“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
Bill Gates, business magnate, software developer, author, and philanthropist
When the clock strikes 5:00 P.M. tomorrow February 15, 2022, Metro will be closing their FY2023 budget hearing and feedback season, but we are still having difficulty being heard. This year I took advantage of the opportunities that Metro provided for me to submit my two cents, however, I had to be stubbornly determined to get my message through.
The most vexing challenge I had was with the participate-by-phone option where you call in to any of the three live hearings in Virginia, Washington, or Maryland to submit your budget comments. The experience that I had using that system could be charitably summed up in one word: flawed.
So, you call in to a conference line and you are asked to press “*” 3to get into a queue and wait for your turn to speak. I was sixth in the queue when I signed in and after waiting for about 25 minutes the system said that I was first in the queue. I am a little nervous but feeling good and in high spirits in anticipation of performing my civic duty to my community by publicly reporting to Metro on how disabled riders are being neglected in their FY2023 budget.
However, something went wrong and kept going wrong. the automated conference call system suddenly told me that if I wanted to speak, I could punch 3 and get in the queue just after I was told that I was first IN THE QUEUE. This meant that I was kicked out of the queue just as I was about to get my chance to speak. So, I punched 3 and got into the queue again, but this time I was thrown to the back of the line. The same thing happened again. My turn to speak came and I was thrown out again. I finally got my chance to speak after about 10 cycles of being kicked out, but I had to summon up all of my dogged determination energies to make it happen. Metro used the same broken system last year, and I was put through the same grind, but I gave up in frustration that time. Is that what Metro wanted me to do again?
So, here we have a 5-billion-dollar entity asking me, the taxpayer, for billions more of my tax dollars, but cannot grant me the basic accommodation of providing a conference call system
that works. Does Metro genuinely want to hear what the public thinks about the FY2023 budget? Is this how you treat people who are paying your compensation? Is the attitude, just give me the money but I don’t care to make it easy for your community to tell me what you think?
This phone problem hits the disabled community the hardest because it is the preferred mode for many of us to participate at the hearing. How many do you think just gave up like I did last year? A large majority are not attending in person because of the virus emergency. Many do not have the technology prowess with Zoom, and the wmata.com website is marginally 508 accessible and not disabled user friendly at best.
You folks at Metro had this same conference call problem last year. You had 12 months to fix it but did not.
I have attended several conference call meetings like this since covid: everything from formal business meetings to my local community group meetings organized by the blind community and I have never suffered through this substantial number of frustrating phone system blunders ever. Not even close. Is managing 6 to 10 people in a phone queue that difficult? Maybe next year you folks should use the same conference calling system used by my local blindness group and my wife Sonia’s book club: Free Conference Call. There are usually more than 10 people on some of those calls. That system definitely has the capacity to handle your six to 10 simultaneous callers at the hearing.
Well, maybe the GM did not hear about the conference call problem, just like apparently no one told him about the 7000-wheel safety issue with Metrorail as I read in the Washington Post a few days ago. So, I am taking the opportunity to tell him now. Mr. Paul Wiedefeld, your conference call system for the public to participate at the hearings is broken. Can you kindly have it fixed before the next hearing please? I do not believe that I am asking for too much, after all you are asking me and my fellow taxpayers for billions yet again. I believe that we are entitled to at least that small measure of service and respect as we hand over our hard-earned dollars to you to run Metro.
The voice of the people is sacred. Metro should go to great lengths to insure that their voices are heard and heard loud and clear without undue frustration. Can the top brass in charge at Metro at least pretend that they understand this? Maybe you don’t believe this, but you can learn a lot from us customers.
You can contact me if you need some help from the blind guy. I don’t charge much.