Why I Work for RTD: Tameka McMillan
Tameka McMillan, 20 years
ADA Investigator/Specialist
“First and foremost, I am a wife and mother. I just made it to my 15-year wedding anniversary, and I have a 13-year-old son. I spend a lot of time with my little family. We love to travel and experience things, really trying to ensure that my son is well rounded so that when we set him out on his own, he is ready for the world, and hopefully the world will be ready for him, too.
“I like to craft and create. If I'm not out walking a trail, then I'm trying to design something or learn a new craft or skill.
“I have been a lot of things inside the RTD walls. I started out as a Customer Care agent, and I was there for eight years. I didn't even think that I would be at RTD for eight years when I started. It was simply on a fluke, because I didn't want to drive to Littleton, because there was no highway from where I lived. When I was in Customer Care, I was one of their phone trainers for a period of time, and then I filled in occasionally as a group two supervisor before I left the call center.
“I was still a part of communications, and I went over to East Metro to be a liaison. That's probably to date my favorite job. It was a whole new world from customer service dealing with external customers. When your customers are internal, it's accountability on both sides, so you learn a lot about yourself and how you interact with people. When you're working with operators, they're all so different. And so just finding that balance to interact with operators, remain professional, and be a safe space if they need it.
“Being a liaison is investigating complaints and educating our operators. We do not do disciplinary action, so it's coaching and reminders. Even when an operator didn't have a complaint, I would converse with him, just to create that human interaction. Normally when you're speaking to me, it's because something happened, but I wanted to change that dynamic, that I was someone they could always speak to. A couple years into my time there, I would take about an hour a day and go sit out in the driver's room and discuss with the operators anything they wanted, like, what's going on out there? What are you dealing with? Do you have the tools you need? How can I help you? And it got to a point where an operator would see me walking down the hall and say, Hey, Tameka, what are we discussing tomorrow? They got used to me being out there.
“Having those conversations really helped in the long run. One time someone told me, I understand you're here to correct behavior, but I never feel like you are looking down on me when you're having to correct me. I feel as if you're coming from a true place of concern. You want me to be better so that I don't have these issues. And that's exactly the whole point. Building those relationships and being the person you would want to help you is really the bottom line. And that's how I tackle all my positions. Learning to meet people where they are gives them confidence, and then they want to grow.
“ADA Investigator/Specialist is the role that I am in now. I started in January 2022. I train Customer Care. We do dispatch, street supervisors, field supervisors, and we include the contractors. Because when a customer sees a bus, they don't say, are you Transdev, they see RTD. And so we want to ensure that everyone has the same information.
“I introduced open houses. Our operators deal with our frontline customers, and they have ADA concerns. So I thought it was important that I go out to the divisions and have conversations with operators on their turf. What are your concerns? What are you seeing? What is something we don't know? If I can explain the why, I'm all for it, because I also believe the why is important. When I started, ADA complaints were quite high, and year over year as (ADA Manager) Gabe (Christie) and I have been going to the divisions to have these conversations, complaints have gone down.
“In this position, I monitor all the ADA complaints that come in to ensure one, that they're actually ADA, and two, to follow the steps to ensure we're being compliant. The ADA office is fairly new. It was really helpful when we got an ADA office to be able to say, you can tell them (customers) they have to be at the stop. You can tell them they need fare, you can tell them they have to show proof of eligibility. I think that has been extremely helpful in lowering the complaints. And then we explain to the operators, this is the expectation, this is what we need from you. Not everybody's going to be happy, but if you do these things, we will support you. It's getting everybody on the same page to work together, because we all have the same goal. We are all here for the customer.
“I enjoy the work in ADA because I feel like we're making a difference. We've built so many relationships with different departments, and especially with our contractors. Even their ADA complaints come through us for review.
“I'm direct. Please tell me what you need from me or what you need me to know quickly, because our time is valuable. Just reach out, even if we've never met. I will ask: How are you? What can I do for you? How do we move forward from here?
“There are some great people working here. There is a lot of support if you need it. There are always people to help you. I can say in my 20 years, I've never felt alone or abandoned in any situation. That is what has kept me here.
“I am here to help, and I'm happy to help.”