Ticket Barrier
Posted: Thu 6 April, 2006 Filed under: Charm School, Customer Services, Travel 2 Comments »Bracknell train station has automatic ticket barriers. In general they’re no bad thing (we’ll gloss over the fact that half the time they’re left open while the ticket inspectors sod off somewhere else) and just make getting on and off the platform into a bit more of a bottle-neck than usual. Could be better, could be worse.
I’ve got a season-ticket for using the trains on the way to and from work, and again, in general this works fine. However, somehow this month the ticket’s magnetic strip has been blanked, so the automatic barrier won’t accept it, and I have to go and deal with the Numpty Bint on the gate, who lets through people with knackered, or non-standard-size tickets. I don’t care that this person is female, but I do care that she’s a fucking numpty with, on current evidence, more feet than IQ points.
Last week I made the cardinal sin, while going past her, of having my ticket upside down. Now, bear in mind it’s got “12th April 06” on it in friggin’ huge letters, the fact it’s upside down shouldn’t really matter a toss. But oh no, to Numpty Bint we’ve got to have the “I can’t read upside down, turn your ticket round” episode. Is it really that difficult to figure it out? Obviously so.
Today, though, was the last straw. After a week where I’ve been face to face (and generally fucked off) with Numpty Bint every day, twice a day, today she says “Oh, you’ve got to prove to me that your ticket doesn’t work. I’m not supposed to let you through until I’ve seen your ticket doesn’t work.” So I’m supposed to walk back down to the other end of the ticket barriers (through a shitload of commuters all flooding off the train that’s just arrived) to have the fucking ticket barrier beep at me, tell me to ‘seek assistance’, wade back through the commuters, and get back to her.
Instead, I opted for
If the fucking ticket worked, or had worked in the past fucking week, I’d be through the bloody barriers, and going to the platform, rather than dealing with you
She let me through.
I know that they’ve not got an easy job but it winds me up that they seem to take all their anger and frustration out on decent commuters thereby increasing the number of disgruntled and just plain pissed off people travelling on their trains. Glad you took a stand. I think I’d have stamped on her foot.
Ah customer feedback, I was privilaged some months ago to work on the barriers ( ticket security area ) at Waverly station in Edinburgh when they were first introduced, our initial instructions, no one gets through without a ticket everyone must put thier ticket through the machine and as we were employed to examine tickets and only to examine tickets give no assistance apart from directing passengers to the hidden help booth, hidden because normally there were 200 people surrounding it. No keys to open the barriers were given out so if anyone was caught in the monsters jaws help in the form of a manager would take 10 mins to arrive small children who travel free have no ticket and so as parent attempted to rush them through they were frequently caught as was lots of luggage.
Of the ten staff I worked with all were at sometime physically attacked and in the first weeks verbal abuse was a frequent daily occurance.(It’s amazing how boring being called a jobsworth gets) The annual monthly and weekly tickets in many instances didn’t work in the machines after a few days the only cure was to get them reissued, several kinds of tickets didn’t fit and best of all the comupter, the brains behind the equipment liked to crash at rush hours. Four staff were sacked one for taking an umberella of a woman who had already hit him twice with it, you are not allowed to handle passangers in anyway including defensivly, two for returning verbal abuse and one for leaving his post to assist a man whos luggage had fallen of his trolley and not securing the gate before he left.
The other six of us moved on as soon as we could get other work not because of our treatment at the hands of the great British public but because of the frustration engendered by managments refusal to solve recurring problems. Now the guys on the barriers do one hour stints with a break have keys and can even allow the odd traveler to get a ticket on the train having of course found the conductor and informed him that the person needs a ticket. Your point about IQ interests me of the Ten people I worked with eight had degrees and the other two had held fairly senior managment positions before being made redundant.
Daisy please don’t stamp on her foot the chances are she will be hit several times a day by passing luggage and be stood on frequently albeit accidentally.