MNCR Conductor Apologizes to Riders about missed train

NH2060 wrote:Except that -IIRC- MNR does state in their timetables that they are not liable for shortage of equipment, cancellation of trains, etc. so Mr. Shaw's letter technically could not be seen as an "admission of guilt", no?

MNR also states in its legal mumbo-jumbo that it can change its legal mumbo-jumbo at any time. When a MNR employee sends out a letter like he did, with an admission of guilt, it would thus be considered a change in MNR's legal mumbo-jumbo, since customers would reasonably think that the employee was speaking on behalf of MNR. Thus the admission of guilt would count as an admission of guilt.

It's kind of sad that it has come to this. The way I understand it, the man made a judgment call based on his experience which told him that 99% of the time he would have been correct. This one time he was not. He's been around long enough to have a rapport with his passengers, and was compelled to apologize for the mistake. I take no issue with this. The downside is that going forward other crews will be less likely to step forward to help (everyone knows we are the LAST ones to know ANYTHING when all hell breaks loose), and will either nod and say nothing, or spit out the boilerplate line of "call customer service"...... leaving a whole bunch of people milling around a platform with no clue what to do with themselves. To me that is even worse.

cobra30689 wrote:(everyone knows we are the LAST ones to know ANYTHING when all hell breaks loose)

Actually, I think many people do not know that, and get all annoyed when the conductor doesn't give them any information.

lirr42 wrote:

cobra30689 wrote:(everyone knows we are the LAST ones to know ANYTHING when all hell breaks loose)

Actually, I think many people do not know that, and get all annoyed when the conductor doesn't give them any information.

People today are very lonely and want someone to talk to them. They are lonely and have no one to talk to but the phone. They want to hear something. So, a phone or a loudspeaker makes them happy. Sad, where we have come and public transit is now a social service.

Interesting story, and I can see both sides.

Shaw was commendable in trying to make amends with his passengers. In a work environment where many people might be tempted to do little or nothing more than the bare minimums required by their job (especially when they know they have a union backing them up), it is nice to see people who enjoy what they do and are willing to go "above and beyond" to truly serve the customers.

However, as much as it might not seem fair at first, I can agree with MNR's stance to discipline Shaw. If the railroad applauded his actions, it would set a precedent that it's okay for other employees to issue their own unofficial communications anytime they wish. And if that happens to become routine, well, first of all, passengers might get sick of it. Second of all, it opens up a whole can of worms on what kinds of material are "okay" for crew members to distribute and what's not okay. Are apologies okay? How detailed can the explanations be? Where do you draw the line on how far employees can go in terms of pointing the finger at their co-workers? What about a notice informing customers that, in addition to tickets, the assistant conductor is also selling candy bars as a fundraiser for his daughter's soccer team?

Not to mention, customers should not be expected to understand what letters are "personal" on behalf of a specific staff member, and which ones are to be considered official communications of MTA. (After all, we're talking about people who don't always know the difference between "blue" trains, "red" trains and Amtrak.) If MTA were to condone the practice, it could be considered an "endorsement" of such letters, and if someone wrote something that did somehow put a customer in harm's way, then MTA could be held responsible. God knows MTA already has a full plate of problems, and doesn't need any more.

Bottom line, Shaw had a good intention, but if MNR praised him, they'd be potentially opening the floodgates for an avalanche of PR (and potentially legal) nightmares.

pnaw10 wrote:Interesting story, and I can see both sides.

Shaw was commendable in trying to make amends with his passengers. In a work environment where many people might be tempted to do little or nothing more than the bare minimums required by their job (especially when they know they have a union backing them up), it is nice to see people who enjoy what they do and are willing to go "above and beyond" to truly serve the customers.

It has nothing to do with a big union, and doing the minimum required by the job. Train crews are often disciplined for doing their job. It's happened to me, I get called upstairs for doing exactly what is in the rules(the customer wrote that in their letter) and I still need to be re-instructed, go figure. We charge the on-board fare, a customer writes a letter, it gets put in our file. How is that fair? Call the police for unruly customer and the train ends up late, then get told don't call for police unless a crime has been committed. This just shows MNR's customer first at all costs mentality. All trains on-time, no problems, no complaints is not the way to run a passenger railroad. Try dealing with that everyday and you'll lose your motivation pretty quick. Hopefully all the shake-ups happening in MNR will bring everything back into a healthy balance sometime soon.