At Work, L.A. Marks a Low-Key Christmas

“Winter Wonderland” was playing softly on the stereo. A plate of picked-over ham was on the table. Presents were under a glittering, rotating Christmas tree.

But the holiday adornments offered only partial cheer for the handful of bus dispatchers holding down the Christmas shift in their sixth-floor office at Metropolitan Transportation Authority headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, wishing they were home with their families.

“Low, low, low, low seniority,” said dispatcher Dietra Thompson, 29. “That’s how you get stuck working the holidays.”

Almost everyone else was home for Christmas. But as always, there were those few people--the generous, the non-Christian, the unlucky and the all of the above--who spent Tuesday doing what they would do on any workday.

There was Lisa Schoen, who agreed to spend the day at Conroy’s Flowers in Burbank in exchange for New Year’s Day off. “I said I’d work Christmas Day because I’m Jewish so other people could spend time with their families,” she said. “Besides, what’s there for somebody Jewish to do on Christmas besides go to the movies?”

There was Teresa Fossi, who bags groceries at Ralphs on San Fernando Road in Burbank. She said she didn’t mind being on the job because her three sons are grown. “I didn’t really have anybody at the house, so I figured I’d rather be working around people than sitting there by myself,” she said.

And there was Army National Guard Spc. Carlos Garcia, who was spending Christmas in camouflage at the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro because he was ordered to.

Garcia, 33, of Bell, said he didn’t mind.

“I’ve done a boot camp Christmas, I’ve done a Persian Gulf Christmas,” he said. “This is pretty good, really. You get to go home at night knowing you’ve helped keep people safe.”

The National Guard was deployed at the state’s major bridges in early November in response to a terrorist threat that Gov. Gray Davis termed “credible” and the FBI later downplayed. On the San Pedro docks, Garcia and Sgt. Al Bevans, 37, of Corona stood beneath the high, arching span, their Humvee a few yards away and M-16s slung over their shoulders. They were dressed in jungle fatigues that failed to blend with their surroundings, but no matter--they weren’t hiding from anybody.

If terrorists were around, they were keeping a very low profile.

Both men were grateful to have spent Christmas Eve with their families. “Usually, our family opens the gifts on Christmas Day,” said Garcia, whose daughters are 7 and 9 years old. “But because I was going to be here, we did a modification, let them open the gifts on Christmas Eve.”

Many of those working the holiday required no such modification because their families don’t celebrate Christmas. In various workplaces--shops, hospitals, police stations, gas stations and newspapers--the work force Tuesday was dominated by volunteers who were Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or atheist.

Ben Benderra, a Muslim, volunteers to work each Christmas at a Mobil station in Costa Mesa so that his Christian co-worker can take the day off. “This year his mom came all the way from Syria,” Benderra, 38, said, “so I couldn’t let him work.”

Even though the Moroccan immigrant doesn’t share the religious tradition of Christmas, he said he would rather spend the day with his family. From the time he opened up early in the morning until about 10 a.m., he said, “I was here by myself. It got lonely. I called my wife.”

To make the holiday more cheerful, Benderra and his wife--who converted to Islam but has a Christian family--spent Christmas Eve with her relatives, giving presents to their children. “We still have a tree and Christmas lights,” he said. “For us it’s more about tradition than religion.”

At the Suicide Prevention Center of Los Angeles, volunteers and staff members worked around the clock, as they do every day of the year. But the volume of calls was light, unlike Thanksgiving, when the phones rang nonstop.

Volunteer Heather Rosenbaum, 27, said this is her second Christmas away from her family in Florida. While her newlywed husband watched sports at home, she came to the center for her regular four-hour afternoon shift.

“The whole message of Christmas is to help one another and love one another,” said Rosenbaum, a personal fitness trainer. “Of any day, this is probably the most important day to give yourself to other people.”

At MTA headquarters, Thompson reported to work at 4 a.m. after kissing her four children goodbye and making them promise to wait until she got home in the afternoon to open their presents. Just in case they couldn’t resist, she hid most of the gifts.

“The underwear from Grandma is out by the tree,” she said with a laugh.

The only upside about working Christmas: the usually frenetic office--where dispatchers monitor hundreds of buses around the city and respond to bus drivers’ calls for help or service--was calm.

On Tuesday, only about a quarter of the usual 2,000 buses were on the roads. A large television screen showing various intersections around the city blinked with images of empty streets. A computer terminal monitoring traffic on the streets and freeways was filled with green dots, indicating smooth drives everywhere.

“If it stays quiet like this, it will be a great day,” said Thompson.

Even the calls from the drivers were mundane. One called in to say his “check engine” light went on. Another reported a car accident on La Brea Avenue. Several said they had irritated passengers on board who had been hoping the MTA’s free Christmas Eve fare lasted through Christmas Day.

Dispatcher Mark Solomon, 46, fielded one of the few calls that came in.

“I think my bus is a rough ride,” the driver’s scratchy voice squawked over the radio. “It bounces a lot. Some of the passengers leaving the bus are complaining. Any chance I can get a new coach?”

Solomon arranged for him to trade buses on La Cienega Boulevard.

“Merry Christmas,” the dispatcher signed out.

*

Times staff writer David Haldane contributed to this story.