When The Local Trumps the Express

Public transit seems to have cornered the market for ineptitude.  Two trains running the same rails to the same terminal point, one an express that bypasses half of the fifteen stops (I know you can’t have seven and one half stops) and the local that makes all fifteen stops.

The trains, the express and the local arrive at my boarding platform at the same time.  Which of the two trains do you think leaves the location first?  Give you two guesses and the first one doesn’t count.  Did you guess the express?  Oh you don’t know Philadelphia mass transit.  The local leaves before the express, you know, the one that stops fifteen times leaves ahead of the one that bypasses seven and a half stops.

Well the local crawls along and the express behind it crawls as well.  Somewhere along the way the string securing a dispatcher’s marble bag came undone.  Maybe I’m not thinking of this correctly. Maybe the local is supposed to slow down the express.  Let’s not get riders accustomed to anything resembling on-time service run by thoughtful people.

For all you SEPTA employees I feel for you.  I have a relative working there a number of years (such number to be withheld to protect identities). She tells me there is more concern by senior management to punish employees rather than run an efficient system.

I know, maybe you need to bring employees to heel in order to run a tight ship.  I disagree, running the equivalent of an average size vessel, I provide appropriate license for my staff numbering greater than one and less than one hundred.  When you drive employees to the brink of mutiny or worse, give them every reason not to care about delivering exceptional service, everyone loses.  The same goes for any other employees impacted by thoughtless management.  Sure, everyone makes mistakes but to perpetuate the mistake with more extensive and egregious miscues is unforgiveable. 

Okay enough problems.  The weekend is upon us and there is fun to be harvested from pent up demand of the congregants participating, and I do mean actively participating, in Ravenmania August 2015.

Concerns, worries and all those drag lines will be shed, forgotten, dismissed or chopped into a million figurative pieces. You - you know who you are - you are destined for thrills and chills this weekend.  Let’s get on with joyous times. See you at the fashion show at Sliders in the New Hope Ramada.  If not there then at the red carpet.

Let’s share a drink and more.  See you there.

Love and hugs, Nikki DiCaro