Exam 7604 T/O #7604 Hiring Process

[Schecter]

Just now, STtoMTA said:

Oh damn

Talk about having extreme anxiety now 😬

[Embalmman]

3 minutes ago, STtoMTA said:

Oh damn

 

5 minutes ago, Schecter said:

Yeah last time they did me dirty was mad depressed, only thing that's making me nervous now is that this test wasn't promotional it was open competitive so they said that if something happens or if I wanna go back to conductor that I have to put my name back on the list and see if they will have classes for me to come back, and have to pay a processing fee as well I'm like wtf?!?!?!??

FUBAR   If that don’t motivate you to give 100% nothing will. 

[Schecter]

1 minute ago, Embalmman said:

 

FUBAR   If that don’t motivate you to give 100% nothing will. 

Exactly just makes it 100 times more stressful lol

[STtoMTA]

2 minutes ago, Embalmman said:

 

FUBAR   If that don’t motivate you to give 100% nothing will. 

Schecter you gotta keep us updated thru it 

[Conductor2015]

11 minutes ago, Schecter said:

Yeah last time they did me dirty was mad depressed, only thing that's making me nervous now is that this test wasn't promotional it was open competitive so they said that if something happens or if I wanna go back to conductor that I have to put my name back on the list and see if they will have classes for me to come back, and have to pay a processing fee as well I'm like wtf?!?!?!?? So I have to definitely pass or become homeless and jobless now.

That’s not true , don’t listen to everything you hear. I was a conductor too and I’ve jumped to 2 titles after the fact and they treat you as promotional . If you want to go back to conductor you have 1 year from the start day of the school car (promotion) . You call downtown , write a G2 and go back in the same spot you left off as a conductor if it’s done during the year  . Anything after that you lose your place . Obviously I didn’t leave but I know the process . 

[Schecter]

2 minutes ago, Conductor2015 said:

That’s not true , don’t listen to everything you hear. I was a conductor too and I’ve jumped to 2 titles after the fact and they treat you as promotional . If you want to go back to conductor you have 1 year from the start day of the school car (promotion) . You call downtown , write a G2 and go back in the same spot you left off as a conductor if it’s done during the year  . Anything after that you lose your place . Obviously I didn’t leave but I know the process . 

I'm extra extra still 👀 with a year and 6 months as c/r, a lady from 180 told me but the lady who did my final processing said exactly what you said so I'm like wth.

[Schecter]

5 minutes ago, STtoMTA said:

Schecter you gotta keep us updated thru it 

I will most definitely, I'll never forget this forum

[STtoMTA]

2 hours ago, Schecter said:

I will most definitely, I'll never forget this forum

Please, I wanna be there with you.  I happened to be in the city yesterday and I was on the 3 thinking of ya.  I just wanna know when the big hire is gonna come

 

 

a year and 6 months and still xx?!?!   Oh man .  Have you been getting decent jobs?

[Schecter]

1 minute ago, STtoMTA said:

Please, I wanna be there with you.  I happened to be in the city yesterday and I was on the 3 thinking of ya.  I just wanna know when the big hire is gonna come

 

 

a year and 6 months and still xx?!?!   Oh man .  Have you been getting decent jobs?

Decent jobs yeah like early jobs but yesterday they threw me right on the 3 yesterday out of new lots and ending in new lots lmao I wonder if you were on my train 😮, but sometimes they screw me dirty 

[STtoMTA]

4 minutes ago, Schecter said:

Decent jobs yeah like early jobs but yesterday they threw me right on the 3 yesterday out of new lots and ending in new lots lmao I wonder if you were on my train 😮, but sometimes they screw me dirty 

I think conductor run it woulda been 307

[STtoMTA]

You do ams. So no nite diff 😂

[Schecter]

2 minutes ago, STtoMTA said:

You do ams. So no nite diff 😂

Chill I hate ams with a passion Im an afternoon person i hate mornings and midnights.

[Schecter]

3 minutes ago, STtoMTA said:

I think conductor run it woulda been 307

Nvm I was 324 lol straight from 180 straight to work with 3 hours of sleep dead af 

[STtoMTA]

3 minutes ago, Schecter said:

Nvm I was 324 lol straight from 180 straight to work with 3 hours of sleep dead af 

Bro ams and midnights are bomb LOL but no $. That’d be my preference if I was actually on. 

[Schecter]

Just now, STtoMTA said:

Bro ams and midnights are bomb LOL but no $. That’d be my preference if I was actually on. 

😮 midnights suck for me because I hate getting home when the sun rises and then wasting my whole day sleeping, you'd be loved by them they'd keep you midnights if you want well probably...

[STtoMTA]

3 minutes ago, Schecter said:

😮 midnights suck for me because I hate getting home when the sun rises and then wasting my whole day sleeping, you'd be loved by them they'd keep you midnights if you want well probably...

I mean, I have a minute til I get called which is why I’m talking to YOU .  I know the runs and whatnot and I have people down there somewhat but you’ve given me more than them in some respects

[beanz]

I used to hate PMs at first but it grew on me. More money to be made and I took OT that was offered usually since my wife and daughter were asleep anyway by the time I got out. I prefer AMs in the summer though so I could go to the park after work with my kid n enjoy the rest of the day.

[STtoMTA]

38 minutes ago, beanz said:

I used to hate PMs at first but it grew on me. More money to be made and I took OT that was offered usually since my wife and daughter were asleep anyway by the time I got out. I prefer AMs in the summer though so I could go to the park after work with my kid n enjoy the rest of the day.

Xx you get what you get 😂

[beanz]

Just now, STtoMTA said:

Xx you get what you get 😂

Oh yea no mercy from the crew office 😄 but it comes with the territory. Bid sheets and lots of praying are the only way out. A few people hired around the same time as me actually got some bids this time.

[STtoMTA]

20 minutes ago, beanz said:

Oh yea no mercy from the crew office 😄 but it comes with the territory. Bid sheets and lots of praying are the only way out. A few people hired around the same time as me actually got some bids this time.

Bid sheets ?   Like taking a run that’s abandoned?

[MarkGuy]

On 1/25/2021 at 4:30 PM, beanz said:

Just a friendly piece of advice to all you guys starting up soon.

When I was road posting this time last year, I had a trainer tell me about the importance of focus. He told me a story about fighting with his girlfriend on his way to work. She dropped him off at flatbush right before his first trip and said to him "that's why I f**ked your best friend!".

 

This was back in the day so no cellphone, no way to confirm with his friend or nothing like that. He had to get on his train and go and handle it after work. He could not get he words out of his mind however, and on his first trip, before even getting to franklin ave, he hit a signal.

 

He told me the story and I laughed and forgot about it at the time. Went out on the road on my own February of last year. Everything was gravy, no issues all of February. Then March hit and corona came through and made an impact on my family. Lots of people got sick and even lost my great grandma and a few others.

 

Me being overweight, I was also super anxious and worried about catching it myself. You have to remember that MTA workers were dropping left and right at the start of this. I believe the number was 135+. So needless to say my wife was worried for me and I was worried as well.

 

My daughter also got diagnosed with autism earlier last year which was also tough, but she is doing better now with her therapies even though remote learning is difficult for her.

 

So I went to work with all this shit in my head and in April, after taking time off to self quarantine, I had my first incident. Small overrun in the rain, no biggie, but my conductor was a stickler and even though we were barely off the board and there was no one in the first car on a rainy Sunday evening, he made me call it in. So I did, it was my first, no biggie. Wrote a g2 and didn't even get taken out of service.

 

A week later my grandmother had a heart attack. A week after that it was mother's day and right before my last trip back up to Van Cortland we video chatted for mother's day and I saw my mom, aunts and grandma for the first time since Christmas. 

Well on that last trip to VC, 6 stops from signing out, I had a massive brain fart and took a few cars out of the station on an overrun. Turns out I didn't knock power all the way off and even though I took a full service at stockman, the train was still in full power(can't downshift but u will learn about that later). 

 

Out of service and retrained and embarrassed at my shitty incident.

 

They happened because I did not take heed to my trainers advice which was keep a clear mind. Never ever bring your personal life to work with you. You have to be 100 percent focused at all times. You can't daydream and think about bills or girlfriends or family or your kids while operating.

 

Operating a train offers a unique challenge. It isn't difficult once you get used to it. You start to feel yourself and get cocky. You start to think to yourself 'i got this' and get confident.

 

That is where the doom is waiting for you! U have to stay just as scared as u were day one because the moment u get confident, that's when the challenge kicks in. Staying focused.

 

Because u become so adept at operating and confident in your operation, it starts to become muscle memory after a while. It's monotonous so this is unavoidable. So your brain, seeing that it's barely being used, it takes a break. "Ok, looks like u got this under control without me. I'm gonna go think about all your problems now. Lemme know if u need me".

 

Now u in the danger zone.

 

When I came back after my second incident, I was good for almost 3 months. Summer was here, covid numbers were down, I was making money, my family had mostly recovered, I didn't get sick, my daughter was thriving with her therapists.

 

Life was good.

 

I was 3 weeks from finishing probation and said to my wife "let's go buy an apartment and move out". We found a place we loved, made an offer, didn't sign our lease at our apartment because we were moving, and gave a 25k deposit on a co-op apartment in Riverdale, just north of Van Cortland terminal. So close I could walk on a nice day, or take the 9 bus for 3 stops. 

 

Then, the one incident I will always regret happened. I was on the 3 out of lenox. Dispatcher told me to deadhead to new lots and pick up my train over there so my conductor and I head down. It's pouring raining that day but I got a 2 tripper that was just cut down to 1.5 trips so I'm happy.

 

Get to new lots and my train back north comes out the yard. I get on, do my tests, and we are off.

 

First station, Van Siclen. Brakes felt longgg. That means they don't react as soon as u are used to them reacting. I stop on the market but it was scary for a second there. Still, I'm a professional now, so I adjust. 

 

I know my brakes are long so I just brake a lot sooner. I am fine all the way uptown, even put the punch box at 135 perfectly on my window. No issues. 

 

Coming into the terminal though, my adjustment didn't matter. I adjusted for high speeds, but in the terminal u gotta clear timers and keep your speed at around 5 mph. I take a tiny brake well before the stop marker but I feel the train stop way short, so I release all the brake and let the train keep coasting. I pull the brake again and nothing.

 

Nothing...

 

Full service(full brake) and the train, very slowly, not even at 1mph I would say, glides right into the stop arm at the end of the terminal. It didn't hit it hard at all, but just barely kissed the stop arm just enough that the train could not charge at the other end and I had to report it.

 

Gets charged as a collision because in essence that's what it is.( These terms will make sense to u as you go on in Schoolcar so come back to this post later for the technicals.)

 

Nobody believed that the train had long brakes because I didn't call it in. No investigation on the train nothing, but I swear on everything I hold dear that the train just didn't stop. I definitely did what I should and it just didn't stop. My error was not calling in the train for having long brakes, but as I said, I adjusted and made it to the end just fine.

 

So at that point I get extended with a final warning. If you are an anxious person who over thinks like me, you do not want to be at final warning.

 

Needless to say I screwed up once more, a station overrun again. From the moment I went back out on my final warning until my final incident, I was operating scared and nervous. At that point, I was facing homelessness because I had the deposit in escrow and we hadn't closed on the apartment yet, my old apartment lease was about to expire, and I knew I could lose my job at any second. 

 

I had just booked a vacation and that night of my final mistake was the day before my short much needed vacation. I almost made it lol. That night I was particularly anxious over some news I got about my mother's health that turned out to be nothing. To give u an idea of how nervous I had been, I was a social drinker up to that point and during that time I made sure to have jameson's at home waiting for me every night after work to unwind.

 

So I am no longer a train operator. I was told I could get back on the list and start over again which I am in the process of trying to do, but it's been a bunch of hoops so far. So I'm still not on the list.

 

I wrote a lot of words because before I started I came here a lot for information, and this forum helped me out tremendously in knowing what to expect. I am returning that favor by giving you guys information that you may find invaluable. 

 

In short, focus and keep your private life and issues at home. 2020 was the most mentally challenging year of my life and it also happened to be probationary year of the best job I ever had, and I failed the challenge miserably.

 

All of my issues are not excuses, I am not the only person with problems. I should have risen to the challenge and done better. You don't want to be where I am, so that's why I felt like sharing.

 

Good luck to all of you and maybe I will be back someday and see ya down the road. 

Keeping it a buck-this damn company knows half these trains have shot brakes. Yet they still knowingly allow them on the road. I can't tell you how many times I've had R46s on the Broadway line with garbage brakes. Yet anything happens it's still on you. It's total garbage.

[Schecter]

5 minutes ago, MarkGuy said:

Keeping it a buck-this damn company knows half these trains have shot brakes. Yet they still knowingly allow them on the road. I can't tell you how many times I've had R46s on the Broadway line with garbage brakes. Yet anything happens it's still on you. It's total garbage.

They rather blame us before they blame anybody else everything falls to RTO

[beanz]

33 minutes ago, STtoMTA said:

Bid sheets ?   Like taking a run that’s abandoned?

Yea people out on medical or anything like that. Sometimes u get lucky and they stay out the whole pick from my understanding. Somebody i know got a job on the 7 until the next pick and he was only hired the month before me.

[beanz]

33 minutes ago, MarkGuy said:

Keeping it a buck-this damn company knows half these trains have shot brakes. Yet they still knowingly allow them on the road. I can't tell you how many times I've had R46s on the Broadway line with garbage brakes. Yet anything happens it's still on you. It's total garbage.

Especially those 3s. They were asking me why I didn't call it in and I said because everybody knows the 3 has wacky breaks and I was able to adjust. Damn trains are older than me. But I'm not gonna sit here and blame the equipment because I should have called it in as soon as I realized they felt funny.

 

But then again if I would have said something right away maybe they would have sent some OG TSS that operated red birds to berate me for being such a pussy and tell me about how he had to use his hands as a wiper and still operate back in the day 😄😄😄

Edited January 30, 2021 by beanz

[STtoMTA]

23 minutes ago, beanz said:

Yea people out on medical or anything like that. Sometimes u get lucky and they stay out the whole pick from my understanding. Somebody i know got a job on the 7 until the next pick and he was only hired the month before me.

Not bad, the 3 is where it’s at minus the 62 brakes