T to Me: Take a Hike!

Perhaps being dissed by the MBTA is good. It will keep me focused on things like a boycott and pending public hearing on the T next Tuesday.

The T seems to be like Lily Tomlin's telephone operator, "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."

Specifically, as a test, two and one-half weeks ago, I sent in two direct questions to their customer feedback area. The form area read in part, "Please supply as much information as possible in order for us to process this request efficiently." Ha ha ha ha, efficiently, ha ha.

While their FAQs don't tell you squat, the contact page has subsections by type of transit as well as type of query (complaint, commendation, or inquiry, request or suggestion). It looks like our operators are standing by to help. Ha ha.

I fear that this is like the Mad magazine cartoon of all the grades of Sunoco gas coming out of the same tank. In this case, all the T email may go into the same bit bucket.

Basically catalyzed by questions on this blog, I asked, in separate, but specific and detailed queries concerning:

1. What happens if a Charlie Ticket user activates the entry gate (decrementing the card value) and a commuter exits at that gate before the user enters? Is the entry value lost?
2. Does bring a Charlie Ticket near a magnet harm it and are there other precautions we need to take with the seemingly fragile slips of paper?

Those aren't in the FAQs, but are likely to affect many users. So you'd think that I would get a reply within two days to one or both of those. Nooooo. A week? Nooooo. Two weeks? Noooo...still waiting.

The T can put the cuss in customer response.

---

Tags: massmarrier, Massachusetts, Boston, MBTA