Texas Instruments is in the Top 100 Best Places to Work

Recently my work allowed us to take a “Field Day” downtown to have lunch and see a movie all on their tab. You have to love Texas Instruments. On top of that, TI pays for all of us to have Dart stickers attached to our badges that allow us to ride Dart anywhere, anytime, for free. However, have you been to Dallas?

We started our trip in Plano which is very upscale suburbia, however, the closer we got to downtown the crazier the people got. One man sipped a beverage that smelled like straight gin, another looked shifty-eyed and carried a bag of who-knows-what, while another person loaded up their bike and took up lots of space. Soon I started to worry about my safety and I’m 6′ 5″ and 350 pounds!

So while I like the idea of public transportation, I don’t like the “Public” part when it involves weirdos.

On the upside, there were 3 police officers on the return trip home and so I felt much safer. The train was clean and the air-conditioner cool and if I really stop to think about it, if I just bring some mace I’ll probably be fine.

The only other downside to this public transit was the numerous stops and the time it took to drive the 12 miles to downtown. In my car I can speed to Mockingbird Station in about 12 minutes, it took us what seemed like 30 and so if time is money, then I don’t think I saved a lot of money, but I was going during work hours and so hey, a bad day on a bus is better than a day at work anytime!