ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
NPR's Luke Burbank spent the day finding out what it takes to get through the workday. He filed this report.
LUKE BURBANK reporting:
There are only so many ways to fold a reasonably priced pink, cable-knit sweater. But over the last two days Sue Johnson and her employers at Casual Corner have had time to consider them all. Thanks to the transit strike, the women's clothing store in Midtown Manhattan has had a distinct lack of customers, which might actually be a good thing because they've also had a lack of employees.
Ms. SUE JOHNSON (Casual Corner): We're a staff of a hundred. I think 25 we had yesterday. So we're trying. Maybe today we'll get a little bit more. But tomorrow is Friday, so we think we...
Unidentified Woman: What? It's Thursday.
Ms. JOHNSON: Tomorrow's only Thursday?
Unidentified Woman: ...(Unintelligible).
Ms. JOHNSON: Oh, already people are telling us they may not make it in tomorrow.
BURBANK: Clearly, the week can't end quickly enough for Johnson. Without customers or a staff, just staying open is a little pointless. Taped to the store's windows are handwritten signs informing customers that Casual Corner will be closing early until the strike is resolved.
Mr. MIGUEL GOMEZ (Sanitation Worker): Now I sympathize with the transit workers doing what they're doing, but this takes a heavy toll on the people.
BURBANK: Miguel Gomez is a city sanitation worker who lives in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn. He's been trying to line up a ride share with some of his co-workers, but so far to no avail. That's meant in order to get to his job near the United Nations, he's been doing a lot of walking, something that leaves him tired, he says, when it comes time to do his actual job.
Mr. GOMEZ: I start at 6:30, so I have to get up at 3 in the morning to be here at 6, get out at 4:30, hopefully get home by 7, 7:30, 8:00, take a rest, blink, open your eyes. And what time is it? It's time to get back out here. So basically I'm spending maybe a little less time sleeping than I am walking. Maybe I should take up some sleepwalking.
BURBANK: Gomez stands on 42nd Street, not far from the currently dormant Grand Central Station. On that same street sits Pret a Manger, a sandwich shop managed by Louise Peterson(ph). Peterson says she and many of her employees live in the Bronx, so getting past car pool checkpoints in the northern part of Manhattan has proven to be a challenge.
Ms. LOUISE PETERSON (Manager, Pret a Manger): They actually did look into getting a bus service to pick us up in different points in Brooklyn and the Bronx, but--and then it would cost more than we would take on a quiet day. So it wasn't worth it.
BURBANK: Instead, the store will simply close early until further notice.
Richard Weinberg's company, Merrill Lynch, did charter a bus through Manhattan for him and his co-workers.
Mr. RICHARD WEINBERG (Merrill Lynch): You know, it's a nice bus. It's a big bus, ample leg room. I sat the whole trip and read the newspaper and was very comfortable.
BURBANK: Many of the big Wall Street firms and other large companies in the city were quick to shell out the money for buses, vans, town cars and whatever else was needed to deliver their staffs to work. Not coincidentally, most of them have reported business as usual during the strike.
(Soundbite of clinking noises)
BURBANK: Last night was not business as usual for Diego Andratti(ph), who mans the front desk of an office building in Manhattan's Midtown East. He slept on an old red leather couch in an office in the building's basement.
Mr. DIEGO ANDRATTI: This is a regular sofa. It's comfortable, but, you know, it's not like bed.
BURBANK: How'd you sleep last night?
Mr. ANDRATTI: Very bad. Yeah, only three or four hours. That's about it.
BURBANK: Andratti chose a night on the couch rather than making the hour-plus walk back to his home in Astoria, Queens. But he said one night of discomfort was enough, so tonight he would once again take to the streets. He wasn't completely done with the couch, though. His plan was to use it to catch up on some of that much-needed sleep just as soon as it was time for his lunch break. Luke Burbank, NPR News, New York.
SIEGEL: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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