TTC General Manager Gary Webster Slams TTC Employees For Poor Customer Service!

Source: http://www.680news.com

Our customers deserve better

February 6, 2010

I don’t know about you, but I am becoming increasingly tired of defending the reputation of the TTC; tired of explaining what is acceptable and what is not; and tired of stating the obvious: that much of the behaviour being reported is, indeed, unacceptable.

You have heard me say that I am proud of the TTC. I still am, but I am not proud of what we have been dealing with over the last several weeks.

Two weeks ago I said that the vast majority of TTC employees care about the organization and do a good job, but we can all do better. I asked everyone to respond well. Some of you did. Clearly, some of you did not.

We all have to accept responsibility for allowing the TTC to drift into a culture of unacceptable operating discipline. In other words, we have deemed it acceptable for some employees to not do all aspects of their jobs.

We have two choices. We can continue to react to issues, deal with individual employee problems, and hope that the rest of our employees get the message, behave themselves and not get caught doing something they should not be doing.

The other choice, and the one we are going to take, is a much broader approach. Expectations need to be clear, especially for frontline employees. And employees need to be held accountable for their poor performance.

We are in the customer service business, but some of the behaviour our customers have encountered recently would suggest otherwise. Our customers pay a fare and the City provides hundreds of millions of dollars every year to the TTC. This public transit agency belongs to the very people we serve.

As Chief General Manager, I am ultimately accountable to our customers. As employees, you – and you alone – are accountable for your actions. The culture of complacency and malaise that has seeped into our organization will end. I hold all of management responsible to make this happen. Reviews and plans are under way to address systemic issues regarding customer service, but real change starts with you.

Gary Webster
Chief General Manager

When Was The Last Time You Saw A Movie About Black Heterosexual Love?

I know some people think I am a grumpy bastard. I just think I am a man that questions things in pop culture.  Last week, I was on the TTC subway and I saw a poster for the movie “Dear John.” Obviously, I am not the target demographic  audience for “Dear John”. I am not straight and I am not female.

The movie, “Dear John”, just snapped Avatar’s seven week streak at number one at the box office. Thank goodness Avatar is no longer number one!

The  heterosexual romantic drama “Dear John”, grossed an impressed $32.4 million dollars. The lead actors are rising stars Amanda Seyfried and Channing Tatum. “Dear John” is a movie about young white heterosexual love. White people deserve the right to see white heterosexual love reflected on the silver screen.

The reviews for “Dear John” are mostly negative. According to some critics, Nicolas Sparks books are pretentious tear jerkers.

Sparks is a very famous author he has written numerous best selling books  such as “The Note Book”, “A Walk To Remember”, “Message In A Bottle.”

The “Note Book”, is Sparks most successful novel that  became a box office movie hit.

Although, I am not a fan of Sparks work I have to commend the man.  Sparks knows his audience, they have a craving, a  hunger, to read depressing romantic stories about white heterosexual love.

It is obvious that Sparks has an excellent track record he knows his audience.

The art of writing isn’t really about art anymore, it is about generating profit for publishing companies.

Sparks has targeted his writing to a specific demographic audience and he is now a multi millionaire.

However, there is a paucity of  movies about the romantic experiences of  marginalized groups on the silver screen. I wish there was a balance.

We live in a  patriarchal, anti gay, anti feminist, heterosexist culture where  compulsory heterosexuality is the only palatable sexual orientation. I am sure straight people will enjoy “Dear John.”

Maybe, some gay people will like “Dear John” as well? Who knows?

However, I am a gay person, and I do question things. I would love to see a movie about two lesbians falling in love or two gay men falling in love. However, although homosexuality is more palatable, it is still not the norm.

Meanwhile, I started to think to myself “when was the last time I saw a movie about black heterosexual love?”

My mind was blank, because I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw black straight romance on the sliver screen.

Maybe, I will ask Vanessa for some advice?Vanessa is a very established writer she got published in O Magazine twice!

Vanessa is in a Masters of Films Studies at York University. Maybe I will ask her for some advice? Vanessa knows a lot about the film industry.

I am not straight but I want to see movies with black heterosexual people falling in love.

I would love to see a movie with Halle Berry and Will Smith as a romantic couple together. I think that would be lovely.

I yearn to see a positive movie about black heterosexual love. Am I asking for too much? Am I just a big dreamer?I am tired of Tyler Perry he can’t save the day for black folks.

What do you guys think? Have you ever had this kind of thought before?