British Trains
S Ramage | 22.01.2006 21:39
UPSETTING ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR =- UNITED KINGDOM 2006
VIRGIN TRAINS EXECUTIVES have a lot to answer for. They have single-handedly changed the work methods and lowered the productivity of much of the UK’s clerical workforce.
By putting electric plugs in their trains for customers to use, commuting employees do their hurried last minute work to or from work, very sloppy, with no reference papers or colleagues to hand. This country has experienced the yearly loss of thousands of police, government, and business-owned laptops, complete with highly confidential information. As I sit on the London train, I can see at a glimpse, someone’s executive slides or corporate strategy, someone sales figures, region by region, etc. I see briefs being written, I hear Health and Safety reports told over a mobile, and so on...
There is a great slush of confidential information whooshing about on public transport in a public space. All thanks to VIRGIN TRAINS. Thankfully they do not yet offer massages on the way to London. Not yet.
Whilst the newspapers tell how sentimental and animal-loving the public are, I am experiencing the most appalling scenes of anti-social behaviour, not only committed by young people but by middle-ages persons also. Where are the police when you want ASBO for middle-aged drunks and other middle-aged miscreants?
I had to travel to and from London, these past weeks and I could not believe this is the United Kingdom. Being a journalist with a fractured neck when a man deliberately ran into my stationery car in broad daylight in 1993,I take care not to travel in rush hour or to be jostled by crowds.
As I explained this to the booking clerk at the train station and gave her my travel dates, I went home to find that she had given me five incorrect tickets. I have been regularly frustrated and disadvantaged by the train station employees who look at me as if I do not deserve to travel, even though I wear a suit and full legal attire.
The Virgin train employees shoot towards me as if ready to salivate if I cannot quickly find my ticket, with fingers pressed against the mobile phone in anticipation of phoning someone. Once I was so flustered that I could not find the return ticket which was only stuck to the journey-out ticket. There I was, wearing a crisp navy legal suit and with leather briefcase in hand, he segregated me at the barrier for all to see, embarrassing me more and more; when I realised that the ticket was in my hand and stuck to the other ticket, all he said was hurry or you will miss the train.
Yet, among this Regional, Vitriolic Racism, I come to sit Quietly and Demurely in my seat, even though the train staff have treated me with Racial Contempt, Dismissive and Constructively Misinforming me, I experienced the following types of incidents, to which no Train Employee Bats an Eyelid:
Example one – I walk into the carriage one no-one lets me sit down, even though many people have seats plus their bags in the seat next to them – they did not pay for two seats so why must I stand from London to Stafford, nearly falling and breaking my neck again, arriving home only to take to my bed with exhaustion?
Example two – I managed to be seated yesterday on my return journey to Stafford. I noticed a nice young woman sitting two seats ahead and smiled with her. A few minutes later six people – five men and one woman came in and they asked the young lady (black young lady) to move to another seat so that they can sit together. She said, she was afraid she could not because the seat that the one man pointed to her, was reserved; so she did not move but looked at me in desperation.
The female in the group proceeded to take out a full bottle of wine, a corkscrew and six plastic cups from her bag and they proceeded to drink wine, making much noise in this quiet coach.
Example three – On my return journey the previous day I sat two seats from another young lady (Caucasian) and a scruffy fifty year old man came in, sat next to her and proceeded to open a sealed half-bottle of whiskey and a plastic cup and drank all the way to Coventry. I was a bit frightened in case he became violent or in case he became drunk and assaulted either of us.
Example four - During one journey three men boarded the train, and knowing that the VIRGIN TRAINS boast of electric plugs, they opened their bags and proceeded to boil a kettle on the train, get out their metal mugs, sugar, bread, margarine, cheese, etc and made themselves a meal on board the train. Attendants – nowhere, ticket inspectors –nowhere; manager with mobile at the ready – not anywhere in sight.
Example 5 – In the first class coach where I thought the toilets would be clean, I saw a young man go into the first class coach’s toilet with a coca-cola bottle in his hand. I waited to use the loo, only to find it deliberately splashed fully with fresh urine and coco-cola and bottle in the sink; the floor was so wet that it would have been dangerous to stay there – attendants? None. The train signs said, “You are being televised for your protection”. Really?
The young man was not from the first class coaches. I believe he came to do that to the toilets in an effort to sabotage the first class coach customers – typical of today’s uncouth, unmannerly young people.
When I complained at the train station about the wrong dates on the tickets, I was told by a second stroppy female train station employee, “It could not be so – we have a policy...” Having a policy is one thing, but it does not prove that the first female train station employee did not misinform me and deliberately give me wrong tickets. It reminds me of the sales clerks at AOL who kept telling me that this is contract law and I must pay for a service I do not receive.
Oh, God, as if life is not tough enough without all this misinformation, disinformation, no information and deliberately given wrong information!
Sally Ramage
VIRGIN TRAINS EXECUTIVES have a lot to answer for. They have single-handedly changed the work methods and lowered the productivity of much of the UK’s clerical workforce.
By putting electric plugs in their trains for customers to use, commuting employees do their hurried last minute work to or from work, very sloppy, with no reference papers or colleagues to hand. This country has experienced the yearly loss of thousands of police, government, and business-owned laptops, complete with highly confidential information. As I sit on the London train, I can see at a glimpse, someone’s executive slides or corporate strategy, someone sales figures, region by region, etc. I see briefs being written, I hear Health and Safety reports told over a mobile, and so on...
There is a great slush of confidential information whooshing about on public transport in a public space. All thanks to VIRGIN TRAINS. Thankfully they do not yet offer massages on the way to London. Not yet.
Whilst the newspapers tell how sentimental and animal-loving the public are, I am experiencing the most appalling scenes of anti-social behaviour, not only committed by young people but by middle-ages persons also. Where are the police when you want ASBO for middle-aged drunks and other middle-aged miscreants?
I had to travel to and from London, these past weeks and I could not believe this is the United Kingdom. Being a journalist with a fractured neck when a man deliberately ran into my stationery car in broad daylight in 1993,I take care not to travel in rush hour or to be jostled by crowds.
As I explained this to the booking clerk at the train station and gave her my travel dates, I went home to find that she had given me five incorrect tickets. I have been regularly frustrated and disadvantaged by the train station employees who look at me as if I do not deserve to travel, even though I wear a suit and full legal attire.
The Virgin train employees shoot towards me as if ready to salivate if I cannot quickly find my ticket, with fingers pressed against the mobile phone in anticipation of phoning someone. Once I was so flustered that I could not find the return ticket which was only stuck to the journey-out ticket. There I was, wearing a crisp navy legal suit and with leather briefcase in hand, he segregated me at the barrier for all to see, embarrassing me more and more; when I realised that the ticket was in my hand and stuck to the other ticket, all he said was hurry or you will miss the train.
Yet, among this Regional, Vitriolic Racism, I come to sit Quietly and Demurely in my seat, even though the train staff have treated me with Racial Contempt, Dismissive and Constructively Misinforming me, I experienced the following types of incidents, to which no Train Employee Bats an Eyelid:
Example one – I walk into the carriage one no-one lets me sit down, even though many people have seats plus their bags in the seat next to them – they did not pay for two seats so why must I stand from London to Stafford, nearly falling and breaking my neck again, arriving home only to take to my bed with exhaustion?
Example two – I managed to be seated yesterday on my return journey to Stafford. I noticed a nice young woman sitting two seats ahead and smiled with her. A few minutes later six people – five men and one woman came in and they asked the young lady (black young lady) to move to another seat so that they can sit together. She said, she was afraid she could not because the seat that the one man pointed to her, was reserved; so she did not move but looked at me in desperation.
The female in the group proceeded to take out a full bottle of wine, a corkscrew and six plastic cups from her bag and they proceeded to drink wine, making much noise in this quiet coach.
Example three – On my return journey the previous day I sat two seats from another young lady (Caucasian) and a scruffy fifty year old man came in, sat next to her and proceeded to open a sealed half-bottle of whiskey and a plastic cup and drank all the way to Coventry. I was a bit frightened in case he became violent or in case he became drunk and assaulted either of us.
Example four - During one journey three men boarded the train, and knowing that the VIRGIN TRAINS boast of electric plugs, they opened their bags and proceeded to boil a kettle on the train, get out their metal mugs, sugar, bread, margarine, cheese, etc and made themselves a meal on board the train. Attendants – nowhere, ticket inspectors –nowhere; manager with mobile at the ready – not anywhere in sight.
Example 5 – In the first class coach where I thought the toilets would be clean, I saw a young man go into the first class coach’s toilet with a coca-cola bottle in his hand. I waited to use the loo, only to find it deliberately splashed fully with fresh urine and coco-cola and bottle in the sink; the floor was so wet that it would have been dangerous to stay there – attendants? None. The train signs said, “You are being televised for your protection”. Really?
The young man was not from the first class coaches. I believe he came to do that to the toilets in an effort to sabotage the first class coach customers – typical of today’s uncouth, unmannerly young people.
When I complained at the train station about the wrong dates on the tickets, I was told by a second stroppy female train station employee, “It could not be so – we have a policy...” Having a policy is one thing, but it does not prove that the first female train station employee did not misinform me and deliberately give me wrong tickets. It reminds me of the sales clerks at AOL who kept telling me that this is contract law and I must pay for a service I do not receive.
Oh, God, as if life is not tough enough without all this misinformation, disinformation, no information and deliberately given wrong information!
Sally Ramage
S Ramage