The Green Line operator fired for crashing a trolley last week while in a drowsy fog had for years worked two full-time jobs without drawing scrutiny, one with the MBTA and one with the Boston Housing Authority, officials acknowledged Thursday.
A housing authority spokeswoman identified the employee as James Marshall, a safety dispatcher who has worked 26 years for the authority and remains employed on an overnight shift.
Comments
I bet he appeals his firing, and gets his MBTA job back with back pay.
I would love a job driving the Green Line!
Tsynchronous, I don't think you'd be satisfied unless he was burned at the stake.
I'm glad you've been able to live such an exemplary life, never doing anything you regret, never hurting anyone.
Maybe he should get his job back if agrees not to hold two jobs. Maybe you need to be a little more forgiving, instead of pretending you're perfect...
It's outrageous that these people can be working 2 full time state jobs. A simple check of their socical security numbers would confirm if they are double dipping.
Neither of these jobs were "state" jobs. But, I assume you mean "public sector" jobs.
In the public sector, no one checks, no one cares, any and all abuses are ignored, except when they result in public harm and thus make the newspapers. Then someboay may get fired... but the corruption and incompetence that is endemic in the public sectior doesn't change...
Any real effort to bring change would have to start with ending civil service and the right for public employees to unionize or at least stopping the public unions from taking thier blood money directoy out of public employee paychecks.
So, what are you going to do? I worked with a T employee who took disability leave and then worked another job while his work injury healed. He told me that nobody gets fired from the MBTA!
I see a guy doing what it takes to make it. It is too bad that someone has to work this much for a middle class lie in MA.
Your job is to show up awake enough to press one pedal when you see a green light, another when you see a red light for $60k and you blow it?
“We will look around to see what our peers are doing, and we will have a thoughtful evaluation of whether or not we should or should not change our policies as it relates to disclosure of a second job,” he said.
In the private sector, one incident with dozens of injured customers and $500000 damage, and any compenet manager would immediately implement a policy outlawing second jobs, or you would be out. An a not competent manager would be fired too.
But Davis' guy's timidity about the obvious and apparent, illustrates why the public sector is special - whether its T drivers, or teachers or toll takers, jobs are more about the people who hold them, and their unions, then they are about the public that is served. And that is the fact staring us in the fact from this story.
Expect more accidents and similar ad infinitum...we accept impoment employees, incompetnet managers...all up from Burgess through the infamoust Goldstein and Bigby ... to where the buck should stop, Patrick himself.
While I don't know what's entailed in being a trolley driver for the T, I'd have to assume that being alert is one of the most important aspects of the job. It's not like he's a social services worker making $25,000 a year trying to make ends meet. The guy's getting over $63,000 plus bennies (seems like a lot of money to operate a trolley, maybe the T should look at it's pay structure). I respect the fact that he's a hard worker but it's impossible to work that much, and sleep so little, and do a job competently where the public's safety is at risk. Plus, if managers even look at trolley operators before their shifts (I'm guessing that's hit or miss) how can you tell someone's not alert due to a lack of sleep? You could tell if they've been drinking or on drugs, maybe, but sleep deprived? One more example of the public sector just not getting it.
And what was the quality of his pesonal life? Little time for family and walking the dog.
This is no way to live in the pursuit of happiness.
I agree, but I've know people like him. They sacrifice themselves to give their spouse and children the best possible life.
Some people feel guilty saying "we can't afford that" to their kids, but it might be better for the kids if that did.
The guy made a mistake. He didn't intentially put people in danger. He's not a criminal, but only a regular guy who took on too much. He was fired from his job!
Isn't that enough? Do we have to destroy the guy? Is that the kind of country we've become?
The news media are like vultures and too many readers are quite willing to share the carrion.