It's Monday And I'm Late For Work...And I Don't Care

I’m late—way late—and I’m walking toward the T station and my train is pulling into the station and I think, “To heck with it. You’re going to be very late.” And I let it go. It’s the same feeling I get when I’m traveling by plane, and the second I feel the wheels leave the runway and if I’ve left the iron on, well, it’s out of my hands.  
 

After getting carted off to the hospital a couple of times with chest pains when I was an up-and-coming go-getter, I decided a while back I wasn’t ever going to risk a heart attack running for a train. I’ll get to work eventually, and, since I’m on an hourly contract, I won’t get paid like salaried employees dawdling this morning. My employer can dock me, though God forbid I should work a minute over my allotted 35 hours. Then this university with the winning football program would have to start handing out benefits to contractors.  This is the hiring agreement. When you give your all and you’re still not looked upon as deserving benefits, you start to view the workplace and the world in general with a jaundiced eye, with a lot less regard for a career and more watchful for well-paying contracts. 

Some mornings it just takes longer to get started, especially Mondays when the weekend teases you with the idea that you might be gaining just a little control of your life. I currently have a contract where I have to go, as it’s called, on-site. That means I actually have to go to an office and sit at a desk and in order to do that I have to be on a strict schedule. I know most people might say, so what? Isn’t that kind of the definition of a job? But when you’re a freelancer, when you’ve been working for yourself for most of the 21^st century, when your name is associated with two successful theaters that you started in Boston, and yes, while I enjoy just about everything about the contract, the idea of preparing for the office is a bit old school. And at this point, I do have to make myself clear: I do enjoy this contract. It’s my fourth time in five years working at this site. It is a good gig. It pays relatively well, and it’s a polite, professional work environment, nothing close to the infamous Amazon workplace that just came out in the news this past week, with intelligent co-workers who respect one another’s talents and enjoy one another. 

No, it’s not the job, but the preparation, that gets to me. In order to get on-site, I have to get up at 6:15 and spend the next hour and fifteen minutes making myself presentable for being “on-site”— showering and shaving and putting on clothes that are inappropriate for summer weather before heading out the door for an hour-and-a-half commute courtesy of Boston’s limping public transportation system.  An hour-and-a-half commute one way translates into three hours per day times five days equaling 15 hours, or two full extra workdays that I’m not getting paid for. So what? a lot of people might say. This is what people do to make money; stop your complaining, at least you have a job. But when you’re working for yourself, you’re more wired to think like the person running the show and in this case, billable hours—wasted time, isn’t something the typical commuter thinks about. To them, it seems to me, the commute is just one more thing to endure, like a moody manager.

Lots of people like being on-site. The office is so much a part of them that they will whole-heartily admit they like coming to work. They like the office, its familiarity and structure. They like the clothes and the culture and the social aspect. They don’t see being on-site as a loss of their freedom; some I think see it exactly opposite. The last time I worked at this particular site, there was an executive there who decreed that all of the men should wear ties. This was a new arrangement since the last time I had worked there, and I actually had to go out and buy some ties. I bought two, both black and skinny, the least mainstream ties I could find. And even then I felt like I was dressed like an ice cream scooper at the local Dairy Queen. That executive is now gone, and I heard the no-tie rule took about a month to be instituted, but my biggest fear this time was that I would still be asked to cut my shoulder length hair. I still pull it back in a ponytail and wear a little less jewelry than I normally do, just to try to fit in. 

Many people do get self-satisfaction from the office—using their talents to do something they’re good at and sometimes it’s just fun to be good at something, they’re also furthering a cause or an organization that they can get behind. There are people who work for the same organization for thirty or forty years. Thirty or forty years! That’s how long you might get sent to prison for a really heinous crime. 

Different strokes. Organizations need people who are more structured, and also, thankfully for me, people who are less so. This contract will be up in four months, and when it’s over I’ll find something else. Hopefully something I don’t have to dress and shave to do. Some people like structure. Some of us don’t.

MBTA Red Line Moment

I can put up with just about anything on the T. For starters, the people who hang by the door when people are trying to get in or out, even when they are obviously in the way.

Or people who talk loudly on the phone incessantly, like the guy yesterday morning who turned his face into the door (yes, he was also hanging out in the doorway) and still managed to share his moronic business call with the entire car.

I've even learned to accept all the commuter with their backpacks, the young and old alike, who don't seem to get that that big honking backpack 1) takes up just as much vertical room as another person, and 2) whenever they make the slightest move the backpack swings proportionately more. Think pendulum.

Yes, I can even, God love them, accept the people who sneeze, cough, or whatever into their hands, then grab the overhead bar--with the hand they just expelled bodily fluid into.

The one thing I cannot tolerate, though--the one thing that's fingernails on a chalkboard to me--are the people with the headphones who have their music on so loud, you can still hear this tinny tune going on. It's like a listening to a dripping faucet. Which is exactly what I finally told the guy this morning on the Red Line who was standing next to me. He was wearing full-size headphones, no less, and you could still hear this tinky, tinky, tinky thing going on.

I tapped his bag. Hey man, can you turn your music down a bit. It's like listening to a leaky faucet.

He did, but he didn't seem too happy about it.

The MBTA commute from heck

Today's commute wasn't like yesterday's, but still, I'll be glad to be rid of the commuter rail, and start riding the T. I know the T has its problems, too, but not like the commuter rail. The commuter has terrible service, and the scheduling makes it pretty much useless except during rush hour. You can pretty much toss it on weekends, holidays, and midday and late night.

Thanks to the blizzard on Monday, yesterday the parking lot in Framingham was snowed in. I can't tell if more people ride the T when the weather's bad nor not, not wanting to stand out in the cold and wet. Anyway there are less parking spots because the city just piles up the snow in huge mounds without carrying it away.

And you have to deal with antiquated payment system where each day you put in four dollars into this big box-matrix, matching the number of your parking spot with a little slot into which you have to slip in money (any combination of paper and coins) with cold fingers while standing in a puddle and getting splashed by passing cars whose drivers are driving too fast because they're in a hurry to get a non-existent spot. Plus, the numbers painted in each parking slot are painted with white paint, and not some more visible color like red or yellow, so after a snow you can't always quite tell the number of your slot. 21? Or is it 27?

So, yesterday, the first thing I had to contend with is the normal traffic tie-up through downtown Framingham. I come in from behind MCI Framingham, so the road I come up backs up, like all the other roads, when a train crosses Rte. 126. Most mornings I scoot up the wrong side of the street since cars don't come at you, because they're tied up just like I am.

And I've always wondered if the horrendous traffic problem in downtown Framingham is left that way because it's just brown people that live over there.

Yesterday, there were no more parking spots in the lot, so quick I drove over to the gas station where you can hand the guy five bucks and park there for the day. But yesterday, again because of the snow, people where parked willy-nilly. Chasing down, then trying to talk to a guy fluent in Portuguese but not English took up too much time, and I watched the last train for a half hour slip out of the station. So, yesterday, I drove into Boston, and paid 19 bucks to park under the Common.

And while I drove and crept through one suburb after another, I thought of the billions of dollars that were spent on the Big Dig, and thought of the lack of visionaries in this state who could have taken that money, knocked down the Central Artery, built parking garages north and south of the city, and built a way cool public transportation system throughout the outer regions of the city that ran all the all day and night.

Today, after negotiating the traffic snarl, I got the last spot on the lot. I can't believe my life is reduced to the point where getting a parking spot constitutes reason to celebrate.

The 8:15 MBTA Commuter out of Framingham

Nope, the conductor didn't collect fares this morning. That's $6.25 I could have kept in my pocket if I didn't have the monthly pass.

No stations were called out, either, which made for a quiet ride. Most people probably know where they're going, but if there was someone making the ride for the first time, they were SOL...

The ghost MBTA Commuter Train from Framingham

At some point today on the 8:30 commuter rail out of Framingham, the conductor came on the PA system saying it was the 8:30 local to Boston, and he had no idea what happened to the 8:15 express.

This was after a few newcomers shivered on the platform today trying to figure out the train system. A train, the one we eventually rode in on, pulled into the station from Boston and was parked on the other side of the tracks. That was the 8:30. The 8:15 was late (and, subsequently we learned off the map) so even though the 8:30 had been sitting there for a few minutes, when the conductors yelled to get aboard, lots of commuters had to scamper up the stairs and over the walkway, including a woman who was going into Boston for an appointment with her cardiologist.

Also, today was another morning, which I've stopped counting, when the conductors didn't collect the fares in our car. It does kind of piss me off, though, when I just forked over another $210.00 for January's pass. Why do I have to pay and other's don't? Oh well, that's just the logic of the MBTA. Get used to it.

MBTA signs up MBCR again

The MBTA signed a three-year contract with MBCR (Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Co.) to run the commuter rail for another three years, even though they had the option to sign for two years while looking for a new company to run the commuter rail.

MBCR has been having serious problems of late with service, including running chronically late trains.

The contract will require MBCR to submit quarterly progress reports including reports on on-time percentages, refurbished coaches, and increased workplace diversity.

Okay, first weren't these reports already being done? Who does anything in the world of business without constant monitoring of a project?

And another thing, having MBCR do the reporting is akin to the fox watching the chicken coop. The MBTA should be doing the monitoring and the reporting. Good grief. And we wonder why the trains aren't running on time. Does this state know how to do anything in transportation??

Good things on the Framingham commuter rail

Everyone, including me, ranks on the MBTA. It's not all bad. Really. There's a conductor on the Framingham commuter line. Her name tag says her first name is Pia. She's nice and friendly and there's always a good vibe coming from her. You look her in the eye and you get a smile and a good morning. The same goes for most of the conductors on that line.

So, maybe the person, man, woman, or beast, from the MBTA, who lurks on this blog from will take note of this and maybe reward these good folks.

On the commuter rail

On the crowded commuter train this morning, an older woman staggers down the aisle of the moving, lurching car. Not a single person, not a sinlge young, healthy person in the predominantly white, suburban crowd gets up and offers a seat, except for the old guy with the bad back.

"No, that's all right," she says.

"No, really, take a seat. I kinda like standing," he lied.

"Well, if you insist," she said, gratefully.

Before he absorbed himself back in his book, he looked at the faces of all his fellow commuters, and wondered just what the hell happened to manners, and respect, and taking care of your fellow man.

I sit by the door on the train if I can.

I sit by the door on the train if I can.

Lots of leg room, lots of room in general. Someplace to stash the guitar, too. And sometimes, if I’m lucky, the door will be left wide open for the trip. Then the noise and the wheels and the rails and the wind and the stink and the day’s hot breath and the night’s cool sighing clamber aboard like a gang of drunken backpackers, free and wild and devil may care.

Then someone, usually a doughy-looking man wearing khaki pants heading for his desk job where he sits for eight hours then turns around and rides the train to his home in the suburbs where his mousy wife or better, his wild-ass wife who can’t for the life of her figure out how she ended up with this drip, shuts the door. Shuts out the world. Just like he’s done his entire life.

Charlie ain't cheap

Re: a story in today's BostonNow.

I spend $210.00 a month on my commuter rail pass, plus $4.00 a day ($20.00 a week--what a deal!) for parking for a grand total of $290.00 a month just to get to work. Gas is negligible since I live about 15 minutes from the train station by back roads. The total commute is an hour and a half door-to-door for a total of three hours a day, or 15 hours a week, which equals about two extra full working days. All for the privilege of going to a job that really isn’t that satisfying and doesn’t pay enough to meet all my monthly bills. Welcome to my life, and probably a fair number of other people’s lives, too.

How can one person talk so much?

On the commuter train out of Framingham (I don't know which one because they're all so late you have no idea which one you're on anymore) a woman in a green blouse and black skirt got on in Wellesley. It was so crowded that her friend got a seat behind me and she stood over me and talked. And talked. And talked. Non-effing stop. One long rambling monologue in my ear as I tried to read. Every so often she'd say to her friend, well, I'll let you do your charts, but then she'd just take a breath and launch into some other inane, boring topic. Coffee at work, how she likes it, they have a machine that you can choose your flavors but it just doesn't taste right, so she likes to get it somewhere else, but today, because the train's late she just may have to drink it...on and on and on like this.

Some people are just not born with the self-censor gene. The only thing I could think of is God bless the people who have to live with her, who can't get away from her inane chatter.

Ford F-150 and the cost of commuting

After all of the wonderful things I wrote about my Ford truck last week, this weekend I'm driving my daughter and her friend to the airport and it's just not driving right.

Turns out, after forking over $769.00 last month for an O2 sensor and a serpentine belt, I now am looking at about 300 bucks for U joints on the drive shaft. Ouch.

The truck is bought and paid for now, but still...there are always repairs and insurance and excise tax, which I've never been able to figure out. Why do I have to pay my town a tax to own a vehicle? Just one more way the government has its hand in my pocket.

I already depend pretty heavily on mass transportation to get in and out of Boston during the week and on weekends. My monthly pass, though, costs $210.00, and parking 20 bucks a week. That's $290.00 just to get to work to make money to pay so I can go to work to make money to pay...

Just like some of us are worth more dead than alive, sometimes I think I'd be better off unemployed.

MBTA doh!!

Sometimes you think life is going your way then...doh!

Got to the platform with just enough time to spare even though I got stuck behind some boho driving a Pontiac like it was a wheelchair.

The train pulled into the station and the door to the car stopped right in front of me, like the ball dropping in the winning slot on the Roulette wheel. No getting pushed and shoved today by my fellow commuters. For God's sakes, peeps, I want to say, it's an effing train. First, it ain't going anywhere without you, and there are enough seats for everyone.

Then I got the aisle in a seat with just one other person. Sweet.

Sat down, got comfortable, started reading the free Metro, which is akin to the news as popcorn, then, from the seat across and a little behind...

...snore. Snore. Snore. Grumble, grumble. Snore.

You got to be kidding me. There sat a man, his arms folded and his head buried deep in his chest, sound asleep and sounding like a buzz saw. I mean, you can hear this over the sound of a train.

I resisted the temptation to roll up my newspaper and bat him with it.

MBTA train commuter tip #43

When choosing a seat on the crowded 7:47 express out of Framingham into Boston, pick one next to a woman or an Asian. Or better, an Asian woman. A woman is more likely to move over into the center spot than a man, giving you the aisle. I've actually asked women if they don't want that aisle seat, that it's okay, that I'd didn't mind sitting in the middle and they always declined. A woman, and an Asian, will more likely be smaller than a man, so there will be more room. Women and Asians won't sprawl all over the place like a man has a tendency to do, staking out his spot in the urban jungle.

Note to the two hogs I had the pleasure of sitting in between this morning on the commute in:

To the doof on my left. Yes, you're a doof. You need to lose a substantial amount of weight. And I'm not sure why you had to sit there with your legs spread, but dude, if you were getting off on me you're damn lucky I didn't have coffee yet.

To the John Cleese look-a-like on my right: Lose the hat. I know it was expensive, but there's no hope left for you. You look like a cuckhold, and your Indiana Jones hat ain't gonna save you.

Thinking like a terrorist

Yesterday the city of Boston went into a panic because of some viral advertising that was placed around the city. They were little LCD signs with batteries plugged in the back that advertised a cartoon show on TBS. Someone found one and thought it was a bomb. More were found and helicopters and bomb squads were flying all over the city. The mayor is incensed, mostly it seems because he was ignored by TBS until 7:00 p.m. and then he was called by a low level PR minion. Responsible people decried the stunt, and younger, hipper people thought it was funny because they recognized the image and knew and understood viral marketing. If the stunt did anything, it underscored a generation gap, that’s for sure.

Hmmm….

Did the city overreact? Yes. Was it a stupid stunt by irresponsible, greedy marketing hucksters? Again, yes. They should have known better.

A few years ago I was floating around in Boston Harbor in a sailboat when a natural gas tanker came into port. NG tankers are basically floating bombs, and in the aftermath of 9/11 their security takes on the highest priority. They are ushered into the harbor by armed boats, and all traffic must stop and stay clear, which is why I was floating and not sailing.

One of the guys I was floating around with told the story about someone who had been arrested in New Jersey for buying an ambulance. I’ll pause now so you can scratch your head in bewilderment. Or maybe you know the upshot of this story. The person was arrested for being a terrorist because you can pack an ambulance with explosives, turn on the siren, and get pretty much wherever you want to go. People will even pull over to let you get where you’re going.

“Wow, I said, I just don’t think like that.” To which my crewmate said, “You make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

But you know, it is a bad thing. We do have to think like terrorists. We can’t leave our luggage unattended or risk the bomb squad blowing it up with water cannons, which is what they did to the little signs in Boston. We do have to be alert for suspicious behavior when we’re on the subway or on a train, or when we’re in crowded public places.

9/11 shocked me, but it didn’t surprise me. I had been waiting for something like that to happen for years, because it had been happening all over the world for years. We Americans are so insular. So protected. So unaware of what is going on in the world. We think we’re different, and it’s only a matter of time before something to the extent of 9/11 happens again.

Today's commuter story

I had ten minutes to pay for parking, walk to the platform, and catch a train. You pay by shoving money--in this case, four dollars--into a slot in a big metal box that has slots that correspond to each parking space.

A man came up to me. I'm used to this. The parking and train situation is a bit confusing, and everyone from the town of Framingham to the MBTA haven't gone out of their way to explain it. So people are always stopping others to ask questions. But today this man wanted to know if I had jumper cables. His car wouldn't start.

"It's a new car," he said, "and I don't know why it won't start."

He pointed in a general direction, but I didn't see anything that looked like a new car. Maybe he bought it used, but it was new to him. I felt bad for him. I wish I could have helped him out. We've all been in tight spots, where things aren't going right, and a helpful hand is always a relief. I would have liked to have been that relief to that man.

I thought for a second, then said, "No, sorry." I could feel his letdown, so I said, "I know they open at 8:00," pointing to the gas station across street.

"They do?"

"Yeah. Good luck," I said, and headed to the train platform.

The thing is, I do have jumper cables. I just didn't have time to help him and catch my train at the same time. It's only later I wished I had just reached inside the truck and given him my cables. Are you thinking that that is going too far in helping a stranger?

No, you see, those cables were given to me by, well, I don't know who she was; she wasn't a girlfriend. I'm still not sure what she was, but she gave them to me for a Christmas present, and the moment she handed them to me I realized they were an obligation present. You know the kind: One not given from the heart, but given only out of a social obligation. Her manner, her faked concern that it was the wrong gift told everything. And I remember sitting on the floor of her living room feigning delight, but inside knowing she couldn't have cared less. Just one more way she lied. Some might say the cables were even Freudian, an attempt to jumpstart a dead relationship. Or a symbol of the dead relationship itself. But I don't think so. Frankly, I don't have use for symbols in my life any more, Freudian or otherwise.

I've thrown away everything she ever gave me. It's the most cleansing feeling in the world, so freeing to purge the things associated with a person who caused so much pain in your life and was cruel for no other reason except for her own selfishness. To destroy not all memory because that is impossible, but as much rememberance as I can. To strain and push back time to a point where she wasn't in my life. When these things didn't exist, when I did not own them, or they me.

But this morning I realized I still had one more thing she had given me: the jumper cables shoved and forgotten behind the seat of my truck. It would have meant nothing to me to give them to that stranded man this morning, no more than it meant to that woman on that Christmas morning. And my action might have changed a bad memory into a good one. My action could have made two people feel better--the stranger and me. But I wasn't thinking. Like that woman, I was too intent on my own selfishness to do anything good or kind. And I missed my chance.

Two commuting stories

It was one of those mornings. No matter that I gave myself plenty of time to get ready, I was still racing around because I simply am horrible at time management. An extra cup of coffee, a little something to eat, take the dog out, spend a little time with Sue before we both got shot out of the cannon called daily life. When I was tearing across the orchard I noticed the clock in the truck said 7:45 which means it really was 7:40, and I was trying to make the 8:00 train. I did make it in time to board the train waiting on the platform in Framingham. I found a seat, pulled out my book, then reached into my back pocket for my wallet where I keep my train pass. The little plastic card wasn't in my wallet. I knew where it was: it was in the pocket of the shirt I wore yesterday, which was lying on the floor of my closet where I threw it when I got home. To top it off, the fare is $6.25, and all I had was a five and a one. I looked at my watch and realized I didn’t have time to get off the train and go to the bank. I didn’t know what else to do, so I looked for a conductor and threw myself at his mercy. I explained the situation, telling him all I had was the six bucks. He mumbled for me to take a seat. When he came to collect tickets and I handed him the six dollars I had, he said, "I thought you said you had a pass," and I said I did but not on me. “Just make sure you have it tomorrow,” he said, and moved on. I settled back with American Fuji, feeling a little less pressured thanks to the sympathy of the conductor, who could actually have made my life pretty miserable at that point.

While this was going on, Sue was having her own little commute from hell. After the conductor told me to sit down, I called Sue to see if she was still at the apartment and could check to make sure the pass actually was in my shirt pocket. At $210.00 a month, the pass is something that I like to know I won’t have to replace. She, however, was on Summer Street, stuck behind a man driving a car with the trunk filled with boxes and going, according to Sue’s speedometer, 12 mph. Sue had to be in court in Barnstable on Cape Cod at 9:30, an hour and a half away, and this guy seemed hell-bent on making sure she wasn’t going to make it. We’ve all driven behind a joker like this. We’re in a hurry, life’s pressures are encroaching, and the person we’re following is aware of that fact and passive/aggressively controls the situation and the people around them by impeding them. Yeah, maybe Sue was driving a little close to his bumper, but who wouldn’t at 12 mph? And, as a line of cars grew and crept along behind this guy, instead of pulling over and letting people pass by, he hit his brakes and drove even slower.

It’s not about you and your low self-esteem, mister. It isn’t about you having to cry out to the world, “I’m a human being, too, damnit, and I want to be noticed.” It’s about you being a controlling jerk and selfish to other’s lives around you. Get over yourself.

Two people having a tough time getting to work. In the first case, someone had the power to make someone's life just a little easier, and chose to do that. In the second, someone took the selfish choice.