Rail staff - what's your pet hate?

[ComUtoR]

Strange thing to post if your are rail staff

Some of my colleagues are complete ^%$%^$%$£^£'s for no apparent reason. It does us no favors that is for certain.

 

[ItchyRsole]

People that ask you a question, you give a nice helpful, chirpy reply, and they just walk off. Not a hint of thanks or manners.

Many a time I've given a loud THANK YOU but in the end what's the point. You just drive yourself mad.

 

[Clip]

Some of my colleagues are complete ^%$%^$%$£^£'s for no apparent reason. It does us no favors that is for certain.

Oh I know but my suspicion is that they were not staff

 

[Pigeon]

This sort of response just exposes you as a complete buffoon (polite version), I explained why they don't, there are too many passengers & Clapham has more than an adequate service provision using the suburban services on both Main & Windsor sides, there are already trains (not calling) having to wait outside Clapham because of poor train planning, so you're just going to add to the delays by allowing more passengers on & off there, you really are a treat aren't you.

How many of the people on those services who you are complaining about will have read what you posted on here just now? I'm trying to explain why they act like that and all you do is dismiss it for reasons the average passenger neither knows nor cares about. Buffoon yourself.

 

[LowLevel]

Sometimes you can't win. I once had a couple of knuckle draggers approach me on the platform while I was waiting time. 'Oi, is this a direct train to Liverpool?'. 'Yes mate', says I. 'That's no effing good, I want to go to Warrington.' 'Oh, well, we stop there as well'. 'Are you deaf or just effin stupid? It's not a direct train to Liverpool is it?'. 'Yes sir, it's just not a non stop one, direct means you don't have to change. I suggest if you want to go to Warrington you ask for it.'

Several more expletives aimed my way followed and I was told very aggressively that there were lots of non stop trains to Liverpool (there are precisely zero from this shack) so I just shut the doors and left him there. Happily there were no more direct trains to Warrington or Liverpool that evening so hopefully the pair of idiots are still there some time later frozen to the platform.

My real pet hate though is smokers in the bog (especially when you see little kids queueing behind them) but that's a rod the railway makes for it's back with the stupid ban on wide open platforms.

Also the dead eyed stare of incomprehension you get from Destiny and Tyler's mother as you explain exactly why you're refusing to carry the 6 foot long double pushchair laden with shopping that they've wedged across the middle door of a 156, making it simultaneously impossible to either exit the carriage or open the emergency cupboard. These people live in a world where 'it can't happen to me'.

 

[ComUtoR]

I'm trying to explain why they act like that and all you do is dismiss it for reasons the average passenger neither knows nor cares about. Buffoon yourself.

You are trying to justify bad behavior. No one should be penalized for doing their job and nobody should automatically assume someone isn't doing their job correctly. I think you missed the entire point that Falling Down was making.

I got a freebie for Hotel Chocolate the other day and they asked me to provide my email details. I refused and told them they already have them. Firstly; how would the assistant know ? Secondly, I simply showed them my loyalty card.

What I didn't do is ignorantly assume the staff were lazy, incompetent, or working their first day. Neither did I rudely berate the staff. You don't have to be a dick about things. That makes you a bad person.

 

[507 001]

Passengers who seem to be incapable of shutting a door behind them. You know, because I really want to spend the entire day running up and down a platform shutting doors behind people.

Passengers who hold doors open because their friend who is roughly 4 miles down the road wants to get on too, after he's bought a ticket of course.

 

[Steve childs]

It has to be colleagues. The customer can ask anything because they don't do this everyday and we are there to help. We are all there for the customer that's the whole point. Yes it can be hard at times and frustrating; can you remember when someone gave you extra good service and went out of their way to help. The different departments not working together gets me. The station staff wont help the maintenance staff, the maintenance staff wont help the cleaning staff and the drivers wont help anyone. They act like anyone outside their circle is the enemy. Iv often heard senior figures state. Out there, that is the enemy give them nothing. Can you imagine if everyone worked together and looked out for each other. What an amazing place it would be. I often find its the long term staff who have not seen life out of the rail world who act like this. Its my future vision to get everyone to work together.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

How many of the people on those services who you are complaining about will have read what you posted on here just now? I'm trying to explain why they act like that and all you do is dismiss it for reasons the average passenger neither knows nor cares about. Buffoon yourself.

I just enforce the rules that we're given, we don't we're hauled over the coals.

If you can't abide by the rules & regulations, then I would strongly suggest you find an alternative mode of transportation and if everyone was a pig headed and ignorant as yourself, well... I'm saying no more, because I'm not going to lower myself to your level.

 

[jonty14]

It's amazing how people get wound up on this forum. There is hardly a topic on here where someone has not had a tantrum. I love it.

 

[SJN]

Rail staff were asked to post their pet hates which a few of us have done. I have worked in customer service industries for nearly thirty years and in every job I've had, myself and colleagues have pet hates about people we serve. Its not just rail staff being horrible to people. I always try and help if I can, even if they are driving me round the bend, as that is what I am there to do.

I thought it was supposed to be a bit of a fun thread!!

 

[EM2]

It is the same sort of reason why we don't believe shop assistants who, when we ask for some item that is missing off the shelves, fiddle about on their computer and then say they haven't got any. We think they're making it up so they don't have to bother going out the back and looking for it. Even more so since we don't believe the computerised stock control system can be relied upon to give an accurate answer either.

When I worked in a clothes shop, I made sure I knew what we had in stock, especially as I had the responsibility for ordering it in the first place.
'Do you have this in a 34" waist?'
'No Sir, I'm afraid we don't. There's some due in on Tuesday.'
'Can you just check in the stockroom?'
'I don't need to, Sir. I checked when I did the ordering yesterday. I can reserve one from the new stock for you if you'd like?'
'No, don't bother. Your service is terrible. You just can't be bothered.'
:roll:

 

[ComUtoR]

When I worked in a clothes shop, I made sure I knew what we had in stock, especially as I had the responsibility for ordering it in the first place.

I worked in a clothes shop and as a manager in another kind of retail outlet. Knowing your stock is very important. God knows how many times what you described happened. I know my stock, I'm good at my job. No one believes you

 

[causton]

People who have a bad memory with regards to time, who swear "YOU SOLD ME AN OYSTER CARD LAST WEEK" until I point to the sign saying we haven't sold them since March.

People who queue up and read the sign which says we don't do anything at the ticket office window with an Oyster card but somehow because they are important we will build a special Oyster machine for them.

People who think we can just ring up TfL and magic money back onto their Oyster card.

People who ask for the Oyster fares and get annoyed when I tell them the website address and no my internet is not working at the moment because they deleted our login account for the network again.

People who stick a dodgy fiver in the machine, then walk away from the machine as it spits the fiver out the bottom and the customer behind walks off with it.

People who take the first ticket that prints from the ticket machine and run off, leaving their reservation coupons, return tickets, etc behind.

People who go out of their way to pick up a card receipt that has been left in the machine and handing it to us like it is a valuable item. It clearly says DEBIT/CREDIT CARD SALES VOUCHER. We don't want them either.

People who press the Receipt button for a second receipt for their transaction, then take none.

People who ask for a VAT receipt from tickets bought online. If you didn't pay us anything how do you expect us to give you a VAT receipt?

People who watch us put coins into a machine, and take boxes with coins and notes out of the machine, and then claim that none of the machines are taking coins and notes.

People who claim they have lost money in the machine and simply expect us to give them a fiver for nothing. No, you will wait until the machine is next counted and if it has a fiver more in it than it should, the fiver is yours.

 

[LUKAnorthwest]

from a passengers point of view - my pet hate is people with pushchairs that block the centre aisle and are completely oblivious to other people on the train. that and militant mothers who think that their pushchair can go wherever it goes and fob you off with useless excuses when you need to get past and they won't move it

 

[Minilad]

It has to be colleagues. The customer can ask anything because they don't do this everyday and we are there to help. We are all there for the customer that's the whole point. Yes it can be hard at times and frustrating; can you remember when someone gave you extra good service and went out of their way to help. The different departments not working together gets me. The station staff wont help the maintenance staff, the maintenance staff wont help the cleaning staff and the drivers wont help anyone. They act like anyone outside their circle is the enemy. Iv often heard senior figures state. Out there, that is the enemy give them nothing. Can you imagine if everyone worked together and looked out for each other. What an amazing place it would be. I often find its the long term staff who have not seen life out of the rail world who act like this. Its my future vision to get everyone to work together.

 

[LowLevel]

Hate to be where he works. Drivers and guards here work as a team, and just yesterday I helped an overworked and undermanned station supervisor carry a passengers luggage from my train to another one on a different platform. I honestly don't recognise the comment.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

It has to be colleagues. The customer can ask anything because they don't do this everyday and we are there to help. We are all there for the customer that's the whole point. Yes it can be hard at times and frustrating; can you remember when someone gave you extra good service and went out of their way to help. The different departments not working together gets me. The station staff wont help the maintenance staff, the maintenance staff wont help the cleaning staff and the drivers wont help anyone. They act like anyone outside their circle is the enemy. Iv often heard senior figures state. Out there, that is the enemy give them nothing. Can you imagine if everyone worked together and looked out for each other. What an amazing place it would be. I often find its the long term staff who have not seen life out of the rail world who act like this. Its my future vision to get everyone to work together.

We used to have that sort of thing..

It was called BR! :roll:

It's where we all used to work together & chip in and it all worked quite nicely and then some **** called John Major & Malcom Rifkind went & ballsed it all up.

Pet hate - Conservatives.

 

[causton]

Hate to be where he works. Drivers and guards here work as a team, and just yesterday I helped an overworked and undermanned station supervisor carry a passengers luggage from my train to another one on a different platform. I honestly don't recognise the comment.

Heard of an issue a while ago where TOC A station wouldn't let a cleaner employed by TOC B put one single rubbish bag in the skip as "We've paid for that rubbish collection, not you" - hardly like the one bag is an issue. So they had to take this bag of rubbish and dump it back on the train from whence it came and find somewhere at another station, wasting the cleaner's time!

 

[455driver]

The station staff wont help the maintenance staff, the maintenance staff wont help the cleaning staff and the drivers wont help anyone. They act like anyone outside their circle is the enemy..

Thanks for the vote of confidence, I am always helping colleagues whether it's helping load the stock onto the buffet coach, ensuring the train is empty or the doors are all closed properly, it's called teamwork!

Oh and your statement (complete with its generalisations) probably says a lot more about you than it does about the other staff, I like the way you assume the drivers wont help anyone, yawn.

 

[HarleyDavidson]

Thanks for the vote of confidence, I am always helping colleagues whether it's helping load the stock onto the buffet coach, ensuring the train is empty or the doors are all closed properly, it's called teamwork!

Oh and your statement (complete with its generalisations) probably says a lot more about you than it does about the other staff, I like the way you assume the drivers wont help anyone, yawn.

Mmm, I did the other day when there was no platform staff in attendance at Waterloo and had to get the ramp to load & offload wheelchair bound passengers!

 

[scouseyb123]

People who don't say please or thankyou.

 

[fowler9]

I don't know what your job is but I have certainly said things like that to people. The reason being that the context involves them looking up some pre-existing record on their computer which required my address to create it in the first place. In fact what I usually say is not a question, but a statement - "you've already got that". They then say "No I haven't". I say "yes you have, you took it when the record was created in the first place". They then go quiet for a bit and there are sounds of typing in the background after which they come back with "oh, yes, actually we do have it" in a surprised tone of voice as if they had never used that part of their system before. They can't all be on their first day, surely...[/QUOTE]

For security reasons in my job. Also our customers move a lot. In many circumstances in previous jobs the information is often asked for because it will be quicker for everyone involved if you just give it rather than hanging around while it is looked for. It isn't laziness it is in the interest of the customer. You may or may not be aware of how convoluted many customer service admin systems are and how slow they run. They often have to be convoluted due to the shear volume of information required for the task we perform.

 

[TheEscapist_]

People who try to get on the train while I'm trying to get a ramp down for a wheelchair passenger.

 

[Argosy]

Also the dead eyed stare of incomprehension you get from Destiny and Tyler's mother as you explain exactly why you're refusing to carry the 6 foot long double pushchair laden with shopping that they've wedged across the middle door of a 156, making it simultaneously impossible to either exit the carriage or open the emergency cupboard. These people live in a world where 'it can't happen to me'.

Love it, double like. Straight out of Little Britain!

 

[s2345]

Oh this is brilliant. Sure I'm not the only reading this and thinking thank god it's not just me!

Anyone else have problems with our Senior population? Yes I can see you're old enough to be eligible for a railcard but I can't see that you've purchased one until you SHOW ME THE RAILCARD. And no I am not a jobsworth for asking, it is not pointless bureacracy and actually the youth of today have far more manners than you lot.

Question from a non-staff 16-25 railcard holder!

Who causes you more grief, YP or Senior railcard holders?

Most young people I see generally have the card out and ready resulting in a pretty quick inspection.

 

[Starmill]

"Do not use the name of the member of staff who is dealing with you. It is rude and patronising. Thanking them by their name at the end of the transaction is an exception only if said in the correct tone."

Oh I didn't realise everyone wears a name badge because they look cute!?!?!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

People who have a bad memory with regards to time, who swear "YOU SOLD ME AN OYSTER CARD LAST WEEK" until I point to the sign saying we haven't sold them since March.

People who queue up and read the sign which says we don't do anything at the ticket office window with an Oyster card but somehow because they are important we will build a special Oyster machine for them.

People who think we can just ring up TfL and magic money back onto their Oyster card.

People who ask for the Oyster fares and get annoyed when I tell them the website address and no my internet is not working at the moment because they deleted our login account for the network again.

No less annoying I grant you... but what did LM exepect!?!

People who go out of their way to pick up a card receipt that has been left in the machine and handing it to us like it is a valuable item. It clearly says DEBIT/CREDIT CARD SALES VOUCHER. We don't want them either.

I think that's a bit harsh. If nothing else they're tidying up for you - are there any bins on your 'concourse'? :P
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Colleagues in ticket offices and on platforms who, when asked by somebody whether they can use the incorrect train with their Advance ticket, just say "Go and see the Conductor, it's up to them", rather than give the correct reply of "No", because this then makes me look the baddie when I say no. In fact, I'll extend this to all colleagues who can't be bothered to deal with any situation correctly or give the correct answer and just pass the problem on to somebody else to deal with.

I'm very sorry to inform you that this applies to every single one of your colleagues I've ever met! Every TPE guard I've met has been willing to consider requests for 'wrong-train Advance' travel with my few recent edge cases, e.g. I missed my train to Glasgow 2 weeks ago because the booking office has been smashed up again and Northern would have given me a £80 fine if I didn't use the 15-deep queue at the machine. I haven't been forced to buy a new ticket yet on TPE and in return I don't take the pee, and if it really is my own fault I won't ask.

If someone wants to travel on a wrong-train advance and they do ask you, at least they will get a fair hearing (although possibly not under your policy of 'No.'). Surely that's better than people who try to get away with it by getting on and hoping they won't be checked / pretending they've lost the reservation coupon / hiding in the loo.

 

[LowLevel]

I am permitted and expected to use my discretion with ticketing issues. Therefore I have no issue with people coming to speak to me when they've been told to. There's every chance I'll say yes if they do that.

I'll add another to my list - colleagues who take the ticketing regulations to the extreme. I am a guard, not revenue protection. I am absolutely not going to hit people in the pocket because they've not used a crappy Northern Parkeon machine on the other side of the station that's often out of service, doesn't give change or doesn't sell certain tickets when the TOC chooses to provide a limited or no booking office.

The same applies on lines where at certain times of the day the cheapest fares are only available from the guard - why should the passenger have to try and work out when or not to use a TVM without explanation or pay on the train.

In fact when I applied for the job and was interviewed one of the questions was 'would you ever bend the rules?' - the correct answer was retail - yes, safety - no.

 

[craigybagel]

Question from a non-staff 16-25 railcard holder!

Who causes you more grief, YP or Senior railcard holders?

Most young people I see generally have the card out and ready resulting in a pretty quick inspection.

Seniors tend to be more organised with getting their railcard replaced when it expires. I usually confiscate 1 or 2 out of date YP cards a week which doesn't seem to happen with the seniors. Also because Senior cards are only in one part they can't do what some YP holders do and only show the photo card and hope we won't ask for the date part if its expired. One gentleman got away with that for nearly 3 years till he tried it on my train

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Speaking entirely as an uninformed passenger, my pet-hate is the barrier staff (and, to be fair, most other passengers) at Huddersfield. If it isn't the barrier staff talking amongst themselves rather than being ready to assist the many pax who've just disembarked from a 185 (there's FIVE an hour, it shouldn't be a surprise!) then it's the pax who walk up to the barrier before deciding to find their ticket in their many bags, even pushing past the minority who actually have their tickets ready in order to do so. Additionally, it might be worth TPE putting a few posters up telling passengers that they DON'T need to wait for the barrier to close before inserting/touching their ticket or pass!