City
TTC Management to All Employees: "Our Customers Deserve Better"
TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster has just issued a stern statement to all Toronto Transit Commission employees concerning their roles in "allowing the TTC to drift into a culture of unacceptable operating discipline." In a rather rare move, the commission has also decided to share this full statement with the media.
Webster's memo suggests that rather than being reactive on a case-by-case basis and hoping that the few bad apples get the picture and adjust their behaviour, the commission will instead move to broadly reinforce that "employees need to be held accountable for their poor performance." He continues by firmly stating that the "culture of complacency and malaise that has seeped into our organization will end."
The statement follows a string of several recent highly publicized incidents involving poor performance in the realm of customer service, and what's resulted in a serious downward spiral in public sentiment towards the employees of our troubled transit system, calls for action including a Passengers' Bill of Rights, and web sites expressing frustration.
It's also unfortunately created a tense us-versus-them mentality that's turned your average Joe and Jane transit users into a mini-army of roving citizen reporters trying to record and blow the whistle on workers perceived to be slacking or inconveniencing riders.
I can image that much like in the photo above, TTC management have been driven up the wall with the outpouring of complaints and negative media attention. Hopefully this statement has some positive impact on both employee performance and the public's view. In the very least, it demonstrates that a call for action is coming from the top.
It'll also be interesting to see if Amalgamated Transit Union 113 head Bob Kinnear has a rebuttal to issue to the members of the union or the ridership - a response more official than this claw-back Tweet from a new, unconfirmed "ATU113" Twitter account.
Read the full statement below:
Our Customers Deserve Better
February 6, 2010
I don't know about you, but I am becoming increasingly tired of defending the reputation of the TTC; tired of explaining what is acceptable and what is not; and tired of stating the obvious: that much of the behaviour being reported is, indeed, unacceptable.
You have heard me say that I am proud of the TTC. I still am, but I am not proud of what we have been dealing with over the last several weeks.
Two weeks ago I said that the vast majority of TTC employees care about the organization and do a good job, but we can all do better. I asked everyone to respond well. Some of you did. Clearly, some of you did not.
We all have to accept responsibility for allowing the TTC to drift into a culture of unacceptable operating discipline. In other words, we have deemed it acceptable for some employees to not do all aspects of their jobs.
We have two choices. We can continue to react to issues, deal with individual employee problems, and hope that the rest of our employees get the message, behave themselves and not get caught doing something they should not be doing.
The other choice, and the one we are going to take, is a much broader approach. Expectations need to be clear, especially for frontline employees. And employees need to be held accountable for their poor performance.
We are in the customer service business, but some of the behaviour our customers have encountered recently would suggest otherwise. Our customers pay a fare and the City provides hundreds of millions of dollars every year to the TTC. This public transit agency belongs to the very people we serve.
As Chief General Manager, I am ultimately accountable to our customers. As employees, you - and you alone - are accountable for your actions. The culture of complacency and malaise that has seeped into our organization will end. I hold all of management responsible to make this happen. Reviews and plans are under way to address systemic issues regarding customer service, but real change starts with you.
Gary Webster
Chief General Manager
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Photo: "CT Tram" by v i p e z.
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I am continually amazed at the lack of basic manners some TTC employees have. From brusque replies, to downright laziness, this has to stop. We need to remember that WE are the customers, and even though they have the monopoly, it doesn't mean they have any right to do this.
(last example for me was the other night when a short-turning 506 driver informed me at 2am that he didn't care when the next car was coming, that he was going home to sleep. He then shut the doors and left. I am a woman - traveling alone. Not only rude, but inconsiderate).
It happens daily, to everyone I know.
There are some fantastic drivers out there (and collectors, other staff). But the bad apples have spread the rot. Is it really so hard to smile? Is it really that difficult to be helpful or courteous?
In this day and age when so many are unemployed, they should be grateful, and they should remember that if they don't like being in customer service they should transfer out of the public eye. They are making our city an embarrassment.
(excuse this if it has been mentioned ad nauseum already here or elsewhere)
Firstly, I appreciate that folks at the TTC are beginning to take ownership of the problems noted in Gary Webster's letter, although it does sound a bit like damage control and telling people what they want to hear. That said, me and some friends sat down and came up with this:
We can live with the odd TTC employee taking a nap on the job. We do it sometimes, too and good coverage appeared this week on the value of napping as related to overall/longterm productivity and performance...
We can live without a trip planner app. We see its great value, but it seems like a second-tier problem right now.
We can live without knowing when the next train will arrive in the remaining stations that lack the screens. We know that it will be there relatively soon.
We can live with grandstanders, buck-passers and other things of this nature surrounding the TTC problem, which, btw, seem equally embarrassing as being caught on camera napping at work....
We can even live with the fare increase.
But we can't live with the consistent and seemingly terminal lack of cleanliness in subway cars and vehicles, stations, turnstiles, escalators, etc. We remembered that these days, the issue is greater than ever since our fair city must contend with flu, bedbug epidemics, and who knows what else.
As customers, we think vast improvements with TTC cleanliness would be the first valuable step to overall resolution.
I care about the fact that I waited a half hour in the cold at 3 am at Jane and Bloor to have the finally-arriving bus drive right past me, me waving, without so much as a glance at the stop, a drop in speed or even a slight veer towards the sidewalk and away from the left lane he was driving in. Cost me $20 to basically follow the SOB home in a cab, but without getting close enough to get the vehicle number and with a black-hole complaints process, I know full well there's no chance that employee will be punished or I will be compensated. And the driver knows that too, and were I a more vulnerable and more broke person, I couldve been actually endangered by this.
I've definitely moved into the Fire Them All school of thought on this joke of a "service."
BUT I need them to be quick and reliable - I want the bus to come when it's supposed to. What good does it do me when I'm standing there in the cold for an hour?
I want the subway to take me to my destination without delay. (I know I sound like Jack, but) if this is somewhere else in the world, any service delay would probably go on the news, and heads would probably roll, and the same kind of thing would not repeat itself again.
Either increase reliability, or lower fares.
Economically speaking, unions create inefficiencies in the marketplace. To be effective, management must have to ability to manage their workforce as they see fit. This includes hiring and firing at their discretion (obviously must be in line with labor laws, etc.). By removing that ability, unions are tying the hands of management and make it impossible to run an efficient business.
Unions make sure that inefficient workers remain in jobs that are not suited to them. If those workers were fired, they would have to find work elsewhere, eventually landing in a job that is more suited to them, in which they will be efficient and productive. This type of movement with the marketplace provides benefit to the workers, and to society as a whole.
Unfortunately, most people will never understand this, and so unions will continue to hinder efficiency and productivity.
40 minute waits ARE UNACCEPTABLE!!
It's all here-say, I grant you that. But from what I've heard, and the decades of absolute and utter waste, it's no wonder why our transit system is in the state it's in.
PS: about the only thing that will prove that the TTC means a commitment to service is to reduce fares. If New York and Chicago can charge $2, so can Toronto.
More than anything, I think the TTC needs it's feet held to the fire for a sustained period. They need to know just how far they've fallen from grace and how angry riders are as a result. More importantly, they need to know how disappointed we are in the ranks for letting something we once cherished into a laughingstock.
Sure...everyone fucks up at some point at work and drops the ball at work. So I'm willing to give Gary Webster and the TTC the benefit of the doubt. But I have to start seeing real change, and effective immediately. Otherwise, there thousands of people out there who have stories like mine and whose patience has long run out. Most of them have cameras, and all of them have the abiltity to call/write/visit the TTC and let hellfire fly.
So yeah, Gary, I appreciate the gesture. Now rally the loyal, decent, hard-working rank-and-file that make up the bulk of your staff, beatdown the inevitable blowback from the neanderthal union heads, and turf any idiots at any and all levels who can't (or won't) change with the times. Oh, and prepare to tough-out a long frosty spell with the average rider; we want to be proud of the TTC again...you just have to earn our trust back first.
As for LEE's comments...I don't think we should waste any time debating what thigns our our wishlist get addressed, and in what order. I think we simply demand better from every single TTC employee, and watch as the rising tide of professionalism floats ALL wants/needs higher.
Let me tell you what happens in a unionized workplace. Management sits back and does nothing aside from becoming experts in blaming the union for everything negative that happens and still taking credit for their "leadership" for everything positive that happens. The truth is, in a unionized work environment, union and management form a terrible symbiotic relationship where NEITHER party does any real work aside from blaming the other party as a full-time job. Yes, unions are bad, but guess what? Managers in a unionized environment are even worse parasites (or at a minimum equal partners in crime).
Having a good understanding of economics doesn't equate to tunnel vision. However, your lack of understanding about the inefficiencies that unions introduce into the marketplace (not sure why you put it in quotes? You, as well as every other living person, is an active participant in the marketplace) is, almost by definition, tunnel vision. Whereas I look at the whole picture objectively, I suspect you like to ignore objectivity in favour of emotional thinking. What you fail to realize, is that if these lazy TTC employees were fired, you would be providing them with the opportunity to find a job that they love, and thus would be effective in it. By shielding these employees from the marketplace, the union is doing more harm to them than good.
Please visit
http://ttccentral.weebly.com/
I have personally written you about problems from empty, idling buses in the summer to the lack of repair of tracks resulting in corrugation, vibration and noise for 10 years and more. Have you ever responded? NO. Your own assistant was shocked when I spoke with her and assured me you would call... 7 months ago.
Your staff behave like yourself and other TTC execs. They slough off every comment, complaint or request. You have demonstrated by your own lack of response that that is the way to treat customers. And you do it every day. Nothing matters to TTC but itself. Not safety, not customers, not service. Just a lot of Brad Ross spin.
Your culture and its leadership are to quote Archie Bunker 'dead from the neck up'. Nothing will change on the TTC until you and your staff are all replaced.
If I sound angry at you I am because you personally failed me no differently than all your rude, sleeping, entitled staff.
it's one of the rules of crisis management, never lie and never release a statement that you can't back up.
"In an email to media outlets, TTC spokesman Brad Ross said that the commission won't be responding to any more interview requests and would not comment on photos or videos taken by riders."
basically he is saying, our drivers attitudes suck and we have run out of excuses.
I'm also a fed up rider who experienced (and will continue to experience) the multitude of delays with late trains and buses. Almost daily, I've witnessed riders asking for directions only to get yelled at or ignored by TTC personnel.
unfortunately, I don't see how this problem can be fixed since none of them can be fired. So let's keep our video phones on standby because it's our only way to keep the lazy and arrogant, union somewhat honest.
And I can't help but make one comment about the subliminal Giambrone manipulation in that statement..
"As Chief General Manager, I am ultimately accountable to our customers. As employees, you - and you alone - are accountable for your actions."
It sounds a bit convenient that suddely Webster, the Chief General Manager, is "ultimately responsible to our customers". Yes yes, it's not Adam Giambrone, the Chair of the TTC...right? And then the employees, who are "accountable for [their] actions". Again, it's not Adam Giambrone's lack of leadership...right?
http://jackandcokewithalime.blogspot.com/
As bad as we sometimes have it, it could be worse.
Why, for example, did that one bus driver feel the need to take a seven minute break on his nightly Bathurst run? Could it be because he wasn't getting a break period?
Suggestion to BlogTO: create a list of 50 ways the TTC can be improved. I'd like to see them actually wear their uniforms. In some cases on the Queen streetcar, the driver is so poorly dressed that it looks like some homeless person has taken control of the 501 !
I commend Mr. Webster and, as a rider, thank him for this initial attempt to deal with those problems. Hopefully it will not be a one-time bandaid, and he will continue to push for change within this most dismal of 'public service' institutions, the TTC.
1- About 4 years ago, I was driving down Scarlett Road passing by the good old 79 Scarlett Bus and saw it pulled over in front of a KFC! There was one older lady at the back of the bus looking very confused as she was staring out the window. I could fully see the TTC driver standing in line waiting to place his order.
2- 35 Jane bus. It was night, raining hard and the bus was packed with people. The driver pulls over to a bus stop and a family gets on the bus with a baby in a stroller (this is the older bus that you had to take a couple steps to get on the bus). As the dad is struggling up the stairs, the TTC driver actually had the nerve to yell "Hurry up! I don't have all night!!!". I was SHOCKED. The man said "sorry, sorry" and hurried up the stairs with the huge stroller.
3- 79 Scarlet bus. I am halfway through the intersection, right across from my bus stop trying to catch the bus I see coming down Scarlet Road with another stranger. The bus drives past us in the pouring rain waving goodbye with a huge grin on his face(it gets worse). The lady beside me yells "asshole!" to the bus driving by. The bus driver then stops the bus. I thought he was letting me on so I ran to the bus and as I got to the door he drove off again and stopped, and made me run again. When he finally opened the door, he yells at me "you called me an asshole!" (referring to the stranger who was standing beside me at the bus stop and yelled asshole to him as he drove by waving". He finally lets me on the bus and I plead with him that I did not call him an asshole and he lectures me. I had a couple run-ins with him after..it was either he wouldn't give me a transfer when I asked or he would tell me I gave him incorrect bus fair when I totally gave him the right amount. He always gave me a hard time.
This behavior is appalling and TTC drivers are on a total power trip and think they can disrespect you and degrade you because there is no one else on the bus in charge but them.
On the subject of breaks. You cannot claim that operators do not get breaks, because labor laws require that employees get breaks. What you mean to say, is that the employees aren't getting the amount of breaks that they think they deserve, and so they are taking them anyways, knowing that the union will shield them from termination. In a non-unionized work environment, that is grounds for immediate termination, and rightfully so. If you think you deserve more than your employer is giving you, find a better job instead of stealing from your current employer. In case you didn't realize it, taking a unscheduled coffee break while on the clock is stealing from your employer. You are being paid for that time, while doing no work in return.
An employer needs to be able to fire anyone they want, provided that they abide by the rule of law (labour law in this case). This ability is necessary to ensure that businesses can remain efficient. But again, no manager would fire someone who is valuable to the organization. The only people who have to worry are the ones who aren't effective in their jobs. But those people do not deserve to be employed by that particular organization anyways. Let them find a new job in which they will be effective.
Actually James, the breaks that most TTC operators get are far less than what is typically mandated by labor laws. Some assignments don't even have any breaks built into them but the operator is expected to use judgement in taking a quick break if necessary. The way the TTC gets around the legislation is by having the union members agree to be exempt from the legislation regarding breaks. Complying with the legislation fully would require a system of relief drivers which would be extremely expensive.
Sleeping on the job and doing personal banking in the midst of a streetcar route are unacceptable. But I don't think a periodic 6-minute break (7 minutes minus 1 minute for arguing with the passengers) is unreasonable for an operator who is doing a shift with virtually no built in breaks. (Of course, the operator should COMMUNICATE with passengers about what he/she will be doing.)
The TTC may have a problem with 'customer service' of some front line. There are some problems related to the TTC being a system that isn't properly funded by the other levels of government. But it has a bigger problem in terms of the horrendous management decisions made over the years and the inability or unwillingness of TTC Commissioners (the politicians including current Chair Councillor Giambrone) to hold management accountable for using available resources wisely. The TTC's passenger count is about 1% higher than it was in 1989 -- but its staffing is 30% higher. I think the public is owed a full explanation for this beyond just the frequently cited claims that it's carrying more passengers than ever before. Yeah, there are more passenger trips -- 1% more not 30% more.
Actually gsg, this is simply untrue. If you are in fact a TTC employee/operator and you believe this to be the case, I suggest you approach your local union rep to read out to you the details of your contract. The union could no more exempt itself from laws regarding break time than it could exempt itself from laws about discrimination or minimum wage.
I just love the streetcar drivers who look at you all weird when you ask for a transfer, as though you've just said something offensive about their mother. Then they look down, slowly, move the metal triangles denoting time on the transfer pad, slowly tear off a transfer, and give it to you as though they're passing you a used Kleenex.
Then there's the look they give you: the steely-eled stare reminiscent of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry. "Go ahead, punk... take the transfer." Everytime they do this tough guy act, I feel like bursting out in laughter.. except there isn't anything funny about how pathetic the TTC has become.
What is needed is a major intervention in the organizational culture of the TTC, and this will take time, assuming - and this is a big assumption - that Gary Webster is willing to admit his own culpability in all of this, aside from his disingenuous "I'm ultimately responsible" claim.
It would be nice if the TTC put more effort in to streamlining their services for customers, instead of increasing fares and giving us nothing in return. Even the Metro Pass Discount Plan only saves people what? $10 a month? Thanks...?
Idea: Get rid of the "customer service" mentality when it comes to the employee's at the toll booths. Get rid of toll booth employee's and replace them with the systems they have in Europe. The less money spent on the TTC's "wonderful" employee's, equals more money for updates to the things that really matter; the subways and streetcars that actually transport us.
I used it last week and my problem was solved the next day. Driver was making stops on an express bus (Picking up and dropping off passengers and making coffee stops) and no problems since.
It was nice to know they are listening.
What it seems none of you know - this memo coincidentally was issued one day after another major incident: Fri Feb 5th ~3:58pm northbound Spadina line, leaving Glencairn station, subway train operator comes on over the speaker system, blows twice into it to make sure it's clear / get people's attention, and says something to the effect of, "Hey bud, do us all a favour and jump next time. Thank you."
There is nothing that can make that acceptable.
Yes, I called the TTC complaints line to report it, and someone there took down the info. Making use of the complaints line has been a challenge in the past when I've gone to use it if it's after business hours Monday - Friday, something I think they ought to fix, make more open.
As for alternatives to the TTC, there are none, which is why the system needs to shape up.
TTC employee logic defies me. How is taking photos of people slacking off "harassment"?
I believe in graduated discipline, once again because people are people and deserve second chances. I've never had to go that route with my employees because we treat each other as professionals.
The management-union system works, and I'm grateful.
That said, a lot of jobs are stressful... not having a job is stressful. So is being a paramedic, a cop (Jane and Finch, anybody), a pilot, a lawyer, etc. Any any person in media how they feel right now with all the layoffs and outsourcing to India, and the last thing you'll hear is "relaxed."
Not everyone is cut out to work for the TTC as a driver. There's no shame in admitting that.