A Manual for New Subway Conductors

by Bob Salzman

           
 
Welcome to your new job as a Metropolitan Transit Authority subway conductor. Remember - here at the MTA we consider our employees and the New York City riding public to be one big family -- the dysfunctional kind where people only talk to each other through lawyers.
 
1. If an express train is sitting in a station as a local arrives on the opposite track, make sure you quickly close the doors of the express before any of the local passengers have a chance to make their connection. Pulling this off requires a quick wrist and advanced eye contact avoidance skills. The open
mouths of the passengers getting off the local will let you know that your timing has been perfect.
 
2. If things are going smoothly, periodically have the train sit in the station for no apparent reason. After a few minutes the conductor should  announce that the train is being held for a "schedule adjustment." This solves the problem of passengers getting where they are going too quickly and allows customers to have the experience of hearing an MTA employee use the word  "schedule" in
a sentence.
 
3. When the train is packed to capacity but unable to leave the station because one passenger’s bag is caught in a door, address the entire train like a patronizing school teacher and threaten to take the entire train out of service if the bag is not pulled in. If the speaker system of your train produces an
unintelligible irritating raspy sound - repeat this announcement  frequently.
 
4. Repeatedly tell people to "use all available doors." This instruction is both physically impossible and therefore completely meaningless but it does enable you to imply that overcrowding is the fault of the people wedged into packed doorways, as in, "things wouldn’t be so bad if only you guys would use 
all available doors," and not that there are too few rush hour trains. The wonderful logic of making this announcement through your train's public address system is that you are speaking to the passengers who are already on the train, presumably having used only one door. If during rush hour some smart alek on the platform hears your announcement and tries to make a run for a less crowded door in a different car you know what to do before he gets there.
 
5. If a passenger gets sick on a crowded rush hour train do not assist the passenger off the train to wait for paramedics because otherwise the train might be back in service with a minimal disruption.
 
6. If a local has been changed to an express by the dispatcher don't make the announcement until passengers have boarded and the doors are closed. To  maximize the impact its better if you wait until the train passes the next local stop before making the announcement that "this rain will not be making local stops." This one can really be a hoot on a slow day.
 
7. When people are trying to get on a train tell them, in an irritated tone, that there is a train behind this one. This announcement is for the benefit of people who expected that maybe the next thing rumbling into the station would be the Staten Island Ferry.
 
8. If you are assigned to make announcements for passengers on the platform please make sure that this is done from a distance of 3-4 feet away from the microphone while eating no less than 3-4 saltine crackers.
 
Good luck out there and remember that Transit Authority executives understand what it's like in the subways because we hear about it all the time from our chauffeurs. Rest assured that we know how annoying customers are and we are doing what we can to reduce the problem.

 

Bob Salzman is an attorney in Brooklyn and an occasional stand-up comedian. Visit his blog at http://barkingattraffic.blogspot.com/