That's not the part that is mind boggling. The mind boggling part is the idea that because you weren't told to "read and understand" that one wouldn't think that it wasn't important to do so.
I have no doubt that Amtrak was run that way, but if there was a slip of paper to sign or not, ignorance is no excuse for just making up policy.
Ryan, you are clearly better than the rest of us, and I admire you for that. You must have a hard time finding people that live up to your standards, but we each have a cross to bear.
Conversely, no one has spoken of "making up policy." That is a horse of your invention, a straw man whose demolition seeks to make you stand tall.
As a previous poster has noted, my training class was NOT given any sort of statement to sign that said I had "read and understood" anything. Indeed, I wasn't even given the book. I came across it in the Chicago crew base (I was based in NY), after I had been on the road for more than 6 months, and "borrowed" it. I have no idea who my copy belonged to, and I never saw another one. I still have it. I left Amtrak many years ago, and have worked for several railroads since, including the Venice Simplon Orient Express, SNCF, and the Belgian National. I am good at what I do, and proud of my work ethic, even though it falls short of yours. And thus I found the rule book interesting. But...
...I received 4 days training when I hired on in 1979. It was supposed to be 5, but the instructor — who was excellent, let it be said — was absent one day, for some critical work-related reason that I no longer remember.
My ONE training trip was a round-trip from NYP to Harrisburg on a Slumbercoach of the "Broadway Limited." The outbound TA was an old-timer, a year from retirement, who put me in an empty cabin and told me not to leave it, lest I "get in the way." The return TA was a new hire, completing his first trip. Imagine his surprise at being told he was to "show me the ropes!"
The manual is 150 pages or so long, and it is not exciting reading. Most of it's recommendations fall squarely in the "duh" category. I confess, that makes the few surprising ones easier to remember. But plowing through 150 pages of legaleze to get to them is not easy.
Amtrak looks for many skills in its Train Attendants, but even in my day, most of those were broadly linked to the hospitality industry. Needless to say, people with talent in hospitality are often quite different in mental structure from those who glide through arcane English with bullet points numbered by decimals.
Yes, I have read the manual, and I was (and still am) "familiar" with it. Though I would venture to say that few of my fellow Attendants (we still called ourselves "porters," in the vernacular) were. But familiarity and memorization are not the same.
All of this is to say that perfection is not human, except in you, where any failure "boggles." Or is being easily boggled an imperfection? That is above my pay grade.
No one, on this post or in life, condones making up policy. But sometimes you think you know the answer, so you give it. And then, that night, when the last passenger is in bed, and you have a couple of hours before your 4a wake-up to get someone off in Cleveland, instead of lying down, you look up the issue in the manual. And you discover you got it wrong. As Governor Perry would say, "Oops."
Rules Examaniers used to be lots more prevelant and strict back in the day according to old timers! :help:
