Small cog gets ground down
Dispassionately, I realise that I am an extremely small cog, in the subsidiary gears of a very big, very complicated and largely uncaring machine.
This does not mean that I consider myself unimportant, far from it. I am right up there in my top 3 list of the most important people in my world.
Here’s a bit of back story to explain the point that you are probably wishing I would hurry up and make.
I have a yearly rail season ticket. It cost me £2780. For this enormous sum of money, I am neither guaranteed a seat nor even a train to travel on. These days, however (having worked out how to be ruthless with my ‘fellow’ passengers) I normally get both.
About a month ago, I left my season ticket at work. Never mind, I thought, I can get a refund for the two singles I had to buy. I even checked with the ticket selling man that this was so, as these tickets were going to cost me around £25 – he confirmed it.
A few days later I present the receipts to my local station ticket office and ask for my refund. The sanguine ticket guy told me that the receipts were no good – I needed the tickets. Tickets that had been swallowed by the ticket machines in the station.
I complained that no one told me that I would need to retain the tickets rather than the receipts. The response was ‘Here’s a copy of the passenger charter.’
He then suggested I fill in a complaint form, attaching the receipts, and that he would send them to the customer services department. Fine.
Last week I forgot my season ticket again. Blame the hot weather, I wore shorts instead of jeans (which contained the ticket). This time I purchased the return with impunity (and a further £25), knowing that nothing would part me from the tickets, the receipts and possibly a picture of me buying them witnessed my two passing German tourists.
This morning I went to my local ticket office and presented my tickets.
“Have you applied for any other refunds?” he asked.
“Yes. You may recall the form I filled in last month.”
He looked through his records and found the carbon copy of my complaint.
“I’m sorry sir, you can only make two claims in any 12 month period.”
Now, I realise that this is just one small middle class nuisance. Nothing in the great scheme of things. So why was I filled, and I mean FILLED, with an all consuming rage followed by a wave of sadness that almost moved me to tears?
Why should it affect me so? This is just the latest in a long line of situations which have culminated with me coming up against a wall of corporate indifference, manned by the legions of centralised ‘customer service’ centres and, in some of the more backward organisations, indifferent automatons ensconced behind thick plastic screens.
After this morning’s events I have come to realise that these feelings are caused by the loss of the most basic control over the things that effect your life. I knew, even before I’d walked from the ticket office, that I was about to embark upon 18 months of emails, phone calls and letter writing with an endless host of ‘customer service’ representatives – having to re-tell the story at every stage, and at every stage becoming more and more angry and upset. And there would never be and end or any kind of resolution. I would just give up. The fact that I would never see that money again is almost incidental, because by the end of the process, I would have lost a chunk of my life and an even bigger chunk of the will to fight.
I think this is why blogs have become so popular. My experiences with O2, BT, British Gas, Network Southeast, Suttons, Apple etc. are being repeated by thousands of normal, little cogs just like me. And there is nowhere to go with this feeling of empty powerlessness. No one to talk to and no chance of ever changing, let alone beating, the system.
So these people publish their frustrations on the internet, and they get a few sympathetic comments from other frustrated souls. Bloggers are the huddled masses, clinging together for warmth in the corners the echoing cave of corporate indifference. Some of these people probably even work in call centres.
I know that this anger is not good for me. This morning I could actually feel my strength ebb and my health deteriorate. If this sounds dramatic, I don’t mean it to be – but this unpleasant cocktail of anger and hurt is not good for you, and today I was actually aware of the effect it was having on my very being.
Writing this has helped me. I do feel a bit better, something has left me. There is even the minuscule chance that someone reading this will be in a position to make some small change that will lead to someone, somewhere not feeling the way I did this morning.
Coming next (when I can work out how to do it )– My campaign for living a call centre free existence.
All suggestions gratefully received.
Written by exmonkey on June 8th, 2007 with
12 comments.
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#1. June 8th, 2007, at 10:43 AM.
That’s baaad shit, man. Don’t do what I do though. Because I get as frustrated as you do when I feel like I’m not in control of my world I react like the Blair government; it’s knee-jerk legislation time. So, for instance, I used to have a rule that every time a train was delayed I wouldn’t buy a ticket next time I travelled - instant compensation. If I had to pay a penalty fair then I’d not buy a ticket until I had recouped the cost of the penalty. It worked OK but I started to dislike being a member of the furtive minority you see on any train - eyes darting around every time the connecting door slammed, always nervy. So I came up with a new law. If there was a delay and then a ticket inspector on the train I had to keep the ticket inspector talking for as long as the delay was. I think I wrote about that one on my blog. It didn’t work very well because they stopped having ticket inspectors on trains so often. Now my policy is cycling to work to avoid all the stress, but I know you recently gave that up. When I do have to travel by train and if there is a ticket inspector I just keep them talking for as long as possible, just to make up for all the other times. At the moment I’m trying to pin them down on exactly how much time you should allow to buy your ticket before you travel. The most recent answer was 15 minutes. Yes, I made him repeat it. You should arrive at your station fifteen minutes before your train departs in order to be sure of getting a ticket.
I think the moral of this story is that the train operators have too much power and too little responsibility. The watchdog, now called Passenger Focus and their site is vomit inducing, is too weedy and not militant enough. We need a Greenpeace for rail passengers. Here are two demands to start off with:
Refund of ticket price if your journey is delayed by more than fifteen minutes.
Compensation of whatever the penalty fare is for people delayed by more than an hour.
(By the way, in Safari your comments box is about 2em wider than the page box. It’s well annoying.)