The Truths Behind Dispatch

Guest editorial

Recently, I lost my cellular device on a linetrain 12 out of Powell. I happened
to see a "white shirt" aka Road Supervisor down the road, and flagged him down.
We located the device, and returned the the rightfully owner, myself.
White Shirt was good enough to ask where I was headed, upon informing him, I
found I needed to do double time to catch the last 77 to get to my hotel.


Double time, made it across from the stop with it coming so I waved it down and
blinked it down with my light. It stopped for me, thankfully. Half way down,
the Bus Operator looked at me and said "where you headed?" Come to find out,
I got on the wrong direction and had actually missed the bus to the hotel.
Those white shirts gave me the directions to my bus stop, as I am from out of
town. The bus operator was nice enough to say "here catch this bus over here, that
driver will try to help you catch the last 77" so I tuck and roll off the bus
double time across the street and teleport myself to the next bus, a 15. Sadly,
that bus operator had told me that 77 is long gone, and I'm stuck. So how am I
going to get over to that hotel? In a fright, I called upon my parents, whom
are retired Tri-Met Bus Operators. They sadly could not come to my rescue, due to
medical reasons. The 15 bus operator overheard my desperate pleas to my parents,
and said "its ok, I will get you home."

He called dispatch, and asked for a detour upon his deadhead. A female dispatch
declared she knew who I was and this was the last time they would do it for me.
They have no clue who I am, and I was wrongfully accused by a dispatch personell
of being a troublemaker! Seriously, would a dependent cause trouble when they
know hell would be raised by their parents and never live it down? Dispatch lady,
you do not know who I am, and you do not know whom my parents are. If you did,
you sure would know not to go around judging, being rude,  discriminatory.
You would know you do your job the right way or the highway.
In my lifetime, I have only called dispatch personally twice, the last being
after the 9/11 attacks when I was wrongfully accused as a "dangerous" person by
an operator due my breaking the silence of a dead quiet bus to see if I missed my
stop. The other time was when the last 94 was 4 hours late to the end of the line.
I remember that funny day, calling dispatch for the ten of us. Dispatch had the
nerve to actually ask me if I was sure it was missing, and if I didn't just miss
the bus. I quipped "would it miss ten of us? surely, ten of us can't be imagining
the same thing" and the guy located the bus and found it was just 5 minutes away.

If the dispatch lady surely does know who I am, I have news for her and all of
the spies. I know all your gossip, I know how you'd like to just sit on your
tush and be busy bodies nose rubbing persons. If you hacked into my personal
technology, you are breaking the law. If you hacked into Al's webpage, you are
breaking the law. If you spoofed anything, you are breaking the law. You have been
warned, you have been found, you have been located. You've been put on the radar.
I sure hope your all your technology is up to date, or is it? It could be some
glitch you are experiencing on your end. The lagging you think is a glitch, or
is it?

Now, we, all employees and family members of Tri-Met are family. Would you like
your loved one or perhaps yourself treated this wrongfully? Do you believe in
innocent until proven guilty? Do you believe in justice? How would you feel if
you were belittled in front of a Tri-Met employee? Not so great, huh? Well, I
nor my family did not appreciate it either.