FormerOBS
Conductor
Maybe it's my own fault for not communicating clearly. In all the time I've been on the Forum, I've never said it's OK to provide bad (or nonexistent) service. I have said it's impossible for the SCA to be in more than one place at a time, performing more than one task at a time, and doing it safely.The excuses you make for shoddy service are amazing. We all know what good SCA service is and what bad or indifferent service is. Somehow the good ones manage provide bed service for everyone, assist with luggage in most cases, and otherwise be present and available. The bad ones make themselves deliberately scarce, and I know everyone on this site who has taken multiple overnight trips is familiar with these because they are not extremely rare species.We have established that an SCA working the Trans Dorm also has duties elsewhere. I am glad you have been served by SCA's who were able to balance the demands to give you good service. Just because they could do it, does not mean it can always be done that well. This thread has been pretty vague. "MIA" implies the SCA is gone for an unjustifiably long time, but I wonder whether some posters are interpreting this as meaning the SCA was MIA when he was actually busy doing something else and couldn't be there at the exact time the poster wanted. That's not MIA. That's a human inability to be two places at once. You not have told us enough to get me to agree that this SCA "needs to quit".If the SCA can not provide the basic functions of being an SCA in the assigned cars, than he or she needs to quit. That's a poor excuse. I've had great service in the Trans-Dorm several times so I know it's possible. But it's also the only times I've had truly missing in action SCA's. (Since some are keeping a tally... 2 in the past 6 years.. and I ride alot of trains and usually book pretty late and end up in the Trans-dorm for whatever reason.)The Trans Dorm:
As I understand it, the person assigned to the Trans Dorm has responsibilities in at least one other car, and can't be expected to be there are your beck and call 24/7. Again, there may be some people who can be more than one place at a time, doing more than one job safely, but I've always found it to be a challenge I couldn't overcome. Trans Dorm rooms were fully occupied by crew on my train, so I didn't have to deal with this. So maybe there's something I don't know about it.
Tom
Tom
As I understand it, when Superliners were first introduced, rooms in the Trans Dorm were not available to the general public, but that eventually changed. When the policy changed, nobody in Management wanted to pay for an extra worker to assign to the car, so the Trans Dorm duties were added to the duties of an employee who already had other things to do. Most SCA's are conscientious. Some are not. The fact that somebody with multiple responsibilities might fail you, is not proof that the person is stupid, uncaring, incompetent, or any of these things that have been implied. Maybe he is, but there are other possibilities. Maybe he's just plain tired and made a simple human mistake, or couldn't be two places at once.
You construe my comments to be excuses for shoddy service, and you find it amazing. I find it amazing that you can draw those conclusions from what I have said.
You are amazed; I am amazed. We're even.
Tom