Deke's Note: It took 90 minutes to get this ancient Mac booted up. During this excruciating interim, I pondered what to write. There's this novel that's bugging me to finish. A story my 12yo nephew began with me is becoming rusty as the lad approaches his teenth birthday. And yeah, I still write letters and postcards to a select few. I'm on vacation, yet trying to complete a long list of To-Do's before I'm back in the seat again. My Beatles Birthday approaches, and where do I end up? Back here again, where I've come to you for 11.5 years now. Old habits die hard, even when the pseudonym gave up the ghost years ago. So hold on. Deke is ready to ride again. Hop aboard, see where we end up.
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I'm disappointed so few joined us for #BANDTOGETHER2024 last month. C'mon people, it's a bandage on your doorside cheek. With a number, or initials, or blank for crying out loud. It costs you those spare bandages in your bathroom drawer gathering dust until you cut yourself on yet another sharp corner in the driver's compartment. It signifies the number of attacks on your local brothers and sisters, or initials in memory of a transit worker who died in service to their community. It's simply a statement: #nomore. It largely began here, in Portland Oregon, when our current Vice President Henry Beasley and his wife (RIP) Farida Evans latched onto an idea born in Florida by a brother who wanted to educate the riding public about violence against US. Violence which is sadly only reported by the media when blood is spilled.
Yet this red river is not the only tragic circumstance which stalks our numbers. Someone throws a drink at us because the back door doesn't open when they fail to understand how it operates. Or we're punched because we refuse service to a drunkard or other addict who cannot wait to exit our bus before imbibing. Perhaps we request a passenger's audio be silenced so we can concentrate on the sounds we need to hear, only to find a knife-wielding fist reaching around our barrier. There's also the possibility of being attacked walking to a restroom at a layover.
Many dangers we face out there, just doing our job. In Portland so far this year, transit workers have suffered 95 attacks. That we know of. Many don't report their own nightmare, because once we're clear, we're afraid what management will say. Often, it accuses us of inviting the attack because our words, uttered during a fight or flight biological response, are not customer servicey enough. Or maybe we're on our way home from a shift and are brutally attacked, to which they just brush their hands and say "We're not concerned with what happens once you're off the clock."
So, one week each year for the past seven, I don a bandage on my cheek with the number of attacks against my local beloved brothers and sisters. This year, a grand total of three, out of a thousand passengers, actually asked me what the bandage signified. When I replied, their shock was real.
Thanks, management. You want to increase ridership, understood. But at our expense? You think all your social media spouting about all your "security measures" give US any comfort? A recent poll found a vast majority of people don't feel safe on transit. Sadly, the article didn't address how transit workers feel about OUR safety. Evidently, that doesn't matter.
When you refuse, Sam Desue Jr., and the worthless Bored (sicop) of Directors, to vigorously shout even feigned outrage about the violence committed against US, we feel horribly isolated. Forgotten. Sam had no clue, after seven years of #BANDTOGETHER, what the protest was, until ATU757 VP Beasley threw a bandage on the table and explained it to him. After seven years? Give me a fucking break. If you truly didn't know, you're worthless to US, and it hurts. Every time one of us is attacked, your silence twists the knife even deeper.
Go ahead. Spout "safety" all you want. Regale us with your feeble attempts, but when an operator suffers fear 40 minutes waiting for cops to respond to their terrified pleas for help while dealing with a violent passenger, you fail. When you force an operator to retire because the injuries they suffered from an assault prevent them from continuing their decades of service, you fail. When you take the side of a complaining "anonymous" passenger about how an operator dealt with a prickly situation, you fail. When you stop responding to my emails and one of your underlings tells me to stop writing you, yeah... you fail. When your riding public still feels unsafe on transit, you get the drift. Didn't stop you from getting a much more generous raise this year than WE did.
Sympathy after the fact pales to the power of empathy beforehand.
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Meanwhile, roll safe brothers and sisters. Don't continue in service if you're attacked. You have the right to recover, and I urge you to insist upon it. Otherwise, you'll have a constantly-replaying movie rolling in your mind's eye as you try to safely navigate your route. The Accident Review Board will likely assess you a Preventable Accident if you're "involved" after whatever happened previously on your route. Protect yourself, and therefore everyone who rides with or around you. Call it a day when something pierces your safety net.
THANK YOU to those of you who participated. Hope to see you and more next September. God willing and my ghost doesn't fly off, I'll do it again.
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