Friends Help Friends Learn the Ropes of Slugging

Slug Tales

I love meeting newbies in the slug lines.

It’s the best, really. You can almost always pick them out, some looking lost, nervous, or asking where other people are headed. They make conversation in line, which is perfectly fine – until they get into a car and continue to talk. You can’t really get mad at them though; after all, they have yet to learn the rules of the road, so to speak.

If you ask me, seeing newcomers in line goes to show the impact of slugging in our area. Maybe these new slugs have tried other methods of transportation to get to work and, at the suggestion of colleagues or friends, have decided to give the slug line a try. Or maybe they’re starting a new job, and haven’t quite figured out which option of commuting will work best for them just yet.

When I began working in Washington a few years ago, I was more nervous about the commute than I was about actually starting a new job. I remember people asking me how I planned to travel from Woodbridge to Washington every day, and I would tell them I planned to take the Metro from Springfield – I hadn’t realized that would mean sitting in traffic just to drive to Springfield, paying almost $5 for parking each day, and then sitting in even worse traffic to get home at night. I just wasn’t aware of any other options back then.

Our next door neighbor, who had been commuting to the Pentagon for years, told me to look into OmniRide, the local commuter bus. She let me know where some of the bus stops were, and I went to the website to determine which route would work best for me. She also mentioned slugging, but the idea of getting into cars with strangers was completely overwhelming to me at the time, and I swore I’d never do it.

Never say never, right?

A good friend of mine, who happened to work in the same office where I’d spend my first couple of days in training, said I should try slugging with her. She even offered to go into work a little later on my first day, so that she could show me how it was done. Although the idea of it still made me nervous, I felt more at ease knowing that someone was willing to show me the ropes.

After only a couple of days, I still didn’t feel very confident about slugging on my own, so I went back to the bus. Then, I found out another friend of mine worked in my office building, and he convinced me to rejoin the slug line. He showed me where to stand, and explained some of the rules that I hadn’t already known.

Once I started to get the hang of it, I found slugging to be quite painless! Rather than taking the Metro to the Pentagon and waiting for the bus, I could just get in the slug line and get home much faster. On top of that, I liked that slugging was free – I didn’t have to worry about paying for parking at the Metro station or paying fare for the Metro and the bus, which gets pricey. Now that I was no longer intimidated by it, I preferred to slug back and forth to work.

I’ve talked to many people who say that they would “never” slug, that it “sounds crazy,” and ask if I’m ever scared to get into a car. What I’ve noticed is that most of those people either don’t have the option to slug from wherever they live, or they have no need to slug (side note: I’m sometimes very jealous of these people, as they usually tend to have a very short commute!). I recall saying the same thing once upon a time, and look at me now…

Now that I’m an experienced slug, whenever I see new people in the slug line, I remember being new myself. I try to help them along, just as my friends did, and hopefully, make the experience a little less daunting.