The Hudson Bergen Light Rail or Welcome to the Seventh Layer of Hell

It’s bad enough we’re forced to work for 40 years of our lives. But we also have to sacrifice a good chunk of our week in the office, working on God knows what. Typically, the average American spends 40 hours a week in the office*¹. That’s 1/3^rd of our weekday. If you’re actually sleeping eight hours a day, you know, like a loser, you have minimal time to do anything else during the week. It’s one of the most depressing realizations you can have.

Think about your average workday. I’m sure most of you are boiling with rage at the thought of it. Every day, we deal with annoying co-workers, who either want to blame you for their shortcomings, or beg you to help cover for them. Most co-workers are thick-headed, unable to handle the simplest of functions without hand holding. If you are semi competent at your job, and that includes being able to dress yourself with only a little help, you’ll be handling a lot of their assignments in addition to your own. Don’t worry, the company will definitely rewa….HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry, I couldn’t type that with a straight face. You aren’t getting shit for doing multiple workloads and will be blamed if all the work isn’t done. Nobody said life would be fair, and the office is proof that it’s not. I imagine when Satan considered ways to punish humanity, he took a particular interest in office shenanigans.

The Devil holding a photo of your co-workers – 2018.

Speaking of unfair, you likely work for a boss that makes the co-workers who forget breathing is an essential bodily function look like Bil Gates. Bosses rarely produce anything but buzzwords and pointless meetings, but somehow earn four to five times more per paycheck than you do. The popular theory from Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, is that people promoted to management were some of the worst, most unproductive workers in the company. They received the dubious honor because at the top, they are removed from production, and have little impact on the everyday workflow. Basically, managers don’t know anything, so they get pushed further and further away from the real work to avoid making things worse. Think about it, do you know any bosses who are good? Sure, you might be able to name one or two, but did you expect the process to be flawless? The guys promoting people to manager probably aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawers either – some deserving candidates will slip through, actually get promoted, and make a difference. Companies are designed to decrease or stop this process whenever possible. If you think you work for one of these Unicorn bosses, give it a few months. You’ll quickly find these men and women tend to have two horns instead of one.

You may wonder how the process of promoting bad employees to management works. It’s a difficult process as there’s so many shit employees in the pool to choose from. If there was a draft of bad employees, it would be so difficult to decide who would be the first pick. It could take months of scouting. Hmm, a bad employee draft? That’s an interesting idea…

Nah, it would never work.

I don’t have any insider information about how employees get promoted to management, but I have three theories I’m pretty sure are true.

1). Lottery System – As opposed to reviewing productivity and common sense, management is selected via a lottery system. This could range from picking out of a hat, throwing at names on a dart board, or being on the right elevator five minutes before promotions are announced. Naturally, those selected to management have dumb luck on their side, so this works out. They’re certainly luckier than you.

2). Connections – If a poor employee happens to be related to an executive, you can expect that employees to rise up the ranks the way Homer Simpson rose through the hobo boxing league. I mean, it’s only fair. They have a connection and you don’t.

3). Promiscuity – Or maybe an employee is sleeping around with an executive. As a reward to the sex, that person is promoted. Hey, they might be earning more money than you, but at least they’re  having more sex. Oh wait, that’s a negative too. Sorry about that. Let’s hope theories two and three don’t intertwine.

So you see, even if you work your hardest every day, unless you’re hitting one of these theoretical three things, the odds of you making it to the top of your company is poor at best. Previously described temp all-star Bob Bobberton is more likely to be your boss than you are to be paid adequately.

Are you in a seething rage yet? Have I ruined your day? Don’t worry, we haven’t even talked about the worst part of working – commuting.

Now, commuting doesn’t apply to every person. Some people (like the bosses) shit gold, so they live within 15 minutes of where they work. Others get to work from home, which is an excuse to lie around in their underwear and wiggle the mouse for 8 hours, pretending to be busy**².  However, for those of us not showered in luck, commuting is a part of our daily lives. What a frigging jip that is, huh?

I believe that the length of one’s commute directly affects their level of hatred for their job. If you have a 30-45 minute commute, you can usually tolerate a lot of work’s downsides. However, once you start cracking the hour threshold, every annoying aspect is magnified. You might start flipping out because the break room is out of sweet and low. Maybe the squeak in your chair puts you so over the top, you throw the mailboy out the window. Commuting takes an already crappy eight hours, and expands it to ten or even eleven hours. For some unfortunate souls, half of their Monday-Friday is spend either working, or traveling for work.

As a holy man, and registered officiant***³, my scripture studies have shown exactly how and why commuting was created. It should be no surprise that commuting was a punishment from mankind’s first mortal sin. I’d like to quote a passage from the Good Book – The Worker’s Bible. We’ll be reading for the 2^nd chapter of the book of Jobs.

Now, the serpent knew that the apple was forbidden, and he decided he wanted to test Eve. The serpent lusted after Eve, but could not act as it was against company policy. If Eve was fired, he would be free to pursue his carnal desires.

Knowing Eve was not productive, the serpent forwarded her an email about diets. This e-mail stated apples lead to healthy skin and weight loss. Eve forwarded it to Adam, who believed everything he read. Instinctively, Adam reached for two apples, and the two ate them. Afterwards, Adam questioned why Eve’s skirt was too high, and demanded it be lowered. Eve in turn said that Adam should wear a tie to be professional. The knowledge from the apple created the first dress code.

Furious, the Boss came to his employees and asked who took his apples, as they were to be his break time snack. Adam and Eve blamed each other, but when he saw their dress code, the Boss knew what they had done. He bellowed at his employees “All I have left is Kale! You shall suffer for this!” The two were banished from staying minutes away from the Office of Eden. Instead, they would be forced to make an arduous journey every day to complete their work. In addition, they’d have to stop for apples on the way to work to try to suck up for a raise.

On the way home, Adam asked if Eve would like to stop for dinner. Eve said she could go for some sausage. Thus, the first office fling occurred. It was incredible unsatisfying and led to awkward work run ins. The serpent, frustrated he could no longer stare at exposed upper thigh, moved on to his next evil task – inventing traffic.

Of course, the serpent was successful, and invented the one of the worst plights to man. Traffic is one of the worst aspects of commuting. It causes workers to have to leave even earlier to get to the office on time, and it only takes one delay, road block, or construction project to ruin hundreds of days. To avoid the pitfalls of driving, most people try to turn to other forms of travel to get to work – the dreaded public transportation.

Some people do drive into work despite the dangers of traffic. Sometimes this is done via carpool, where you drive in with third or four people from your office you likely hate. Not only will there be traffic, there’s also the horrid conversations. Co-workers rarely separate office topics with real life topics. If you’re carpooling, you’ll have to hear more about work (in effect adding to your time on the clock) and really poor, uninteresting small talk. This includes the weather and vague sports conversation (How about the local team, ehh? They sure played that sport last night!). Even tuning them out with the radio is tough. If it’s not your car, the driver controls the dial. Even if you do drive, most radio channels suck, and people will complain about your choice. It’s almost enough to make you want to drive right off the road and spend weeks mending a broken leg. At least it would quiet.

No, carpooling is not the answer.

An even worse alternative is taking a bus. Buses are like carpooling, but instead of sitting with your co-workers – annoying, but familiar people – you get the pleasure of sitting with strangers. Bus passengers are some of the weirdest humans on the planet. I’ve seen bus riders make olive loaf sandwiches, sit barefoot and even stream porn. It’s like they want other riders to be grossed out. The bus will need to stop ever two to four blocks to pick up passengers, and if the bus is labeled express, it’s an outright lie. Express buses tend to stop even more than the standard bus. It’s another notorious innovation by that crafty serpent. Couple the constant stops with the potential of traffic, and you’re basically in a more crowded car with no control over the proceedings. No, bus travel will not improve your commute.

Finally, if you’re in a big city, you have the ability to take a train or a subway. Usually, these are the best options, on paper. Trains don’t have to worry about traffic and few, if any passengers, want to engage in conversation. You’ll be able to listen to music or read and not have to worry about anything.

Unless you’re taking an NJ Transit train. Then, you’ll likely be stuck in a tunnel for hours, or derailed. Hell, some of these conductors are hitting pedestrians like they are playing Grand Theft Auto 5. Only take NJ transit trains if you have a death wish. They wont disappoint you.

Now, I do commute, and have to take a train to get to the subway. The subway I take, the PATH, is relatively reliable, considering it’s public transportation. Don’t get me wrong, the system has weekly details, skipped trains and worse crowds than seen in the wildest Chinese Fire Drills. However, for public transportation, it’s pretty solid. The train I take to the PATH is a different story. It was rejected by the serpent himself for being for too sinister. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Light Rail.

The Light Rail losing a race against a parked car – 2015

Take a close look at that picture, and you’ll see rails, a clue that the mode of transportation is a train. However, NJ transit has different ideas and classifies the Light Rail as a bus. How does that make any sense? I mean, maybe they don’t want people to think it’s a train to pretend people from assuming it’s going to derail like its other trains? During inclement weather, when the trains are forced to shut down, the Light Rail remains active, due to, and I’m paraphrasing the NJ transit website, the transportation system being a bus. A bus on rails. Yeah no, that makes total sense.

I suppose that explains why the Light Rail stops at lights. Some trains are required to stop for traffic, but usually it’s the reverse – trains have the priority since it’s difficult for them to slow down and start back up. The Light Rail was designed to stop constantly and let anything with wheels pass by it. On a typical trip, it’ll stop three to four times at lights, in addition to the 15 or so stops it’ll make on an average trip. Come to think of it, it does sound like a bus. Isn’t the purpose of a rail system to have an efficient, quick trip that doesn’t involve consistent stops? Obviously not for the brain trusts who designed this monstrosity. I’m telling you, we’re being punished by a higher power.

The concept behind the Light Rail is downright perplexing. Commuters are expected to buy a ticket before boarding, whether it be a monthly pass, round trip or just a single ticket. If you do not have a monthly pass, your ticket must be validated. The validation process is done at each station, where a ticket is inserted and stamped with a date and time. Then, the fair inspectors will check tickets at various stops, whether they board the train or wait at the exit. The fair inspectors don’t check tickets on every single train yet the riders are expected to confirm their tickets with each ride. Mind you, these inspectors are the only way the tickets are checked. Do you see the problem here? Cause NJ transit sure as hell does not.

Firstly, the fare inspectors are paid salaries, likely higher than mine, to see if people know how to use a stamp? These inspectors carry concealed weapons and wear sleek uniforms to check stamps like a bouncer at a club. I’ll give them this, they’re dressing for the job they want and not the job they have.

Another issue is that the light rail constables never check tickets. I take the light rail nearly every day (on the weekends, I’ll take it to the gym) and I’m lucky if my monthly pass is checked twice a month. Instead of installing turnstiles, or having one person set to check tickets on each train, you know, like every other train and subway in the history of mankind, the Light Rail is almost always an honor system. If you’ve been in public more than once, you know humanity has no honor. People ride the trains for free consistently.

Of course, on the rare days the inspectors bother to check tickets, it’s usually pouring out or snowing. The inspectors fail to check even half of the passengers, who walk right pass without tickets. Sometimes, when somebody is caught, they avoid any sort of punishment by saying it was their first time on the train and they didn’t understand the rules. This usually gets them off the hook. If it doesn’t, and one of the officers is a male, a female can escape any penalty with a bland, effortless flirt. I saw a women once say “That’s a nice tie” and the inspector let her go despite not even pretending to have a ticket. The Inspectors have a frigging uniform and are required to wear the same clip on tie. I mean, really? It’s like we gave Johnny Bravo power over fines.

“Hey Pretty Mama. This train costs three kisses to ride.”

If somehow a rider is caught without a ticket, the fine is $100, $30 less than the monthly pass. Assuming you can avoid the inspectors every other time, you’ll probably make a profit not buying a ticket. Considering these inspectors rarely board the train, and often wait at an exit, you could actually stay on the train and ride it back one stop to avoid any sort of punishment****⁴. This “bus” was less thought out then the XFL, and that includes the potential revival.

Why have there not been any changes to the ticket collection process since the Light Rail’s inception? While I’m paying $70 a month to ride a bus on tracks, pretty much everyone on the same train car has no ticket and don’t have to fear punishment. The Secaucus stop for NJ Transit trains has a ticket collecting turnstile that will not let people through without a valid ticket. Even if their ticket isn’t checked on the train, they will be stuck unless they ultimately buy one. That’s the perfect system for the Light Rail. Just add a turnstile. Instead the fare for the train continues to raise biannually and my tax dollars go to pay the Light Rail Inspectors who probably couldn’t find a Boston Cream in a Dunkin Donuts. You know why they have to raise the price? Because nobody is buying a ticket and they pay Inspectors to do nothing all day. The turnstiles would have paid for themselves three times over by now. And if you argue that people would hop the turnstiles, that’s still significantly less free rides than they give away right now. God, this is so obvious.

The train itself is far too small. Considering it offers free rides, most Bayonne citizens use the light rail regularly. The morning trains are often packed, but the system is smart enough to connect two cars to create an adequately long train. The issue becomes more prevalent post 8 PM on weekdays or any weekend trains. At these times, trains only run every 20-30 minutes. Inexcusably, there is only one car at these times even though they have 50 cars sitting on the garage not being used. At relatively active commuting hours, passengers are forced to cram in like sardines, or wait an another 20-30 for the right to miss another train. Is there no budget due to all the free rides, or the fact that there’s 25 Inspectors that don’t do their jobs? Seems like a chicken and the egg situation, if both the chicken and the egg were rancid and at fault.

During the morning, when the train is not overly crowded, passengers take advantage of the system by backtracking to the first stop. Some passengers take the train two or even three stops away from the starting point into the origin station, where they board a train to get a seat. Personally, I don’t care, but some people get livid at this. Some of these people may or may not be Maid Megan. Imagine waiting at your stop for 12 minutes and not getting a seat because some jack ass rode a train three stops out-of-the-way to swipe it? I can understand the rage. This is the result of having no checks and balances. Good on your Bayonne citizens for allowing this clear loophole to exist.

It’s not just one or two passengers though, there’s at least twenty people who do this on every morning train. There’s a group of older women who do this, that I have dubbed the Mob. They tend to sit directly in the middle of the train talking as loud as humanly possible. The ring leader, who I call the Capo, loudly insults other Bayonne residents while she happily sits on her perch, looking complacent at her wonderful strategy of backtracking to gab her throne. Every once in a while, the Light Rail will leave before the backtracking train opens the doors. Sometimes I see the Capo angrily shout at the train as she is left out in the cold, forced to return to the train from which she came. Does it make me a bad person to heartily laugh when this happens?

That was a rhetorical question. Most of the things I do and say make me a bad person.

Of course, with the NJ transit involved, you know there will be service problems. Train maintenance is done nearly every weekend, causing even less trains to run. The crowds on weekends make the Light Rail a worthless option. If I want to be crammed like a sardine, I’d like in a Manhattan studio apartment. Even on a typical day, the train will be behind schedule by at least five minutes. There’s no point asking why – most of the fault is due to the conductors.

No seriously, most Light Rail conductors are jerks. They regularly get into altercations with passengers over simple questions. My normal morning conductor gives an attitude to any passenger asking if the express train will stop at their station. How dare the passengers ask the employee a job related to his employment! He also seems to get annoyed people use the service, but I guess since 98% are freeloaders, I understand that. Conductors will often close doors on people without reason. Sure, they are on a schedule, but they’re also late daily. Why not hold the doors open for a few extra seconds and let somebody on? The conductor only seems to do this for passengers when it’s mistakenly on time. They’re nothing if not predictable.

However the typical Light Rail conductor is nothing compared to the “Angry Driver”, the true asshole of the public transportation world. I don’t know his name. I only vaguely know what he looks like. All I know is I’d be afraid to talk to himself without getting spit on and punched in the nads. He makes Donald Duck look like he has his anger under control.

This conductor has a train that leaves at 6:15 PM, the time my train pulls in if I leave work on time. The Driver will do anything in his power to piss off the passengers. He has rang his bell and leaned on his horn for a minute straight before leaving. Regularly, he locks the doors of his train car and refuses to open them, leaving riders out in the cold. Sometimes he’ll only open them seconds before it’s scheduled to leave, forcing the crowd to shove on to avoid missing the departure.  He’s even parked the train car in the walkway for a full minute, preventing passengers from leaving the platform and getting to cover in a rain storm. He’ll purposely leave late on cold days just to taunt the passengers. He has no reason to do this at all. If you ever accidentally make eye contact with him, he looks to be a cross between John McClain and Vlad the Impaler, but fatter and filled with more blood lust.

That’s like a slow Thursday for the Angry Driver

Needless to say, I absolutely love this guy. Seeing how angry he makes everybody as he pulls this crap is amazing. I love that he gets people riled up. Hell, if he’s reading this, keep up the great work buddy!

If I could interview him for the blog, I’d be honored, though I’d have to censor some of his language. He seems like he drops a lot of C bombs. Add the Hound from Game of Thrones to the list of people he’s like.

In recent times, the Light Rail has tried to modernize itself. They have extended the average car length to add more seats. They’ve also added TV screens, similar to the Path. Unfortunately, these additions have also flopped. The extended trains do not have enough doors, leading to people barely getting out of the train, or missing their stop. This is especially dangerous with the Angry Driver (Truly a national treasure) who will sometimes take off early to inconvenience people. The TV screens mostly show commercials that contain a lot of talking, but no subtitles. It was a pointless addition that will probably raise my monthly fair by five bucks.

As I ride the light rail home after a hard day’s work, I look and see joggers race by, whether we’re stuck at a light, or moving at top “speed”. It really is the final insult to a crappy day. To say the Light Rail needs improvement is like saying Kevin Spacey made a few errors in judgment – a gross understatement. If commuting is humanity’s punishment for original sin, the Light Rail is the torture rack where our screams of mercy are not heard.

Still, if I get to see the Angry Driver piss people off, it’s worth it. Do your thing Fake John McClain/Fat Vlad/Stocky Hound.

1. *The actual number of productive hours at work is probably between 2 or 3 hours a week, and that’s if you have an overachiever.
2. **Let’s assume it’s only the mouse they’re wiggling.
3. ***Bloggin Hood’s Bevy of Betrothed will open up soon for all the lovebirds out there. Bloggin Hood’s Den of Divorce will soon follow.
4. ****If a stop has multiple exits, and most do, the inspectors’ strategy is to all stand in a line at one of the exits. This means anyone can easily walk to the other exit and not even have to think of a lie. I mean, how does this happen? The Light Rail inspectors are like Elmer Fudd falling for the same Bugs Bunny trick, except they aren’t the least bit endearing.