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Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Imagine if this was a GO train - shift's over, gotta go (And if it ever happened?)

14 comments:

Squiggles said...

Wow. That is horrible. It makes me wonder what the Union & management will say, only because this is a safety issue. Safety, not just for future drives, but passengers and equipment.

In fact, I would be surprised if this isn't in contravention of some sort of rules.

C.J. Smith said...

There is obviously more to the story but still, no matter which way Kinnear will spin it, Toronto taxpayers and all of us who put money in a TTC fare box paid for that bus and it should not have been left there.

Bicky said...

What the heck? Heads should roll over that.

Ashley said...

This does not surprise me in the least. Happens all the time on TTC, although usually the next driver is waiting and ready.

It happens with the subway too. We'll stop at a station for quite a while and then they'll announce its shift change time...

Jules said...

I know this is going to come off as anti- TTC, but the majority of TTC workers keep getting away with this crap with a slap on the wrist and they feel protected by their union so they will keep doing it.

Valentino Assenza said...

As a "faithful" TTC rider(I say that only because I don't own a car, and with less, and less faith everytime) this doesn't surprise me at all. I work in customer service, but I don't have face to face contact with my clients, and TTC drivers/operators not only have face to face contact with their customers (the public/us), but they are charged with the responsibility of getting them from point A to B.

With a transit system well over capacity, even if you do wanna be an ingrate and slack off your job at the very least should you not be aware that the public is watching? At the very minimum, aside from the "hello how are yous" and "Have a nice day" and other attributes that fall in line with general common courtesy, should you not know that people may observe you screwing the pooch every now and again?

I think it's crazy that some TTC drivers go about their job, and employ antics as though customers aren't there:

At Bay station during rush hour, coming home one night I saw two fare collectors talking about beer nuts. The gate was open to handle the influx of people, but do you think they really paid attention to everyone paying (or not paying)their fare?

Bus drivers that take buses at elevated speeds, and slam on the breaks when arriving at stops, knowing full well that someone is sitting in priority seating, and perhaps carrying a cane, and not being all that sturdy when the bus stops from 70 km/h to 0.

Streetcar drivers that just can't be bothered making announcements. Am on a route that is detouring for a month right now, and there is a 30% chance that a streetcar driver will announce the detour route before it comes up. The rest just assume that every rider on their streetcar is a regular, and knows the drill. Of course when the streetcar turns north at Coxwell, at least one person will run up to the driver and ask "what's going on?" This applies to short turns too, those of us in the Beaches that live east of Kingston Rd. on Queen consider the two words "short turn" to be profanity. I at least applaud the streetcar drivers that know they are going to short turn and tell us straight up, so we can get off or make other arrangements. But of course there is always the demographic of streetcar drivers that are 100 metres away from Kingston Rd, grab the intercom, and say "sorry folks Kingston rd. will be our last stop."

I also love the streetcar drivers that stop their streetcars to have a conversation with one another, as though, there aren't any passengers that have places t go, please continue your conversation, don't let the fact that I've paid a fare to get somewhere stop you from having this roadside chat.

Ok....I digress...sorry CJ, this has been a long comment, but all of what I have posted just scratches the surface of the "lack of" customer service I have observed. Andy Byford is right, that has to improve, the first step is to consider that customers are even part of the equation, and it would seem our bus driver that had his inconspicuous egress home, didn't consider that at all.

Anonymous said...

umm, okay, I'll come to your work come quitting time and force you to stay to do overtime.

You can't force anybody to stay past quitting time. There are agreements in place on how to deal with this situation, and that wasn't followed here. Rules are bent sometimes, and most times things work out okay.

What should have been done is the bus should have been taken out of service. The passengers should have been herded onto another bus, which from the video it seems like most of the "20" did on their own. Just a few stragglers, possibly a couple looking to scam a free ride.

Squiggles said...

And the sad thing is we were right: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/05/21/ttc-union-boss-says-driver-abandoning-passengers-in-bus-for-30-minutes-not-that-big-of-a-deal/


Quote:
“It just amazes me that people get bogged down on these little insignificant incidents rather than focusing on what’s really happening in this continuing deterioration of our system,” {Kinnear] said.

This is not little nor insignificant. And if he cannot see that, he does not deserve to be in a leadership role.

Valentino Assenza said...

@Anonymous

"...umm, okay, I'll come to your work come quitting time and force you to stay to do overtime..."

There's doing your job, and then DOING your job. Sometimes you need to captilize, that's just the way it is, especially in an industry where customer service is concerned.

Being arbitrarily forced to do overtime is one thing, but if you have a personal responsibility to a customer, or rather the public in this case, it's doesn't really require out-of-the-box thinking when it comes to responsibility.

Does my work foroe me to stay overtime? No, but if I am on the phone with a client, and the clock happens to tell me my shift is over, I don't interrupt the client and say "sorry, hold that thought I gotta go home, cheers!" disconnect the phone, and wish everyone a good night. I understand there are black and white circumstances, but extending a little courtesy, and taking a little more time to consider the customer your serving is part of your job.

I chose a job in customer service, I get dissed and slagged all the time. It can be really crappy sometimes, this is what I chose to pay my rent and my groceries. That driver chose a job with the public, and I am sure there are a lot of intricacies, and hassles that go with it, but you gotta do it. Way it goes.

I don't blame people for complaining, as I said, part of working for public transit, is working for the public, they need to be considered part of the equation, otherwise, someone gets angry and in this day and age starts shooting video.

Jules said...

Valentino it is the union mentality/attitude, there is no customer service its all about the employee. I've always worked in the private sector, and while most evenings I leave at the end of the day however if my supervisor required me to work late I would do it, and usually most private sector jobs reward you for your job performance, however with the TTC you get rewarded regardless so there is no incentive to NOT be an asshole and do your job correctly. Note disclaimer: this does not apply to ALL TTC employees or Union members.

Unknown said...

Whoa. That is a huge safety issue. How easily could that bus have been stolen? I thought Byford came to improve but apparently only internally. I have yet to see improvement in frontline employees and customer service.

Bicky said...

I would think common sense would dictate you don't abandon the bus if the relief driver isn't there.

Mr. Byford has such a monumental job of reforming the TTC. His biggest challenge will be to change the mentality of the long-time union workers who have coasted for so long. And not all employees are like that. And dealing with the politics of funding.

Anonymous said...

I can imagine if this was a GO train, because there was a post on thiscrazytrain recently about a delay causing a crew to go past their hours. Guess what happened to that GO train? Out of service.

The National Post article actually explains the system pretty well. There are relief points where the drivers change. The new drivers are supposed to be there at a certain time to catch the bus.

When the new driver isn't there on time or at all, stuff like this happens. Somebody made a choice, and it turned out wrong.

The fact remains that the old driver cannot be forced to drive in service any further if (s)he doesn't want to. The only thing the old driver can be forced to do is drive the bus out of service back to the garage.

C.J. Smith said...

That is true but I don't think a crew has simply abandoned a train, running, and leaving passengers on it.