I once fell asleep briefly at my workdesk after a big lunch. The boss came back after his lunch to find me in pretty much that same position. He never let me live that one down. Thank goodness that was before Twitpic.
Exactly what I was thinking. Come on, a medical emergency? Maybe if he was sprawled on the floor or even face down on the desk. I worked 3rd shift for many years and I can tell you, that’s the classic “napping at work” position. Fingers laced on the belly, mouth agape. He probably just finished lunch and had a nice little food coma going on.
So if the appropriate action is to attempt to wake him to see if he is OK, but there is also the need to protect the good customer in the event that the sleeping employee does not take kindly to being woken, then apparently one should call 911 so that police and paramedics can attend to the matter. Now there’s a good use of public funds if I ever heard one.
Better to let the fellow doze, and then bring the matter to the attention of the TTC by publishing his pic. Shame upon the union for blaming the public for the poor performance of its members.
Don’t you see? Intimidating people into giving up their rights is easy! And fun!
This a serious problem with public-sector unions in general. Unfortunately, there’s not much to be done about them, and this kind of crap tends to accumulate in large city environments. While some here blame management, that may or may not be accurate. Simply put, the union may have far more power than the city’s representatives as a practical matter, and the managers may simply not have the authority to do anything about it. I don’t know about Toronto specifically, but it is common.
Obviously the solution to all these [del]sleeping[/del] comatose ticket collectors is to install a communications device in all booths with a buzzer that goes off every fifteen minutes.
If the ticket taker doesn’t turn off the buzzer (it could be a flashing light to be a bit less obtrusive), a signal goes to Transit HQ and a supervisor or transit police come to investigate the potential health emergency.
Since the union is so very concerned about the health of its members, surely it will support this life-saving measure. :dubious:
I like the idea of an electric shocker in the seats.
Amusingly, it was only a few days ago that the CBC reported that “The TTC does not have any employees dedicated to reviewing customer service,” and that the TTC announced that it will be hiring a consultant to review its customer service record because “Complaints have also been received regarding the attitude and behaviour of some employees that are inconsistent with the expectations we all have, particularly in a service-oriented industry such as transit.” http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/01/20/ttc-customer-service491.html?ref=rss
I hope they hire Cat Whisperer as the consultant.
What ever happened to personal responsibility? Anybody?
What the Hell. It is not the passenger’s job to awaken a sleeping employee. Nor should it be the responsibility of the manager to ensue his employee’s are not alseep on the job, literally.
It is solely the employee’s responsibility to, y’know, stay awake while I’m paying him. And if he doesn’t want it to cost him his job he needs to own it and apologize. The slightest whiff of passing responsibility off on the union, the hour, the public, his manager, his insomnia, some mild medical condition, his screaming baby - and he’s lost his job, in my opinion.
The people in Toronto deserve to have this all be public, what he said when confronted, owned it or evasions and then be informed whether or not he lost his job. It should have been done openly and swiftly. Then people would begin to have faith that someone does care about public service and might believe them when they speak of hiring consultants to improve things. As it stands it looks, not in earnest, but for damage control.
Read my first post, too. I was talking about what to do after you blow the air horn at them, but before they’re fully alert.
And thanks for the school flashbacks. Is it too early to get loaded?
It was poorly thought out. I just don’t like it when I hear somebody won’t do something out of fear, and act like that’s a rational reason. But my response doesn’t work, either.
I can’t believe this, think about what you are saying.
Of course the employee should stay awake, but the real world has all sorts of hangers on, driftwood and shirkers and it sure is the job of management to ensure these people do not cause a detriment to the business.
Just how do you suppose these sleepers will get the message? By osmosis?
There are probably many workers on this system who are conscientious, who do their work properly and you have a number of individuals who get tehmselves noticed by sleeping in public on the job.
As a manager I would certainly be doing surprise inspections, I would certainly be taking such people off front line duties - remeber that these are not just ticket and revenue collector, they have important roles to play in an emergency.
If management do not enforce the rules on errant employees, then who will?
You’re not wrong, casdave, but I see elbows’ post as saying that it is the responsibility of the employee to meet the minimum requirements of the job which include actually staying awake (at least, I’ve never had a job where that wasn’t one of the unstated requirements).
muffin, I’m available to teleconsult for the TTC. 
I completely agree that the employees have a duty to stay awake and do what they are paid to do, which is collect revenue and also be aware of any unusual circumstances.
Which is what would give the mangement every justification for sacking them when they fail to live up to their employment contract, usually its called gross misconduct and this is almost always grounds for dismissal.
Checking your underlings aren’t sleeping at their posts sounds like micro managing to me.
I wouldn’t want my managers to work on that level. After all managers get paid more than underlings. Pretty expensive alarm clocks.
Yes. I thought that’s what **Jackmannii **was going to say.
But it’s a union. You don’t need personal responsibility when you have collective bargaining.
Nest time 911 after taking the picture and tell them the Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union asked you to call to help because their employees may be injured, dead, or just sleeping, but they want passengers to call it in.
How the hell does anyone fall asleep in a public transportation terminal?
How do people fall asleep on airplanes? I can’t. But many do.
The TTC workers in question are in kiosks that are locked and blocked off by bulletproof glass; it’s not as loud in there as it would be in the station itself.