charlie hebdoHaving positive attitudes (social interactions) such as decency or respect apply even more strongly to management.
I was going to make that point in a somewhat different light, but I'm glad you did so first.
Note the discussion of Kelleher's Southwest as an example: values encouraged by an organization can go a long way toward creating correct 'attitude' even if underlying personality traits aren't wholly optimal (as I suspect is the case in many potential hiring situations!)
And the most important place both good 'traits' and positive attitude manifest will be in proper management, which is encouraged by organizational culture. That is true of both disciplinary/corrective and positive aspects of management. (Unfortunate that so often we see petty dictation, the Peter principle and other distortions take its place!)
Overmod Thoroughly agreed. I was really only meaning something like 'ignorance is not stupidity'. Attitude remains the most important desideratum.
Thoroughly agreed.
I was really only meaning something like 'ignorance is not stupidity'. Attitude remains the most important desideratum.
It's not just attitude, which is relatively malleable. I'm talking personality traits. Specific types are better for different job categories. Having positive attitudes (social interactions) such as decency or respect apply even more strongly to management.
Even if someone has a great attitude, when you have people that are total donkeys in management - they can make even the nicest person turn sour. A person can only take so much of being treated like crap before they live down to expectations.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
charlie hebdo ......the most important factor in vetting is personality, and that is largely immutable by age 16.
This is in line with Southwest Airlines HR philosophy and practices. According to an acquaintance in the Southwest HR group, "we hire attitudes; we can train almost anyone to perform most of the tasks at Southwest if they have a positive attitude." Ultimately, my corporate employer adopted the same hiring philosophy.
I have seen average people move up the corporate ladder to a relatively high rung because of their positive attitude. And I have seen very bright people never get off the bottom rungs because of a negative attitude. They did not stay on the bottom rungs too long; we fired them.
Your mother's opinion notwithstanding, the most important factor in vetting is personality, and that is largely immutable by age 16. As to IQ, it's not really a factor in Amtrak food services. Anything in the average range (Wechsler: 90 -109) is fine. Since the average for high school graduates, not GEDs, is about 105, and a diploma is required, that's enough. What you need is someone on the Five-factor model who is above the median on conscientiousness and agreeableness, average on extraversion and ,inventiveness and low on neuroticism.
charlie hebdoA major problem with Amtrak is their sense of having to reinvent the wheel, rather than studying how others do these things and adopting the best practices.
To which I would add having, quite probably, a mistaken sense of the relative importance of political factors in hiring. I'm a great advocate of diversity, but when it results in selection of employees based more on it than on (say) customer-centric attitude or responsible continuous learning, there are inherent concerns.
I have to admit that I'm more Saint-Simonian than I should probably be: I think that in a great many cases you can make pretty good silk purses out of, as my grandmother used to say, 'the dumbest of people'. That doesn't mean you don't weed out the obvious -- but most current computer hiring apps do this easily and painlessly just in prequalifying. And before you start with special incentives and so forth to get 'underrepresented' groups into your program.
Oh yes: I'm also a firm believer in supplying whatever accommodations are necessary to get prospective employees in the right attitude, and teach them the right skills, reflexes, and approaches to Do Their Jobs Right. Whether that's conventional wisdom, in the ways Joe was taught, or through modern whiz-bang educational technologies. One of the keys is to vet them again when the training is finished, to see who 'got it' and who needs retraining of some kind to do so. That's even more important than letting people in at the front end only to wash expensively out if they can't or don't hack it...
I think the key to service is vetting: some people lack the constitution for effectively interacting with the public. Following that, very focused training. I emphasise the vetting because you really can't make a silk purse, etc.
A major problem with Amtrak is their sense of having to reinvent the wheel, rather than studying how others do these things and adopting the best practices.
charlie hebdoWhy the anti-union attitude?
It's not so much an 'anti-union' attitude as an 'anti-union-attitude' attitude.
Unlike some of the usual suspects on the forums, I don't dislike the fact of unionization, or even that a given union becomes strong enough to 'stand up' to managers or owners on behalf of its members' fair rights. The prime issue in the present discussion is that union agreements are going to severely restrict changes to Amtrak dining-service policy and procedures, and I don't see any reason for current union management to even tolerate such changes unless Amtrak provides an equal or greater 'quid pro quo' -- I carefully do not specify what such a thing might involve. I think we have recently seen, in this and in some other contexts, that unions are also sensitive to 'end-runs' around fair employee relations as they see them, and will develop responses to those based more or less on an existing sense of privilege.
Peripheral to this is another issue, which is the perceived indifference of employee attitude, perhaps best observed in the reluctance to keep 'trashed' communal toilets clean and not smelling, and the spreading out of 'business' in lounge car and other space that should be 'reserved' for passengers. This may or may not be related to union 'privilege' or restriction of job description, but I have yet to see any union internal training on 'better customer service' or maintaining a positive attitude no matter what.
As you note, other companies have no trouble with one-person service, on time and with a smile, including any setup and strike activities to keep things hygienic and properly cleaned. It might well be interesting to see how those employees were 'vetted' and 'trained', and how Deutsche Bahn negotiates with the union(s) involved to keep the perceived level of quality high. (It is also possible that a government operation capable of financing ubiquitous catenary for passenger operations has additional money to keep food service personnel 'optimized' -- but information on how they hire and train, and what they pay in salary range, ought to be easy enough to come by, and this might be a useful guide for Amtrak or for the representative unions to use going forward.)
Better training in some aspects of customer service might be in order -- but, just as with safety-awareness training, that shouldn't be coming from management, slanted to management priorities; it needs to come from a source credible to, and sensitive to the actual needs and wants of, the employees themselves. Joe's right about the need for better vetting, training, and oversight, just that it can't come from the usual sources at Amtrak or be judged by their former standards.
As one example: I don't think Mr. Klepper is advocating the return of full-service station restaurants for the sit-down use of passengers, as in the pre-diner years described by John White et al. What he means is to have operations that pay for their fixed costs with attractive sit-down service for locals, that will then prepare and plate the take-aboard meals or kits as needed and be able to store them, go out to get emergency produce, cater to special needs, etc. close to each 'point of delivery'. This is augmented by 'take-out' catering either via the apps I mentioned or from interested local restaurants through one of the 'delivery' services like GrubHub or Uber Eats, delivering to the train rather than to someone's home or office.
What is then needed is the training for the onboard train crew, and incentives as appropriate, for expecting and receiving the 'deliveries' from these places, plating or prepping them appropriately, and seeing them dispensed as appropriate. This is not, and shouldn't be, a matter of putting a bunch of to-go bags on a table with little signs identifying their owners, and checking ID when someone shows up to claim their swag. Remember this thread is not about alternative food service (which has been beaten to the equine equivalent of Spam) but about the potential for 'red-carpet' added-value service touches that make Amtrak travel memorable. This can be done just as compellingly in the small as in a grand manner.
Why the anti-union attitude? On Deutsche Bahn, the bistro operation, using convection oven and steamed pouches with plated food and a decent beverage stock is a one-man operation. And definitely unionized. Perhaps Amtrak's problem with food service is poor vetting and training, to use Joe McMahon's maxim du jour?
charlie hebdo The private railroad seemed to [analytically] figure out how much food was needed just fine without some opt-out scheme.
Yeah, but (1) this involved a much more professional and experienced staff than Amtrak could provide today, even if it weren't hampered by union-related attitude problems and staff selection, and (2) I doubt you could prove ATSF even remotely ran their dining operations at a net profit.
Most of the 'complication' involves balancing rights of the passengers against both real and perceived duties (which so often come to be perceived as problems) of the Amtrak staff and infrastructure. This is I suspect more a political issue than an economic one; I still suspect the idea of actually removing dining-car service is intended to abolish the current commissary system, and that the idea is to have Congress et al. complain about the subsequently "unused" Viewliner diners, and re-establish service under a new name with all-new union arrangements. We may differ in our appraisal of how well a plan like that would work...
If the current Amtrak research into food choices works out correctly -- and I think there is promise it will -- much of what you say becomes easier in practice. There are still potential issues with food safety involved with anything that doesn't stay hard-frozen, but some combination of safe packaging and irradiation may develop (the technology and equipment are established; only the political will to acquire and use them would be new) that would allow even ready-to-prep unfrozen or never-frozen choices to be used on different trains if left 'uneaten' on any particular run. This would of course also facilitate 'specialty' menus featuring some local content or favorites...
I don't see a problem in complex (as opposed to complicated) setup, or even systems generation, as long as the end-user requirements are simple for customers to use and appreciate, and the back-end chances for confusion and delay to actual people are minimized. One analogy is to POS 'gun' scan systems, which have now advanced at Home Depot to the point customers run them. There is enormous complexity here, but it serves to reduce any human intervention to an absolute minimum and is generally easier to use than even a typical fixed POS scanner arrangement (at least if you're abled to pick up and manipulate the 'gun' -- but if not, any staffer can help you easily, quickly, and unconfusingly).
Much of the complexity, also, involves a maximum number of choices, some of which are unpredictable even a short time in advance, within the constraint of 'absolute profitability'. I'm of the opinion that this is far more difficult to do well than any historical money-losing railroad food service was capable of, and to reduce it to 'routine' in all aspects is chief among the design difficulties. (It also helps that the system be agile in 'anomalous conditions', degrade gracefully, and facilitate additional value-added services like access to special nutrition or 'religious preferences', for which complex 'hooks' may need to be designed but not initially used for those purposes.)
I had thought briefly, when I first saw the Amtrak diner preference survey a couple of months ago, that there might be 'restaurateur' interest in participating in any Amtrak redesign. (Then I saw who was actually doing the surveys ... and likely, who at Amtrak would be fully listening to the results.) It would be interesting to see what a good operator, or even a good franchisor, could come up with for parts of the food-service 'experience'.
The menues would be on the Amtrak website. Taking the Chief from Chicago to LA, I could ask for something from the Chicago restaurant for all meals, or just for the 1st dinner, with breakfast and lunch from the KC restaurant, and the 2nd dinner and 2nd breakfast from the Alberguerque restaurant. The take-out man at the restaurants would wheel the pre-ordered food to the diner-lounge and place in the refrigarator or the storage locker as appropriate.
If I were just riding to KC or Newton, I could have the option of not ordering meals, but buying dinner at the Chicago station restaurant, and bringing to the diner-lounge myself, show the attendent the receipt, and let him or her put it in the frig and/or storage locker.
All the food would have name-tags.
Overmod charlie hebdo I never said passengers should have access to food. Just freedom of choice to bring their own cold food and beverage or already warm food. They already have this, unless I've been taking sandwiches and drinks on trains illegally all these years. What I wonder is whether an 'intermediate' experiment could be tried in which sleeper passengers explicitly have a 'delete option' for the onboard meal service. Paper ticketing would then have vouchers only for the meals retained; a simple set of QR codes on a smartphone would have the same functionality for paperless users, even if more sophisticated data provision were not used. That would have the additional advantage of giving long-term trend information on clientele choices and time-of-the-year variations. Those were invaluable in restaurant operations; they would be no less so for a new 'agile' Amtrak dining service. Something else Amtrak could do: recommend sizes and configurations of things customers could bring to accommodate 'their' food -- Peltier-effect-assisted coolers, small portable prep devices like the 12V panini cookers and toasters sold to truckers, and the like. There will likely be repercussions in how much HEP power needs to be transverted to the 110V receptacle systems if the idea catches on, but that doesn't seem to me to be badly insurmountable.
charlie hebdo I never said passengers should have access to food. Just freedom of choice to bring their own cold food and beverage or already warm food.
They already have this, unless I've been taking sandwiches and drinks on trains illegally all these years.
What I wonder is whether an 'intermediate' experiment could be tried in which sleeper passengers explicitly have a 'delete option' for the onboard meal service. Paper ticketing would then have vouchers only for the meals retained; a simple set of QR codes on a smartphone would have the same functionality for paperless users, even if more sophisticated data provision were not used.
That would have the additional advantage of giving long-term trend information on clientele choices and time-of-the-year variations. Those were invaluable in restaurant operations; they would be no less so for a new 'agile' Amtrak dining service.
Something else Amtrak could do: recommend sizes and configurations of things customers could bring to accommodate 'their' food -- Peltier-effect-assisted coolers, small portable prep devices like the 12V panini cookers and toasters sold to truckers, and the like. There will likely be repercussions in how much HEP power needs to be transverted to the 110V receptacle systems if the idea catches on, but that doesn't seem to me to be badly insurmountable.
Why make it so complicated? I remember riding the all-coach El Captain several times. Some passengers took all their meals in the dining car, some a few, some none. The private railroad seemed to be analytic figure out how much food was needed just fine without some opt-out scheme.
I don't think portable microwaves or refrigorators are practical. High maintenance, abuse, etc. I do think all passengers should be allowed to bring their own food and beverge aboard, but only that from the station restaurants should go into the Amtrak microwaves and refrigorators. As far as own food in the lounge-diner, only if this does not prevent users of the station restaurant food from use of the tables.
And with the station restaurants and their specific menues, probably varied by season and location, and with a much broader spectrum of elegance and cost than now possible, food should not be included in any ticket price but ordered or picked-up before boarding with additional payment.
I think Charlie and I agree on the major points, and there is no reason why corridior trains cannot get the same treatment, or is there?
charlie hebdoI never said passengers should have access to food. Just freedom of choice to bring their own cold food and beverage or already warm food.
1. I know what Klepper's saying. I never said passengers should have access to food. Just freedom of choice to bring their own cold food and beverage or already warm food.
2. Restaurants do not have captive audiences. Yet they manage to estimate numbers of patrons and how much food. Amtrak knows precisely how many passengers and their foods are prepacked and refrigerated or frozen. Your argument won't fly.
charlie hebdoLD passengers, sleeper or coach should have the freedom to bring food aboard.
He's addressing a different issue: how you heat up the food (or keep it cold as appropriate) in common facilities that may pose 'liability' issues.
To be honest, this has to be separated from 'union-motivated' issues about access. Mr. Klepper proposes two things, the first of which is 'attendant' oversight about actually putting the food in microwave/convection, safely heating it, and removing it, and the second of which is limiting the use of onboard heating to 'approved' food.
The first might be facilitated by having locks on the ovens and fridges, so that only 'approved' food and drink would be provided, passengers couldn't easily 'poach' each other's treats, and nothing not approved by an attendant would wind up in storage or contaminating the oven. (I foresee a brisk trade in the equivalent of "Gramercy Park keys"...)
The second is a bit more problematic. I'm wondering if a different solution could be added: providing small portable equipment for use in sleepers for some nominal charge, with nominal safeguards against misuse or theft, in addition to 'official food' storage, reheat, or other prep. Or allow passengers to 'bring their own' if it meets Amtrak-determined standards.
[quote]As to food service, it shouldn't be included in sleeper fare. End the captive patron effect. Let people choose, charge full cost and then decide if they want./quote]
The problem with this is that it vastly overcomplicates what is already an overcomplicated situation. If meals are 'included', the commissary crews et al. have a good idea of how much food to load for a given trip, and at least theoretically how many of each alternative menu choice needs to be carried. If that's not predictable, the potential food cost goes through the roof, even more so if unused food can't be safely restocked for subsequent use. The alternative is running out of popular choices, or food choices altogether, more frequently than at present. If the commissaries as currently operated were changed for a 'two-step' operation, in which the central locations could prepare 'kits' that could be deployed to a range of intermediate loading locations, some of this problem could in theory at least be reduced. But there's still much more involved than in a typical landbound restaurant where the dishwasher can be sent over to Kroger for some heads of lettuce or cold cuts if you start to run short...
Note that a comparatively simple change in Amtrak ticketing can also address much of the issue: have the patrons who order through the computer system specify their meal choices for the whole trip 'in advance' ... and then load to match this as a baseline. It shouldn't take long to determine how much demand there is for 'optional' onboard dining (e.g. by coach passengers in a diner, or to take to the lounge or their seat) as distinct from packaged items like sandwiches that don't need plating prep. If done 'right', this would not constitute much additional time when booking the LD tickets, and the results could easily be plugged into procurement and makeready systems so "lost" food choices don't become a chronic source of argument.
I think it's already been mentioned that much of the cost of onboard dining is independent of the number of passengers who physically use it, so some of the fixed costs will have to be allocated to a lower number of passengers, possibly a very much lower number on certain trains. This would naturally result in higher prices if a "profit" needs to be shown, so I'd think removing the 'prearranged' meals for sleeper passengers would have to be 'squared' with the meaning of the Congressional mandate on technical dining-car profitability.
LD passengers, sleeper or coach should have the freedom to bring food aboard. As to food service, it shouldn't be included in sleeper fare. End the captive patron effect. Let people choose, charge full cost and then decide if they want.
I agree that step-up from coach to sleeper should cover the incremental costs, except perhaps for special cases having a doctor's certificate good for upgrade to the handicapped room if traveling with a helper.
The subsidy should be for the basic coach transportation, and should have included in it the items you specified. Still tiny compared with NEC requirements, which is appropriate.
As for food costs, I'm convinced station restaurants with broad take-out capabilities are the answer.
And all car attendents should be trained on proceedures for the microwave and the refrigorator. (Only food purchased in the Amtrak-approved station restaurants allowed.) Coach passsengers can take the food to their seats. Sleeping -car passengers can have the attendent bring it to their room or eat at a table in the diner-lounge.
daveklepper And returning to the main point of the thread, Charlie and I do agree that perks are useful, if they draw more people to what is an essential service and are not themselves subisidized, because the higher fares for passengers who receive them more than cover the costs they add.
And returning to the main point of the thread, Charlie and I do agree that perks are useful, if they draw more people to what is an essential service and are not themselves subisidized, because the higher fares for passengers who receive them more than cover the costs they add.
Yes, Dave. But unless the fares for sleepers on the LD trains are raised, they are not covering the above rails costs, mostly the high labor expenses.
You want to include capital charges and maintenance. Be careful what you wish for, what with new diners and sleepers and baggage cars on eastern LD trains and costly maintenance charges on old equipment.
And that is one discussion I won't touch. But thank you both for a bit of weight lifting.
Arcane, but adequate. Your metaphors are obscure. BTW, "cad" was in use far after Victorian England, well into the 1930s, at least, BTW, though more in the UK than here.
I deny that I am running out of reason.
Do any of you believe that national support for the huge expenditures would consistantly exist, and I emphasize the word consistantly, even with specific administrations being opposed, huge expenditures for the NEC, if Amtrak were not a national system but just a bunch of disconnected corridors?
Would not the people of Colorado and New Mexico state plainly that if the NEC were so important, and their pet one train unimportant, let the East Coast States pay for NEC? (OK, Colorado has two pet trains.)
My Brooklyn street meeting story may not be that relevant, but I thought it was too good a story to not be shared with you, and this seemed an appropriate spot.
Skp that and the grandpa story, and you will see some perfectly good reasoning, even more contained in my Anderson letter on the meal-issue thread.
I strongly believe, and the reasons are clear in the Anderson letter, and have been stated many times, that the benefits to the USA as a whole are equal or better than the LDTs' subsidies, as matched against the enormously greater real subsidies for the NEC matching the greater benefits of the NEC.
Subsidies are subsidies, whether fixed costs or above-the-rail variable costs.
But I agree with you, your use of the word "cad" was a criticism of what appeared to you as my "emotional appeal" and not a criticism of Charlie. And so I have taken your criticism seriouly in this response.
And agan, the typical corridor train sees repeat riders, while the typical LDT sees different rider each day, so the number of people served is not reflected in number of trips.
Why, yes. I DID mispell facetious, the first time. Good catch! I will correct that. And thank you.
If I had meant to insult you, I would have chosen a much different word than "cad"--one that was NOT obsolete.
I chose a word like that because, when I read the paragraph of Dave's that I quoted, it came across as quite melodramatic. I thought you were making reasonable points, and that he resorted to emotion because he was running out of reason. His phrasing reminded me of something from Dickens with widows being thrown out in the snow. And so, I played along with him, and used an "insult" that was from Dickens's time. Or thereabouts. You missed that. Hence my use of "over your head". And I was, by being facetious**, pointing out that he was using emotion in what should be an argument using reason. Which you missed.
You seem to believe that I would just drop in in the middle of a discussion and "bash" you. For no reason at all. And THEN spend the rest of the post talking NOT about YOU. That just makes no sense.
And I am insulted that you have been so intent on taking offense.
My seconds will contact your seconds.*
Ed
*Just so you know: THAT, too, is facetious**. You should try it some time. It's fun.
**Spelled correctly!
That is not an honest apology when one uses a nasty term, even if somewhat out-date, not obsolete, and then attempts to weasel out by claiming he/she was being facetious (or fecetious, a misspelling, but suggestive of excrement). To top it, you add yet another insult by suggesting it was over my head, i.e., I was cognitively challenged.
But someone who can't even summon a response as well-reasoned as Klepper's post is not likely to give an actual apology. Sarcasm, unless really witty, is a form of passiive-aggressive behavior.
charlie hebdo And here it comes. When certain people don't like what others say, they resort to ad hominem attacks. I strongly suggest you check forum rules about name-calling and retract and apologize.
And here it comes. When certain people don't like what others say, they resort to ad hominem attacks.
I strongly suggest you check forum rules about name-calling and retract and apologize.
OK.
I'm sorry you don't recognize a facetious statement when you see one.
I'm sorry that you don't understand that I was using an obsolete term to emphasize that.
And I am especially sorry that, in making that facetious statement, I was attempting to negate what I thought was a bit of a harsh lecture tone on Dave's part.
I shall try to remember, in the future, that certain things go right over your head.
Again, my humblest apologies. Oh, yes: As far as I know, you are not a cad.
7j43k daveklepper When you, Charlie, deny the grandfather the opportunity to visit his children and grandchildren, because he cannot fly or endure long auto trips, you not only hurt him but his family members as well. Charlie, you are a cad. But it goes beyond the grandfather and his family members. I start sniveling at the very thought that gramps might have to stay home and visit using Skype. And this kind of sadness can build and build until it saturates our entire country and goes out into the world. Unacceptable. I think the grandchildren should get their little butts on a Greyhound, and go see gramps, so as to relieve the poor guy of all those travel woes. Then I won't have to snivel anymore. There are other benefits: The grandkids' parents can have a week off to enjoy what it was like before having kids. The grandfather can be reminded of how glad he was when the last kid finally moved out, and he could do what he wanted at home. And the grandkids will surely benefit by being exposed to a form of travel that is experienced by a vast multitude who are unable to pay for more expensive travel--a true learning experience. Ed
daveklepper When you, Charlie, deny the grandfather the opportunity to visit his children and grandchildren, because he cannot fly or endure long auto trips, you not only hurt him but his family members as well.
When you, Charlie, deny the grandfather the opportunity to visit his children and grandchildren, because he cannot fly or endure long auto trips, you not only hurt him but his family members as well.
Charlie, you are a cad.
But it goes beyond the grandfather and his family members. I start sniveling at the very thought that gramps might have to stay home and visit using Skype. And this kind of sadness can build and build until it saturates our entire country and goes out into the world.
Unacceptable.
I think the grandchildren should get their little butts on a Greyhound, and go see gramps, so as to relieve the poor guy of all those travel woes.
Then I won't have to snivel anymore.
There are other benefits:
The grandkids' parents can have a week off to enjoy what it was like before having kids.
The grandfather can be reminded of how glad he was when the last kid finally moved out, and he could do what he wanted at home.
And the grandkids will surely benefit by being exposed to a form of travel that is experienced by a vast multitude who are unable to pay for more expensive travel--a true learning experience.
They do. But they also want a return visit.
Too much to ask?
What would happen if suddenly, all transportation subsidies would end. Interstates would be self-supporting toll roads, commuter fairs and transit fares would be raised to cover actual cost of service and interest on the loans required for the repairs and improvements, etc. Devestation? Would people be able to cope?
On the other hand, are not some Swiss cantons planning or have done all transportation for citizens free?
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