EYE WITNESS TESTIMONY
These "quality assurance riders" are nothing but eye witnesses to behavior, and its being used against operators as a valid form of evidence.
The problem is, eyewitness testimony is one of the LEAST RELIABLE means of judging facts and events.
Who knows who these people are? Are they trained? Have they been fully psychologically tested for such a job?
TRIMET is using one of the most secretive, least reliable tactics to enforce its rules.
Personally I think its despicable, in my case in particular, I am calling the stops, but this person is saying I am not calling the stops!
ITS TIME FOR AUDIO RECORDING ON THESE BUSES, LETS STOP THIS HE SAID/SHE SAID NONSENSE, LETS GET SOME REAL FACTS HERE.
Eyewitness Testimony and Memory: Human Memory is Unreliable and so is Eyewitness Testimony
unethical - not conforming to approved standards of social or professional behavior; "unethical business practices"
wrong - contrary to conscience or morality or law; "it is wrong for the rich to take advantage of the poor"; "cheating is wrong"; "it is wrong to lie"
ethical - conforming to accepted standards of social or professional behavior; "an ethical lawyer"; "ethical medical practice"; "an ethical problem"; "had no ethical objection to drinking"; "Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants"- Omar N. Bradley
This is why I've said before...putting onboard cameras and audio - even camears facing the driver - is the best way to go.
ReplyDeleteMore often than not, the system actually PROVES THE EMPLOYEE WAS IN THE RIGHT.
When the Employee is caught doing something wrong, it's usually such a stupid and indefensible offense that at least the video clearly shows what was done that was so bad. Years ago when I was a manager at a call center I had the "privilege" of listening to one phone call where the employee (!!!) went on a two minute profanity-laced tirade on a customer. Needless to say he was termed that day...I can only remember one other such incident were an employee was terminated after a call monitoring, and the other employee had other issues (including attendance and viewing pornography on his work computer which somehow did NOT get him fired - he was already on a final warning) which led up to the dismissal.
In 15 years of working in call centers I've gotten used to being recorded - my current employer records EVERY phone call, not just a statistical sampling; and my current employer has the ability to monitor what I do on the computer at the same time as the call (previous employers had only an audio recording of the call). It sucks, sure. But it's not that difficult NOT to get in trouble if you're doing your job. It's much easier to drop the call than to go postal on an customer, or to just warn the customer that you'll drop the call to the point they want a supervisor. It's not hard to NOT look at gay porn on the computer at work surrounded by dozens of other people. It's not hard to NOT have a collection of hardcore S&M images stored on your hard drive (another past example where the fired employee actually tried to launch a wrongful termination lawsuit against us...needless to say the hard drive was archived so the "artwork" was admitted as evidence...and he was never heard from again.)
Secret Shoppers have benefits but they also have drawbacks in that they are subjective and at the end of the day there is no proof. If the "Secret Shopper" was riding in the back seat of a 1700/1800 series bus which have a generally crappy PA system (I didn't even know they had PA systems for many years) who is to say the PA system didn't work? How is the Operator supposed to test the PA system each day, are they supposed to get a spotter or station manager to go to the back of the bus? Is the Operator solely responsible for the maintenance of the bus (a different bus each day?) And...WHICH STOPS? Even the ASA announcements when available are inconsistent (and I've found out they don't announce downtown stops).
I agree, its time, full video and audio recording on the buses.
ReplyDeleteNO MORE INNUENDO AND LIES.