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Taking 'remote work' to an extreme at the upper echelons of T management
By adamg on Sun, 04/23/2023 - 2:18pm
Update: The Globe issued a correction: Three of the managers actually live in Boston.
The Globe finds more MBTA managers who live hundreds, sometimes, thousands, of miles from the transit system they're supposedly charged with turning around.
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Comments
Well,
That is freaking infuriating. It should be mandatory that they come in at least three times a week. I’d even go as far to say that they should be required to take the T into work at least one of those days.
I've said this previously
The Globe has improved considerably in the past few months, basically with the appointment of a new editor.
I'm curious if there's any employment laws that would prevent Healey from proclaiming that starting Monday, April 24th, all state employees with a base salary of more than $150k are to work in an office or on-site 5 days a week. WFH should be for the worker bees (if applicable), not the top brass.
The reporter ...
Andrea Estes, has long been a really good reporter. And their current transportation reporter is doing good work as well.
I agree
The Globe has some really good reporters on staff, now and in the past. The question is what do the editors want to focus on, placement on their website, etc. Previously, there was far less in-depth coverage of the MBTA (and other topics) and I don't fault the writers for that.
As others have noted, investigations of the T and other "Boston" topics tended to be the domain of the Herold. There was a lot to dislike about that paper but they at least made the Globe feel guilty if they got scooped.
Concerning the Globe & Herald
Concerning the Globe & Herald, I'm wondering "Why now?"
Favor to Charlie Baker?
Maybe although all of this
Maybe although all of this coming out within 3-4 months of Healey coming into office paints the blame pretty squarely on Baker's shoulders. Obviously Healey didn't hire these people or approve these WFH arrangements of thousands of miles in her super short tenure. So maybe there was a short-term gag order to protect Baker while he was in office but now it's over?
Globe has also brought back
Globe has also brought back the weekly "Starts & Stops" transportation column as of today (IIRC,?) after a few fallow years
isn't that
Isnt that essentially what will happen when 'covid relief' ends in may? Not just the T but across all state offices.
They want to move meetings back to in person, among other things.
Make them take it at least weekly
And, on a monthly basis, assign them randomly selected locations to get to/from within the system.
February will be "find your way using a wheelchair" month.
Ditto for legislators - they get reimbursed for a T pass, mileage to and parking at the nearest station. No more free parking and mileage to the Statehouse.
Yes!
April can be "do all your shopping without a car, no delivery" month.
Sadly, the legislators decide what they are reimbursed for (must be nice) so there's little chance they'd do the right thing and prohibit parking reimbursements if the politician lives in the MBTA service area. And most of the time there's only one serious candidate running so it's not like we can punish those who support public transportation only in verbage on campaign mailers.
Daily
I say do it daily or at least on several consecutive days. When things go wrong with the T these days, it's usually not a blip, not one train or one line or even one day. I remember a few years back when something went pear-shaped and a whole lot of people suddenly had three-hour evening commutes, which went on for a week. Three hours for what should be a trip that takes under an hour is bad enough, but people are pretty understanding if it's a rare event. When it happens night after night, and people are dragging themselves in the door at 9 pm just in time to get ready to do it all over again, they will quickly conclude that they can't live like this, and will take steps accordingly. Now...imagine if those people worked for the T, and were in a position to do something to prevent the problem or make the situation better, and knew that their commute would continue to suck until they fixed it. That would get results.
Someone should tell the new GM
Now is not the time to take a vacation in Ireland.
This explains so much.
Guessing the staff that clean the restrooms also WFH.
Anyone working in this sort
Anyone working in this sort of service should be required to live within a certain distance of their offices, in case of an emergency they should be able to make it to the office. I'd also say they should have to go in at least once a week.
Thanks for the link to a paid
Thanks for the link to a paid subscription.
If somebody else had the story ...
I'd link to it. But the Globe got the scoop on this, and you can at least get the gist of it.
Good news isn't free
Except Uhub, and you should really give to this site too.
Suck it up and subscribe instead of complaining that you don't want to pay for someone else's work.
If you really don't want to subscribe, go to the library and read the paper in print.
use archive.org
You can easily get around the globe firewall by adding the article to archive.org and reading it there. This article has already been uploaded there several times.
Do you think it contains valuable information?
It is a compressive story that the Globe wrote and it required resources to gather the information.
They've detailed 9 top management employees at the MBTA that all seemingly primarily (or exclusively) reside outside of the MBTA service area, including a couple of them that live in the Midwest, one in Florida, and one on the West Coast.
If you choose not to pay for journalism that is your choice. I choose to be a subscribe to the Globe and seeing them publish stories like this one validate the subscription cost to me.
Globe Subs
One of my biggest complaint wasn't about the fees or the cost. 27.70 for several weeks is like buying the printed paper daily.
But my biggest complaint wasnt the cost... but if you needed to cancel, it was a very painful experience. Apparently you can do it online now.
I may have to re-sub just because of that reason. The promo's are great, but that rebill at the full amount gets me every time so I want to cancel.
According to my WFH agreement
According to my WFH agreement I have to be able to get to the office in one hour if there is an emergency.
Ditto
Except we have to be within 2 hours of the office that we are assigned to. It is possible to live in the Berkshires if assigned to Marlboro or Springfield, but that has to be arranged.
One person that I work with recently moved with her recently retired husband to central NH, which is barely within range.