TTC chair Karen Stintz has a new starring role on TV after she donned a dark wig and disguise last summer for an episode of
Undercover Boss Canada.
The TV show, already popular in Britain and the U.S., puts executives, masquerading as trainees, on the frontlines of their own businesses.
Stintz, the city councillor for Eglinton-Lawrence, said it was an eye-opener working in July at the TTC’s upholstery shop, cleaning buses, posing as a station janitor and staffing the transit system’s lost-and-found.
Stintz also rode in the driver’s booth of one of the new Toronto Rocket subway trains, although she never actually handled the controls.
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“As we talk about the jobs to outsource there are efficiencies we can get, but when I worked with Sylvia cleaning the station — she has so much pride in that station. She’s the eyes and ears of that station,” Stintz reflected. “We need to build more accountability and more ownership in the TTC. Building a culture of accountability. Everybody I worked with were longtime TTC employees that did have a lot of pride, and were frustrated by their colleagues that don’t.”