So, Riding the Train is a Good Thing for the Commish?

‘Tis the season for new political appointees and their
dog and pony shows.

January 2, 2007 — New MTA boss Elliot “Lee” Sander will max out his MetroCard and E-ZPass over the next three months, riding all the subways, buses and trains, and crossing all the bridges and tunnels that he now controls.

But this is no mere listening tour, Sander said. If he sees something, he’ll say something – and then he’ll check back to make sure whoever is responsible has done something.

Okay, first? There’s no way in the world that he’s going to be maxing out anything. He’s the MTA Commissioner. He won’t be paying for a single ride.

And when he rides, I doubt very seriously that he’s going to be riding alone. He’ll have a staffer or two and probably a photographer along as well, to document his new “hands on” and “take charge” attitude in practice.

I have every confidence that when he points something out, it’ll get an amazing amount of attention, bumping everything else out of the way no matter how important it may be.

Because that’s what happens when people like Sander take their act down where the working people are. There’s almost an imperial “King visiting the kitchens” air to the whole thing that really does make it ludicrous.

What this reporter should have asked, instead of printing Sander’s press release is, why is it necessary for him to do all this riding. Why is he wasting his time taking train rides, if he’s so very familiar with the system already? He should have a list of things that need to be done ready to go. It doesn’t require a grand tour of all the trains, stations, and buses to do that. The reporter should have asked Sander how he proposes to make sure that the things that should be fixed stay fixed.

Did you catch the anecdote in the story about the restrooms being filthy? That’s a problem that no amount of riding around in the system and telling people to fix stuff can cure. If that’s an example of his management style, the New York transit system is going to be in a lot of trouble.

Why, you ask?

Look at the story. He found two filthy bathrooms. The attendant, whose job it is to clean then reported some sort of “problem” three or four days before that. I cannot imagine what problem could prevent someone from cleaning a bathroom on a daily basis. I imagine the “problem” was that of a clogged toilet. It’s most likely that there’s something in that attendant’s union contract about not being able to pick up a plunger. I’m quite willing to say that the attendant was being lazy and passing the buck bureaucratically.

Confronted with this, what does Sander do? Does he get the employee’s manager right away to deal with the obvious unacceptable behavior? Does he attemtp to find out how long it will take to solve the problem or why the problem has lasted three or four days already?

No. He runs to the top, talks to that guy a while, then lets it go.

How quickly do you think a bureaucracy is going to change with that sort of problem-solving strategy happening at the top? More importantly, how long, do you thinkg, did it take for that bathroom to actually get cleaned?

Having spent most of my working life in a government bureaucracy, I know how bad inertia can get. Employees really don’t have any great incentives to excel, or even sometimes just to do the bare minimum, because there are no incentives built into the system. Promotions aren’t often based on merit but seniority or favoritism. Union contracts ensure that raises happen on a predictable schedule and leave little room for performance-based bonuses at the discretion of the employers. Firing a bad employee is difficult because of the byzantine personnel rules that require that every single dot on every single “i” be in exactly the right place and even then a termination decision can be appealed and appealed again.

But our bureaucracies have to change. We spend an immense amount of money – too much, to my thinking – on services we have all said we desire. We have an obligation to ensure that those who are in charge of those bureaucracies run them in our best interests. I can’t see where riding all the trains and buses, wasting the time that could be spent making the organization strong, lean, and effective, is all that wonderful an idea.

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Category: The Good Old US of A