Thursday, August 9, 2007

I Love New York, I Hate the MTA (or, "Interns Can't Afford to Take Cabs to Work, Dammit")

So I woke up this morning at 5:40 (for the past week I've been waking up earlier than my alarm, that RARELY happened before. I can sleep like a baby) to thunder and rain against the airconditioner right by my head. Rainboots it is, I thought and went on with my normal morning routine.

By the time I was done showering, getting dressed, having breakfast, and catching up with the news (Okay, so there was no 2/3 service from this street to that street...blah blah I should be fine), it was HOT and sunny. No more rainboots. And thank god for that because if I had to wait at that train station with an extra inch of anything covering my skin, I would have just given up and gone home.

After a 30-minute, sweat-is-dripping-down-places-they-should-not-be-dripping wait in the train station, an hour-long train ride to Fulton St. which would normally take less than 30 minutes, and a 20-minute, $20 taxi ride from the Financial District to Rockefeller Center, I was at work, where surprisingly, people were already there, doing work. Where they came from and how they got there, I don't know.

Okay, so I understand there was a tornado in Bay Ridge. Flooding. But are you freaking telling me that bad weather is enough to stop the entire NYC transportation system? Really, MTA? Forget the Second Avenue line, how about repairing the entire system? How about doing your damn jobs better? It's not the most coveted job, but it's YOUR job.

As I was sitting in the cab, though, watching people walk or wait for buses/taxis, I finally understood why top execs and EICs had their own cars. It feels damn good not having to worry about your transportation. So you're using up gas and polluting the enivornment. At least you're not squished against strangers on a sloooow train that wouldn't even take you to Midtown.

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