I don’t feel safe commuting to work in NYC

I’m disappointed, but not surprised, that no banks have addressed the current violence across NYC.

I believe banks should start paying for our Ubers to and from the office. I frankly think it’s immoral for the BBs to demand people in office and yet ignore the fact that commuting in NYC is only getting more dangerous.

I would love to hear more thoughts on this. I know it’s a long shot, but maybe some noise from junior bankers is what we need to make this happen.

 
Controversial

Dude shut up. Yes I know there were no black or homeless people in your Connecticut enclave growing up, but I promise you will be okay. Use literally just an ounce of street smarts and you will be perfectly fine.

 
Most Helpful

Pretty callous take, and a dumb one at that. Do you think Daniel Enriquez (of GS) was just going about provoking crazies on the Q train? A dude literally just walked up to him and blasted a hole in his chest. Same with Michelle Go. Ironically in her free time she spent helping low income New Yorkers with NYJL. You saying she deserved being pushed on the tracks because she didn't use enough street smarts?

I grew up lower middle class and didn't let my family walk anywhere alone when they were visiting me in the city. Crime is absolutely a fuckin problem on MTA right now. Reasons why the streets are clogged with taxis and ubers.

...
 

yes, their deaths were tragic and the people responsible for them should be in prison for the rest of their lives, but a sample size of 2 in a city of millions is statistically insignificant. In 99.999% of circumstances my aforementioned advice is sufficient. 

 

Okay, but statisically, the MTA is pretty safe. The odds of you randomly getting shot on the train are incredibly low. Even knowing that, I understand why people are afraid, and I am also a little bit afraid as well, but that's just life. 

 

It's so easy to take individual cases such as Daniel's and Michelle's to create an outcry of an overpowering dangerous subway environment, but if you just take a second to look at contextual evidence, you should realize that things are not as bad as it seems. You don't get an article everytime there is a death by accident in NY

You are much more likely to die commuting to work every day by car than by taking the subway. Just in the first three months of 2022, "At least 59 people have been killed by vehicular collisions" in the city. Finding similar say for subway-related fatalities is more difficult, as you need to isolate suicides for example, but in the span of 4 years, there were only 211 subway-related deaths (I'm sure we can do the math to realize its a much lower chance). Add on to this fact that just last Thursday, 3,413,579 people rode the metro to work. There is a very small chance of something fatal happening. 

For sure, there's the risk of non-fatal things like assaults, but even then cases are unlikely especially in heavily populated metro lines and just using basic street smarts. There's evidence that even if there's a minor uptick in crime now, its far below not too far back levels of violence: "There were 335 major felonies this year, compared with 697 during the same time in 2020 and 559 in 2019, according to police statistics. During a higher-crime era, the numbers were a lot higher, with 1,449 major felonies in the first quarter of 1997." [Link]

For such a data and analytics oriented industry, its fascinating how prone people still are to sensalization and bias despite evidence showign the contrary 

 

Prospect in PE - Growth

Dude shut up. Yes I know there were no black or homeless people in your Connecticut enclave growing up, but I promise you will be okay. Use literally just an ounce of street smarts and you will be perfectly fine.

I watched a video today where a woman was walking into a restaurant in Brooklyn and a random man ran up behind her and stabbed her in the back then walked away like nothing happened

 

I'm a small girl who narrowly avoided being beaten by a homeless man with a chain yesterday morning. Two victims were sent to the hospital, and I'm not even sure the guy was caught. This was only a few blocks away from my office.Not sure why you have such a problem with this post … like lol you wouldn't be the one paying for it?And I'm not from Connecticut.

 

I am not a leftist. I oppose leftists 90% of the time. Its just ridiculous that people are blowing a statistical anomaly like the referenced events completely out of proportion. Literally 3 million people ride the subway every day. You're telling me that you are justified in worrying about an event with this likelihood?

 

You need to sack up. This is a ridiculous post. What's happened to a few people is unfortunate but your anxiety over it is a reflection on you vs. what's going on out there. 1) Don't live in Brooklyn 2) Use common sense 3) Live in a nicer neighborhood if you are still worried

The trend of crime against Asian people is pretty concerning to me as an Asian but doesn't mean I'm scared to go to work.

 

OP isn't scared to go to work dickhead, they just want banks to be more accountable. If they're going to force people to come in when WFH is just as viable an option, expensing Ubers to work is the least they can do. 

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! What planet do you live on dude?

The company pays you cash. You decide how to get to work and how much to spend and whether that is worth it relative to the compensation. Real simple man.

Do they need to provide you with lunch as well or do you think that you can handle that? Welcome to becoming an adult!! 

 

Goddamn pussy. Where do they find bitches like you at? Rinse the sand out of your vagina and stop being a paranoid weirdo. What kind of man is scared to go to the office?

Edit: ignore the vulgar commentary above. Thought you were a dude and was trying to emasculate you the best I could. Don't think its my place to speak on the experience of a "small girl" as you described it since I'm not a "small girl."

 

I only mentioned that I'm a small girl because it's not uncommon for us to encounter alarming situations while on the street. I want to stress that things have gotten drastically worse, though, over these past months.

 

I only mentioned that I'm a small girl because it's not uncommon for us to encounter alarming situations while on the street. I want to stress that things have gotten drastically worse, though, over these past months.

I said that thinking you’re a dude, but even as a small girl you need to sack up. People just like you take the subway with no issue, just don’t be a dumbass

 

So I’ve always been a person that said things like “sack up, it’s a giant urban city and public transit is statistically safer than almost anything else.”  But I’ve started commuting and talking about commuting with my GF (a small girl) and the amount of shit she gets on the train is astounding. It’s like a different experience than what I get as a guy. Homeless people approaching her at 10x the rate it happens to me, annoying guys sitting next to her and trying to talk, etc. idk exactly where I’m going with this but just want to say that your concerns are valid but that most guys don’t appreciate it until they’ve seen it. 

 

When tech giants get company ping pong tables, bean bags, gyms, kombucha bars, we should get company chartered buses that makes a stop at the middle of maybe 3-4 popular neighborhoods in the morning on a schedule between 8am -10am. Only destination is the office so these buses would speed by compared to MTA. And you’d have to swipe in with your company ID card to board. This is genius, someone forward to David Solomon et al.

 

From the article: "The fare will be based on Uber’s pricing and policies, including surge pricing, which can significantly increase the cost at peak times."

what i meant was just yellow cabs but taxi company developed an app on their own rather than Uber.  

 

Now you’re starting to see what we mean when we use phrases on this site like “drinking the Kool-Aid”. Corporations will claim all the great things they are doing, how they care, how you’re part of a team etc. but there is only one thing that they care about. Return to shareholders. So what do you think provides greater return to shareholders? The costs to hire and train a few employees that replace the dead ones, or giving thousands of employees free Uber rides every day? The answer to this is extremely obvious. 
 

If you don’t like this, this only scratches the surface of what corporatism has done to this country and how much the common person has lost due to corporatism. When you hit the desk examine what “synergies” actually means to the average everyday person. To be clear I’m pro-capitalist but despise the corporate structure which is closer to communism than capitalism.

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You bring up points related to topics I’m actually very passionate about.

I am also pro-capitalist, but I don’t believe capitalism was or is meant to exist in a vacuum. Capitalism was meant to exist in unison with morality.

 

 I don’t support the progressive left. They offer the hint of extra crumbs for their constituents at the cost of having freedoms sacrificed. Their entire ideology requires a sacrifice of power to a large centralized government in exchange for ambiguous monetary benefit. The national government as is is already bloated as is and has too much power. There are endless historical examples as to what happens when a large centralized government is given sole power to “fairly split” essential goods (see Stalin, Mao, etc.)

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Trying to pass along added fees in a slower market is going to lead to client loss.

You also have to remember that providing morning Ubers means a lot of middle/back office people who weren’t previously covered under the night Ubers would need to be and they can’t just be expensed on to an unrelated IB client. 
 

The bank will be losing money no matter what path is taken to expense the rides. 

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I'm not sure the idea is necessarily insane.  But the underlying attitude is a bit thoughtless to me.

First thoughtless aspect is the idea that the firm should automatically pay for anything that relates to work.  Why?  You need certain clothes for work, should they buy that too?  You need lunch, should they buy lunch?  OP wants a safer commute, why can't she just pay for it out of her salary . . how do we decide what's an employer cost?  Seems to be no examination of that question.

Second thoughtless aspect is the sense of morality attached to it.  These are basic economic decisions.  Firms pay for certain things because of efficiency, not morality.  There's nothing moral about covering your health insurance . . if the firm didn't cover it, you'd cover it yourself with your income.  But the firm covers it because it's cheaper to do it as a group.  

The reason the firm covers rides home is that it's extra compensation for those who are stuck at the office late.  They don't cover your ride home if you get out earlier.  If they did, I think you'd have more of a point there.

The most thoughtless aspect to me is this idea that the firm can give you something extra without any cost to you.  Your pay is absolutely lower today than it would be if your firm didn't provide benefits.  If they provide more, you make less.  So, per my previous paragraph, they cover what's efficient to cover and you take care of the rest yourself.

 

You’re trying to construct a slippery slope where none exists. OP isn’t asking for work clothes or food to be paid. OP is simply asking to be provided some sort of safe transportation (can even be a company bus) to and from the office so she can actually make it to work safely and not get shot at, assaulted, or robbed in the process. Buying a car is unrealistic because a lot of buildings which juniors can afford don’t have enough (if any) parking spaces due to the density of the city and even the office may not have enough parking in reasonable proximity. 

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It's actually incredible to look at how bad NYC got under DeBlasio.

I remember when he was elected, a few friends said "hope he doesn't screw up New York" or something to that effect.  I told them don't worry, 8 years isn't enough time to do to that.  The city is too big, the way of life is too established . . he can do some damage but won't screw the place up.

I was so wrong.  What a change.

 

As someone who grew up and still lives in Queens and commutes to Manhattan, the problems I see are pretty much confined to what transplants ironically believe are the nice parts of NYC and don't venture out of. Of the 22 times someone has tried to mug me/threaten me/intimidate me all are in relatively well-known neighborhoods like the UES, LES, Tribeca, etc. Kinda ironic. 

 

"but maybe some noise from junior bankers is what we need to make this happen"

BBs the next day: "We are excited to announce unlimited uber rides for our upper senior management only due to the rise in violence throughout the major cities we have a presence in. Thank you Juniors for raising concern"

 

Be careful not to fall for the news' over-sensationalizing of 1 or 2 cases as a broad indicator of where crime is vs. where it was in the past. To ease your mind, take a look at the below link. The actual crime stats by year of the city, especially looking at the Manhattan precincts. Crime is ticking up in some places, ticking down in others. But more importantly, the numbers aren't dramatically higher than previous years (e.g., 2010-2019 averages) to warrant this much concern. In other words, if you are concerned about your safety in 2022, then why weren't you concerned living in NYC in previous years? It wasn't like the city was super-safe pre-COVID. I lived in Manhattan 2018-2020 as an Analyst and was chased by a crazy once and almost robbed outside my building another time. Someone got stabbed by a homeless inside their building on 46th street about a week after I moved in during August/September 2018. It's the city, brother, that's what happens in the city. Don't let that get to your head. Just be street smart and keep an eye out. You'll be fine.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/stats/crime-statistics/historical.page

 

The fact that you were chased or someone got stabbed pre-COVID is irrelevant to what OP is saying. OP is saying the subways are a lot less safe (true) and they would like a reasonable solution if commuting is still the expectation. There used to be a standard of a safe commute (hence paying for taxis home late at night) and OP now believes the pendulum has swung enough that this should apply for the morning commute as well.

As things change in terms of safety, is not unheard of banks changing policy to ensure safety. Just like when COVID hit and banks told people to stay home to stay safe, would send tests to their employees, etc. If a riot broke out in the city, banks would tell employees to stay home in order to be safer and would not say "we pay you so you should come in, that's the deal you've accepted."

You might disagree that the subways are less safe, which is a different story. Based on the last several months, I do agree the subways are less safe. I think banks should provide a commuting stipend that could decrease based on compensation tiers. Banks have increased profitability - having the pendulum swing to an additional benefit like this isn't such a bad idea. Letting someone who makes 600k spend an extra 7500 per year on a commute is fine. Giving something to the 22-year old who makes 125k would be helpful

 

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