An example of good customer service on the T
By adamg - Tue, 12/02/2008 - 9:01am.
No, really. Riggs reports on a Green Line driver who managed to get him some useful information last night. Of course, his question had to do with why it was taking 20 minutes for a C train to pull into Hynes, but still.
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my favorite T employee in the whole wide world
Once I was headed down the line that goes to BC, and asked the driver how many stops roughly until St. Mary's (I think.) We were stopped at an intersection and he thought for a couple of seconds, laughed, and said something like "you know, I drive it every day and I honestly can't remember." I laughed, and as I was walking away, he called back and said something like "5 stops!", and he was right.
My favorite T employee, however, will always be the Door Dude that worked the Red Line during rush hour a couple of years back (2004-ish?), and had a chipper speech for the masses getting off at Park. It varied slightly day-to-day in terms of the items and actions-which-grant-ownership, but went something like:
"Now approaching Park Street! Please take all personal belongings and trash with you; coffee cups, newspapers, bags, pens, hats, pet rocks. If you BROUGHT it, were GIVEN it, TOUCHED it, SAT next to it, SNEEZED on it, LOOKED at it or IT looked a you.....it's YOOOOOOURS, please take it with you!"
I was always secretly thrilled when I either saw him, or recognized his voice as he announced the first stop at Davis.
His announcements were always my favorite part of the T, and the only time I've enjoyed myself more on the T was when that big dude with the speakers and multiple mp3/minidisc/etc players would get on my orange line train and rock out to (pretty good) techno/dance (at an appropriate volume- never too loud), which the train full of commuters would either ignore or watch with wonder and amusement. It was usually a great conversation when our end of the train would giggle/watch. "Ah, I take it you haven't seen him before?"
Wish I knew his name- I think I found some info about him googling around a year back when I commuted via said line.
Was that ...
DJ Nitetrain?
Nitetrain
Nitetrain takes the B Line all the time. I've ridden with him a few times (one bad experience where he basically demanded my seat because his bag of equipment is so heavy it would have "crushed his legs" to keep it on his lap instead of in my seat, the rest were good). He doesn't usually have speakers though. He wears a heavily taped up pair of quality headphones with a lot of plush sound dampening in them.
YES! DJ Nitetrain.
That's him, except none of the youtube clips I found actually had him playing music- just listening to his headphones.
Googling him, I see you've covered him before. I have to disagree with the comment you made about his sound system- or he'd upgraded post-article, because the sound quality was pretty good. It also wasn't disco (thank god.)
Door Dude
My favorite T employee, however, will always be the Door Dude that worked the Red Line during rush hour a couple of years back (2004-ish?), and had a chipper speech for the masses getting off at Park.
I think he's still around, or at least his legacy lives on in other inspired conductors, because I still hear variants of that speech on the Red Line every now and then. Makes me smile every time.
My favorite conductor so far was the guy who cheerfully called out people acting like jackasses on the platforms:
My favorite driver on the T
My favorite driver on the T was on the B line once. The train was packed and he made the announcement probably about 10 times that it was going to run express to BU Central. Then he closed the doors, opened them again, and said, "Okay, take off your headphones, I'm gonna say this one more time... This train is going express to BU Central. It will not stop in between. Don't push the stop request button because I will not be stopping until BU Central. Don't say I didn't warn you, it's not my fault you put those things in your ears!"
I thought it was hilarious. Mainly because I find it incredibly rude to turn up your headphones to the point of literally blocking out everything around you.
Why's that rude?
It's bad for long-term hearing... but if i can't hear the headphones, i don't think it's rude *by itself*
I suppose I'm thinking this way because I just came off another horrible USAirways flight that included about 20 minutes of pointless announcements before and into the start of the flight, more pointless announcements during the flight.
I was trying to read a book and concentrate. No, I did not want to join the USAirways frequent flyer program (again). No, I did not want to purchase a beverage for $2 to $7 with exact change please. No, I did not want to read the in-flight magazine. No, I do not give a damn what the weather is at my destination because I already know that. I would just like to sit quietly and read my book, please.
Sadly it was a long trip with a lot to haul so i had to travel without my noise-cancelling headphones.
On the T you've got those "Hi, I'm Sammy Smith from the (team name) and ... ".
Shut it up and i will remove the noise-blockers.
points conceded for idiots who think that removing external sound does in fact teleport them to another dimension in which there are no other people, and no other cars or trains to watch out for, though I see people with NO headphones behaving like that in Boston all the time.