Permission to buy on board train

[jb]

I'm sorry if this offends; his behaviour (as described) was despicable. If he worked for me, and I was satisfied as to the bona fides of the passenger's claim, he'd be disciplined.

Do stick around. You will find far "worse" examples of behaviour than this; I await your choice of hyperbolic adjectives with interest.

I'm guessing you don't have people working for you.

 

[Harpers Tate]

I don't expect him to be disciplined, because he is not my employee.

In the interest of good business practice; of passenger satisfaction; of company reputation; of industry reputation, he should have EITHER

- refused her boarding or made it clear - without any need for ESP - what the consequences of her doing so might be OR
- sold her the same fare as she would have been able to obtain at the station for the same journey.

Period. There is no other proper course.

As it is, by a combination of two actions (and only because of that) he discredited himself, his company and his industry. That would be sufficient grounds - if he worked for me. I'd call it - failure to act in a courteous and professional manner towards a customer.

 

[transmanche]

The point people are trying to make is that there is however no real ground for complaint, as he did do what he agreed to and as a result, he is in fact in the right.

That point has been made and is understood. But there's a number of people who simply do not agree with that view - or that the passenger is to blame for 'asking the wrong question'.

I've made my contribution, so I won't repeat it here. And unless somebody has something new to contribute (as opposed to repeating something they've already said) I think this thread has reached its natural end.

 

[MichaelAMW]

I think you are completely missing the point here.

The majority of people have agreed that the guard probably could have done things in a better way, and he was stubborn to not allow her the discount. No one is really disputing that. The point people are trying to make is that there is however no real ground for complaint, as he did do what he agreed to and as a result, he is in fact in the right. This might not equate to what you believe but the facts are clear. If she had asked for permission to purchase a discounted ticket or shown him the Railcard when she asked him, then she would probably have a much stronger case.

On what grounds do you expect the guard to be disciplined?

The absurdity with this whole thread is the smugness of those who love to quote the rules - and appear to resist any possibility that there might be a alternative human, compassionate way of acting. A desperate need to be right, or perhaps not concede, seems to have taken away their ability to appreciate normal human interaction. Sure, there might be a nice rules-based argument to back the guard up, but having used his authority under Byelaw 18(3)(iii) to allow her to travel without a ticket his subsequent behaviour cannot be said to be either reasonable or fair - unless you just want to hide behind the rules again and ignore all sense of trying to relate to people in a positive way. Away from the rules-obsessed attitude here, I am sure that most people would have accepted the guard's "yes" in the way the OP did. Whether you can use the rules to manage to establish a lack of inconsistency between what he said and what he subsequently did really isn't the point.

 

[jb]

The absurdity with this whole thread is the smugness of those who love to quote the rules

I would suggest it's those who choose something a bit silly to pontificate upon at length about the unreasonableness and inhumanity of it all, as opposed to the countless cases where people really are out of line.

But YMMV.

 

[bb21]

The absurdity with this whole thread is the smugness of those who love to quote the rules - and appear to resist any possibility that there might be a alternative human, compassionate way of acting.

I don't think that is right at all.

There is a human side to it, and I think you will find that the majority of people agree with that.

There is also a rule side to it, which some people do not seem to appreciate or for some reason unwilling to accept it.

It is one of those situations where no one really did anything wrong, and the whole thing came down to misunderstanding, yet some people are desperate to apportion blame on someone.

 

[Harpers Tate]

Again, and with respect, the Guard did do something wrong. He indicated his acceptance of the customer's request and then failed to meet the implied obligation of that acceptance. A combination of two things which together (and only together) were wrong.

 

[bb21]

I am not going to go over this again, but you cannot just assume things, as nice as it would be. In most cases, guards probably would have given maximum discretion but it is not an entitlement.

Edit:

I agree with transmanche that this thread has run its course as there was not really anything new being added in the last few posts.

There is clearly a right way and a "right" way in this case. While the guard may not have done things the "right" way, I am not sure how complaints about him not doing things the right way is going to stick. Not everyone is going to agree and we'll just have to call a truce on this.

There is a lesson to be learned from this unfortunate incident by both sides. London Midlands may wish to rebrief their train managers as to the real purpose of not allowing purchases onboard with discounts and reinforce the idea with them that showing appropriate discretion in situations such as this could be beneficial for the company and industry on all fronts. For passengers, make sure you ask the right questions, if you can, and never assume anything. I certainly hope that such incidents never befall any other unlucky punter like the OP's wife.