Timwi

Not with that attitude

Those are all fair points. Still unfortunate that it’s still down to money even in your explanation, but it makes sense.

Not trying to get personal or anything, but it sounds like you’ve never been an employee in this kind of organization. It is absolutely the higher-ups (line managers; not necessarily the CEO) who decide whether a train conductor is allowed to delay a train for reasons like this. Employees such as these are under constant stress and pressure to perform to expectations or risk negative evaluations, which can lead to the next raise being denied or, in some cases, dismissal. In many organizations with schedules, timetables, deadlines etc., employee evaluations often depend on coldly calculated heuristics such as proportion of on-time arrivals, not on a human evaluation like how nice you are to animals. Your delayed train just drops you in the statistics and “there was a cat on the roof” simply does not factor into those statistics. This is a direct consequence of the profit motive where “productivity” or “employee performance” is considered more important than peripheral considerations like animal well-being.

I do applaud your optimism. Wish I could have that same rosy view. Unfortunately company executives have shown time and again their true motives. You are of course correct that they are not robots; however, studies do show that they are disproportionately psychopathic compared to the general population, and the behavior of companies often reflects that quite visibly. Profits and the interests of stakeholders always take priority over basic human decency. It would definitely be refreshing if that is not the case here.

One, it’s not the train drivers calling the shots here; the train drivers (like all employees) are stringently controlled by management.

Two, it’s not “hate” to observe that companies just don’t care about ethics and well-being. I thought most of us agreed on this, even the company executives themselves: when ethics conflict with profits, profits are always the higher priority.

Three, this isn’t what “black and white” means.

Removed by mod

I just really don’t think that they would care. It’s easier to spin it as, “We didn’t know the cat was there, what a tragedy” than to appease all the passengers who are now late and frustrated.

You are right, I hadn’t considered the end-of-day scenario where you want everyone off the bus. I assumed the scenario was regular everyday operation and the driver wanted to remove an “undesirable” from the bus. I will edit my post.

I think your answer is probably the most plausible compared to the others. It’s a public image issue. That makes sense.

No, I don’t think it’s acceptable. But my question wasn’t about me, nor about ethics. There’s no way a train operator with a timetable cares about animal well-being or any other question of ethics. I’m curious what the real reason is.

I would love for that to be the real reason but I severely doubt that it is. I’m curious about the real reason.

Genuine question: why don’t they just start the train? Best case, the cat jumps off. Worst case, it dies but the train continues. Is there something else? Is the presence of the cat on the roof a safety issue?

Edit: I’m asking from the train operator’s perspective. Obviously we want the cat to be safe and well, but a train company with a timetable doesn’t care about that, so I wondered what’s actually stopping them from just starting the train and potentially killing the cat.

If you’re talking about the end of the day and you need everyone off the bus, ignore this post.

However, if you’re talking about regular day operation and you’re trying to remove someone from the bus who is doing no harm, then you’re an asshole. They have it hard enough already, leave them alone.