One of the Worst Jobs in America: Responding To Irate Tweets From New York City Subway Riders (wsj.com) 98
Every day, the frustrations of New York City subway riders spew out in the form of 2,500 often profanity-laced tweets directed at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. From a report: "Thanks @MTA for making sure we can't buy metrocards AGAIN," wrote @itzMzLori, 31-year-old beauty blogger Lori Tenn, who found her card machine closed. "I swear I f-ing hate y'all." The job of taking this vitriol -- and offering measured responses -- falls to the social-media team behind @MTA and @NYCTSubway. The two Twitter accounts for the agency that manages the New York City subway, bus and commuter rail system have more than two million often angry followers. "We're New Yorkers, we have thick skins, but we're human," said Molly Washam, an even-keeled 30-year-old. "We do sometimes gather around the monitor to see the meanest thing someone could come up with that day."
To stay calm, she said she does yoga, and recently tried a pottery class. Rampant subway delays and breakdowns in recent years are making the work more intense. A 2017 report by the New York City comptroller found weekday subway delays rose 83% between 2013 and 2016. The agency has begun a modernization plan to make improvements, including upgrading the signaling system and hiring more subway workers. New Yorkers' response to repairs? "Really @MTA, More of your Bs complications," wrote @MattMercadoNYC, rider Matt Mercado, 34, of the Bronx. "You pick Thursday AND Friday for these 'Required Repairs'??!?" "We know they might not mean everything they're saying," said Sarah Meyer, the MTA's customer-service chief. But, "I can't personally change the signaling system."
To stay calm, she said she does yoga, and recently tried a pottery class. Rampant subway delays and breakdowns in recent years are making the work more intense. A 2017 report by the New York City comptroller found weekday subway delays rose 83% between 2013 and 2016. The agency has begun a modernization plan to make improvements, including upgrading the signaling system and hiring more subway workers. New Yorkers' response to repairs? "Really @MTA, More of your Bs complications," wrote @MattMercadoNYC, rider Matt Mercado, 34, of the Bronx. "You pick Thursday AND Friday for these 'Required Repairs'??!?" "We know they might not mean everything they're saying," said Sarah Meyer, the MTA's customer-service chief. But, "I can't personally change the signaling system."
Spoiled much? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who believes replying to tweets, no matter how mean, even cracks the list of top 1,000 worst jobs has probably never had a job period. This is what all public relations people do. I also notice there's no mention of their taxpayer funded salaries and benefits.
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I do not live anywhere close to what someone would consider "rural"...
And because I enjoy guns (I enjoy a LOT of other activities and collections too)...I'm a nut?
And not sure what scorn you are putting on term "independent"??
You think independence and not going along with group think all the time is a bad thing? The collective is better than the individual?
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^^^ THIS ^^^. Add that to the risk of strike once unions get involved and the excess pollution associated with empty trains and busses and you see why the 20th-century version of public transportation is drag on modern society. I, for one, look forward to universal car sharing (essentially subsidized electric taxis with automated drivers) and the continued death of passenger rail (because the places people want to live and travel to are constant
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Anyone who believes replying to tweets, no matter how mean, even cracks the list of top 1,000 worst jobs has probably never had a job period. This is what all public relations people do. I also notice there's no mention of their taxpayer funded salaries and benefits.
Exactly. I was wondering why the fuck the subway system even needs a Twitter account to begin with. It has operated for many decades without it, and outages and maintenance work can be posted to a website. And no, that doesn't mean a website with a fucking comments section. It means an HTTP server that disseminates information, and does not require taxpayers to fund a fucking social media team.
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I use Twitter to connect with the Denver public transit system. It's fast and they respond in very good time. It's convenient to type a quick message and be done with it.
Elevator not working at a station? Tweet them. Train didn't show up on time? Tweet. Driver issues? Tweet. They respond to all of them and get more information as needed. All this in a public forum.
Customer service is one of the actual good uses for Twi
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Couldn't agree more. If you think this job is tough try roofing or nearly any other construction related job. I did that for one summer and even growing up on a farm didn't compare. It is still a constant reminder of why I am blessed to have a desk job.
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If you think this job is tough try roofing or nearly any other construction related job.
Interesting. Do you also think that mental illnesses are not real illnesses since they aren't physical?
Don't get me wrong, I certainly love my desk job, but saying that a mentally-taxing job can't be tough just because it isn't physically-taxing, is just plain incorrect.
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I'm rather surprised that it's a job at all.
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I'm rather surprised that it's a job at all.
I'd prefer that they provide troll replies. "Don't like our service?...Suck it!", "Your train was dirty?...go lick the 3rd rail".
Here's what is actually worse (Score:2)
Anyone who believes replying to tweets, no matter how mean, even cracks the list of top 1,000 worst jobs has probably never had a job period.
You know who has it even worse than whoever it is responding to these tweets? Every single person who has to actually USE the NYC subway daily. I visit from time to time, and the whole system is a mix of worn out cars, and the most horrible subway stations I have seen anywhere across the world. I feel really sorry for those poor bastards using any part of it to comm
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It's like manning the customer complaints line, but the whole world is listening in and can hear your every word.
Feedback is data (Score:4, Insightful)
It may suck responding to them (a process that can likely be automated) but the feedback is important data points to analyze. The level of vitriol & number of complaints can help them figure out what problems need to be addressed.
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> helpfully provided a void that you can scream into while they do whatever they were going to do anyway
This is EXACTLY what a lot of businesses intentionally pay for. To be inaccessible while pretending they are. To be insulated from the second party. Never had a job as a phone jockey?
Not that your job has to be exclusively about it. A secretary has duties besides being interference.
Re: Feedback is data (Score:1)
As someone who has worked support jobs before, it isn't unlikely that they're just a mouthpiece with no input to the decision makers.
Many decision makers literally think their social media team is an apology manufacturing service and do not care about trying to gather any useful data, much the same as how some companies use their support teams primarily as blame dodgers.
"We're sorry that the recent update has caused issues for your implementation. The product team is currently working on a solution to the i
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It may suck responding to them (a process that can likely be automated) but the feedback is important data points to analyze. The level of vitriol & number of complaints can help them figure out what problems need to be addressed.
This. We are nearly at the point with AI where such things can be entirely automated.
Lets face it, tweets and other forms of social media are losing their impact. These days if you see a poorly worded, cliche ridden tweet with terrible grammar about a business (airline, train company, fast food), you know that it was done by some frothing-at-the-mouth manchild sitting alone in their flat in their underwear you know that it's exaggerated and that it shouldn't be given the time of day. Realistically we'r
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Why even respond (Score:4, Interesting)
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It's called customer service, sometimes you have to go to where the customer is.
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I disagree. Twitter when it has customer service is way more awesome than other forms. I've personally had a fantastic customer service experience with Comcast (of all companies) on Twitter after getting pissed as hell using phone, email, and chat support methods. The Twitter support was able to do a private chat, not in real time (i.e. in between meetings and such during the day), and help me get an internet plan I actually wanted vs the shit that got pushed on me by the phone support and the absolutely us
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But why should that be connected to a twitter account?
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Because that's how you contact the people using Twitter? Who like it?
Bubble much?
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If responding to subway complaints is worst job (Score:2)
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Then what does that say about the millions of people who have to rely on the subway to get to their jobs?
There's not much more to say about the millions of idiots who insist on living in a city so overcrowded that alternative forms of modern transportation are all but impossible.
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Ha. New York "overcrowded."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_density [wikipedia.org]
New York City is the most densely populated major city in the United States. And since we're here discussing a US city, here's the actual link that is relevant.
United_States_cities_by_population_density [wikipedia.org]
Manhattan graduated from "overcrowded" to "supreme clusterfuck" about 20 years ago.
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If you take New York City as a whole, no, because it is extremely large. If you look at what people commonly refer to as "New York" from outside of the city, that being just Manhattan, then yes, it would be ranked 6th on the list you provided. Plus consider that Central Park is ~5% of the land area as well, the rest of the area is actually denser taking this into consideration. So yes, it is quite over-crowded at its center.
agency maybe but City job where you can talk back (Score:2)
agency maybe but City job where you can talk back to people. May one where it's very hard to fired and may even be union.
Worst job? (Score:3)
Not even close... how about?
(1) Train toilet cleaner
(2) Parking enforcer, where people curse you in person, not online
(3) Tech support rep
(4) Hoarder house cleaner
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Not even close... how about? (1) Train toilet cleaner (2) Parking enforcer, where people curse you in person, not online (3) Tech support rep (4) Hoarder house cleaner
(5) Soldier
(6) Hazmat cleanup
about 1000 more ...
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I've watched every episode of Dirty Jobs and the people doing the jobs seemed satisfied, happy, and genuinely eager to work.
It's almost like having a "bad" job has more to do with the people than the work.
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Stressful jobs are often ones where you feel powerless and ineffectual. If you're doing hazmat cleanup, you go in, start working, and you see a difference. Cleaning up a hoarder house? It's a crap job while you're doing it, but you're accomplishing something you can see. Sit there while the customer complains? That's going to be stressful.
Social-Media outreach is being done wrong... (Score:5, Insightful)
>>"We know they might not mean everything they're saying," said Sarah Meyer, the MTA's customer-service chief. But, "I can't personally change the signaling system."
This response from the MTA media chief defines what is wrong.
When an organization like MTA creates a social media team, they need to empower them and integrate them with senior management and decision makers. What good is getting feedback from your customers if the people getting the feedback are not tightly integrated with management to ensure a good feedback loop.
This isn't customer relations or even PR - its just creating a useless and pointless job. Customers might as well be tweeting to a wall.
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I think the idea is to setup a punching dummy that the public can rage at. Once someone expresses their rage on social media they are less likely to do something more that would require an expensive response from the MTA, like actually fixing whatever it is that is broken.
I know when I was in the military there was an annual workforce survey that was basically a joke. The survey had two purposes. First it served as an outlet for troops that were frustrated about something to think their voice was getting he
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What good is getting feedback from your customers if the people getting the feedback are not tightly integrated with management to ensure a good feedback loop.
It is cheaper to hire someone to apologise to the customers, than to actually fix the problems so the customers stop complaining.
The weakest of the worst jobs (Score:2)
Every few years one of these stories comes up and this by far is the easiest/tamest of the worst jobs. The worst of these is those that are paid to review questionable content. The highly violent, disturbing content. I remember reading here that these employees often had PTSD from all the content they were reviewing.
LMAO... Millenials. (Score:2)
"Worst job". "Replying to Tweets".
Sheltered much ?
Try what these guys do : https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Thanks, but since this is a story about being offended by social media I'll just remark that I would like better if you people pasted the title of the video when posting a link, because I don't know where "8-qnZJWnJuI" leads to!
I'm traumatized by the fear of offending you with this comment. Someone please give me a cookie please!
Modernising the subway? (Score:2)
What plans are there to modernise the New York subway?
Travelling around the world I see some modern subway systems, either because the were recently implemented or they decided that they needed to modernise, or fall apart.
New Yorkâ(TM)s subway system feels outdated in many ways and the fact it manages to cope with so many travellers is impressive. The feeling I get of NYCâ(TM)s subway is one where they are so busy trying to prevent it falling apart that they canâ(TM)t even consider modernisin
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Re:Modernising the subway? (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone know what is keeping the system in its current state?
Most likely, it's the typical American aversion to paying taxes. The reality is that you get what you pay for, and you don't get what you don't. It's just that simple. So, to pass balanced budgets and give tax cuts to the rich, the powers that be let the infrastructure deficit grow and grow, and leave the problem to the next generation.
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Most likely, it's the typical American aversion to paying taxes.
New York has a very high tax rate, including a Metropolitan Commuter Transportation District surcharge. The problem is the cycle of higher taxes cause people to demand higher wages, so the tax dollars aren't available for anything else.
Re: Modernising the subway? (Score:2)
With the number of rich cooperations in the city I wonder whether they would be open to sponsorships? Just imagine in exchange for a nicely updated station Microsoft, as an example, gets to have their name on it for two years?
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Does anyone know what is keeping the system in its current state?
Politics is a big part of it, who's going to pay for it. While completely inside New York City, it's controlled by New York State, so the money has to come from the state assembly and governor, who have to answer to the rest of the state outside the city, most of whom don't want their tax money going solely to the city.
weehhhhh (Score:2)
Google chat bots to the rescue (Score:2)
To stay calm... (Score:3)
To stay calm, she said she does yoga, and recently tried a pottery class
And bicycles to work every day.
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To stay calm, she said she does yoga, and recently tried a pottery class
And bicycles to work every day.
They're especially good in a couple inches of snow, or a nice downpour.
legal? (Score:1)
Easy job (Score:2)
@everyone: You don't like it? Fucking walk.
It's like they're taunting us... (Score:2)
"We do sometimes gather around the monitor to see the meanest thing someone could come up with that day."
Challenge accepted! Get ready to cry...
Well (Score:2)
Delays are up 83%? No problem, we'll just respond to tweets instead of fixing whatever caused the delay in the first place.
If the locality can't maintain their public transport system better than that then it ought to be encouraging residents to buy t
I could totes do that job! (Score:1)
Or that I only drove through NYC once
Also, I don't know much about NYC except via novels, tv, web
Even LESS about MTA
Dog Nos they would be happier with a real dog
Since I ain't a dog, I just type as one every now and then.
Is this a great country or what?
ProTips (Score:1)
Do:
* fix the problems which irritate;
DON'T:
* try to persuade them shitty service is OK.
responding eh (Score:2)
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Nobody likes a tattle tail.
j/k