Umd Transportation

From 2003 to 2006 as the Auxiliary Services Operations Manager at the University of Maryland's Department of Transportation Services, I created and directly managed the Motor Coach Transportation Service available to the University of Maryland/ State of Maryland community. In mid 2003, I contracted with Martz Gray Line Gold Line Charter Bus Company because they were local to the university with a 100 bus fleet to back us up when needed. Over the course of the first year, Martz performed about 20 charters for my organization with 50% of the charters not performed within bid specifications. Martz would send buses that were over 15 years old, and arrive up late with unclean buses which were all contract infringements. When confronting Martz, there were excuses, apologies, and reassurances that the problems would not happen again. We negotiated some minor contract changes to make the contract reflect the needs of both companies. Soon thereafter, the problems began to occur again. The last straw occurred when Martz was contracted to provide 1 bus for an airport transfer of the University of Maryland's Men's Basketball Team's return from winning the NCAA championship in spring 2004. This was a high profile charter with V.I.P. travelers to include the campus president and directors and. Martz was late, and eventually did not show up. For my company to show up on the airport tarmac at 1 am in the morning and be one bus short would be devastating and ruin or near perfect reputation.

The next day, I immediately called my Martz company contact and expressed over the phone to him in great detail and with depth and frustration in my voice that how their poor service almost cost my department to lose or most important and visual client and destroy our reputation as a top notch transportation provider. The contact person explained to me that he would check into the problem. Later that day I was not afforded a return call. The next day, I traveled to Martz office and met with contact in person. A heated verbal argument ensued. They lied saying they showed up but they did not. Fisher states that "the best time for handling problems is before they become problems" (pg 37). At this point, I should have aired on the side of caution and remained attentive. Contact person told me in enough words that the service they provided us was the best they could do and because we were not a million dollar client of theirs, there was nothing that they would be willing to do to rectify the problem and better their service. There were no apologies on their part for not showing. When told that, a louder argument ensued. We both "flew off the handle" and began to argue as loud as we could with dangerous body language. I made vulgar comments about their poor service, threatened to cancel their contract, and not pay them for services rendered. Senior officials and billing representatives from both companies were involved in the conflict because contracts and money were at stake.

I admit that I was frustrated, upset and angry with Martz Company and I wanted to give them a piece of my mind. These feelings of dissatisfaction had been building up inside of me for over one year. After experiencing Martz Company's bad customer service on multiple occasions, it got the best of me and made the situation skyrocket out of control within myself. I did not decide to go to Martz Company with the preconceived notion of starting an argument