Arguably the most alternative transportation is not to transport yourself at all. (Not that this is a contest, but I win.) One great thing about this digitally connected world we live in is that you can totally work from home, at least if you work for the Scene. See, most of our labor is of the "intellectual" sort — that is, we don't have to actually, physically be at the office to buy anything, sell anything or process anything — which makes "telecommuting," as people who've not thought of a less '90s-sounding term call it, the perfect option. In fact, my home "office" has many advantages over my grayish carpeted box in The Gulch: My computer is newer and faster than my work machine, and doesn't have a silhouette of the Scene website burned into the monitor; I'm allowed to use the Wi-Fi; I don't have to park a block away; no one will reheat fish in the microwave at 10 a.m. and make me want to barf.
Environmentally speaking, working from home means I'm not burning any fossil fuels, or emitting any CO2 (beyond what's required to keep the electricity on and, you know, run all 70 billion servers it takes to store the entire Internet and make all my Googles and email attachments possible). I'm also using less water because showering is optional, I'm fine with letting it mellow, and the dog doesn't care that I've been wearing my Sharon Van Etten T-shirt (so comfy!) for three days. What's more, laboring from my own den of productivity means no pedaling, no plugging a car into the wall, no blisters or bus schedules, no unnecessary sweating. Or movement. Or fresh air. Or sunshine. Or human contact.
Look, the problem with this digitally connected world we live in is that you can totally work from home. As the Bard himself might say, were he alive today and had DSL: "All the world's a cubicle!" It kind of sucks working at home. It's like going to an awesome rock show and spending the whole time looking at Twitter. (Not that anyone does that, you idiots who know who you are.) Actually, it's more like being in your relaxing, personal non-workspace and doing a bunch of work. You won't see Judge Judy asking people to pop by her bungalow and hash out their legal issues. That's why she has a courtroom — so work can be work and home can be home. Work/life balance is important. And really, the freedom of being able to blog in your underpants loses its charm pretty fast, especially when the cable guy shows up between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. and you, a grown-ass man, are blogging in your underpants. (This has never happened to me, by the way.)
Also, the Scene is actually a fun place to work. People have cool record collections, good taste in movies and food, and they usually tell good jokes. Some days you show up and there's a polystyrene cooler sitting on your desk, full of Bonnaroo-flavored ice cream that's been overnighted from Vermont — just because. So it's kind of stupid not to be there. And really, when you're not in the same physical space as your co-workers, what would take five seconds to straighten out verbally over cubicle partitions often requires 12 emails, an unfortunately auto-corrected text message and a phone call that keeps cutting out. You are out of the loop, even if you are on your computer all day. Sure, you constantly check your work email, which is more cumbersome and less easily searched in its Web-based form, but you are very sad when you get the one that says "Donuts in the break room!" mostly because you actually consider driving to work just to score some. Might as well be there in the first place. So, anyone with an electric car want to carpool? I promise to wear pants.
Email editor@nashvillescene.com.
