Never Trust an MTA Employee
When I got to Union Square this morning, a Q train was waiting in the station and an R train was pulling in. My reaction, naturally, was to get on the Q train on the express track. But something seemed weird: the Q was pretty much empty. Something was up. While standing near the doorway of the Q, a rather large MTA employee - the conductor, out of his element outside of his little cab in the middle of the train, shouted into our train car, “you’re gonna wanna get on this R train! This train is gonna be here for a while.”
So, I darted across the platform for the uptown R train instead. I was thrilled that I had caught the conductor’s casual announcement and sat on the R with a smug look that I’d be beating all the suckers on the Q train to work.
But I should have known better than to heed the conductor’s advice. Like clockwork, when we reached 23rd Street, the next local stop, the aforementioned Q train blew right by us on the express track, to the frustration of my fellow passengers. By the time we got to 34th Street, the next express stop, that Q train was a distant memory, and we were the real suckers.
MTA Employees: using taxpayer money to provide false information to passengers since 1965.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 9:04 am and is filed under Subway Stupidity. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 10th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Katie says:The same thing happened to me last week at 2nd Ave! The F train conductor announced that the V train would be leaving first, so of course everyone rushed over there. Then we all sat (smugly, of course) and watched the F train shut its doors and head out of the station. I think it’s a wicked plan to de-crowd the popular trains. Boo!
February 10th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Chris says:I love that picture. I feel like that should be used for recruiting people to work for MTA. “Look - you can sleep and tell people the wrong stuff all day!”
It sounds like a good job to me.
February 10th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Chris says:Katie: They’re just doing it to fuck with us. Because they can.
Chris: That sounds like the perfect job to me. Especially when you consider the guy pictured above probably makes more than I do.
February 10th, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Pouty says:They get paid for this? That’s just wrong.
March 25th, 2009 at 10:19 am
T Eisenberg says:This image should be plastered on the front page of every NY newspaper today, since those clowns are voting today for a fare hike. When has the MTA not approved a fare hike? In fact, has anything out of their so-called public hearings ever HELPED straphangers?
Every reader of this blog who is as outraged as I am should send a link of this post to Governor Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, Eliot Sander and any other elected official we can find.
Our hard earned money is paying for this guy’s nap — and now they want us to pay more!
March 25th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Chris says:T Eisenberg: Don’t blame the MTA, blame the union. They let these workers get away with this. The MTA has no control over their own employees, because the TWU keeps these lazy, good-for-nothing workers on the job.