Too many transfers, too many delays

My coworker is a brave soul. She travels on 3 Metro rail lines a day to get to work: Green to Blue to Red. The total distance of her commute if she drove would be a little over 13 miles. For the most part taking public transit works for her. She doesn't spend close to an hour in traffic, her car isn't forced to put on mileage and since work pays for the majority of her monthly pass it's cost effective. But there's something that is rarely taken into account: the psychological toll of relying on transit day after day to get you to and from a place 10+ times a week. The problem is that with 3 rail lines that's 3 times as many places for things to go wrong, multiply that by a round trip and that's 6 times a day things could go wrong, multiply that by 5 days a week and you're up to 30 times...you get the picture. The problem becomes when the days that the trip goes off without a hitch start to seem fewer than the number of times SOMETHING goes wrong. This can range from something minor like one or two doors not opening on a train causing momentary chaos at every station to a crash with a car, requiring everyone switching to a bus bridge. In LA it tends to be the Blue Line with problems more often than the others, and in Washington D.C. it typically was the Red Line, but when one of these "problem" lines are on your daily commute your ability to rely on transit as a timely and efficient option starts to dwindle. Not to say Metro isn't trying the twitter feed @metrolosangeles has started keeping much better with transit alerts and continues to be responsive via the source blog for issues being raised by customers. Check them both out if you're a rider or just a transit enthusiast.

Metro caused me to move

Shortly after I started taking the bus on a regular basis from Whittier to Downtown L.A., two things happened: 1) I got a new job located at the transit hub in L.A., aka Union Station and 2) my bus commute became unbearable on one rainy day in early October. The benefits of my work being located at THE transit hub are enormous. Rather than having to take a very slow Municipal bus line (a.k.a. Montebello Bus) and having to transfer to an equally slow Metro bus (#33/#333) to get to Pico-Union, I now had the advantage of taking a very slow Metro bus (#270) to several very fast, Express buses by a variety of transit providers. It didn't cut down the overall trip time by much, but it did allow me to walk to the bus stop from my house. This all worked out very nicely until one day it rained in L.A. And for those of you who aren't native Angelenos this means the entire city is thrown into chaos.

I had arrived to work relatively on-time most days via my new route and was surprised at how even the unpredictable rain didn't affect my travel time to work. Unfortunately, it was the ride home where my faith in bus transit started to wear thin. I waited at my stop next to the El Monte Busway for any express bus that was headed towards El Monte Bus Station. As I stood there, three buses that would have taken me to my transfer point were so full that two didn't stop and one stopped loading passengers. By the time I was able to board Foothill Transit's Silver Streak I had missed my transfer connection. For a regular route, this wouldn't be a problem, but the Metro 270 only runs once an hour! Add that the cold weather and rain and I called in the cavalry and asked the bearded man to come pick me up.

This long roundabout story played a large part in our decision to move to a location where I'd be within walking distance of a Metro Gold Line stop that has a frequency of approximately every 8 minute during peak hours. It means no more transfers, no more waiting at a stop wondering if the bus will ever come and a 99% likelihood I'll have somewhere to sit. More to come on the move, and the ever evolving result of having only 1 car in a city ruled by what you drive.

It's as Simple as A-B-C, right?

For a year and a half, myself and my bearded friend were substitutes in the Los Angeles Unified School District. I was lucky enough to make friends with the staff and faculty of a neighborhood school, loved and cared for by its students and families. The kids were pretty typical, slightly less sophisticated than you might find in a private school, but overall eager to learn and excited to hear what you had to offer. I taught every grade from Pre-K to 5^th while I was there including 3 special education classrooms. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and if it had not been for the fact that I was about to graduate with my Master’s in a completely different field, I could have imagined myself getting a Special Ed credential and staying.

My bearded friend has had quite a different experience teaching middle and high school. He also happened to get assigned to a few of the District’s biggest eyesores. Schools where fights and lockdowns are a common occurrence, students still attend year-round and the physical state of the buildings and equipment are in disrepair. As a result, this made for many long discussions about what could be done to even begin to help the nation’s 2^nd largest school district. We couldn’t come up with a lot of real solutions, but did believe there were a few things that HAD to change.

1. Better Administration at the School Level: Schools that were pleasant to sub at always seemed to have administrators (Principals/Assistant Principals) who seemed in control, and hands-on. These were the type of people who took the time to get to know your name and remembered it when you showed up on campus a week later. LAUSD seems to have a dearth of good administrators, because it’s a very different thing to manage versus teach. One does not necessarily translate into another.
2. Better Oversight and Administration at the District Level: There is no place scarier in the world than 333 Beaudry St. Things literally go there to die. Every person I’ve ever talked to there told me and other subs I knew a different story. At LAUSD, there is always at least two unnecessary steps that must be taken in person or over the phone. Here’s a prime example, the State of CA renews your credential online, its simple and fast, and takes about 3 minutes. Anyone can go on the site and search for a person by first and last name to determine if they currently hold a valid credential. LAUSD requires you call them to tell your “credential assistant” that you have renewed online and then prints out a copy. There must be thousands of jobs at that building that are unnecessary, but continue because no one has any clue about how money is being spent/wasted.
3. The union: Unfortunately it is a necessary evil, because of the disastrous management of the District at the top. If it hadn’t been for them threatening to walk out, who knows how long the District would have taken to fix the paycheck debacle. At the same time, the union creates a safety net for a lot of mediocre and straight-up bad teachers to stay employed at relatively decent salaries. Subs can usually tell a good teacher from a bad one based on the state of their classroom (complete disarray vs. relatively organized), to the level of detail left on the Lesson Plan (watch a movie all day vs. several different options with distinct time limits for each). There really are teachers that come in everyday and read the newspaper, while giving their kids mindless assignments, and kicking out the kids that give them a hassle thus interrupting their morning coffee.

I really hope that one day I will get the nerve and the strength to go back to work in the education field. Often I feel that it’s too big of a mess, that there’s no good place to start, and too emotionally charged for most people to have an honest opinion about it. Which is why for now I’ll stick to buses, people can be a lot more level-headed about transit.

For further reading, check out the Times Magazine article on what people are doing in New Orleans to transform public ed.

My New Job Goal

So I used to think it might be cool to play for the Dodgers making millions. I mean I don't really need to play, look at our one game wonder, Jason Schmidt, who is getting paid $47 million to recuperate. (Check out this harsh, but true critique of my boys in blue.) But seeing as I quit softball in 9th grade, that isn't much of an option.

Well how about actress? They seem to make quite a lot of money despite horrible movies. Reese Witherspoon makes $15-20 million per movie. I'm sure I could pull off ditzy blonde in law school for at least Legally Blonde 3, 4 and 5. But then again, I don't know how qualified I am to do that either.

I've got it, I will become a talk show radio host! Rush Limbaugh is being paid $400 million over the next 8 years. Far more than Schmidt or Witherspoon. The exertion level is pretty low, all one needs to have is a mic, a really annoying voice, and a point of view to champion while making several baseless accusations about the other side. It can't be that hard right? No research needs to be done on the facts, and you can even take some time off to get addicted to drugs and come right back. As long as you have a top law firm retained for slander lawsuits, you're set.

I have to admit prior to starting my career I will have to actually try and sit through some talk radio. I tend to listen mostly to NPR in my car and as far as print news/information rely on the NYTimes and the WSJ. I attempted the other day to make it through an entire segment of a popular libertarian/conservative radio talk show, but was forced to turn it off for fear of instant migraine. I find it amazing how popular these shows are. Why waste your precious time listening to one or two persons very slanted, and narrow view of the world? Wouldn't your time be better served listening to both sides and making your own decisions? I have difficulty dealing with any extreme point of view, because neither of those sides really want anything to change or get better, what they want to do is complain.

I must look for an extreme position to start sending out to radio stations here. How about vegans should be force-fed eggs, because its un-American or homeless people should be sent to Europe to deal with the loss of population there? Any other suggestions?

What to do when no one is at work

The entire office has left me here by lonesome. Well I take that back, I have a few fellow comrades here to make sure I don't mysteriously die in my office/get stuck in the elevator. Apparently, at the Long Beach Court House a judge was stuck over the weekend in the lift (I love British versions of words!). The phone didn't work and her cell phone didn't have service. It was after everyone had left so nobody heard her yelling and they didn't find her until Monday morning! She survived, but I think I would take the stairs after that kind of experience. But I digress, what is everyone's favorite pastimes at work?

A group of my friends who spend their days glued to their computer screens have a habit of sending each other links to articles they find interesting. What ensues is 20 emails back and forth that always digress into topics very far from where they started.

The other day I looked at my sent box and realized I rarely send very much email, I usually just read a lot of it. So besides the typical news sites, I also like to visit Daily Candy to keep up to date on what's hip and happening and LA.com so I know where is the newest place to go out. Funny enough I rarely go anywhere these 2 sites recommend, but I hate not knowing about a place and then having to hear from others about it.

Fake online shopping is also something I enjoy very much. What this involves is going on my favorite online stores like Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters, Gap, Old Navy, Sephora etc. and putting a bunch of things in my cart, which I almost NEVER buy. But it satisfies my urge to spend some cash (well temporarily).

But most recently, my favorite thing to do has been to go on to Wikipedia and read random articles about people's lives that have been made into movies or are infamous. Recently, I've been on a spate of serial killers (dark I know), but I also enjoy reading about famous people from Whittier (Kathy Hilton, mother of Paris, was born in Whittier) and in history such as Darwin (his writings on evolution recently had an anniversary, plus he wasn't the only one who came up with this theory, there were 2 others!).

I hope everyone who's at work on this Monday morning is enjoying themselves. And for those of you who live in LA make sure to read the latest of mistakes by our friends over on Beaudry street. Pure genius!

Starting a new job

So I've started my fair share of new jobs. Since I became legal to work at 15 1/2 my jobs have included (in chronological order): paperwork filler-outer for a Doctor, children's library page (putting books away), cashier at a mini-market, In-N-Out fast food worker, cashier at my College's snack cafe, IT help desk phone answerer/filling printer with paper, Nordstrom women's shoe cashier, Government small business adviser, Economic research assistant, College athlete tutor, Elementary Special Education substitute teacher & now as another Research associate. This is actually only a partial list not including four internships in human resources, financial planning, public transit & federal budgeting.

To be honest, I've always enjoyed starting a new job. I've found it to be exciting and hold the promise of new opportunities. Usually, your new boss takes you out to lunch or the fellow employees might send you through some light hazing. There's always a nice email sent out about how great it is to have you and the first day is spent setting up the computer, email, phone, getting on payroll etc.

On the other hand, starting a new job can be hell. There's new office cliques to break into, finding your favorite bathroom stall (everyone has one at work, admit it!), figuring out how to ask your boss for asking for more work without risking becoming overburdened, convincing the security downstairs you really do work in the building. Sometimes I wonder whether it was a bad decision taking the job or if I'll regret it in a month or two and if I can make it to the magic one year mark that allows for a job to be on a resume, but not look like you ran for the hills.

If anyone else has any advice for new employees, please comment below. Almost 6 weeks in I feel like I have enough stuff in my office to make it look personal, but I'm still working on remembering everyone's names.