Hamptons Subway Clashes with Trump Over Firings

SCENE ON THE SUBWAY

Blythe Danner and her daughter Gwyneth Paltrow were seen on the Amagansett eastbound platform carrying packages while waiting for the local train heading for Montauk last Saturday.

PRESIDENTS’ DAY CELEBRATION

Employees of Hamptons Subway met up for a big luncheon at the Hamptons Subway headquarters in Hampton Bays on Monday for the company’s annual President’s Day Celebration luncheon to give out various prizes for this and that which were won in our good morale employee competitions. As usual, the subway system was shut down for two hours from noon to 2 p.m., but our good-natured straphangers are used to this annual affair and are happy to oblige for that one day, two-hour period once a year.

The competition for the best Jell-O mold made in the cafeteria was won by Agnes Anotherhead, a local woman who works as a cashier in our cafeteria.

The competition for the most courteous employee was won by Jeffrey Haligan, one of our illustrious maintenance men, who got the prize in absentia since he is currently in the hospital recovering from a broken jaw and black eye he got when he fell against a door knob.

The competition for the most correct flags by a flagman in the tunnels, which warn approaching subway car motormen that there is or isn’t trouble ahead, was won by Harrison Ford Bush, a newcomer to the staff from Arizona who flashed 432 correct flags and only seven wrong during the competition period which began last Thursday and ended this Thursday.

The competition for the friendliest token booth seller was won by Harriet Grench, who has been selling tokens in her Amagansett booth – along with little wooden toys made by her husband on the side – since 2008. She was elected by popular vote of the subway riders.

Most married employee during the last year was won by Fifi “Bubbles” Virginia, who very publicly got married and divorced three times during the past year. Look out, men. The next one could be you.

The best Subway Commissioner competition was won once again by the Hamptons Subway Commissioner Bill Aspinall, who has been the subway commissioner since it opened in 2007. This is the fourth year in a row he has won, and unlike last year, when one vote went to a Giuseppe Catelone, the subway barber, this year it was unanimous.

SUBWAY SYSTEM CLOSED FOR ONLY A DAY

The expected three-day closing of the subway system announced last week turned out to be only one day, Tuesday.

As you know, after the 7.0 earthquake in Ferndale, California last month, bids went out here at the Hamptons Subway to hire a construction firm to reinforce the subway tunnels in the system. The winning bidder, Charles Construction, proposed to do it all in one night, a Sunday night, and won the bid. In the event, however, what Charles Construction did was put wooden cross bracing up in the tunnels halfway between each of our stations. They worked all Sunday night doing that. When the subway system reopened, on Monday morning, it was found that although the subway tunnels were braced all right, the cross bracing blocked the passageway.  No trains could go from any one station to any other station.

Charles Construction said it would take three days to take all the bracing down, and it would cost double what they had bid to put them up because they would have to charge more for this being an emergency job and they would have to account for being pulled off their next job.

Instead, Charles Construction was fired from the job, and our most senior motorman, Fred Harrisburg, took on the task of simply driving a subway train through all the bracing at high speed to take everything down, which he did. After that, his helpers, the other motormen, came through and removed the debris during the rest of the day. We regret the inconvenience.

BIRTHDAY

Happy birthday to Subway Mechanic Alex “Spike” McNutley, who turned 33 today without missing a beat in our subway yards. He waved away the cake. He was under a subway car engine and said forget it.

AI USED

The artificial intelligence program ChatGPT was used for the first time on our subway system last Monday – a subway first nationwide – but we can’t figure out if it worked or not.

FIRINGS

In spite of our letter to President Donald Trump that firing of subway employees was something he could not do because Hamptons Subway is privately owned, we nevertheless decided last Thursday to fire employees anyway. In each of the 12 divisions  of Hamptons Subway (such as token clerks, accounting, repair and marketing) one employee was fired, selected at random by picking straws.

COMMISSIONER BILL ASPINALL’S MESSAGE

The people who put together this plan to brace the subway tunnels have one at a time come into my corner office here in the Hamptons Subway building to be told they were fired and to gather their things and get out. There were five all together. They included a vice president who thought up this plan, a project manager who designed the job requirements, an auctioneer who conducted the bidding in our basement conference room, an architect who designed this cross bracing business, and a purchasing agent who ordered all the four-by-fours. This was the biggest waste of $143,150 I ever heard of.