Apologetics noted, but we're speaking of a 13 hour period where paying customers had to wait stuck in a train in the middle of no where. Then they get yelled at by staff like they where an unruly kindergarten...
Has it ever occured to you that the staff on board the train has spent there even more time than any of the passengers?
That they were enduring the same inconveniences as the passengers?
That they were exposed to the same extreme situation, but that on top of that they were still responsible for the passengers and their safety?
That they probably felt the same frustrations and exasperations as their passengers (probably more so, since they might actually know what measures would have prevented such a situation if the necessary resources and permissions had been granted and deployed)?
That they might have felt just as abandoned by VIA’s dispatchers or management as their passengers?
That they are the only available target on a train of some 200 increasingly anxious, exasperated and angry passengers?
That they were held accountable by the passengers for things which are entirely outside of their control?
That unlike the passengers they didn’t have the luxury to just decide to temporarily withdraw themselves from the situation (e.g., by listening to music or allowing them to nod off) in order to recharge their batteries before trying to deal again with the situation?
What really pisses me off is when people are empathetic only with customers and their tendency to react badly while circumstances deterirorate, while they expect employees to stay as calm, friendly and upbeat as at the very beginning of the trip, even if they have their worst day in their career and are exposed to the pressures of responsibility which no customer feels. Employees are humans, humans make decisions and often these decisions turn out to be bad or have even horrible consequences. And that’s why we usually don’t judge individual actions by their outcomes, but also by the circumstances under which the individual acted.
Now think about how any staff member on board that train (or in fact any customer-facing employee in the railroad or similar industries) might feel when they read how you want to see heads roll for how they dealt with a situation which was impossible in the first place.
…you know, there's only so much of defending the indefensible you can do here. So I stand by what I said.
The indefensible is the situation in which the passengers
and customers found themselves. I’m sufficiently aware about my own human flaws to know that I would have made a horrendously bad job as an employee on that train and I am extremely grateful that I will with almost total certainty never find myself in auch an impossible work situation. It is quite possible (and, to be honest, almost inevitable) that many of the employees involved have made bad decisions they probably already regret.
This is why I asked you to reflect on what kind of impossible situation all these employees were placed into before joining the online and media mob with their pitchforks in their witch hunt against employees who might not have handled this extreme situation in the most perfect way possible.
It’s easy to judge people who make questionable decisions. The question is if we would find those same standards fair if they were applied to ourselves instead if we happened to find ourselves in such an unfortunate situation. I believe that we should be very grateful if we are never going to find out…