Heated clash breaks out on TTC streetcar between passengers, driver, & supervisor

[youwontknow]

TTC supervisor won't face discipline for allegedly grabbing rider's camera

http://www.citytv.com/toronto/cityn...cipline-for-allegedly-grabbing-rider-s-camera

The supervisor should be fire for losing his temper no excuse and to repay the damage he CAUSE on the camera.

 

[Ms.FemmeFatale]

It's okay for her to ask that question, but I don't know how much of an explanation he owes her other than that shit happens in public transit. It's not like the TTC is her personal taxi or limousine service. But to ask her to leave is kinda silly too unless she was very disruptive to the other passengers or the service.

That is the key to it all right there. She has the right to ask, but his explanation doesn't have to be anything more then courtesy and politeness. Like the parking attendant. I was wrong in the way I read the sign, but as someone who is working for that company and servicing people, he should have said, "It is $10, plus tax" Not "Learn to read or look again"

All the TTC driver had to say was "Sorry ma'am. Traffic" If she carried on bitching, yelling, not yelling but being rude, then he would have been well within his right to refuse her service, call the supervisor and be given the support of civilians like me.

Again, my opinion is simply based off of these two articles so I will still reserve judgement completely.

TTC supervisor won't face discipline for allegedly grabbing rider's camera

http://www.citytv.com/toronto/cityn...cipline-for-allegedly-grabbing-rider-s-camera

The supervisor should be fire for losing his temper no excuse and to repay the damage he CAUSE on the camera.

This honestly does not surprise me.

 

[Captain Fantastic]

I have to disagree. I think that if they {TTC} are really serious about changing their ways and their image, they should be welcoming the cameras. It gives them a chance to show how they handle things better now then before. What better way to make people better aware of the change and the "abuse" that they put up with on a daily basis?

And that would be fine except that the cameras that have been used to show TTC employee behaviour are being held by the public and often don't show the whole exchange - normally only after things have escalated. The onboard cameras on vehicles have no sound, so they don't help either, so everything up until there is full audio-video cameras on board is simply anecdotal.

Re-learning and re-training an entire workforce takes time. Changing a culture is difficult, if not impossible. And unfortunately, there are those in the union and TTC management that are resistant to change. It takes time to weed them out, too.

Everyone has a bad day, even the best employees, and the job TTC drivers have is stressful (ever drive in the city? now take into consideration the size of the vehicles and the responsibility of others' safety...) and generally thankless.

I would like to see full A-V cameras on board every vehicle and would love to see the bad seeds fired instead of being protected by the union, but we're nowhere near that point yet. I take the TTC almost every day and Lord knows I've come across a few assholes who have no business earning public money - but they are the minority. The public, riled up by media and anti-unionists, is going out of their way to look for reasons to start conflict because of a handful of highly-publicized incidents like this one. Eventually, it will drive away competant drivers and dissuade other potentially good employees from joining.

Again, the supervisor's actions appear to be completely wrong in this instance, but that doesn't mean the majority of TTC employees are lazy, incompetant or assholes. I don't want to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater in some sort of witch hunt; I just want to see recidivist jerks fired without the union protecting them to the bitter end.

 

[Ms.FemmeFatale]

And that would be fine except that the cameras that have been used to show TTC employee behaviour are being held by the public and often don't show the whole exchange - normally only after things have escalated. The onboard cameras on vehicles have no sound, so they don't help either, so everything up until there is full audio-video cameras on board is simply anecdotal.

Re-learning and re-training an entire workforce takes time. Changing a culture is difficult, if not impossible. And unfortunately, there are those in the union and TTC management that are resistant to change. It takes time to weed them out, too.

Everyone has a bad day, even the best employees, and the job TTC drivers have is stressful (ever drive in the city? now take into consideration the size of the vehicles and the responsibility of others' safety...) and generally thankless.

I would like to see full A-V cameras on board every vehicle and would love to see the bad seeds fired instead of being protected by the union, but we're nowhere near that point yet. I take the TTC almost every day and Lord knows I've come across a few assholes who have no business earning public money - but they are the minority. The public, riled up by media and anti-unionists, is going out of their way to look for reasons to start conflict because of a handful of highly-publicized incidents like this one. Eventually, it will drive away competant drivers and dissuade other potentially good employees from joining.

Again, the supervisor's actions appear to be completely wrong in this instance, but that doesn't mean the majority of TTC employees are lazy, incompetant or assholes. I don't want to see the baby thrown out with the bathwater in some sort of witch hunt.

I understand what you are saying, however the public camera is the ONLY way to see anything, even if it is partial. TTC is not offering up their on board cameras even without sound {which body language can show a lot}, so what is the public to do. This is publicly funded money and then paid for even more by the user. It is sad that the people need to resort to this to police in a way something that is a public and very needed service.

I am all for working internally, but it is not happening. Not - it is not happening fast enough - it is just not happening.

I don't agree with painting all the TTC with the same brush and I think I said that. However, sadly even partial video is showing unacceptable behaviour. If the supervisor in this situation had handled it differently, that would have been on tape. That could have been used. Show the huge delay, show the supervisor handling the situation in a polite and professional manner. Better then what was caught on tape, don't you think?

And it has to be said. I am sorry but the "you try doing that job" bit just doesn't work. They choose to work there. I choose to sit behind a camera taking pictures of semi naked women. Not my fault I made the right choice. :eyebrows:

 

[youwontknow]

They know the union will back them up that's why a lot of them behave like this. They think there untouchable

 

[Brandon123]

Buses are late accept it, nothing you can do about it anyway. People like to start fights over little things. Was this whole situation really worth it???

 

[stinkynuts]

I'm sooo glad I don't take the TTC anymore. I've had so many personal bad experiences.

While, many TTC workers are courteous, there are many who are lazy and extremely rude.

I remember being called an idiot, being yelled at, and being ignored. Having been treated condescedingly, etc...

One time an old Chinese lady was getting on. She was just inside the bus, still on the first step, when the driver accelerated and sped off. The woman almost lost her balance. She hadn't even climbed the other steps to make it onto the bus floor. It was unbelievable.

I've had it with these assholes. In Japan, this kind of service would be completely unthinkable. Completely.

 

[S.C. Joe]

The TTC driver acts like those jerks who drive slower if somebody blows their horn at them to speed up.

If U ask why I'm late I show U and make U wait for the next car, what bull.

Normally I be on the TTC side but not this time. Good for her for standing pat--sometimes the women seem to have more guts then the men, lol

 

[stinkynuts]

Even the TTC boss if fed up with defending the rudeness and unprofessional behaviour of TTC workers:

 

[fuji]

While I'd love it if they could find people who have all of the skills we're looking for (doubtful, given that it is not a particularly high-paying job) I'd rather have a surly but competant + safe driver than a friendly incompetant any day.

What on earth are you talking about? We grossly overpay TTC employees. You would think with the exorbitant salaries and benefits we shower on them that we could at least expect to have high skilled, high quality people who understand customer service.

 

[Captain Fantastic]

What on earth are you talking about? We grossly overpay TTC employees. You would think with the exorbitant salaries and benefits we shower on them that we could at least expect to have high skilled, high quality people who understand customer service.

Maybe that's a lot of money for you but it really is quite average for Toronto, particularly given our cost of living and the fact that - like it or not (and I don't as it currently is) - it is a unionized workplace and will continue to be one in the foreseeable future.

I think the vast majority of TTC employees are like the rest of the workforce: very average with a few exceptions at each extreme end. The TTC undoubtably does a poor job of training their staff in customer service and the union does the public, itself and its members a terrible disservice by protecting the low end of the bell curve, but on the whole - and again, as someone who rides and has taken public transit a lot throughout his life - the drivers are usually very competant, if somewhat brusque and distant.

I think what we have forgotten is that people/society in general have become much more rude, less patient and generally harried and hurried. This includes TTC drivers and particularly their passengers. From my observations, customers (including non-paying riders) are equally culpable if not moreso in most incidents - and the riders are becoming worse for this type of behaviour at a faster pace than the drivers. And that doesn't even get into how the passengers interact with and treat one another. I think this is in part due to traffic congestion on surface routes without dedicated transit lanes - another problem that isn't going away anytime soon.

Sadly, I don't see it getting any better, no matter how much training TTC employees get. The only outcome I see happening is more TTC supervisor and police calls to stopped vehicles from silly standoffs like this. Hopefully CS training will take hold and the supervisors and police act better than they did in this instance...

 

[Cypher]

How much customer service training would it have taken to defuse this situation before it even happened?
"Sorry Maam, traffic is really backed up today... construction is slowing things down... not much we can do about that..."
If you react like this guy did to the initial question, you get what you get and everyone is affected and inconvenienced over nothing.

 

[d_jedi]

This is not an aberration.. this is fucking business as usual on the TTC. You have these fucking power-tripping drivers who are angry at life because the best job they could get with their high school education is driving a bus/streetcar and so they take it out on passengers (especially those who have the nerve to suggest they do their bloody job). The driver should have no right (and the absurdity is the TTC is *backing him up* on this point!!) to kick a paying customer off a streetcar because they ask a fucking question.

 

[friedrice]

Lots of snarky anti TTC comments so far. They just show that the poster has an agenda to bash unions and TTC. On the other hand, we have well articulated posts like the one above. I'm inclined to agree. Maybe its a training issue as the driver certainly could have responded in a way that would have avoided the whole situation. But then, maybe he was at the end of his shift, and the reason he was late was because he was caught in very frustrating traffic. Then this idiot lady demands to know why he was late. So he responded in an inappropriate way. He made a mistake. I think everyone needs to take it down a notch.

Actually it needs to be RAISED a notch. The TTC is for the people, not for the unions. Don't like it, get another highly paid menial job. Everything is so ass backwards when it comes to the TTC. I spoke off-the-record to one of the TTC supervisors the other day and they know their asses are against the wall, and with good reason. High paying menial jobs are simply plum in today's society so the unions are doing everything to protect themselves.

Again, remember: The TTC is for the people, not the unions. Why should I have an ounce of sympathy for a driver making 80k for a job that would otherwise pay $12 an hour.

We're so horribly docile in this country, terrified to call it like it is and offend anyone. Guess what, the woman who started this achieved her goal, which was to bring attention to the horrible and declining service of a union on its heels.

Fuck em all. Fire 'em and start fresh with people grateful to have a high paying job.

 

[middleweight]

If parking is $10 and $12 with tax, since when was tax 20%?

I used to have sympathy for those brain dead morons in those jobs but they're probably making an extra $200 per day by ripping people off with giving out wrong change.

 

[Rockslinger]

Aren't "public servants" supposed to be morally superior and held to a higher (not lower) standard.?

 

[youwontknow]

The person who lied and call the police saying the 100 pound women assaulting a 200+ pound man "supervisor" should be ashamed of him/her self do you have no moral? The poor women was only trying to film your disgraceful act. why bother me the most is the police actually believe in this person until other people step uo and told the TRUTH.

 

[OddSox]

Maybe that's a lot of money for you but it really is quite average for Toronto, particularly given our cost of living and the fact that - like it or not (and I don't as it currently is) - it is a unionized workplace and will continue to be one in the foreseeable future.

Unionized - so what? There are a lot of customer service positions throughout the city that pay half of that and expect actual customer service.

Sadly, I don't see it getting any better, no matter how much training TTC employees get. The only outcome I see happening is more TTC supervisor and police calls to stopped vehicles from silly standoffs like this. Hopefully CS training will take hold and the supervisors and police act better than they did in this instance...

Training? WTF how about firing the assholes who do this and then we can work with the 90% of the drivers who actually care.

 

[GPIDEAL]

This passenger says at the end that all he wants to do is get on the bus and be on his way, yet he stirs shit by taking a video of the bus driver who's not doing anything wrong.

Paying your fare doesn't give anyone the right to take your picture or a video of you. How many of us would like someone to go up to us and take a picture or video? What would you say?

In this case, the driver may have just said what I said and then get back to work, cuz the passenger wasn't disrupting his job but perhaps his personal privacy or space.

I'm no fan of big unions or their spoiled members (not that they all are), but not all TTC passengers are angels either.

Even the TTC boss if fed up with defending the rudeness and unprofessional behaviour of TTC workers:

 

[elwoodinontario]

I think the vast majority of TTC employees are like the rest of the workforce: very average with a few exceptions at each extreme end. The TTC undoubtably does a poor job of training their staff in customer service and the union does the public, itself and its members a terrible disservice by protecting the low end of the bell curve, but on the whole - and again, as someone who rides and has taken public transit a lot throughout his life - the drivers are usually very competant, if somewhat brusque and distant

This is not to defend the "low end of the bell curve", but every dues-paying member deserves the full protection of his/her union. As far as we can know for certain, this is this operators only incident. Yes, there may be more, but we as a collective have no proof of that. In every Collective Agreement, there are provisions for dicipline. Followed properly, there are provisions to weed out operators who are not conductive to the TTC and its mandate, to safely transport citizens.

As for being a grossly overpaid civil servant, how many here would want to drive a bus in this city, because that's where you start? Traffic? Hope you like 8 hours of it! Oh, wait. Most operators get 4 hours of it, sit around unpaid, then another 4 hours of it. The travelling public? How many jobs out there require you to sit behind a partition for your own safety? And you get all this, and more, for around $26/hour to start. Hardly a kings ransom.

There will always be people who should be working elsewhere, doing something else. I'm sure we all know someone like that where we work. I'll bet 5-10% of us ARE the person who should be working somewhere else. Slamming the system, and the 90% of the operators who do a great job, and do care about getting us around safely, doesn't do any one any favours. Want a better better way? Point out the positives as well as the negatives. Stop calling CP24 before you call a TTC manager. And relax. If your streetcar is 40 minutes late, the guy/gal sitting in the front seat is probably as stressed out as you are!