ranted about “that stupid B____” the rest of the drive in. I was pretty much shellshocked all day and never again looked at her the same way (and never again mentioned my car having issues)!!

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  79. Hroethvitnir*

    This is more a not-carpooling story, but: I worked somewhere where we were all very friendly and only a couple of us drove, with the others using a mix of public transport and lifts. I took 2-3 people home most days for a while (a commute of an hour).

    A new guy started in an adjoining group, and immediately came on way too strong trying to make friends. He was pushy enough that it was a hard pass from me, and I managed to side-step hints about car pooling.

    When he got zero responses to a site-wide email about car pooling, he was bitter and weird enough about it that it totally reinforced my hell no vibe.

    Long story short, he ended up assaulting a coworker who he was close with, and somehow thought he was the aggrieved party when he was let go (you can indeed be fired immediately for assault, even in a country with contracts and a warning system).

    This may not be 100% relevant, but it certainly strongly reinforced me being extremely willing to draw strong boundaries about who I will spend time trapped in a small space with.

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  80. Elizabeth West*

    I had an unreliable car when I worked at OldExJob. There were a few times I couldn’t make it in because something was wrong, but they needed me to come in, so BullyBoss would come to my house and pick me up.

    The office was only about a ten-minute drive away, but those were some of the most awkward minutes ever, sitting in a car with someone I disliked so much. I realized the coworker who was his primary victim was getting a break from him, so I sucked it up. BB rarely did any actual work so he was always free, lol.

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  81. Jojo*

    My job used to require quarterly trips to the same location. One time, one of my team members was going as well and volunteered to drive. He was a nice guy, how bad could it be? Well, he loved to sing and was in a community choir. His wife would record the performances using a tape recorder. The sounds quality was terrible, but it got worse. He say along with it for the entire three hour ride down and then on the ride back. It was…a lot.

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  82. No really, don't work with family*

    Until she retired, my mother and I worked at the same place (not together in any way, it was a very large campus, thousands of employees). She had worked there for years, and when I got a job there she was delighted – we could carpool!

    My mother and I have a…difficult relationship. As in the, “I have Complex-PTSD as a direct result of being raised by her,” sort of difficult. I am also not at all a morning person and very much enjoy my solitude during the drive to work. My mother IS a morning person, and she LOVES a captive audience. But I didn’t have a car, public transit in my city is absolute garbage, and at that point in my life I hadn’t quite figured out how to say no to my mother, so carpool it was!

    I got to ride to work every day with a constant litany of personal criticisms and judgements, interspersed with over-perkiness and a refusal to just…not talk. And asking my mother to modify her behavior in even the gentlest and most tactful way always has the chance of being taken as akin to calling her The Worst Person In The World and triggering a massive meltdown, so I had to be very careful with something like, “I’m really tired this morning, could we not chat?” The ride home was a monologue about everything she did at work that day, including the daily badmouthing of all the people she had problems with (there were many) and all the ways no one truly appreciated her.

    Also a couple weeks into the arrangement, she sprung on me that we would be adding one of her coworkers to the trip. A loud, brash guy who liked to talk politics first thing in the morning and had political opinions directly opposed to my mother’s and mine. They would talk the whole way, him saying occasionally truly egregious things my mother pretended to be neutral about – he had a different ride home, so he was added to the badmouth list.

    I did this for six months, until I could afford my own car. It definitely wasn’t the deciding factor or anything, but I sincerely think that carpool arrangement contributed to my eventual decision to go Very Low Contact with her a couple years later.

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  83. DisneyChannelThis*

    I volunteered to help carpool the interns from campus to an event. We had 2 drivers, I ended up with just 1 of the 4 interns. It was 45 min away, highway driving. Intern climbed into the backseat. I said “Oh you can sit up front”, and she declined! She then proceeded to argue with me when I told her she needed wear her seat belt. “My uber drivers never make me wear a seatbelt” she informed me. I’m not your uber kid. Put the damn seatbelt on or walk. She rode back to campus with me after the event (I was hoping we could swap interns around with the other car load alas) and sat in the back again.

    They asked me to help drive the interns again this semester. I declined.

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  84. see you anon*

    At a previous job I had to drive with one coworker a few times — once was just the 2 of us on the way to a weekend trade show where we were overseeing the booth for our workplace. I didn’t know him too well, but knew that we had similar interests. On the drive to the trade show I asked very specific questions about a reality tv show we both watched, and got such perfunctory answers that after a few tries I just gave up and opted to drove in silence. This coworker is chatty in the office, and even at that trade show and other events and conferences we attended together. It was a short drive thankfully, so we got to the venue, unloaded, and talked to guests about our workplace for an afternoon, packed up, and went home.

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  85. Green Goose*

    About ten years ago, when I was new to the office world I was at a 3-day all staff retreat. It was in South San Francisco and I live in the East Bay, so it took me almost two hours of Bart and then Muni to get to the location. I was entry-level at a nonprofit and taking a Lyft/Uber home felt too extravagant on my budget.
    At the end of the long, three day retreat I was helping pack up and one of the VPs heard about my long commute home and offered to let me take a Lyft back with her “her treat”. I was so relieved, I was exhausted and it also gave me an opportunity to chat with the VP “Sally”. I remember being so excited at the idea of a car driving me home from a work event, it felt like luxury, and I perked up even though I was physically and mentally drained from three days of all day meetings.
    The car picked Sally and I up and I noticed that the gas was very low, I asked the driver if they had enough for the drive across the bay and they said yes. It looked too low for that to me, but it was not my car so I assumed that they knew what they were talking about and got in.
    Sally and I started chatting and the Lyft started very slowly making its way through San Francisco, there was terrible traffic but I was just happy to be in a comfortable car. About 30 minutes later we were still in the city, on a street with multiple lanes (we were in the middle, with two lanes of traffic between us and the curb) and it started to rain.
    Then the driver interrupted us to say that actually they didn’t have enough gas to take us to the
    East Bay and that we would need to get out of the car. I.Was.So.Mad. We then had to get out of the car, in the middle of the street, walk through two lanes of cars (not moving fast because of traffic, but still) while carrying stuff from the retreat in the rain. The driver did not apologize or even attempt to help us safely get from their car to the curb. But I buried my deep frustration so I didn’t seem like a grump to Sally.
    Sally pulled her phone out to call another ride and while doing this accidentally gave the driver a 5 star review (noooo) and then as she tried to call another ride a cartoonishly huge drop of water landed on her phone screen and it went black. I didn’t have a rideshare app on my phone at the time, and did not know the city. We had no idea where we were and just started walking in the rain and hoping for the best. By random luck we eventually found a Bart station. I was so annoyed, but Sally was really lovely about the situation and never lost her cool.
    It ended up taking over three hours for me to get home that night, but years later when I reported to Sally we were at least able to laugh about it. Sally ended up being a great boss and definitely a make lemonade out of lemons type of person.

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  86. Carpool from Hell*

    Live in a suburb a few hours from one of the US’s largest metropolitan areas. Carpooled with a coworker to a conference in said city, and we got into THREE minor fender-benders on the way there — one on the interstate, one in the city, and one right outside the conference venue while trying to find parking. It was her first time driving in the city, but I didn’t know that when I accepted the ride! I took an Uber home, that expense was worth it.

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  87. Cringing at the Memory*

    At a former job, my boss and his wife, who was my manager, offered to give me a ride to and from our annual Christmas party at a restaurant about 20 minutes from the office. Literally as we were all closing our car doors for the drive back to the office, with no warning, I let out a silent but dreadfully deadly fart. I can acutely recall my horror and the shocking stench years later. We never spoke of it with each other, but I can imagine what they likely said after dropping me off.

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  88. Kyrielle*

    This is my Dad’s story and not mine, but when I was growing up we lived in the country and he worked about a half hour away. He could have driven it, but there was a van that ran from one town to the next and brought employees, and passed near us. So rather than pay gas the whole way in, he arranged to meet the van along the route. Got permission from a farmer at a corner to park in one specific spot at the edge of his field each day, did so, went on the van, went home.

    After seeing his truck there three days running, a police officer ticketed it. They did reverse the ticket when the arrangement plus the fact that it wasn’t being left there were explained to them, but it still became a family story.

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  89. violinrunner*

    This is more of an observation than a horror story. I am currently in a carpool that grew from 4 people to 8 or 9 (which means we take 2 cars and split up from day to day). It’s fascinating to me how different the carpool can feel depending on who is in it.

    To be clear, I like everyone in the carpool and one on one they’re all great to talk with. But sometimes I end in a group that speaks entirely in inside jokes that I am not *inside*. Sometimes one person dominates the conversation to the detriment of all other discussion. Sometimes we have fascinating conversations about all sorts of random topics. It all depends on who arrives at the meetup first.

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  90. i like hound dogs*

    These might be stretching the definition of carpooling, but:

    1). I had a terrible job under a terrible boss who micromanaged everything we did. He was the CEO of the company, and decided that he would take me and his other favorite employee to a conference in Chicago (side note: if your boss have favorites, you will probably eventually not be one of them at some point). The other employee had to arrive later than us, so he decided I’d ride with him. He looked at his phone and sped the entire 4-hour drive and I was convinced I was going to die. I did not die, but it was so awkward and I hated it. Two days into the conference he got bored and drove us home early. While we were there, he didn’t ever give us a per diem for meals or anything — instead, we ate every single meal together (at least he paid).

    2.) In my current job, my boss never stops ragging on me for driving into the office and paying for parking downtown. He takes the bus, but that would make my commute an hour instead of twelve minutes in my trusty 2012 Honda Fit. Six months ago he arranged for a handful of people in our office to attend a museum as a team outing. Guess who he wanted to ferry around five people, all of whom are higher up in the org than me, because I “always drive anyway”? I said no. I’m not letting the head of brand squeeze in beside my son’s carseat and also if he thinks driving is so terrible maybe he shouldn’t try to make me do it when it’s convenient for him.

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  91. Former Bookstore Lesbian*

    I have something to contribute!!!

    I’m a lesbian (relevant to the story) and some decades ago (before I had my first office job) I worked at a LGBTQ bookstore and lived in the suburbs. At that time, it seemed an excruciating commute (few buses, long bus ride, long subway ride, and various connections).

    Strangely, every once in a while in the morning, drivers would come to the suburban bus stop and offer people rides to the subway. Interestingly, they always did this when the sun was shining and the air warm and not when it was cold or rainy. I would said no thank you and the driver and their companion would give me nasty looks.

    I got tired of the nasty looks and got in the car one time with the driver and companion. And it turned out that the reason they wanted me to get in the car was so they could use the high occupancy lanes. Essentially, I was doing them a favor, but they were acting as if they were doing me a favor. It wasn’t a big deal though and the driver dropped me off a large parking lot away from the subway entrance (thanks!). The bus would have dropped me off right next to the entrance.

    It wasn’t a bad enough experience to forswear taking the next car ride when offered. So when I was invited into a car again, I took it. Nothing notable happened until after the driver dropped off his companion. The driver offered to drive me into the city and, despite how uncomfortable I was, I agreed because I was a good girl and respected my elders. (He wasn’t that old but I was that young.) Then came the conversation:

    “Where do you work?”

    “A bookstore in XXX neighborhood.” (Reader I worked in the LGBTQ neighborhood.)

    “What bookstore?”

    With a sinking sensation in my stomach, I told him the name of the LGBTQ bookstore I worked at.

    And he said, “isn’t that the homosexual bookstore?” The way he said homosexual…well he dragged it out like crazy.

    So I said yes, cause I was out and proud.

    I don’t remember a ton of what he said next but he definitely started talking about how homosexuality and Christianity weren’t compatible. I did put up some protest about that, mostly because I felt a duty to my community. Finally, he stopped at a red light and he turned to me and asked me if I thought homosexuality and Christianity were compatible. (I don’t remember the exact words.)

    So I unlocked the passenger side door, said “No, I don’t believe homosexuality and Christianity are compatible and that’s why I’m not a Christian.” Then I left the car.

    And reader, I have never gotten into a car with someone I didn’t know since.

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  92. Bunny Girl*

    We have a yearly conference at work that’s routinely held about an hour away from where I am. Some people stay there overnight but I don’t like that so I just commute. There is always a push to carpool but honestly, I have several health issues that are normally worse in the morning. Carpooling would be the ultimate nightmare. I normally either end up leaving JUST on time to make it there, despite my best intentions, or I end up having to stop at least once on the way there. There’s no way I could do that as either a passenger, or with a carload of other people gracefully. Luckily my boss is the best and when I told him I had some health issues and it would be better to drive myself, he was understanding.

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  93. Zephy*

    A few years ago, I was renting a house with my now-husband and two friends, A and B. All 4 of us had our own vehicles. A and I met at work, and eventually B also got a job there, so we decided it didn’t make any sense for all 3 of us to drive separately if we were all going to the same place for the same period of time. I wound up volunteering to be the carpool driver for about a year, since my car was a sedan in decent shape, and I was the best driver of all of us. B had an ancient beater of a coupe that had a basically-decorative back seat; A had a huge, inefficient truck, and is the most chaotic driver I’ve ever known. Nothing particularly egregious happened during that time, but we did rescue a dog that had escaped from a nearby back yard and was found wandering across a six-lane road once. Dog was fine, teen that had turned his back for just a second he swears was deeply relieved that we got the pupper back to him before his parents got home.

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  94. MigraineMonth*

    After I gave a coworker a ride to the department potluck, someone I hadn’t met me yet asked me if I was the coworker’s wife. On one hand, it was a reasonable assumption. On the other, it was *too* reasonable assumption, since at the time I was literally the only woman in the entire department.

    *huge fake smile*

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  95. Susie QQ*

    This isn’t a bad story, it’s actually a heartwarming one.

    I was at the train station one day waiting for my commuter train. It didn’t come when it was due, and after several minutes went by there was finally an announcement that it wasn’t coming at all due to technical difficulties. I was about to call an Uber when a kind-looking woman on the platform told me she was going to drive into the city and offered me a ride.

    It was risky because she was a stranger, but I said yes. She began leading me back to her house, and she said “I just live there on the corner. My dogs have probably barked at you.” And then I realized with dread that she was the Barky Dog Mom. Her dogs have charged and barked at me on numerous occasions, and I’m afraid of them because them seem vicious and an invisible fence is the only thing between them and me (and I don’t completely trust those things).

    One day I recorded her dogs barking at me. I had no plans of posting it anywhere, and it was honestly because I thought there was a real possibility of them attacking me and I wanted evidence if that happened. She came out of her house and confronted me, telling me that I didn’t need to record it. I’m not proud of my behavior, but I yelled back at her how her dogs were a menace to then neighborhood, and we got into a shouting match. Fast forwarding to that day at the train station, we didn’t recognize each other because we had been 4o or 50 feet away from each other when that altercation took place.

    I didn’t know what to do, so I just got in her car and let her drive me. It’s about a 30 or 40 minute drive, so we had plenty of time to talk. She was so nice!! We talked about our jobs, our families, our childhoods… just about everything. Toward the end I finally fessed up, identifying myself as the neighbor who had recorded her dogs and screamed at her, and said that I’d understand if she wanted to kick me out of her car. But she was so cool about it, she said she understood me being frightened of her dogs and didn’t hold grudges. And I said I understood how me taking a video of her dogs would antagonize her and reassured her I had never shared it with anyone. I also promised to delete it, which I later did.

    My neighbor and I are on great terms now. She invited me to come over and meet her dogs, and I’m not afraid of them anymore! The next day I sent her some thank-you flowers for giving me a ride to work that day. And for not kicking me out of her car!

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    1. Hlao-roo*

      Carpooling as a force for good–hooray! Glad you and your neighbor were able to apologize to each other and have a good relationship now.

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  96. LifebeforeCorona*

    I worked at a large institution that was on a major bus hub. One of my co-workers asked to carpool with me because they didn’t want to take the bus. But they lived 15 minutes past my home and the return drive was longer because it was against rush hour traffic. They also finished their shift 30 minutes after me which added wait time. We did for a week and I was losing an hour of my time every day. I declined to continue and it didn’t end well but still stood my ground.

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  97. Always Tired*

    I have had two different bosses now who seem to believe driving a Tesla with autopilot on means they can text, mess with the touch screen without ever looking up, and do just about everything but pay attention. One of them smoked an actual bowl of weed from a pipe while we were on our way to a meeting at city hall. I don’t accept rides from bosses or Tesla drivers anymore.

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  98. Academic Anon for This*

    Many, many, many years ago, I was the lowest paid person in my area at my university and thus car-pooling was very helpful in making ends meet.

    There were four of us that often car-pooled together and it was in a very rural, conservative area. One of the members of the carpool was a local.

    A story that came out was a professor that was reprimanded for advocating for his Christian religion in class. The local didn’t think he should have gotten in trouble. Another person in the carpool that was braver than I asked if it would be O.K, if the professor had advocated for a non-Christian religion. She replied that of course that would not be O.K.

    In addition, that person also took offense when she told me that she would not be riding the next week. I said O.K. and somehow that got turned around to me not caring about her.

    Eating more spaghetti in order to drive alone became attractive enough at that point that I withdrew from the carpool and have never done since.

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  99. PinkCandyfloss*

    I was the horror story in my carpool group. My first pregnancy came unexpectedly with morning sickness, which I didn’t realize until one day partially into our 45 minute commute. My two carpool partners were very understanding about the initial incident and I drove myself with a plastic bag in a bucket on my lap for a couple of months until it subsided. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to use the plastic bag to ride in the HOV lane, which was the whole point of carpooling, so I was glad when I could finally get back into the carpool and save time getting to work.

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  100. Laskia*

    I (woman in my late twenties) was in a temp position and carpooled with an older man (in his fifties) that wasn’t a supervisor, but nevertheless was in charge of showing me the ropes. On day I was dealing with terrible nausea as I was on new meds. I managed to hold it in for the most of the 1-hour car ride, and proceeded to get extremely sick in the last 5 minutes. I was obviously mortified, but…we finished the ride in silence, and then he proceeded to offer me a full-time position ! I still don’t know whatever the fuck he was thinking, maybe he intended to offer it to me all along and just picked this moment to make me feel less bad I guess ? Regardless it all worked out in the end.

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  102. Art3mis*

    I had a co-worker who didn’t or couldn’t drive. There were rumors about why, but no one really knew the truth. Sometimes she would take the train or bus, sometimes she would bum rides from other people. And I do mean bum rides because she would never offer up gas money or anything to those who gave her rides, and she would make last minute out of the way asks for stops too. My best friend and her husband drove together and lived near this co-worker so they were a prime target. The last time they agreed to drive her home she asked for three stops, and not even at the start of the drive, each right after another as “Oh yeah can we also go…” after the last stop ended. After a long day of working and what was already a 45 minute commute. The woman had no shame and never even said thank you to anyone. She just expected everyone to just go along with her requests.

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  103. Seen Too Much*

    I carpooled with a colleague for a truly short period of time. This happened years ago. We were “friends at work” for quite a while, so she knew I didn’t smoke. When she offered to carpool, she told me she never smoked in the car. Readers, she smoked in the car – like non-stop.

    Then, a week after this started, we were driving home in a rainstorm. She decided that she wanted to pick up iced coffee on the way. No worries. She then proceeded to drive with her knee while she held her coffee in one hand and her wallet in her other. I sh**t you not. She used her knee to steer.

    the next day I told her I didn’t need a ride anymore.

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  104. Amused and Confused*

    Does carpooling to/from university count as work? My mom attended college thirteen hours from home. She had gone on a handful of dates with a guy from her hometown who was attending the same college. They decided to carpool home for Christmas. Four hours into the thirteen-hour drive, he asked my mom if she wanted to marry him and start a family. She said no. It’s been 30+ years since that happened, and she still says finishing that drive was the longest, most awkward nine hours of her life. Unsurprisingly, she found a different ride back to the college at the end of the winter break.

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    1. Lou's Girl*

      Opposite happened to a friend of mine, she and her long term boyfriend were carpooling home (4 hours from college), when he broke up with her about 2 hours in. Then berated her for being too upset to drive, as she was balling her eyes out. Then when she dropped him off, he wanted to confirm that she would pick him up the following week to drive back. Thankfully she had the wherewithal to tell him to find another ride. (He’d had his license revoked for too many DUIs. Bullet dodged IMHO)

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  105. L. Ron Jeremy*

    I found out that coworker lived close by, took a route right by my neighborhood and worked the same hours as I did. I suggested we carpool together (about 45 minutes one way) and alternate driving, but they insisted on driving because they just bought a new BMW.
    The next morning they arrive and we set off. All’s good until I suggest they put on the heat and they say they don’t know how. Being an engineer, I reached to the obvious controls and they screamed, “stop, you’ll break it!” I assured them that a simple switch setting was just a click away to wonderful heat, but was told again “you’ll break it”.
    On the way home, they took the long way home, which I said would lead to a notorious bottleneck. They said they always go home is way – took almost 1.5 hours to get home. I told it may be good if we don’t carpool again and they agreed.

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  106. TANSTAAFL*

    NYC had a transit strike in the spring of 1980 which kept commuters from being able to commute into Manhattan from the outer boroughs via public transportation. Many people drove, many walked or biked into Manhattan. I lived in Queens at the time and my office was on 42nd St on the east side, so I biked in a couple of times. Terrifying experience during rush hour and after the 2nd day I was at my wit’s end. My sister-in-law who lived nearby also worked near my office and one of her coworkers was going to start driving into the city and I was invited to join the carpool. The driver, my SIL, I and 4 other passengers squeezed into a car that comfortably seated 5. One woman sat on the center console in front, another sat on her boyfriend’s lap in the backseat, so there was four of us in the back and three in the front. We had specific pick up times and locations and we would all meet at a certain bar at the end of the day for the return trip. We were all in our 20’s, so we just went with what worked.

    One day, I had gone out to lunch with a male former cow0rker, just a friend, and made a remark that I liked a fabric wall hanging that was framed on the wall of the restaurant. Well, when I got to the meeting place at the end of the day, that wall hanging was waiting for me there. He had bought it for me! It was about 20″x40″ canvas with a wood frame. Needless to say, when I got into the car with that thing I held it up against the roof of the car for the entire ride back home. I grew to like it eventually, even though I really didn’t want it hanging in my apartment. No one in the car was PO’d about it, just thought it was funny. Great group of people!

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    1. TANSTAAFL*

      I neglected to mention that the strike ended after 11 days and all went back to normal, well a NYC normal commute.

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  107. Lou's Girl*

    There were 4 of us at work whose kids attended the same preK program. The school let out at 2 and didn’t have transportation, so the 4 of us moms collectively got together and formed a carpool. So, once a month for a week, one of us had to pick up 4 kids and drop them off at a local day care. No problem, I trusted these parents and had known them since before my kid was born.
    One parent (we’ll call her Babs) however, was new to our workplace and the area and while she had met all of us (the moms), she had not met any of the dads. One day, a mom (we’ll call her Sue), couldn’t make carpool and rather than calling one of us, just told her husband to get the kids. When Babs found out a stranger had picked up her kid, she was LIVID. She called Sue and all but cussed her out.
    Sue was upset and called me not understanding why Babs was so mad. I explained to her that a literal stranger had just picked up her 4 year old. Sue said “but it’s my husband, he’s fine.”
    Babs decided to pick up her own kid after that and Sue never quite understood why Babs was so mad.

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    1. WellRed*

      I’m trying to wrap my head around the logistics of car seats for 4 to 5 kids and that everyone had a car big enough.

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  108. zlionsfan*

    This was about 30 years ago, at my first desk job. My team worked at the main office, we had a bunch of satellite offices elsewhere, including one that was a couple of hours away – we worked closely with folks in that office. One day, our boss scheduled a day trip to head up there, meet with those folks, get a tour, take care of any outstanding issues that being in-person would help with, and head back. It’s a two-hour trip, so we plan to meet at the main office, hop in the rental van, come back to the main office, and drive ourselves home like normal.

    The trip up is fine, but the meetings run a little long, so we’re leaving a bit behind schedule. (Naturally, someone suggests that if we’re pulled over for speeding, we should all split the cost, because what’s the fun in having one AAM story if you could have two at once? I made less than $8/hr at the time and absolutely could not afford to split anything, but also there wasn’t an internet yet so I didn’t have Alison’s tips on how to avoid this. Fortunately it didn’t come to pass.) We’re about 30 minutes into the trip when one of my coworkers, let’s call them Rutabaga, says to the driver “Oh, here’s my exit.”

    WHAT. Apparently Rutabaga had been dropped off at work by their partner and decided that we would simply drop them off at their house on the way back, even though that turned out to be about an hour out of the way … and didn’t bother to tell anyone the plan until it was “too late” to do anything about it. (Rutabaga was not an ideal coworker in many other ways and was eventually let go, unfortunately not during this trip.) The driver, Potato, was a very nice person who absolutely wasn’t going to say “oh hell no”, and nobody else in the van had the pull to stop this idea, so off we went on a side trip out to the middle of nowhere. Fun times!

    We did not take any more day trips to that office.

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  109. Not Tom, Just Petty*

    My boss’ car was going to be in the shop one time. “Can you pick me up and drive me too and from on Wednesday next week?”
    Yes.
    OK, because I promise, I’m just asking because I don’t have an option other than taking the day. You can say no.
    Yeah, but it’s a work favor. I will need a work favor. So I can play.
    It was a nice trip. She’s just a: get off the highway a block from her street, get back on a block after. We agreed it was a very nice time and it worked out well, and “we will never do it again.”
    Driving solo is a privilege we both want after riding buses for 20 years.

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  110. DJ*

    I used to drop a friend off on my way to work. Worked really well.
    But would have to car pool with a colleague when going to other officers. I was always expected to be the one to pick her up and they’d always insists on travelling back at a time when they would be dropped off just before peak hour leaving me to jam across the city taking twice as long as it would have if we’d stayed working at the office and drove home after peak hour. We worked flexible hours/time in lieu so there wasn’t the issue of working unpaid hours.
    Anyhow when my manager had to go to another office with me thankfully they said don’t pick me up (it would have added another hour to my trip involving a triangle) I’ll find my own way there. Thus I could arrive early missing peak hour and leave late again missing peak hour!

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  111. Pink Fields*

    Not directly carpooling, unless you count everyone on the bus as carpooling. I had a long route to work for a temp job. This was about a 2 hour ride. I was in grad school at the time, so I would use the time to get some reading and homework done. For a while on this route, some guerrilla preachers would get on the bus and, at some of the highest volumes that a theatre actor would be jealous of, would have a conversation about their religious tenets. It was clearly “staged” for a way for everyone on the bus to be able to “eavesdrop” on their conversation, and I guess, get filled with the spirit and change their ways. The bus wasn’t full, but they sat in front of and behind me and were yelling over me for everyone to hear. What’s annoying is that they would talk to a 3rd person a few seats farther away, and be quieter when talking with them. So clearly they were able to have conversations at normal volumes.

    Once I asked them to quiet down as I was trying to read and study, but that enraged them and made them speak louder. The bus driver never stopped them.

    Thankfully I found a different job and didn’t need to do that commute anymore.

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  112. Tasha*

    Carpooled for two weeks with a neighbor who worked at the same company but it ended abruptly when it turned out she was in charge of communications for closing my division and laying off everyone. I know she couldn’t ethically say anything but it was awkward.

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  113. boomchickapop*

    My dad carpooled to work pretty much every day with a coworker in our neighborhood. It worked for him for many years. When I was 16, I got a summer job at that company, and carpooled in with them. It was pleasant to have someone to chat with and not have to drive myself across the city. The funny thing was when my dad was on vacation, and I was not. I still went and picked up Mr. Neighbor and drove him in my dad’s VW Rabbit. I’d only had my driver’s license for a week. I can’t believe he was totally fine with that. He never said a word, and I guess my new driving was acceptable. Looking back, it seems weird to send your 16-yo daughter off to drive the 40-yo guy down the street to work, but I guess that’s the 70s for you.

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  114. HRneedsAdrink*

    Worked at a branch of a large Non-Profit whose main office was a 4 hour drive from our location. They encouraged carpooling and had a calendar to see if anyone else might be headed to the main office on any particular day.
    One trip I got paired with Edna. Edna was the sweetest lady, very genuine, always in a good mood- loved Edna. Edna insisted on driving. No worries. We get into her car and start the 4 hour journey. This is when Edna informs me that she doesn’t “do” interstates and that we would be ‘back roading’ the entire trip. What should have taken us 4 hours, now took us close to 6. Edna also doesn’t listen to music or the radio btw and this is long before earbuds or iPods. At least we had plans to stay overnight that trip. However, the next day Edna got stuck in a meeting, so we got a late start. We didn’t leave until 5 pm which put us home around 12am since there was also a bad storm she attempted to navigate. Edna passed a couple years ago, I miss her although never did carpool with her after that trip.

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  115. Lurker*

    I’m not sure if this counts as carpooling, but a friend of my dads (let’s call him Bob) was staying over for a few days and we needed to drive to the airport to pick up my aunt and uncle. Bob offered to do the drive and I was vol-untold to go with him. He did not stop talking the entire ride over there. He kept asking me to teach him something, like tell him something he didn’t know before. The only problem is he refused to accept any answer I gave him-it became almost like I was defending a PHD thesis. He kept asking “how do you know that? What’s your source?” and various questions like that. At some point I ran out of fun facts to give him, it was a nightmare.

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  116. Liane*

    I was lucky & dodged a bullet. (Note: I am including ethnicities because, looking back, they might have been part of the dynamic.)

    During college in the 80s, I (white woman) had a cooperative education internship at the city water department’s lab. A great paid internship working with mostly wonderful people. I didn’t have a car for the first couple internship terms.
    So I rode the bus, and walked the few blocks to the plant. Usually an employee would stop and pick me up, most often someone else from the lab.
    One of them was Quark, a middle aged Latino chemist who was nice enough to me. But, he was awful to B’Elanna, an Asian-American chemist only a few years older than me. His bad behavior escalated and B’Elanna accused Quark of harassment. The Lab Manager dismissed it as a personality conflict (because it was the 1980s) and I think she left over it. Also, the intern on my “off” terms declined to come back because Quark made her “uncomfortable.”
    He did eventually get fired, only for falsifying data, not harassment. I was there the day of the hearing and Security Guard went into the conference room with his holster unsnapped so Managers expected it to go badly, but were fortunately wrong.
    A couple years later, Quark was hired at a tiny lab where I worked, while I was off. The day I was back, before I could tell Boss what I knew about the creep, Quark sexually harassed a co-worker and was fired.
    Today, with lots more life experience, I realize I could have easily been another victim, that one of my 5 minute rides to/from the bus stop with Quark could have easily turned into a nightmare. You see, one of B’Elanna’s complaints was that Quark kept pressuring her to accept ride offers – and even Naive-Intern-Me could tell his annoyance at her refusals was uncalled-for & out of proportion.

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  117. Sharpie*

    …Am I the only person for whom the story “my employee pressures coworkers for rides everywhere” came to mind? (From 11th July 2023). I would love an update to that story!

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  118. Helen Waite*

    A few jobs ago, a coworker got off work as a thunderstorm was raging. She’d planned to take the bus, as her car was in the shop. Another coworker approached and offered a ride. Coworker accepted gratefully.

    Reader, the second coworker dropped her off where the parking lot met the street. “But I didn’t say I’d take you home. That would be out of my way.”

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  119. Scheherazade*

    When I was a new young nurse, I was rotated out to a community health center. No problem, my older colleague said, “I’ll give you a ride!” I had my own car and didn’t need a ride, but I thought why not? It is a friendly gesture. So we went, worked all day, and when it was time to leave, it turned out Older Colleague had no intention of taking me back home. She was driving down to Cape Cod for her vacation. She seemed to think that the ride to the clinic had been treat enough for me, and actually said, “if you don’t like it, tough s####!” She was very cheerful and laughing, so I was very taken aback and said of course I would go home by public transportation. It was embarrassing to have her leave in front of me and I was left to ask the local clinic staff to point me to the closest subway stop. (This was before cell phones). It was an area which was not safe, and people with my skin color rarely went there, so I was extremely uncomfortable as I walked along by myself and found the subway.

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