SCA Training

[choochoodood]

Just curious as to what type of training SCAs go through and the duration. What does it encompass? What qualifies as "passing?" Do they receive performance reviews based on customer input/comments?

Can anyone with first-hand experience provide an answer?

I've had excellent SCAs and "average" SCAs, but so far have experienced none of the horror stories I've read on this forum.

Again, just curiosity...

 

[choochoodood]

Wow...with all the knowledge associated with this website, I'm shocked that no one knows this stuff! Oh well.....

 

[employee]

Gotta give people a chance to answer! There are 4 weeks of classroom training, followed by a number of live training runs, where the new hires shadow more experienced employees. Also, there is no such thing as a "SCA" - they are TAs (Train Attendants), whether they happen to work in the diner (TA-Diner), Sleepers (TA-Sleeper aka TAS), or Coaches (TA-Coach aka TAC). But all who have been hired in the past 9 years are cross-trained, so that for the first few years while working the Extra Board, they can perform any of these jobs. Eventually, with enough seniority and turnover, they can finally be awarded one of these jobs on a "permanent" basis. Oh, also, after the classroom time and training trips, they still have to make it without serious incident through the rest of the 120-day probationary period.

 

[choochoodood]

Thanks for the great info, Guest Employee. What about customer feedback being shared with them and used in perforamce reviews?

 

[DaddyJim]

Thanks for the great info, Guest Employee. What about customer feedback being shared with them and used in perforamce reviews?

We had a problem with fumes in our sleeper on # 7 a couple of weeks ago and were given a case # by customer relation to follow up with when we finished our trip in the frist week of Oct.

When I contacted customer relations after our trip was completed. I made sure that our TAS ( Patrick ) on # 7 was given high praise for all of his hard work and the customer relations agent took down his name and the dates we traveled and said that his supervior would be notifed of Patricks good work. I do not know when the man rested as he was always there if you needed anything and as was stated before about cross training we even saw him in the dining car helping out.

This was not the same case for TAS on our return on the CZ to CHI .

But that is life you get the good and bad