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Last December, we introduced you to Sheila Moskaly, a customer service rep at the Geico call center in Poway. Moskaly was part of our People at Work series.
It’s just after 9 a.m., and Moskaly’s been awake for hours. She slipped into her white Geo Metro at 6 a.m. and left her house in Winchester, a small town of a couple thousand people in Riverside County. Barring a Sig-alert bottleneck on Interstate 15 or some other hang-up, she usually arrives at work just in time to start her shift at 7:15.
It’s a commute that costs, every month, about $200 in gas and 50 hours in time. She listens to talk radio on the way down, music on the way up. The trip and her shift take her away from her house for at least 11 hours every day. And her husband, retired from the Marine Corps and now an elevator mechanic in San Diego, makes a similar commute, though his is in an expenses-paid company car.
Moskaly grew up here, but affording a house is nearly impossible for her generation anymore in San Diego County. By moving 60-some miles out of the county, the couple could afford a larger, newer home than they could in San Diego, Moskaly says.
I’ve traded e-mails today with Moskaly, who reports she’s still working at Geico, and still commuting to work in Poway from Riverside County. She said traffic has improved a bit because of new lanes built on Interstate 15. I asked her if she had anything to add about the year that has passed since we met her.
“I can’t say anything out of the ordinary, exciting, new or otherwise has happened. At least not that comes to mind at the moment,” she said.
If you’ve missed any of these installments, check out the archives in our People at Work series. And if you have ideas for future stories, send me an e-mail: kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org.