The executive staff here at MojoFiction accidentally went in to work yesterday, which we take no responsibility for. We would have never made it in if our car hadn’t started. Stupid German engineering.
Anyway, as many of you know it was bitter cold, so we threw on our swants and figured everything would be okay, and it was (and our important parts kept very warm). Until the afternoon. See, we ride the suburban commuter trains here in Chicagoland, which have been kept secret from most America until now. In the recent book “We Apologize for the Inconvenience,” undercover agents exposed the off-book, black ops organization operating out of Chicago known as METRA. As the picture above notes, METRA has pretty much no idea what they are doing, which probably explains all the secrecy. There were no tracks or departure times assigned to any of the trains leaving to take us hardworking Americans home yesterday afternoon, only a curious status for each train. But it turns out that METRA knew what they were doing all along. This confused train schedule was actually by design. In an effort to be both economically sound and environmentally conscious, the good folks at METRA finally broke out their ultra-secret LOAD-N-GO initiative.
Originally designed for the Avengers, LOAD-N-GO saves taxpayers Metra considerable dollars by avoiding the fuel costs and environmental pollution associated with actually operating trains. Instead, passengers are herded on to a platform in the downtown station and then loaded on to a catapult aimed in the general direction of their house.
Actual top-secret Metra diagram of LOAD-N-GO (do not ask how we go this):
After passengers crowd on to the platform, they are made to wait for 20 minutes before being told their catapult will actually launch from platform 3. So they shamble over to platform 3 only to move again to platform 11 and then platform 9 3/4 and then parking lot B until finally they get fed up and walk home, but not before METRA checks their ticket.
Deploying this new service was huge gamble for METRA, but it paid off with these new metrics delineating customer satisfaction, which METRA measured directly from their passengers by entirely ignoring their feedback.
Emboldened by the success of LOAD-N-GO, METRA plans on releasing a series of new features they believe will raise their level of customer service.
METRA CEO someone-or-other told the staff here at MojoFiction this morning, “LOAD-N-GO worked better than anticipated, which isn’t much because we anticipated zero. With that success, we’re already putting the finishing touches on our other programs, including STALL-N-STAY, DROP-N-KICK, and my personal favorite, SHOWUSYOURTICKET-N-SHUTUP. Other cities are already asking us for these service models, including Detroit, who are very interested in DROP-N-KICK.”
How does this affect the future of commuter train services?
Said METRA CEO, “Quite a lot. I envision a future where we don’t even need trains. METRA employees will simply drive by the stations in Champaign-stocked limos, punch everyone’s ticket, and then leave them to their own devices. Think of the freedom travelers will have to get from point A to point B however they want after they’ve purchased a ticket.”
MojoFiction 
Leave a Reply