"Most of the hundreds of thousands of people who ride the L or take a city bus every day don’t pay much attention to transit employees — at least until something goes wrong. When that happens, those workers get an earful, and sometimes worse. They also routinely have to deal with sick passengers, rowdy teenagers, violent drunks, fare skippers, suicide jumpers, and homeless people desperate for shelter, to say nothing of the demands of keeping trains and buses running on time 24 hours a day in a congested city in all kinds of weather. Chicago asked a dozen CTA workers to speak anonymously about their jobs. Their anecdotes and observations are by turns funny, disturbing, moving, and just plain bizarre, an account of everyday encounters colored by both customers’ astonishing rudeness and their incredible compassion. Few of the men and women we talked to see their job as a calling, but most exhibited a deep-seated sense of pride in keeping the city moving. Here are their stories, nuggets of wisdom, rants, and revelations, in their own words. ..."
Chicago Mag
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