Why is it that everyone's first response seems to be along the lines of patting this guy on the back for his dedication to getting to work (an applaudable work ethic, to be sure) but no one condemns his employer for his abysmal hourly wage, which is what forces this ridiculous commute? According to TFA, he's a favorite of the company owners—but apparently not such a favorite that they can bump the wages of a worker who's been there for at least ten years into something approaching a living wage. They don't seem to have a problem with the healthcare problems this man is almost certainly creating for himself from the numerous ill effects of sleep deprivation.
His direct boss probably has little or no say in how much he gets paid, and the person who does influence that has probably never met him or even heard of him. Welcome to corporate America for the working class.
Given the man's dedication to his job and impacts his actions has to health, it makes financial sense for the company to help him out financially in either securing a car or a closer place to live or risk losing a valued employee.
Or they could fire him and just hire somebody closer to their office.
I'm playing devil's advocate here, because I also sympathize with the story. But money really does rule all and cold business decisions are often unpleasant.
Don't exaggerate. Show me how many hours Todd Wilson, the plant manager mentioned in the article, walks or even works a day and how much he earns. Then we can talk cold business.
I'm as liberal as the next guy, but stop pretending that companies are the most efficient, overhead-hating entities around and as such cannot deal with the poor common man, because we all know they're not.
Just because we like a company's products doesn't mean it makes financial sense for society to allow it to externalize many of its costs such as transportation of employees, roads, social welfare, and health care.
We should all be disgusted by this.