VERITAS: FUMBLE - IF YOU CAN'T SAY SOMETHING NICE...

This week's perspective from Joe Chidley:

Of course it’s too early to tell whether Steve O’Brien can save the Toronto Transit Commission from itself. The 44-year-old hotelier, who runs Toronto’s One King West condo-hotel, was this week named as the head of the TTC’s customer service advisory panel. And what a job that will be. Plagued by complaints of shoddy service, subway breakdowns and photos of sleeping TTC employees that have become an online phenomenon (just Google “TTC” and “sleeping”), the “Better Way” was looking like the “Battered Way” even before the sex scandal that kyboshed TTC commissioner Adam Giambrone’s mayoral ambitions. So who in his right mind would want to be in charge of turning around its reputation? Apparently a guy with a knack for public speaking, a solid track record in an important service industry, and a decent sense of humour. In accepting the appointment, O’Brien acknowledged that he was taking on one of the toughest jobs in the city (for no pay) and that he was “excited, flattered—crazy.” The only knock against O’Brien seems to be that he lives in the bedroom community of Milton and takes the GO train to work—a criticism expressed in no uncertain terms by Bob Kinnear, head of the Amalgamated Transit Union local that represents TTC workers. “I’m floored,” Kinnear was quoted as saying by NOW magazine. “The traveling public quite frankly deserves better.” Indeed they do. But who’s to say O’Brien isn’t the man to deliver? Bob Kinnear? When the sleeping-attendant photos went viral, Kinnear issued a now-infamous statement blaming TTC customers for not waking the snoozer up. Now, it might well be that the customer is NOT always right, but blaming him or her for your own screw-ups is not a great PR strategy. Nor is being seen to be insensitive to what appear to be honest efforts to improve public attitudes towards your workplace and your union members. In the NOW piece, Kinnear mocked O’Brien’s lack of transit experience. “I’d like to ask him the last time one of his clerks was punched in the face,” he said. Transit riders might be wondering something else—like the last time O’Brien caught one of his clerks asleep on the job, and what he did about it. I doubt he blamed his customers. Fumble, Bob Kinnear.