Toronto Uncovered

photo via BlogTO

The TTC has taken a pretty hard hit lately: workers sleeping on the job, their chairman caught in one sexually scandalous lie after the next, a Facebook group lashing out at TTC riders, videos of blatantly rude drivers; and all of this after a substantial and hotly contested fee hike.

TTC employees,  TTC management and the union are being called into question, and rightly so. I take the TTC to and from work everyday by way of the King streetcar.  I don’t expect perfection, but  I do expect to a) get where I am going and b) be treated with respect.  A is usually satisfied, although I still don’t understand how 15 streetcars can go by in one direction while you wait over 30 minutes for one in the opposite direction. But that’s a subject for another post.

TTC drivers are taking a brunt of the backlash as they are the featured “stars” of these videos and photos. My feelings on this are as follows: There are definitely times throughout the day when I might feel like curling up and taking a nap, or dropping the phone mid conference call and running to get a doughnut, but guess what? I have responsibilities and a job and I act accordingly. I also feel that if I have a question for a streetcar driver about an upcoming stop, I should be answered with respect, minus the attitude. At the end of the day, TTC employees are working and we, the riders, are their clients – it is fair that we expect to be treated as such.

All that said, there are also TTC employees that are amazing – funny, nice and even personable. These guys get the real shit end of the stick, branded with the same cloth as their less than stellar counterparts. Despite the bad rep the fact that they probably put up with way more shit than we could ever imagine, they are friendly and even manage to maintain a sense of humour. They deserve to be rewarded.

With the influx of mobile applications I would love to see a rewards system put in place which works to highlight impeccable service and point out employees not meeting expectations.  I would definitely input information via my smart phone on good vs bad experiences and drivers. People are already tweeting about it all the time – why not create a systemic solution using mobile communications? This would serve to reward those who truly do go above and beyond, penalize those who are taking their frustrations out unnecessarily and re-empower a public who feels they are currently paying for a service that doesn’t take into account their basic requirements.  Lets face it, a stern memo to workers about their recent behaviour isn’t going to cut it! We need something more compelling, that gets everyone involved.

What do you think??