Darn kids and government!
A bunch of high school kids cut in line at Powell today with their Jamba Juice. I hate how the schools are on vacation now and these kids have nothing better to do but go to the mall. I tried to see if I could move faster and block them, but the line was too darn slow.
And here's an announcement from BART:
http://bart.gov/news/articles/2008/news20081121.aspx
Just in the Chronicle (I think?) today there was an article about how BART ridership is projected to go down since less people have jobs to actually commute to. Sigh. Watch as they hike rates next year. I'm going to write, and hopefully someone will listen.
Yeah, I feel you. I don't
Yeah, I feel you. I don't remember being as inconsiderate and plain rude as these kids. A guy yesterday was standing at the back of the car by the door to move between cars. A couple of young wannabe gangstas yell "move it" instead of excuse me. Luckily, this guy gave them a death glare that almost made the young punks fall down. They tried to save it by acting tough, but they were made the fool, effective way of making your point without escalating a situation.
As someone who recently
As someone who recently retired from BART, I will say that next year will be interesting one. Contracts run out in June, so management will start up the usual doom and gloom scenarios (while, of course, continuing to hire their friends as consultants for 3-4x the money employees make) and find ways to artificially inflate people's salaries so they can say someone who makes $50K is making $150K.
Meanwhile, employees are still really angry because the work environment continues to get worse with piddly-ass rules (docking people down to the 1/100th of an hour if their train is late, no longer letting employees have a couple hours for a Christmas party, etc.), and raises of 0% - 2% that don't even start to keep up with the cost of living.
Also, new hires are coming in for a lot more money than current employees to the point that people in some departments have quit then reapplied for their jobs just to get raises. In fairness to management, costs of health insurance are becoming exorbitant.
Meanwhile, almost half the workforce is eligible to retire and, if they do, BART will be decimated in the short term. I know at least six other people who are sticking around to see what the next contract will offer but pretty much plan to leave if it isn't something decent.
In a lot of departments, there are only one or two people who know how to perform a particular function. The number of rank and file employees keeps shrinking, while the number of managers holds steady to the point that 1 in 3 employees is now a manager of some type.
Add this to the continual wear and tear from ridership that is 100,000 people a day more than it was four years ago; trains and equipment that are past their useful life with no budget for replacement; and a public that won't tolerate further increases; plus consultants hired on for projects that are years overdue (the people in charge of these projects are the same ones responsible for evaluating whether they are effective, so of course they're always found to be effective), and there is a mess coming for BART in the near future.