Late trains are bad enough, but when staff are rude to you it just makes you want to ditch the train and return to the rigors of driving to work, writes blogger Charlie Cashdan.
I travel to work by train five days a week and have done for years. I pay £116 a month for the pleasure, making me an excellent regular customer.
A few weeks ago I stood at the train doors waiting to get off at my stop after a long day at work and the doors didn’t open. I frantically pressed the button but nothing happened and the train pulled away. I asked fellow passengers if there had been an announcement (sometimes the end carriage doors don’t open at my stop because the platform is short, but they always announce this at several points along the journey). Everyone agreed that there definitely hadn’t been an announcement.
I had to get off at the next stop and approached the guard upon disembarking to ask him why the doors didn’t open. He abruptly told me that he had done an announcement. I insisted that he hadn’t and that other passengers agreed.
He got angry and said he had checked passes and told people getting off at my stop which carriage to be in. I pointed out that he had checked my pass and hadn’t said a word. I was mid sentence and he simply turned his back on me and walked away angrily.
I was disgusted, he didn’t even check if I would be able to get home ok. I was polite and articulate, he was monosyllabic, gruff and rude, and I was the customer!
This week another incident of staff rudeness occurred. I walked through the barrier at New Street station and the barrier checker called me back with something like an “Oi!”
I stepped back and he snatched my pass out of my hand saying it was out of date and had expired the day before. I apologised, explained that I hadn’t realised and said that I would go straight away to renew it.
“You can’t do that, you tried to get through the barrier!”
“Not on purpose! It was an accident!” I protested.
I suggested that he let me through the barrier, follow me to the ticket window and watch me renew my pass to be sure that I did. He refused this polite request and marched me to the long pre-barrier queue.
I asked if I could renew my pass there and he said that I would have to buy a single ticket to get through the barrier then queue again at the main ticket window to renew my pass. He was so rude and abrupt.
I asked if the single could then be refunded at the window when I bought my pass or else I would actually be paying for the same journey twice, and he said “No! You tried to get through the barrier!” I was made to feel like a shoplifter!
I pointed out that I caught the train from an unmanned station and the guard did not come down the train checking passes or selling tickets. If he had have done, the mistake would have been spotted and I could have bought a single on the train.
The guard then took out all the monthly passes that I keep in the back of my pass wallet. I pointed out that I was clearly a regular customer in the hope he would understand that I wasn’t trying it on, but instead he just started to walk away with all my tickets that cost me £116 each!
I protested and asked for them back but he refused saying that because I’d ‘Tried to get through the barrier’ he could keep them.
At this point I was fighting back the tears. I explained that I am self-employed and need those tickets to claim my expenses. He unsympathetically said “Don’t you keep the receipts?”
Eventually he caved in, because I begged, and returned them to me reluctantly, making a really big show of crossing through the expired one many times as if I was going to try and use it again!
I queued for at least five minutes in the naughty queue to buy a single and about another ten minutes at the main ticket window to get my pass, making me really late for work.
I couldn’t believe I had been treated like that and then had to hand over £6.00 for a single and £116 for my month’s pass.
When I worked in retail, if a customer spent just fifteen quid with me I treated them like royalty, let alone £116!
I know it was my fault for not realising my pass had expired literally the day before but there was no need to treat me like that at all.
I felt embarrassed and degraded; all he should have done is politely pointed out to me that my pass was out of date and taken me to the window to renew it.
Trying to confiscate all my monthly passes, particularly when I pointed out that I needed them for expenses, was particularly low.
Incidentally, on one occasion the barrier guy threw my ticket in the bin and the lovely cleaning lady and myself had to hunt through the bin to find it!
We are not simply passengers, we are customers, and we pay a heavy price for the service, but when will rail companies ever realise this?
One Comment
I had a similar incident on the trams once and they issued me an on the spot fine, however I wrote to the tram company with a copy of the reciept of the monthly pass purchased just moments later. They however gladly waived the on the spot fine. Strange thing was that my pass was checked just after the tram left Wolverhampton, I showed it as normal and the conductor just said thank you. They then had a change over at Wednesbury and I was marched off the tram like a criminal by some bald git at Jewellery Quarter, given a lecture, an invoice to pay the fine then they let me on another tram when I just wanted to go upstairs and renew my pass. I then renewed it at Snow Hill, the same conductor was on the tram on the way back and surely recognised me and surely noted that I had renewed. Did I get an apology? I’ll let you figure that one for yourself