Third in the Time’s Up, TTC series
Of course we know that really the only problem with TTC signage is handwritten signs, particularly at collector booths. Fix those – as by sending a supervisor around to gather them up – and you’ve licked the problem, obviously.
But actually another problem remains: The sheer unrelenting boredom endured by collectors imprisoned in a glass box for eight hours at a stretch. This is one job I want automation to replace.
After a while you develop coping mechanisms. That is, you buy a portable DVD player and stock up on bootleg Chinese discs. Everybody does it. (Check for yourself. Loiter at a subway entrance pretending to fiddle with your cellphone. Observe how the collector is staring fixedly downward and off to an angle.) But you don’t want people looking over your shoulder. One of them might call 416-393-3444, the non-emergency number (emergency is 3555), right on the spot and turn you in.
So you cover up the windows.
Things are so much better since they got rid of those handwritten signs. Except, as we will see, they didn’t.