For most Californians, a long commute means sitting in traffic on the 405 or the 101. For Angelique Khieu, 26, it means catching a 6 a.m. flight out of LAX.
Khieu, a Business Account Executive at Google, works a hybrid schedule that requires her in the office three days a week — but her office is in San Francisco, while she lives in Los Angeles. A TikTok video she posted showing her full routine, from boarding at LAX to riding San Francisco’s metro to clocking in by 8:30 a.m., has gone viral.
“As for the commute back, I do everything again, just in reverse,” Khieu told PEOPLE. She also keeps homes in both cities, so she sometimes stays overnight in the Bay Area rather than flying back the same day.
Khieu said the travel doesn’t bother her the way it might other people. “Even when I was a kid, I’d be so excited to go to the airport on vacation that I wouldn’t sleep the night before,” she said. “I still enjoy traveling, and after a while, you don’t even think twice about always being at the airport or airplane.”
During the first half of this year, Khieu made the trip nearly every week, racking up between six and 10 flights a month. The schedule isn’t always smooth — she said there are days she has to book a flight the night before she needs to travel. One time, after a flight delay, she rented a car and drove up to San Francisco with four other people instead.
Mixed reactions online
The video has drawn more than 11,000 followers to Khieu’s TikTok and plenty of reaction in the comments. One person wrote, “Jesus! I drive 18 minutes and complain to myself.” Others said they’ve lived a similar reality, flying regularly between the two cities for work.
Khieu graduated from UCLA with a sociology degree in 2023. She spent nearly two years at NetSuite in Santa Monica before joining Google in January, and earlier worked as a Lead Research Panel Coordinator at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
