Do We Need That Little Herder At The Turnstiles In The Metro Telling Me To Hurry? A Question to the STM.
Today, once again, entering the Montreal subway aka The Metro, I was confronted with something that boggles my mind. This person, this employee is sitting there on a stool behind the turnstiles looking at us go buy. No clipboards to take notes, no clicker to increment to count the passengers, nothing, just sitting there. Sitting there seemingly doing nothing. Again.
Last Friday, there she was again, only this time she was blocking a tourniquet but yelling at people to hurry up and go through the remaining turnstiles. What the fuck? What is her purpose? She obviously serves none.
This to me is obvious. They are overstaffed and the union refuses to let anyone go so they will find work, any kind of work, to keep them busy, as long as they don’t fire someone. But seriously, they keep hiking the price of our Metro/Bus passes so we can keep paying for someone to yell at us to get through the turnstiles faster?
Please STM, this is Montreal, everyone is always in a hurry, we don’t need to be told to move it. So I wrote them an e-mail, in French, to ensure a quicker response.
from DAVE <mymail@mail.com> 12:06 pm (19 minutes ago)
to commentaires@stm.info
date Oct 16, 2007 12:06 PM
subject Que Fait Cet Employé?Bonjour,
En tant que contribuable et utilisateur de vos services je pose aujourd’hui une question.
Quel elle la tache spécifique de l’employé du métro qui fait qu’elle ou il doit d’assoir sur un banc derrière les tourniquets et nous regarder passer? Si elle ou il n’est pas assis sur un banc, elle ou il bloque le passage d’un tourniquet pour nous encourager comme du bétail à passer plus vite a travers les tourniquets. Ceci est de un insultant, bien sur car nous ne somme pas du bétail mais des êtres humain a part entière et de deux elle ralentit le flux du passage en bloquant un des tourniquets.
Et ce n’est pas pour assurer que nous passions tout nos cartes, nos tickets, car bien souvent ce surveillant se trouve a jasé avec les agents de sécurité ou bien d’autre employé de la STM. De plus les utilisateurs n’ont certainement pas besoin de « coaching » sur l’utilisation des tourniquets ni d’encouragement pour se rendre au train, car croyez-moi tout le monde est tout le temps pressé dans le métro comme si c’est le dernier qui va passer.
Alors quel est la signification de ces employés assis sur un banc a nous observé passé et nous hurler après pour que nous passions plus rapidement les tourniquets.
Pourrions-nous vous hurler après pour que les autobus arrivent aux heures prévu? Ou comme a mon arrêt d’autobus qu’elle se présente tout simplement. Elle se présente 1 fois sur 3 et retarde mon arrivé a mon bureau et je dois m’expliquer a ma firme régulièrement.
Mais principalement je veux des réponses. Je vous remercie de l’attention que vous portez à ce courriel et j’attends impatiemment vos réponses.
–
D A V I D D E S J A R D I N S
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I know that the guys that mop the floors make more an hour than I do, so I can imagine, what the little lady sitting on the stool makes. Gotta love those damn unions where a mop-pushers makes more than college educated freaks and I’m sure the mop-pusher didn’t spend ten’s of thousands of dollars on education loans to get his salary, but I digress. So why are public funds being wasted paying a salary so someone can sit there looking at people go through turnstiles?
Waiting for an answer from the STM, hope I get one.
It could be the turnstile was broken and they just hadn’t gotten around to fixing it or putting something in front of it to block it yet.
The STM is in the middle of replacing turnstiles in all its metro stations, and that requires a lot of hands. Just because someone was standing for those 30 seconds you passed through the turnstiles doesn’t mean she was doing it the whole day.
Your conspiracy theory, though righteous, doesn’t fit the facts. The STM is experiencing a labour shortage, and has been working overtime hiring and training new bus drivers and other employees. It doesn’t make sense for them or their union to assign someone a mindless task unless it was important.
Fagstein, no. And I’d hardly call it a conspiracy theory also.
I see all the time and in MANY DIFFERENT stations. Someone is just sitting there, looking at people going through, seemingly doing nothing at all other than just watching, or then yelling at people to walk through quickly, herding us.
People who work in ticket booths and people who drive buses or the metro trains have very different skill-sets. Can’t take a ticket person and make them drive a bus. And having worked in union environment, you can’t tell someone to take on a job he doesn’t want to take on but you can’t fire them either.
Sometimes it might seem like I’m not doing much either, but I am!! So looks can be deceiving…
But you’re right… it seems fishy here.
Theres a difference between not doing much and not doing anything. Seriously do you need to be told to hurry through the turnstiles?