Unfortunately, because of engineering work, we have no service this weekend on the lines where I work. We do try to let the customers know well in advance by displaying posters at least a week in advance, it has been in the Metro newspaper everyday etc etc. Quite a substantial amount of our lovely customers either completely ignored the aforementioned information, or forgot. So they turn up at the station and normally one of two things happens:
1) They walk straight past the scaffolding, ladders, tools, the scores of contractors, posters and staff and go onto the platforms to await their trains.
2) They happen to notice all of the above, and utter various expletives to themselves and come and politely ask for and politely receive the information they require.
We also have a third category of people, who may initially do either of the above, then come and swear at our staff, threaten us and take it too personally as if LUL are only doing this engineering work to annoy them.
Just today whilst assisting on the gatelines and directing people to the replacement bus services etc, I have been threatened with a pitbull terrier, threatened to being stabbed and gutted, called a racist and too many verbal assaults and insults to count. I have a long 12 hours duty tomorrow, and I am not expecting to have any other staff, as my managers have neglected to cover the other duties. If that is the case, then I will be providing my service from the safety of the ticket office.
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4 comments:
I will have to disagree with you, as personally I think most of the abuse we get is from Londoners.
"you can also normally tell a tourist from a Londoner by the way they dress."
... yeah but can you tell a commuter from a londoner? That difference is a lot harder to make out other than perhaps by the time of day they choose to travel... The difference between Notting Hill Gate tube before and after the ones rushing in from crinkly arsehole in up-oxholmshire are usually the one's f'ing and blinding in my experience as a londoner.
It's the same on my group, you have announcements going ever 5 minutes from the Tuesday before, Whiteboards and posters everywhere.
Then people walk around the whiteboards with the info on it, go down to platforms and then come up and ask why there are no trains.
Or Stations on other groups aren't given any information out. This happens quite regularly on my group which has regular sunday engineering work
hold on a minute. I got on the district line at Barons Court last Saturday. There was NO indication in the ticket hall that there was anything going on. A sweet gentleman asked me 'is this train going to South Kensington' and I replied 'probably' because they mostly do. Just as the train was about to pull out of Earl's Court I realised that all trains were only going to High Street Kensington, which was clearly shown at Earls Court. I had time to jump off myself but not to tell the sweet man who'd asked me. I must insist - there was no sign at Barons Court. And then you wonder why we get cross!
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