Well received, that is…
Transport for London (TFL) found itself embroiled in a Twitter spat after telling a disgruntled customer that he should “leave early” for work if he did not want to be late.
Twitter user @dan_down tweeted on Thursday: “Sort it out @LDNOvergournd. If I’m late once more this month I lose 25 per cent of my salary. Are you lot reimbursing me?”
The TFL Overground account replied: “@dan_down Leave early you will not be late next time. Hope this helps.”
But the advice was not well received – @dan_down criticised TFL’s “smart arse answers” and said that the company should “stick to your timetable”. He said that he arrived to the station each morning with the expectation that services would be on time.
Dan Down needs a sharp dose of reality. Trains run late for all sorts of reasons – frequently outside the control of the operator. It comes under the heading “shit happens”. Here, then, we go back to Seneca – a philosopher Mr Down would do well to acquaint himself with. Seneca suggested that much of our stress comes from expecting things to go well and we get upset when they don’t. Unfortunately, they often don’t, so we should expect it; not get all upset because we failed to plan accordingly.
Trains run late – Jesus, but I’ve travelled enough by rail to realise that. We should expect this and build it into our scheduling. Therefore, far from being a smartarse answer, TfL’s response was correct. Mr Down should set out earlier, that way he won’t be late for work and won’t lose 25% of his salary. He certainly gets no sympathy from me on that score. He knows the outcome of being late it is his responsibility to get to work on time and allow for late running trains – because this is not an unforeseen occurrence. It’s what I have done in one form or another all of my working life – planning my arrival time a good half an hour early. If I am fifteen minutes early, I am running late. If despite this, I am actually late, it is a rarity and I blame myself for inadequate planning.
If Dan Down cannot do this and instead moans on Twatter about his piss-poor planning, then I have no sympathy whatsoever and he deserves all the smartarse answers he gets. It’s just a shame TfL felt they had to apologise to this twat.
When traveling by public transport, I always aim to catch the bus/train at LEAST one before I actualy NEED it. Most times, when the appointment is REALLY important, two.
I am usually an hour, or half an hour too early for the appointment, but I KNOW, that I WILL be “on time” when I knock on the door.
Hang around outside. Smoke a pipe or two. No big deal.
Yes, that’s my philosophy. Leaving it to the last minute and blaming the train operator is self defeating.
Me too. Some people think arriving on time means walking in the office at 9 on the dot.
A girl in our office is frequently late and always blames it on traffic. I want to tell her that if the traffic is so bad, so often, she should leave earlier, but she’s more senior than me 😯
I’d say it anyway. People tend to accept my side-swipes because my delivery is sufficiently dry they can’t tell if I’m joking so assume that I am.
Shouldn’t we aspire to having trains running on time?
Shouldn’t Transport for London have apologised first? It doesn’t cost the minimum wage twitter slave anything to grovel to the customers, that’s what they get paid for, isn’t it?
Isn’t is a poor use to resources to get a train earlier than the one you want?
Does transport for London even have the facilities to deal with hundreds of thousands of commuters hanging around for their trains hours early? Stations get pretty crowded as it is, but to proscribe that they turn up earlier and wait around longer sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Trains do mostly run on time. Unfortunately, the real world intervenes – things break down, people jump in front of them, lorries drive into their bridges. These are outside of the operator’s ability to effectively control. So, if our appointment is important, it is beholden upon us to plan accordingly. It’s called taking responsibility for oneself. An old fashioned concept, I realise in this modern age, but one that makes sense instead of whining on Twatter about making the trains run on time. No, get up five minutes earlier.
Er, no, you get on the earlier train and arrive at your appointment early and like FT says above, have a smoke, cup of tea or whatever…
Entirely agreed:- I travel from the Staffordshire/Shropshire border daily to Derby (via Birmingham) and am always irritated by so many who try to board a train without giving those leaving the train time to get off!
Therefore a scheduled 2-minute stop frequently goes out to 3 or four minutes, and with the frequent stops on commuter lines, it doesn’t take too long for a noticeable lateness to build up.
All too often, those moaning about something are very often (part of) the cause of whatever it is they’re moaning about.
I suppose it’s all part of our wonderful “I have my rights, but only others have responsibilities” lefty liberal culture…
The moral of this tale is never use public transport if you’re on a tight schedule. However, it should also be noted that smart arsing at disgruntled customers is the best way to lose them and all their friends. Not good marketing practice at all. Tsk. 😉
Sorry
If you are in London, “private” transport will always be slower & less reliable than public.
If you want to go from London to Leeds or Manchester in a hurry, you take the train – 2 hrs & can usually be relied on.
As LR says, there is nothing at all you can do if some selfish bastard jumps in fron to the train you are on, or the one in front of that ….
After all, there are these things called TIMETABLES, aren’t there?
Oddly enough Greg, I always found walking or riding a motorcycle the most reliable means of transportation when last I worked in the Smoke. The rule I always found worked best with public transport timetables was to use the earlier train or bus if you wanted to keep to schedule. By the way, do they still get ‘people jams’ during evening rush hour at Oxford Circus? Haven’t been back since early ’04.
While trains are fine if you’ve only got to get from Waterloo to Gare Du Nord on the Eurostar, or central London to central Edinburgh etc If you’re going anywhere off the railway stop list, be prepared to go the day before.
Sometimes, though, the customer needs to be told that hard facts. This is one of those occasions. I do not subscribe to the principle of the customer is always right – they can frequently be very wrong. Sometimes, you just have to tell them.
What, you mean take responsibility for yourself and your actions, instead of blaming every other bugger?
Only one person responsible for you and that’s you.
You’re quite right, i have no sympathy with half the whining crying ‘its not my fault’ crew either.
I deal with the problem by not using public transport, ever. The last time that I was late for work was sometime in the eighties and involved a huge snowdrift.
Sorry
If you are in London, “private” transport will always be slower & less reliable than public.
If you want to go from London to Leeds or Manchester in a hurry, you take the train – 2 hrs & can usually be relied on.
As LR says, there is nothing at all you can do if some selfish bastard jumps in fron to the train you are on, or the one in front of that ….
After all, there are these things called TIMETABLES, aren’t there?
Also, if you NEVER use public transport then you are a total prat.
After all airlines are public transport, too, as are ferries.
I think you are either an idiot, or you are misusing the English language somewhat.
And you never got stuck in traffic?
Not even the Swiss can run a public transport system with 100% reliability.
Even if you use your own car, or cycle to work, you can never be 100% sure your chosen mode of transport won’t suffer a breakdown, or get held up by congestion, or affected by an accident.
So not using public transport doesn’t help you any. It just means you get to listen to your own choice of music.
We should put a short Italian with delusions of grandeur in charge of Transport for London, then the trains might run on time.
Well he’d certainly fit in well with the politics that pertain these days.
@Greg Tingey
You are of course correct, I should have said that I hardly ever use public transport rather than never. But was it really necessary to get quite so pissy about it?
@LR
I do get stuck in traffic, very rarely, but I allow enough time for it not to be a problem.
So do I, however I very nearly missed a flight because of one a few years back. We’d allowed bags of time but the traffic was at a complete standstill due to an accident. No amount of planning could have allowed for that one. Fortunately the flight was late – how lucky was that?
So you all think it is ok that things dont work in the UK. Still you are well supplied with excuses .
Bollocks, frankly. Given that your statement is a massive strawman, that’s the only response it deserves.
How does public transport performance in Australia compare with that in the UK, John?
Can’t speak for Oz, but the UK system works pretty well. I was travelling by rail all of last summer across much of the country and although one or two trains were a few minutes late, only two journeys were significantly delayed – one by a fatality and one as a consequence of another train failing. As I said, shit happens – actually, it doesn’t happen that often and given the density of our system, when it does, the ripples will spread out pretty rapidly. But for all of the thousands of miles I travelled, the vast majority saw me arriving at my destination on time – so, no, none of us is saying what John is accusing us of saying. The UK system does work and it works pretty well.