Fair enough. But hang on - talking on a cellphone while operating a train?
Or do they have two people in the cab?
Cell phone use while on duty is strictly prohibited. In fact, it must be turned of and cannot even be on our person. All that is allowed is to keep in in our grip(work bag) or in case of radio failure it can be used once the movement is brought to a stop. They take that rule extremely seriously(post Metrolink Chatsworth), in fact people have been terminated for violating it. I can assure you he most certainly was not a member of that crew never mind having anything to do with the operation of that train and was most likely deadheading(not on duty or part of a crew) home after a tour of duty. Especially considering all conversions with the crew office(the dispatchers) is
recorded and they would be able to figure out in seconds that you were using your phone while on duty.
Mountain out of a mole-hill then. Someone should have simply knocked on the door and complained about the noise, if it bothered them ... if they didn't do that, it couldn't have been that serious.
That I would agree with, if he was that offended then he's in his right to do so.
None of us other than Jonny5 can actually know how much swearing there was .....but are you suggesting that this is appropriate behaviour for any employee while on the job? If you walked up to the counter at Starbucks and heard two employees in a conversation where they were cursing and swearing repeatedly within hearing range of the customer....you think that would be ok? I can tell you that if we had customers waiting in the lobby of our building and one of our receptionists was cursing on the phone with her friend....we would be firing them (after appropriate warnings of course).
As per response to nfitz there's no way he was actually on duty, basically at that point he's just another passenger on the train and in fact he could have been sitting anywhere on the train but most likely chose to sit in the cab area as it offers
some privacy as he very clearly needed to blow off some steam.
I don't necessarily agree with your comparisons either. Those examples you mention are of people who's jobs involve direct contact with the public and while they are
actually on the job. This does correlate to the CSA in the center of the train and most certainly he would be reprimanded if he swore excessively and to operating crews when we are dealing with the public. However when we are operating we are actually in fact prohibited from having any contact with the public. The fact that the public can even overhear what is being said in the cab is merely happenstance. Deadheading is a different matter altogether of course. He's no different then anyone else using a cell phone on the train at that point - hey at least he wasn't in the quite zone! Here's a more apt comparison, would you be reprimanded if someone you don't know overheard you using coarse language in a conversation
after you finished work, while in your building?
If Jonny was really so offended he has the option to either relocated or asked the person to tone it down. The fact that he didn't do either of those things, lest one would assume that he would of mentioned it if he did, leads one to agree with nfitz assessment of this situation being akin to making a
Mountain out of a mole-hill.