There is a sign at my local train station which tells commuters that the Railway Company will prosecute anybody who assaults their staff. Which I love, because it tells me more about the company than they probably ever intended. To summarise, that there is a revolution coming and instead of working to avoid it, they’re arming themselves in preparation for it. It makes me like the company even less and their customers even more.

This is one of the many things the railway does which irks me, so I nod at the employee manning what can only be described as The Cattle Gates and acknowledge them with an expression that I hope says ‘5crew you’. I think that this is important, because either they’re a sensitive individual in which case I’m doing everything I can to get them away from their evil employer…. or they’re evil themselves and they deserve it, and hopefully will remain with the company to ensure morale is kept low. Besides, today there’s no malice. I’m actually just going through the motions. Making the point. Ensuring that the point is made. The guy probably thought I had something in my eye.

Revolutions need the heat of passion, but today is not a day for heat. An icy wind rattles along the platform following a passing express train, and I need to walk along the platform to get to the bridge to platform three. The sky is clear, too – an icy cloudless sky that lacks the foreboding of impending class struggle and vengeance. Actually, if anything, the day is a little bit too pretty. Not in the obvious way, with perfect clouds and a bursting sun, but rather a serenety that is completely at ease with itself. Other than the ambient temperature, which is crisply, sharply cold to the point of distraction if one were to inhale just a little too recklessly. The sun has not yet risen, but the sky is already rather pleasingly bright. Nobody wants to get angry.

The spell is broken with an announcement.

The gist of it is that a pre-recorded voice with its pasted-together phrases is sorry to announce that train I wish to be on will be arriving several minutes later than initially expected, and from a different platform than previously indicated. The voice concludes by saying that the rail company apologises for any inconvenience this causes.

Another brittle bit of optimism breaks.

Question: what does a pre-recorded apology mean, really?

In my view, it means the company knew that it would need to publicly say the word ‘sorry’, repeatedly, but didn’t want to dedicate a staff member to acknowledge the specific event when it occurred, and instead decided to pay somebody to record something generic that could be played at the appropriate time. And their assumption was that the people it was played to would accept this as an apology.

I’m sorry, but who made that assumption? Was it somebody who would let their teenage daughter outsource an apology to a third party to record an mp3 format sound file which could be played at an appropriate time? Yes, Dad, I am sixteen years old and am coming home smelling of cigarettes and beer and who knows what else, but here is a recording of some guy’s voice to assure you that I apologise for any concern my actions, whatever they were, may be have caused you and/or mum, and thank you for your understanding.

Would any parent accept that? An apology without a specific acknowledgement of the event, not made by the person whose fault it is, is more than worthless, it’s actually an insult. Unlike (say) Microsoft or my workplace IT Department, there is no charming sense of incompetence about the way the rail company works. There’s a menace here.

I assume that the kind of antisocial mentality that came up with this idea is the same sort of person that would hide itself, and leave its staff with all the protection against retribution that a poster warning of legal action for assault could provide.

On the way back up the footbridge with the rest of the faceless, silently accepting herd, I passed another sign, less aggressively advising that the company would appreciate it if customers didn’t take their frustrations out on staff.

Wow. I like the optimism.

I mean, in principle I agree. It’s not the fault of the man at the gate, or the people selling the tickets, or the people manning the customer information booth. But it is somebody’s. And whereas the second sign may be less aggressive than the first one, in some ways it is even more ridiculous. Who am I meant to take my frustrations out on? My Co-workers in the office?

What the poster is suggesting (‘blame anybody but us’) is clearly even more devastatingly antisocial than anything than I have in mind when I target people who at least dress in the same corporate colours as used in the poster.

Just to provide some information: my weekly rail ticket costs me more than triple what I used to pay back in Sydney for a service that is no better and a journey time that is no longer. This is because the government of this country decided to nationalise the railways to private enterprises. Who run them for profit. Indeed, the company on whose line I travel on made a profit of over one hundred million pounds last year. And in the middle of a recession, where more people will be out of work and needing to travel to find it, they raised prices of the weekly ticket by an inflation-busting 8% from January 1st. It is, quite simply, legalised highway robbery.

And they are actually thieves. On weekends, they provide offpeak reduced fares, but if you go to their automatic ticket machines and wish to buy a ticket, the first option provided for purchase is a full fare ticket! Even though you don’t need to pay full fare, paying full fare is provided as an option. Baby, you know what the date is – it’s printed on the ticket, so are you telling me you don’t know what day of the week it is? My Nokia phone has the ability to set alarms based on day of the week! It’s plainly evident that they’re hoping, no encouraging you, to make a mistake in their favour.

Don’t take it out on our staff. Right.

So please provide us a duly designated representative that we may throw fruit at them.

And what did they raise their prices for, exactly? Were they going to make the trains run on time? Not really – according to their own statistics, they do a fine job. Because a train is defined as ‘late’ (for statutory refund purposes) only if it is half an hour late. Which is why the constant apologies are never for late trains: no, the disembodied pre-recorded voice apologises for ‘delays’. It’s a beautiful system when you get to make your own rules.

I’m being bitter,and it’s not just because I really need a coffee. Besides, maybe they’re barely breaking even with their one hundred million pound profit. They could do great things with the extra 8% they’ll be collecting from us. They could…. well, if the posters were to be believed, probably they would buy guard towers and razor wire and bad-tempered rottweilers to protect their staff from the rampaging angry customers they’re creating. And I like dogs, even grumpy ones.

I swallowed my disdain and my anger, letting it warm me a little but saving some for another day. I endeavoured to work out what the best position on the new platform would be. Not in order to get a seat, mind you. Whatever else the disembodied voices coming from loudspeakers might apologise for, even they remain mute as to the general (un)likelihood of getting a seat, even this early in the morning. Or the evening peak. Or when they reduce the number of carriages at some point in the later evening. No, right now I just wanted a standing position in a carriage where I wouldn’t be stuck in an obscene caricuture of a posture, intimately nestled among total strangers like some sort of clothed orgy happening in a rail carriage for the profit of my Rail company, where CCTV cameras may be fitted in your compartment for your safety (and possibly our amusement)..

You know, I actually wrote to the Railway Company’s complaints department once but was at first stuck for what to say. I realised they were a group of people employed specifically to apologise on behalf of the company for things that weren’t their (the complaint department’s) fault. Like the disembodied voice coming from the loudspeakers. And this kind of made me hate them as much as I hated the people who were to blame, but for entirely different reasons.

Then I figured I might as well try to lower their morale too, so I wrote them an email anyway.

And they responded.

And…. damn they’re good. Articulate, clever, dealing with each of my issues in turn in an empathetic, even sympathetic way. They were upgrading the lines. They were getting extra carriages. They were always working on punctuality. They even made me feel a little bit guilty for my harsh words. They apologised for how I was feeling.

Because wealthy bad guys can afford talented minions, who will sell themselves for a paypacket in these uncertain times. Who can live with what they do because after all, it’s not their fault either.

So… lesson learned.

I won’t take it out on your staff….

postscript:
I have learned that there is a website which documents the £5.5billion upgrade being done by this company.

In the FAQ section (question 35) it answers whether the programme will be paid for by big fare increases? The answer : “No – there will not be any direct link between the investment in new trains and infrastructure and the fares charged to customers on the route. The investment is being funded by the Department for Transport.”

So… wait… they could take credit for the improvements, and mention them in relation to my complaint about fare increases, even though there was no link?

Yeah… that’s pretty much their style in a nutshell…