This mentality is pervasive across all segments of our “modern” working environment. I work in food service. I am managed by a person that is remote. They have no idea what happened in the restaurant other than the numbers do not reflect what the spreadsheet says should have happened. The philosophy is that all restaurants are the same, thus all performance should be equal.
I can’t tell you how many “successful” manager have been terminated for fudging the numbers or not following food safety process. When a hands on audit occurs, the reviewers are horrified by the observed performance. Luckily, we aren’t running trains into each other.
Mike Cafferata
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CBQ@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Charlie Vlk
Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2012 10:11 AM
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [CBQ] Re: Boyer speed recorders
A friend who lived in Naperville at his own expense went down to Dallas/Ft.Worth and enrolled in the BNSF-sanctioned Community College Dispatchers Class. IIRC he graduated second in his class (with many people washing out along the way) and was hired. They put him on the most challenging desk without the expert help that he was supposed to get as training. He did not have any “incidents” but they found enough to complain about him to wash him out of the program before his probationary period was complete. By contrast, a female that was in his class had some major lapses (like authorizing opposing trains on the same track) and she was hired on.
Dispatching trains with somebody who has no more idea of what they are looking at beyond a computer game screen is something only modern corporate America could come up with. No idea of what the track profile, country traversed, handling characteristics of trains, etc.. My friend was careful about not showing his interest in trains but could not hide his knowledge….and thus was a threat to the wonks in the Louis Menk Center (the place name tells a great deal about the corporate culture of the BN / BNSF itself).
Charlie Vlk