Hey, there! Log in / Register
Let's play: Guess the subway line
By adamg on Mon, 11/28/2011 - 10:24am
Meg Fowler Tripp got on a train this morning and soon after heard the driver exclaim:
I'm closing the doors to this train, and don't you be thinkin' God's gonna open a window and let your ass on.
If you immediately thought gotta be the Orange Line, congratulations, get yourself a donut at Mike's or Donut and Donuts.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Comments
Gotta love Angry Orange Line Driver!
The silliest thing is that most of the people trying to cram onto the train are 1) delaying service by the next train that will likely have fewer people on it and 2) not bothering to walk three or four doors down from where people enter the platform to find an open door.
Then again, if you don't get on by Wellington going southbound in the morning you might as well give up.
No. I do not got to love it
No. I do not got to love it at all. If the conductor of that train said that they should be fired this afternoon.
What Orange Line do you ride?
I'm trying to figure out what the problem is if a conductor dealing with a heaping combination of overcrowded and stupid clarifies the options?
I think that problem might be
I think that problem might be that the phrase "God's gonna open a window and let your ass on" is not the most professional way to talk to customers.
Also, I'm not sure if its the same angry Orange Line motorperson (there may actually be more than one), but there is a least one who spends far more time on the PA yelling at people, than actually working the door controls to close the doors. Her dwell times at stops are far longer than the typical motorperson's, and there is always another train right behind hers becuase she takes so long and gets behind schedule (yes, there is a schedule). It might be an entertaining show to hear her yelling, but its not the most efficient way to get the doors closed. Turning the door control knob just enough to get the "bing-bong" chimes to kick in usually gets people moving pretty fast without any yelling.
I'm not stupid
When a train driver makes a PA announcement they are addressing everyone on the train. I don't like being called stupid by an operator who is hidden behind a door. I don't like T employees who think of their customers as stupid pigs who don't deserve their courtesy. When there are problem customers, the way to deal with them is to get someone on the platform to talk to them directly. There should be plenty of available personnel since all the token booth employees are still on duty as far as I know, and the door guards are too. When an operator makes an all-train announcement it should be clear, courteous, and respectful. The Orange Line isn't Durgin Park.
Oh, so many hurt little feelings!
Um, no. A T motorman's job is to get the train moving in a safe and timely manner. They don't have time to take each customer aside and act as their personal platform mentor. Parents, teachers and bosses should have taught that person how to act around other people and to work well with others. The motorman is not paid to hand out those life lessons.
If you don't like being called stupid by a train operator, stop acting stupidly and for god's sake stop taking our train.
Not paid to lecture me
I'm not suggesting the motorman discipline idiot passengers. That should be the job of station personnel and MBTA police, very few of whom are ever seen on station platforms.
I don't need the lecture, I'm not behaving stupidly and I am just going to work or whatever, like 98% of the paying customers. So don't yell at me uselessly over a loudspeaker. Treat the customers with respect. And do something about the fare-jumpers. I would bet an extremely high proportion of the T's trouble-makers didn't pay to get there.
You obviously do need the lecture
If you weren't holding the door open, spacing out just as the train was leaving your stop or otherwise preventing the train from leaving on time, you wouldn't be getting yelled at.
I'm all for treating me and my fellow passengers with respect... when we earn it. This isn't about fare jumpers: It's about people so oblivious to anyone's needs but their own that they can't figure out how one person's actions can delay 200 riders' days.
Again, station personnel and MBTA police aren't there to teach you the manners that your parents, teachers, bosses and various other figures didn't. It's up to you as the rider get with the program.
Completely false
You're completely wrong. 90% of the people on the train are not "holding the door open, spacing out just as the train was leaving [their] stop, or otherwise preventing the train from leaving on time." and yet they are subject to a barrage of abuse over the PA system.
Exactly
JP, I don't think you understood what I was saying, anon here has it right. I'm one of the vast majority of people who pay their way and ride to work patiently and quietly, letting people off the train first when we board, not holding the doors, and it pisses me off that we have to listen to a loudmouth train operator screaming at a couple of bad riders over the entire PA system. I've never heard any other subway operators in the world act like this. It makes normal everyday riders feel disrespected and out of place.
Elsewhere in the world
Subway riders _behaved_ far better in every other city I've visited so far. So not so much need for operators to try to enforce good behavior through speaking/shouting.
Exactly!
Have to agree. Some of it is the result of far more dire consequences (subway doors that don't function like glorified elevator doors) but some of it is also self policing. Folks who try to hold the door in New York get the business from the whole train. Try walking through the doors at an escargot pace on the Paris Metro and you'll get a friendly push for your troubles.
The operator never needs to get involved.
They're also subject to the delay...
caused by the one person holding the door or being otherwise oblivious that the conductor is addressing. That offense is infinitely worse.
It takes a certain degree of nuance, or perhaps just an ounce of common sense, to figure out that this conductor is heaping that abuse on just one person.
There are quire a few men and
There are quire a few men and women working as Orange Line motorpersons who manage to operate the trains in a safe and timely manner without spending extra time sitting on platforms yelling at people when they should just be working the door controls.
Yelling at you takes no time at all
That reprimand comes as the door system is resetting. Yes, that's how much time it takes to get them all closed again. They're working the door controls while ignorant riders are working their last nerve.
The woman I'm thinking of it
The woman I'm thinking of it not working the door controls. There is no "bing bong bing bong" going on while she is yelling into the mike. She takes far longer to get the doors closed than any other Orange Line operator, even though I'm sure she thinks she is speeding things along.
On the other hand, I get a good chuckle
every time I ride on Angry OL Operator's train.
You don't have to love it...
... but anyone who drives that train will eventually fall apart emotionally, whether that one gets fired or not. :)
Ability to walk between cars . . .
like in NYC solves the whole stuck-in-the-car-you-got-on issue. Just saying. For the next PO, does the T really need full-width cabs, especially with the elimination of conductors?
Walking between subway cars
Walking between subway cars is now illegal in NYC. And the police do enforce it.
Have they extended the South Ferry platform?
If not, people still have to walk between cars to exit the train at this (last) stop.
They have
They were working on it when I left in 2007 and it was complete when I was there a month ago.
It's only been illegal since 2005 and it's about as illegal as jaywalking. You can get ticketed for it ($75 a pop), but folks seldom do. Of course some guy losing his footing between two cars on the 2 train earlier this year and killing himself didn't help matters for a while.
It's not suggested on either the MTA or the PATH, but you can do it. It's not even an option on the T, and that's really worrisome.
I keep expecting the operators to yell...
... "Don't make me come back there!" or "This train isn't going ANYWHERE until you can behave."
this happened once, but on the Red Line
Several years ago, I was getting on the Red Line at Harvard, and just as the doors were closing, this huge group of people were running down the stairs. One guy got to the doors before they closed and held them open for his entire group, all the while the announcer was yelling about blocking the doors. Eventually, the announcer gave up and just said, "the doors won't close until all those people get off the train." He even came out of his cab (that was the car we were on), pointed to one person in particular, and said, "you need to go if this car is going to move." Eventually, that person left and we moved on. It was somewhat frustrating to just sit there, but if one person learned a lesson, then it was worth it.
Hate to bing the "C" word
Hate to bring the "C" word into this, but really there is something to be said for accepted standards of civility in a public forum, particularly from offical types with loudspeakers. Passenger acting like a dimwit? That is a bad thing, certainly. There are always dimwits about. Official with announcement system behaving badly? That is a very different thing entirely. I would call any announcement on the T that involves the word 'ass' an example of bad behavior and that bad behavior should at least be condemned by a warning from someone with better sense in the T's administration. Do you really want your morning commute to be an assault from some ill-bred lout with an address system?
Why not?
We just put up with an assault from an ill-bred lout with internet access.
That is quite the comeback. I
That is quite the comeback. I can think of one other 'c' word that I would assign you, you brave, brave anon.
Oh, clutch the pearls!
Passengers acting like dimwits delay trains. Announcers who yell at them only expose those passengers' delayed development.
Given that the driver doesn't yell if the passenger doesn't delay the train, it's better to address the root cause rather than the symptom.
Except that using expletives and berating terms
on your customers isn't getting to the real root problem here - insufficent capacity caused by management's ongoing practice of squeezing more and more people on to fewer and fewer trains. The habit more and more people have of always trying to fit onto overcrowded trains is a direct result of this issue.
And for those posters who think the operator's language in this case is acceptable, I ask this question: Would you personally use such language in dealing with your customers, and would your bosses consider it acceptable practice?
It isn't just one passenger
It is often groups of people who won't stop and won't listen until they are publicly scolded for their stupidity.
I heartily invite you to join the throngs on the inbound platform at Sullivan at morning rush hour for a demonstration - or at Downtown Crossing around 5pm either direction.
In those cases, there's something to be said
for Option B: Disconnect the door interlocks and let people take their chances.
I get on almost everyday at
I get on almost everyday at Downtown Crossing in the 5 to 5:45 range, and almost every other Orange Line motorperson gets the doors closed without wasting time yelling. If angry driver's train shows up and it is packed, I let it pass, because I know another will be right behind because she is unable to maintain the schedule with all the time wasted on the PA mike.
Actually, yes I do
I don't care what they say if it makes people stop blocking the damn doors so I can get to work on time. I certainly consider it less of an aural assault than the punk-ass kids blasting music over their smartphone speakers or the amateur subway musicians who pick up holiday sheet music and spend the next month butchering all of my favorite carols. Makes me wish the soprano sax was never invented.
They say 'ass' on network television all the time so if it offends your virgin ears then I'm sure the T is the least of your worries.
Tenth rate musicians on the T
You are correct about the tenth rate "musicians" we are subject to whule waiting on T platforms. While some are just fine, some of them are beyond awful. If a street musician on the street is below par, one is free to just pass by. But one is held captive in T stations. These performers should be made to pass some audition or be held to some standard.
T Musicians
They actually have a union, they actually do audition, and they have assigned spots and times where they are and are not supposed to be. If you think a particular musician is an "interloper" - usually the ones who sing over canned music - then you can ask the T cops to check their credentials.
T musician rules
There's no audition, and no assignment of times or places. Stations have designated performance areas, which are first-come first-served. And there's no union that I know of.
http://www.mbta.com/uploadedFiles/documents/Subway...
The really bad canned music singers might not have paid the $25 for a T musician permit, though.
Interesting
You have to pay the $25 with a money order (no cash accepted). And trumpets and trumpet-like instruments are prohibited, which seems weird. Who do I lobby to ban the soprano sax as well?
I didn't mean to disparage all T musicians, there are just a couple bad ones that I seem to keep running into. But the good ones are definitely the majority -- my favorites are Knit Cap Classical Guitar Guy (usually on the Red Line platform at South Station) and Scruffy Bluesy Guy With Hot Black Girl On Lead Guitar (usually DTX).
There's one great trumpet
There's one great trumpet player I regularly see. (I won't say which stations.)
I also know of people who play without a permit, but not at busy times.
So they might not be too strict as long as you're not actually causing a problem.
Here comes the waaaambulance
Really? Is subway music really actively harming you like that #firstworldwhining
Sure, there are some not-so-great T musicians, but I also know a number of professional musicians who play in the subway on the side. I'm a professionally trained musician (who doesn't play in the subway, but wouldn't mind if I did), thus am pretty particular about music, and I've heard very few people on the T who actually were unpleasant to listen to. Yes, some are pretty amateurish, but they're mostly solid amateurs who aren't trying anything beyond what they're able to do, some might not be my style of music, but for the most part I've not heard anyone "butchering" anything.
My ears are not so virgin.
My ears are not so virgin. Watch this!
You are an ass, Spenser. Ass. Ass. Ass. I can type it and hear it several times.
It's the context of a subway speaker system that I find unfortunate.
Hahaha
U mad.