All of this. Also, seriously, WTF is this: "Have the ability to work any and all shifts and/or locations as assigned or directed. Be available to work twenty four (24) hours per day, seven (7) days per week." <---
THIS is what says to me that the T isn't serious about this problem. I understand that this requirement appears to be standard for the operator positions as well, but it's still unreasonable (all the more so for the additional reasons
@millerm277 lays out). What kind of outside hire would agree to a job like this?
Which bring me to the next point:
The published minimums are essentially a HS Diploma and 4 years as a Heavy Rail operator; not particularly limiting. If they do need people "with knowledge of Subway Operations Rapid Transit Lines, particularly in train dispatching operations" then there needs to be some pathway for employees to gain those skills.
I disagree about the *2 years of experience requirement not being limiting. (And note that it explicitly requires 4 years of experience
with the MBTA, which means that they aren't accepting external hires at all, which also reduces the pool of potential applicants further.) I'm not saying that the potential applicant pool is minuscule, but it does seem to me that there are enough non-cash problems in this situation that it's overly simplistic to say the T just needs to spend more money on it; the problem is much deeper and more damning than that.
The MBTA itself claimed last summer that the training program takes less than two months for new dispatchers. There is no defense for this timeline if you are to believe the MBTA is a functional organization that is motivated to solve this problem. When they add that there’s a new whack-a-mole reason for the longer headways, the debate is whether the MBTA is sandbagging or unimaginably incompetent.
The Boston exceptionalism you’re exhibiting is just a symptom of your Stockholm Syndrome.
Like I said, the two months timeline is only relevant if you can find people who are both willing and qualified, and that number is probably quite small. Particularly
because, as recently as last summer, "Federal investigators said at the time some dispatchers were required to work 16- or 20-hour shifts followed by only four hours off, creating safety risks." That is
insane, but it also required someone (probably multiple people) to look at the situation and say, "Hmm yeah, this is fine."
If you were applying for a job and found out that the only reason your prospective boss stopped having people work 20 hour shifts
was because the federal government told them they had to stop, that tells you an awful lot about the work environment right there. Maybe there's some salary that would convince people to take that on, but I'm guessing lots of folks would not consider that for any amount of money. And since, definitionally, everyone applying for this job
already has a job, there's even less incentive.
There is no defense for this timeline if you are to believe the MBTA is a functional organization that is motivated to solve this problem
I'm not defending it -- just saying that it's not just a matter of throwing money at the thing.
And as for my Boston exceptionalism -- if by that you mean that I believe that the T is exceptionally bad at following industry best practices, exceptionally bad at maintenance of infrastructure and organizations alike, exceptionally parochial with a "if it wasn't built here" mindset, and because of all of this exceptionally reliant on "local knowledge" and "institutional memory" in order to keep things working...
then yes, I plead guilty to Boston exceptionalism.