CTA Got Me Fired

Saturday, October 10th, 2009
by Tony

So this was MY story that I submit to the Red Eye Chicago, the daily free paper published by the Chicago Tribune.

I’ve been reading the RedEye’s ‘Going Public’ column for some time, and I’ve become pretty much fed up with the amount of whining that has come from the North Side CTA riders.

A majority of the complaints are about the most mundane and trivial things: Strollers during rush hours, not finding a seat on an express bus. Excuse me as I proceed to play the world’s smallest violin for you.

I’m a firm believer that anyone living north of Roosevelt cannot truly complain about the CTA until they witness the abhorrent treatment of the South Side community. The only east-west express is on Garfield, the operators are lazy and surly, and the buses are NEVER on time.

I can attest to the timeliness as I was just fired from my job because I was late. For more than a year I had to take the 79th Street bus to Cicero to make a connection with Pace.

I had to adjust my habits to give myself more than enough time to commute and the buses were still either late or ran slow and if I missed my connection, I had to wait an hour for the next Pace bus.

So with all the complaints I’ve seen from the North Side, at least you can say that the CTA didn’t cause you to lose your job.

To read more, click here.