Well, thanks nick, I appreciate that, and I do remember that train:
"STTTTTTTTTTTTTTTOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP THHHHHHHEEEEEEE TRAAAAAAAAAAAAAINNNNNNNNNNNNNN !!!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD, I HAVE TO GET OFF OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD"................. "I know YOU weren't the one that stopped the train for me, so next time, should I just pull this handle when I leave my purse on the platform????" "NO don't do that, and YES, I was the one who stopped the train, thank you very much...." :D SHHHHHHHHHESSSHHHHHH
but I don't wanna make it sound like Im bitching and moaning here, but I have a management degree, and have run various forms of businesses and operations in my time before the railroad, a restaurant, a lawn service, a bus service, and a few other things, and I like to think I did a damn good job in what I did, and I took pride in what I do and did. But what pisses me off the most here at NJT isn't so much the non recognition from the passengers, thats almost expected, and doesn't surprise, me, but rather the management style of the company, and vast seperation that seems to exist between management and the front line employees. Instead of trying to make things better, and working together to do so, they just try to throw their "power" around even more, and make themselves look important, to save themselves and their position.
In case no one has noticed either from posts here, by me and others or from the various Star Ledger articles and reading of them between the lines, there is a major labor relations problem at NJT. Morale is probably at an all time low, and management finds something petty each week to bother us about (solid black socks, and the height of the soles of shoes) instead of focusing on REAL problems and finding real solutions (don't use crappy parts and equipment and defer maintence and maybe wheels won't fall off trains, just a thought) But God forbid if Joe Schmoe the trainman doesn't have solid black socks on....... but all this hostility trickles down. It starts at the upper management level, trickels down to the vast layers of middle management, then snowballs to the lowest layers, and finally to the guys on the bottom, the front line employees, the trainmen, engineers, ticket agents, track workers, mechanical guys, etc, and it then becomes part of them, and is reflective in the work they do, their demeaner on the train, their attitude towards the job, and really starts to permiate into the core of a person, and eventually can turn a good person sour and into a world hating cranky ol bastard who hates the world, themselves and anything else imagineable. And in the end, the final receiver of this hostiliy is the lowly passenger.
The people with heart, who have pride in themselves do their damnest to reverse this trend. There are a few members of management who I can think of off the top of my head, and there are some front line employees who I work with on a daily basis who try to do their best to not let this hostility cancer envelop them, and I KNOW that I am one of them. And there are others who post here and others who don't, that I know of adn work with that are stronger individually and overcome the almost brainwashing of bitterness, (you have to be miserable to work on the railroad, why are you happy, kid) and they are the people who still, day in and day out, come to work, do the best damn job they can, and do it, when possible with a smile on their face.
Sheesh - who pissed in my Wheaties?????
