[PRCo] Re: Boarding buses and trains

[John Swindler]

>Bob Rathke commented:
>
>
>The Pennsylvania bus driver's lament must have resulted from some part of 
>the training for all public transportation employees.  I heard pretty much 
>the same comment from an Amtrak conductor in New Jersey in 1986 when he 
>said that Amtrak could get its trains out of the stations faster if they 
>didn't have to wait for all those passengers to board.
>
>Bob 11/13/01
>



Yes, Bob, I guess the railroad industry is somewhat legendary in that 
respect.

This might come as a shocker to those who were in the service years ago, but 
to paraphrase recent Army doctrine:

Most employees want to do a good job.

Most bus drivers and Amtrak conductors want to serve the public.  They are 
the organizations front line workers.  They are the ones who have face time 
with the customers.

When employees say that keeping on time is more important, I bet that 9 
times out of ten they have been criticized in the past for not running on 
time, but never heard any comment about helping the customer. (the ratio is 
three ata-boys equals one criticism)

Therefore, the problem is not the driver or conductor, but clueless 
supervisors who don't understand the organization's mission.  Or how to 
supervise.  Yes, running on time is one of the employees tasks, but is it 
the primary mission??  Is it running on time or providing transportation??

Am tempted to make a link with public operation of 'demonstration rides' at 
trolley museums, and railfans who think they are there to play motorman, but 
suspect most of you are fed up by now with my bad attitude.

Sorry, Bob, for rambling.

John



>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "John Swindler" <j_swindler at hotmail.com>
>
>Or the bus driver in Scranton (or maybe it was Wilkes Barre; whatever) who
>complained that it
>wouldn't be so difficult to run on time if not for all these passengers.
>
>
>


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