NotWork Rail

Ever since Network Rail took over from Railtrack, it’s been run by morons. Not that Railtrack was good, as that was a clusterfuck too, but another story. So, ever since the privatisation, we were told not to use the term’ passengers.’ Of course, being signalmen (and women), we resisted and continued to refer to passengers as passengers because that is what they are. It seems the top brass still haven’t got the message.

The most widely spoken language on the planet, English, has changed many times throughout the centuries. Sometimes, this has been driven by changes in population, technological advancement, or even by great writers like Chaucer or Shakespeare, whose grand eloquence made certain words and phrases part of our everyday speech.

But now, Network Rail is contending to be among those forces defining the spoken word, with a new employee handbook aimed at helping its workers “sound human” when speaking to members of the general public. Among the group of words staff are being told not to use with passengers is, bizarrely, the word “passenger,” it is reported today by The Telegraph.

Instead, conductors should simply address train-using people as “you.” Boyfriends, girlfriends, wives and husbands are also being linguistically trussed up and left on the tracks, with all workers told to just use partner or spouse instead.

Oh, it gets worse.

The guidelines, also ironically entitled ‘Speak Passenger’, aim to “eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations between different people”. This is largely by using gender-neutral terms, replacing manpower with “people”, mother and father with “parents, and pregnant woman with “pregnant person.”

In this effort to “speak passenger” all Network Rail workers will also be asked to dumb down their language, using “get” instead of obtain and “buy” instead of purchase, with instructions to “say it in the shortest way you can”. The guide, which the Daily Mail reports also includes an hour-long training video for employees, was compiled by consulting firm Schwa.

What a staggeringly patronising stance to take. I would refuse flatly to dumb down my language and I’ve spent most of my career in some sort of customer facing role. Were I still at Nutwork Rail, I’d ignore this as I often ignored such absurd diktats from on high, issued by people who are several steps behind the curve.

It tells employees that failing to follow the language guidance could “exclude” and alienate co-workers and customers. It says: “If we don’t do it, the language we use can create and reinforce bias against individuals and groups of people. It can also create and reinforce negative stereotypes.

“The result can be a work environment that’s humiliating, unpleasant and alienating. Not to mention the fact we’ll be excluding a large portion of our audience.”

Whereas dumbing down isn’t incredibly insulting and patronising. Typical behaviour from a NWR executive in my experience, frankly.

19 Comments

  1. If it was down to me the perpetrators of this crap would be fired and not replaced. It makes you wonder just how many non-jobs there are in the public sector now. It seems likely that you could cull three quarters of them and stuff would probably work better.

  2. Seventy years agowe had an English teacher who banned us from using ‘got’; ‘get’; ‘nice’; etc. She encouraged us to use other words.

    It looks as if Network Rail could do with a few lessons from her.

  3. The only thing worse than dumbed-down customer facing language is lawyered-up customer facing language.

    Although I suppose dumbed-down lawyered-up language could be worse… let’s ask that nice Mr Starmer for some recent examples.

  4. Oh for a Trump of our own! His presidential order decreeing there are only two genders would put an immediate stop to this particular load of bollocks…

    As for using “get” – why do so many people now say “Can I get xxxx with that?” What ever happened to “Can (or even MAY) I have xxxx with that”.

  5. My thought with people using the appalling “can I get…” is, “no, YOU can’t get it, because that would be theft, but as I work here I will get it for you if you ask nicely”.

    • That term,slc, was used in the amusing final article in “Flight” magazine since, at least, way back in the 1970s
      The name of the First Officer was “Captain Speaking”. For example he/she always introduced her/him self ” Good morning, this is Captain Speaking”.

  6. @ PaulF – 50 odd years ago I remember one of my school teachers – on being asked by one pupil if he could go to the toilet – replying “I don’t know if you CAN go to the toilet, however you MAY go to the toilet”.

    I can’t imagine that happening now…

  7. I thought I was a “customer”?

    I don’t use trains a great deal but on those occasions I have been standing on platforms I have been referred to as a customer: “cameras are operating for the safety and benefit of customers” etc.

    Similarly in a hotel I’m a customer rather than a guest.

    Even in a police station “customers” are advised that the delicate flowers will not tolerate abusive language etc.

    All I want from a railway is a train that runs on time and is reasonably clean.

    That’s it!

    • As a subscriber to, and user of, the NHS, you should be considered a ‘customer’ but are only ever referred to as a ‘patient’, because that’s what you’re expected to be.

    • I take the view that a “customer” has a choice of where to spend his money – e.g. Tesco, Co-op, Sainsbury’s. Since the Snivel Service started pretending to be touchy-feely it has started calling us users as customers, but we do not have the bloody choice!

  8. ’…a new employee handbook aimed at helping its workers “sound human” when speaking to members of the general public…’

    Quick, someone send Starmer’s Cabinet copies!

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