[PRCo] Re: Labor Issues, Transit Politics & C.D. Palmer

[Fred Schneider]

I wish I had not deleted it ... a note from Harold Geissenheimer a week ago saying that
Fitzgerald and Palmer were two different cats.  It would be relevant here.

Palmer was an engineer in a job that required a people person.  The Pittsburgh Post
Gazette did not help the problem by  invariably publishing pictures of him with a frown
on his face.

Another interesting study would be how the quality of job applicants for management
positions in transit changed from 1900 to 1950 to 2000.  Maybe I should say applicants
for any job.  By the time you compare those applicants to applicants for all jobs you may
just have created a double doctorate degree!   You can only hire those who want jobs.
The business may also have been long on benevolence, protecting those who had been with
the company for years even as the staffing needs collapsed, and promoting people into
positions they didn't deserve just to avoid furloughing them.   I remember a wonderful
story of a motorman here in Lancaster (Pa.) who was unable to function on one man cars.
He could run car.  He could collect fares.  But he could not do both.  He became a
nervous wreck.  So the company created an extra janitorial position.

Ken & Tracie wrote: