Playing video games and watching porn while getting paid to fix commuter-rail trains. Good gig!

[Ian David]

Playing video games and watching porn while getting paid to fix commuter-rail trains. Good gig!
http://twitter.com/universalhub/status/6695281153

Secret nook, with TV and videos, found at rail yard
Extended breaks by workers cited
By Noah Bierman
Globe Staff / December 15, 2009

The new manager on the late shift at the Somerville facility immediately noticed something awry. Many of his workers seemed to be taking long dinner breaks when they were supposed to be fixing trains for the region’s commuter rail system.

An investigation led to a strange discovery hidden in a storage room: a makeshift entertainment center, including three televisions, two DVD players, one VHS player, surround-sound speakers, a video game system, and DVDs, some of them pornographic, a transportation official said yesterday.

The equipment, slyly camouflaged within the commuter rail’s massive Somerville maintenance facility, even had an illegal cable television connection that came through a 1,000-foot cable, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is not yet concluded.

<snip>

The employees do not work for the MBTA. They work for a private consortium, the Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad, which runs the T’s commuter rail service under a contract with the public agency. The employees work as mechanics at the Boston Engine Terminal, a 375,000-square-foot facility in Somerville used for locomotive and coach maintenance.

More:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/12/15/surprise_find_at_somerville_commuter_rail_yard_tvs_dvds_video_games/

[robo50]

1. My solution, fire everyone working for MBTA on Friday Jan 1

and hire a new crew by Monday, Jan 3, at 1/2 the cost, hire people who actually want to work for a living.

No retirements, no benefits, no unemployment nothing for those fired.

Mass would no longer be in debt. I swear.

We just went through 3 events on the "T" in the last week, today a train de-railed in Cambridge, last night a water leak in the same train tunnel. I can't remember the third this week, but I think it was something about people getting hit by a bus.

Double the parking capacities of all parking facilities for T stations, that more than doubles the T revenue, allows for a reduction of fares for everyone, and gets gas guzzling cars off the streets. My solutions would be harsh to non-workers, but would save taxpayers money in the long run, save our environment, and get the T up to a first class system of mass transit, up from a C minus status today.