Keikyu Motorman

FWIW, just to give you an idea, some of those people talking about retiring "soon" end up leaving years later. Some don't reach their savings or pension income goals, others realize that they need to make up for "bad time" with NYCERS, and sadly in some cases, things come up last minute...

Put it this way, if you had Utica switching or Livonia Yard, would you leave? :-)

I've been burnt by CityMD not filling the form correctly, and their staff being nearly useless in terms of submitting an updated document so I understand your point. Admittedly, most of us go to CityMD and other clinics because it's convenient, open with a wide span of hours, and I'm in and out relatively quickly. As a late PM person, the only place that's open by the time I call out is basically urgent care or the ER. And my PCP is basically at minimum a three hour wait, nor am I going to burn multiple days to go to the clinic the next day to wait three hours to see the PCP to sign off on a form for the same price as my local urgent care.

IIRC, it's essentially on a rolling basis. FWIW, you can count back one year from today the number of absences to determine if you're at risk of hitting sick control. There are other ways of falling into the sick control regime, so as always, run down to Urgent Care with the forms to minimize the number of unexcused absences. 70/30 more so divides the employee population into two camps. Employees are eligible for placement in the 70% category, IIRC, from their third year onwards with essentially minimal use of sick time. If you use up significant amounts of your sick time with doctor's lines, you may avoid sick control, but you can fall into the 30% category. It's not a hard 70% of your sick time, but if there's significant usage of sick time, you can fall into the 30% that Transit views as more likely to use sick time which comes with more restrictive rules for calling out sick such as being subject to home visits.

IIRC, 1 day per month earned up to 10 days to use in your second year, 10 days in your third year, 20 to use in your fourth year.

As somebody that used to work for AAA, let's just say that if you know your car has issues, leave some extra time and eat the cost of Uber just in case. We weren't exactly the quickest with coming out to the scene for the guys who worked for Transit. :-/ If you're going to try for an AVA, you'll need proof such as a tow receipt proving that you had car trouble.

Nope. You're on your own for the tolls. They do offer Transitcheck which, IIRC, can be used to pay for other miscellaneous transit and parking fees. I didn't bother with it, and I suspect most others won't either. Parking for all intents and purposes is whatever limited street or yard parking is available.

Coincidentally, this is why I tell my new partners and schoolcar train operators that I meet to budget based on *base* pay, and not rosy expectations of perpetual overtime.

I don't blame you for wanting as much information as possible. I read the stories from current and former employees at other railfan message boards, and had retirees hint at the potential issues. Admittedly the job can and will be stressful at times, but thousands of other people have motormen and train operators on our railroad for over a century, so one can argue if they did it, so can you. :-) With that said, it's harder to come here if you're coming from a comfortable white collar job that pays similar wages. It's hard to come here if you're used to goofing off at work and doing nothing all day. There's definitely a trade off here, and it's harder if you're coming from those types of work environments. If you're earning less than what transit offers, and it's stressful, you might as well come down. :-)

There's a part of me that wants to argue that if you're already in the mental mindset of trying to escape OT, you may want to consider declining and letting somebody else have that spot. If you need the money, come on down but be prepared to work hard and pound the road for your money. If you're at a place where you're comfortable, enjoy your coworkers or your customers, and the money is good, it may be better to stay there. I admittedly joined in my 30s, so my mindset would be different compared to my 20s, especially when I was financially supported by my parents.

They're never going to improve Tier VI anytime soon unless you see a *huge* economic boom and a very generous bull market. The only way to really counteract the changes imposed by Tier VI is to increase our pay to compensate for what we pay into the pension compared to previous Tiers. Any changes to Tier VI need to be worked on by *everybody* in the Tier across NYS civil service, not just Transit.

That Deal or No Deal joke is a fun secret reference and inside joke. :-) FWIW, I've been at this for nearly four years, and with the exception of schoolcar and my first month or so on the road, I've worked PMs, so my experiences can vary, but there are days where you'll have a 2.5-hour commute to and from the reporting site, sometimes four to five hours on board waiting for a job and then a full 8 to 10 hour job on the road. So it does soak up a bit of your time, and you're sometimes so zonked from working that you're just too tired to do anything, or in my case, everybody is asleep and everything is closed which leaves everything for your RDOs. Given that your RDOs are most likely going to be during the week, it's a bit a hit to your social life as well if you're a weekend warrior. As with all things, working down here requires you be a bit more disciplined about things including your own physical and mental health, and you do trade off the ability to make a decent bit of money in exchange for a short commute and some free time, especially at the start of your career. But if you take that same discipline that will get you through schoolcar to your free time, you can sometimes make it work for you.

TIL. Admittedly, I get the strange feeling that a lot of people would eat a year long pick if it means a third and fourth bid are included. It really isn't worth it to give up the right to two picks per year, especially since it allows not quite senior employees to move up quickly, but also there's no way that running a pick costs them *that much* that we should give up something valuable in exchange for what would be nothing and very loosely written replacement language in the contract.

I think a few other systems have done the same with dispatchers, but TSS feels like a different game given their hands-on role within the system. It's possible, but I definitely feel you should have some time on the job before you're allowed to sit for that exam. At least five years in RTO, IMHO.

I suspect that after your two years of service, you could always try to bid your way into it if you can't pick it...