No Triplets, Just Twins!

Today, on my bus commute from the train station home, I was somewhat surprised that after an unusually long wait for the MTA city bus, only two consecutive buses showed up. Usually the longer the delay, the greater the number of buses piling up behind the lead bus. God forbid a trailing bus driver should pass an occupied lead bus and start picking up passengers instead of driving around vacant after the oversized crowd crams into the lead bus!

The MTA transit is probably one of the most wasteful and inefficiently-run organizations in the world! I know that I'm somewhat narrow-minded in this assessment since I haven't really gotten a close-hand look at every --or even close to every-- organization in the world. Yet, an educated guess, based on the circumstances that typically contribute to bureaucracy syndrome and the resultant inefficiency, leads to me to believe that this is the case. There are several factors that serve to promote laziness, wastefulness, incompetence and indifference in the MTA.

1) It's based in NYC. NYC is one of the biggest cities in the world and so its mass transit system and the apparatus overseeing it is also one of the biggest. This means that there is more hierarchy, less accountability and personal responsibility by employees for its daily operations. With big organizations, things kind-of run themselves. Each individual presumes that someone else will take charge and no one steps forward to do the right thing, solve a problem or propose a solution or suggestion for a smoother, more efficient operation.

2) Outdated transportation networks. Unlike other European and Asian bis cities that had been crippled in the World War II or which transportation systems only appeared recently, New York is a very old city and its Subway had never been abruptly disabled at any one point in over a century of its existence. This also applies to the public city bus network which operates on roads that were originally designed for the horse and buggy and had mostly never been widened subsequently to accommodate the needs of the exploding car traffic. In a place like Brooklyn, the most populated county in this country! and one of the most crowded, there are only two limited access highways for the entire population: BQE and the Belt. It never occurred to anyone, for some reason, that this is grossly inadequate and the longer they wait to build a major thoroughfare the harder and more expensive it becomes to execute such a project. Buses are therefore competing with hordes of personal automobiles vying for the limited space available on public roads. "kal de'alim gebhar" (whoever is strongest, rules!) applies in NYC driving; being a gentleman is not going to get a NYC driver anywhere!

3) The MTA, being such a massive employer is also unionized-workers employer. Unions best operate under big employers. Unions also tend to discourage employers from demanding industry, creativity and shrewdness on the part of their employees. Unions demand that employers pay much for little and so we have an environment where employees feel a sense of entitlement and job security and are discouraged from deviating from using their discretion to deviate from the rulebook in order accommodate a customer or solve a problem. For example, last week I witnessed a driver getting into a nasty argument with a woman who hauled her cart onto the bus and --against regulations-- left it loaded with contents and unfolded on the bus. The rulebook advises the driver to ask the passenger to fold the cart or somehow get it out of the isle in order to make room for other passengers. Sounds good! Problem is... the bus was quite empty at the time and there was no need nor practical way of getting the cart out of the isle. The driver could have used his discretion to let go but chose to follow the letter of rulebook and be confrontational for no reason.

4) I find that MTA employees are just plain dumb! Unlike smaller suburban towns where there is no large uneducated, poor segment within the population, in NYC there is plenty of it. And for some reason, bureaucracy attracts precisely those people! In droves they line up for those city jobs that require very little creativity and responsibility for relatively good pay. All they have to do is fill out tons of paperwork and "qualify" for the job. The city never uses subjective criteria --such as evaluating an applicants temperament and attitude towards work. Oh no! that would be considered --god forbid-- "discriminatory". Just fill out the paperwork, meet the eligibility guidelines, go on a waiting list several years long and then when an opening occurs, accept the job and then you simply cruise on auto-pilot to retirement after 20 years and live happily ever after!! How sweet! Only in America!

Oh MTA! When will you wake up and realize that the economic problems this country is enduring right now are, in part, symptomatic of the kind of blithe, apathetic indifference they exhibit towards the welfare of their customer base!!? When will you start to seriously read, be concerned and motivated to act in response to customer complaints, instead of "launching an investigation" and concluding after half a year that the driver "just followed procedures"?