The Tragedy of Managerial Failures

Deke's Note: This is just a precursor of what's to come. I'm just getting started.

A bus operator was driving her route this week, and without warning, a bat-wielding assailant swings at her, saying he's going to bash in her brains. Luckily, he misses. Hits the computer box, knocks out communications. It's only by the grace of God and/or a healthy dose of luck her brains weren't splattered all over the dash.

What does our agency say about the incident? She wasn't actually hit. No harm, no foul, basically.

If he had made contact, we'd probably be mourning a murdered operator, and likely some injured passengers because of a bus crash. Given management's cruel and foolish behavior of late, I have to believe they would blame the operator after a sham "investigation." Its only goal today, it seems, is to save itself from the spotlight shining on its own incompetence. It has failed us too many times, and I'm sick to death of our falling under the bus that management pushes us in front of.

In no other job that (I've heard of) are employees punished after being attacked. This agency has shown a criminal neglect of its frontline workers' safety for several years, and it's only getting worse. More of us are showing signs (myself included) of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, yet management scoffs at us as if we're just crybabies. On many occasions, they've waved it off, as if PTSD isn't even a factor when operators defend themselves. In no other profession are workers disciplined for protecting themselves, except Portland's transit operators. Evidently, we're supposed to sit there and simply put up a hand to deflect whatever unwarranted violence the pampered public is allowed to dish out.

I don't see any of these corporate misfits in any danger, hiding inside their cushy ivory tower lofts. They don't deal with the horrid few who take delight in our management's cowardice, practicing mayhem on those of us who ferry them safely to and fro. Management personnel are not threatened with knives, spit upon, held at gunpoint, pummeled with fists, or threatened with bats and other implements of human destruction. In the course of their overpaid positions, they don't feel the sting of shouted insults. We are thusly mistreated, often several times each day. While doing our jobs. Yet, management has the unmitigated gall to judge US, as if we caused the mayhem to begin with.

One night on my break, a police officer told me he'd never do my job. "You're unprotected," he said, shaking his head and looking at the ground. "Someone comes at me, I have the means, and permission, to protect myself. You have only your wits."

Emergency responders, and those in hospitals who also deal with any and all people, know what it's like to be victims of violence. It's rampant madness in today's world, where it was once random and not as constant.

There are no videos to instruct the public how to prepare, or behave, upon public transit. There are only signs with ridiculous slogans in and outside our rolling offices. Local law officers either refuse to enforce traffic safety, or simply ignore it and practice illegal driving habits at will, often around our buses. In turn, the motoring public thinks it's okay to zip around a flashing "YIELD" signal. The city either has no clue about the woeful conditions their pitiful lack of road planning and engineering have resulted in, or they simply don't care. Apathy abounds within our ranks and all around us. Our pleas for support are scorned, given the woeful lack of coverage and concern in all corners of society.

The motoring/bicycling public is especially guilty. We're the victims of road rage on a constant basis. Even though a vehicle can easily overtake us each time we service a stop, they're loathe to allow us our legal right to merge back into the roadway. I was flipped off five times today, shouted or honked at, and cut off at least a dozen times. If I honk in return or respond, I'm subject to discipline. Hordes of entitled miscreants constantly call in complaints, often blatantly ignoring the truth just to punish us, even when we save their unappreciative and dishonest asses. What happens then? A suspend-happy management happily obliges them. To whom are we allowed to complain, and what are the consequences to others who offend? Nobody, and nothing.

Portland transit is no longer a family. Management has cast us off to the bloodthirsty rabid wolves, utterly abandoning their duty to protect us from harm. Not only that, they claw us bloody, giving the wolves our scent as we lie waiting to be killed.

One day each year, they make a big play at a "Driver Appreciation Day." Given the remaining 364 days we're drawn and quartered in the public square of putrid opinion, I'd rather be gored by a raging bull than acknowledge this pitiful display of false love. It's more a day of themselves patting each other on the back for pretending to appreciate us. If they spent as much effort on a daily basis making us feel valued as professionals who make local economies tick, I might feel different. Instead, we're treated like the trodden-upon characters in a Dickens novel.

"This is the best job I've ever had," my brother Ken told me when I was a newbie. "But it's the worst company I've ever worked for." In my blog and subsequently the book, I wondered whether those words would someday ring true. It has finally happened. Management has succeeded in that singular dagger to my hope Ken's was a solitary voice drowned out by a multitude of compassion and reason.

Management, you've failed us. If you had any honor whatsoever, you'd resign. All of you. Immediately. Let those who make the wheels roll do the job, as we're the only ones capable of avoiding the carnage you've subjected us to.

I've never been afraid to go to work before now. In almost 50 years of employment, I feel isolated and unprotected by those charged with my well-being on the job.

Gee, thanks. Oh, and you're welcome for that free and SAFE ride your undeserved benefits afford you. Still, shame on you. We deserve MUCH better.