WMATA firing 20 managers

[TheNewYorkElevated]

The WMATA has fired over 20 employees as the article describes as

 

"a step towards "restructuring" the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority after months of subway safety problems, service disruptions, and financial woes."

 

 

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/metro-fires-20-managers-many-from-subway-operations/2016/05/20/3309ffda-1edd-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html

 

First graffiti on in-service trains, now this. 

[DetSMART45]

Oh boy ... where to start?  Let's just do the math part now, and I'll get to the rest a bit later::

 

This is nothing more than what "has" to happen after some major happening/news event with any large organization, public or private.  Someone has to be a sacrificial lamb, because it has to look like the wrongs are being righted, and that has to equal "heads will roll."

 

Total sham, and the WaPo succeeds in reporting this at 3rd grade level, because if you split the numbers up within your "reporting", your readers will still be agog, purely because you've caused the different parts of their brains to move in separate directions.  So let's look at the numbers:

--650 "at-will" employees,

--20 bad apples now "unemployed" (more on this later),

--So, 4% of this workforce is put out on the street. But it also means 96% are unaffected.

Since we're talking bad apples, that sounds like the average a produce stocker at a grocery might find in filling a huge bin of apples (and even that's probably a little high).  So, a huge bin of apples sitting there, and a minor handful have to be removed.  Hardly earth-shattering.

 

Now, overall, the WaPo says WMATA has about 13,000 total employees.  Let's work the numbers, and see how much water fills our bucket:

--13,000 total employees,

--650 non-Union employees,

--12,350 employees who couldn't face such an "immediate" dismissal,

--Once again, a one-percentage point figure of the employee pool: 5% are subject to this sort of disciplinary action.  95% of the total employees have some sort of safeguard -- meaning, they can still be as good, or bad, at their job and skate on the ice with heated blades.

 

Since we're having a nice time in Math class today, let's see how that droplet shrinks even smaller:

--13,000 total employees,

--20 told to pack up their desks,

--12,980 still got their paychecks yesterday,

--WOW! 99.846% of the WMATA workforce is still employed!  So those 20 sacrificial lambs accounted for a whopping 0.154% of the full bucket.  Putting it visually: You buy a gallon of milk, and there's a smear on your fridge shelf when you take it out.  Out of that gallon (128 oz), if you lose 0.154% of it, you've lost one teaspoon of liquid to the shelf.

 

The WaPo (and WMATA) also succeeds in making people think "THIS IS BIG! SEE, WE CARE!" through the essential vagaries, like "senior managers" and "within the subway division" (naturally the epicenter of the problem, so let's make it a point to highlight that!) and leaving it at that point.  Those senior managers could be any supervisory position created above a regular schlub without a specific title.  It doesn't mean any of those people were calling major decisions (like everyone who signs-off on those MTA explanation sheets forwarded around the complex which reach the Board).  And given that that information was left out, you can almost infer that these were minor functionaries in the whole organization, even within that subway division of WMATA.

 

I'll come back to this a little later.

[GojiMet86]

Non-transit related, it reminds me of the situation with the Atlanta Braves and Fredi Gonzalez. Even when the manager of the team actually doesn't contribute that much to the team's success (or lack of), and success (or lack of) is more driven by the actual players, if the team is as horrible as it is now, someone has to lose his job. The Braves are the worst team in baseball in a while, but the owners think it shouldn't have been as terrible as it is, even though they are the ones with the power of getting players into the team and in the end players are obviously the ones that make the team win. So of course, Fredi winds up being fired.

[Gotham Bus Co.]

The WMATA has fired over 20 employees as the article describes as

 

 

 

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/metro-fires-20-managers-many-from-subway-operations/2016/05/20/3309ffda-1edd-11e6-9c81-4be1c14fb8c8_story.html

 

First graffiti on in-service trains, now this. 

 

How many of the 20 were actually fired, and how many were "encouraged" to retire?

 

And were these even the right people to fire? Did they get rid of some timekeeping supervisor or HR flunky just to make politicians happy?

[Around the Horn]

You guys are seriously under-estimating Wiedefield... First, he has a history of firing managers who under perform in his other jobs. Second, he specifically said in a memo these employees were fired because they did not follow safety protocol. Third, in this same memo, he also mentioned that as many as 600 other employees were on their third strike, one more mistake and they're gone.

 

This is not a media play. Wiedefield's track record in the Maryland Transportation Authority shows as much.

This is just the first batch. Expect more later.

[TheNewYorkElevated]

You guys are seriously under-estimating Wiedefield... First, he has a history of firing managers who under perform in his other jobs. Second, he specifically said in a memo these employees were fired because they did not follow safety protocol. Third, in this same memo, he also mentioned that as many as 600 other employees were on their third strike, one more mistake and they're gone.

 

This is not a media play. Wiedefield's track record in the Maryland Transportation Authority shows as much.

 

This is just the first batch. Expect more later.

Or in other words, this is just the beginning. 

[RailBus63]

Some sort of shakeup at WMATA is long overdue.  From what I've been told the culture within the organization is toxic and safety has long been an afterthought until very recently.  The bus side has been mismanaged over the years (street supervision has been particularly nonexistent) and the various fires and breakdowns on the rail side show that there was never a serious plan to keep the system maintained as it aged. 

 

Maybe Wiedefeld is just doing this for P.R. purposes, but I hope not - this crisis may be the best opportunity in decades to overhaul the agency.  Time will tell.

[Around the Horn]

Some of the (rumored) impacted job titles include:

Chief Procurement Officer
Director of Rail Training
Chief Vehicle Engineer
General Superintendent of Car Maintenance
Director of Quality Assurance