SWR Guard and a customer with Aspergers

[yorkie]

....Many a times I have had people claim the station staff told them they could travel , many a time I have charged them for a new ticket...

Careful; if they are telling the truth, you may be causing your company to be breaching the law.

I would go so far as to say that, in fact, customers are more often wrong than right going by the cases I have handled.

And in the cases I am aware of, the opposite is very much the case.

(But neither of these experiences proves much other than either party can potentially be wrong)

Reading the comments on the daily echo story are very disturbing to the grade in general. It’s disappointing that they view guards in that manner. ....

Something ought to be done about that minority who behave in a manner that gets the grade a bad name. If people have just one bad experience, it can be very memorable for them and can spoil the overall good experience of receiving good service on the majority of journeys.

Unfortunately some TOCs do not do enough about this (on my local main line TOC there is a particularly notorious one who was even promoted; and he is most notorious for being anti-staff rather than anti-customer!)

There’s clearly a difference between answering industry questions and slagging a specific customer off on Facebook.

Not really.

Yes, really. @AlterEgo made an excellent, pertinent point. It's entirely up to you if you want to take that point or not.

 

[bb21]

And in the cases I am aware of, the opposite is very much the case.

(But neither of these experiences proves much other than either party can potentially be wrong)

It's just a counter argument to the saying "the customer is always right", which I do of course understand is not to be interpreted literally.

No experience can prove anything re: a single case as they all have to be considered on their own merits.

(I wouldn't really be surprised by differences in our experiences as the nature of cases we would end up with would be very much different.)

 

[Starmill]

Sadly I don't think the vetting process on this group was upto scratch

It's a flipping Facebook group! What were you expecting? Anyone who expects that to be secure, or for people to be who they say they are, is deluding themselves.

 

[ComUtoR]

Yes, really. @AlterEgo made an excellent, pertinent point. It's entirely up to you if you want to take that point or not.

No, not really.

I've seen what happens in the real word; outside the fish bowl of the forum. The Social media policy can be used as a stick to beat people with. Some of us are absolutely breaking our social media policies. I'm sorry if you cannot see that fact but it is true. If that policy gets broken. Regardless of what gets written, we can be disciplined and potentially lose our jobs.

When someone wants to 'nail the guard' using said policies; you begin to understand how draconian such policies can be when used against staff members.

Whilst I understand there is a difference. Management often don't. There should be a distinction made between the two. However because it can be used as a stick to beat people with. All it will take is some poster on this forum to disagree with a comment or take something personal and *poof* policy broken and lets 'nail the staff member'

 

[Starmill]

The Social media policy can be used as a stick to beat people with.

This is a serious claim against management!

Some of us are absolutely breaking our social media policies. I'm sorry if you cannot see that fact but it is true.

This is not recommended.

If that policy gets broken. Regardless of what gets written, we can be disciplined and potentially lose our jobs.

As with most lines of work. What point are you making?

When someone wants to 'nail the guard' using said policies; you begin to understand how draconian such policies can be when used against staff members.

Can you give an example of why your employer's social media policy is 'draconian' and how you think it should be changed? Not that doing so may be a breach of the policy.

 

[yorkie]

I've seen what happens in the real word...

And so have people like RJ, AlterEgo, myself... (yes, really!)

The rest of your post is totally at odds with everything I've experienced.

 

[ComUtoR]

This is a serious claim against management!

It is mostly a response because a poster wanted to 'nail the guard' using said policy. But in my years of experience, a hard line is easily taken and often a 'Zero tolerance' approach is taken.

This is not recommended.

No it isn't. Hence me raising the point about should staff continue to post or not.

As with most lines of work. What point are you making?

In line with what Alter Ego suggests. Is the intent of the policy greater than the hard line ? Spirit vs letter etc. Clearly there is a distinction between helpful posting and abuse. However both can break policy. There are various forum signatures that state 'this is not the opinion of my employer etc' That demonstrates where staff need to make that distinction. All it would take is someone here to complain and that could be the end of a persons career. The second a staff member posts anything negative about anything railway/toc/passenger related means they break policy. Even the slightest whiff of negativity would put them in breach. Consider that this forum has protections against that happening. If a poster makes it so that they can be identified then that post would be 'moderated' as it would place the staff member in a bad position. That shows there is a consideration regarding Social media policies. IF that protection wasn't there then I suspect that some of us would be known by our real names rather than Avatars and usernames.

Can you give an example of why your employer's social media policy is 'draconian' and how you think it should be changed? Not that doing so may be a breach of the policy.

That would break policy.

 

[ComUtoR]

And so have people like RJ, AlterEgo, myself... (yes, really!)

The rest of your post is totally at odds with everything I've experienced.

I have no doubts about that either and AlterEgo made a valid point. That does not mean the other side of that coin does not exist. We lost 2 last year due to breaking social media policy.

People should be judged on what they do and say and without a doubt, if the OP is to be believed then I would agree to apply some form of disciplinary. What I am suggesting is that to specifically use the social media policy to 'nail them' is wrong.

 

[Starmill]

I do not see how this is a difficult issue. The policy is the policy is the policy. If you don't like it, fine. I am sure there are processes to raise bad policies. But that's still the policy. Breaking it is a bad idea. This shouldn't be difficult to grasp.

 

[ComUtoR]

I do not see how this is a difficult issue. The policy is the policy is the policy. If you don't like it, fine. I am sure there are processes to raise bad policies. But that's still the policy. Breaking it is a bad idea. This shouldn't be difficult to grasp.

Obviously. I haven't suggested otherwise. Whats your point ?

Should there be staff forums where they can air their personal views ? This is not unique to the Railway either. There have been a number of cases where someone has posted something on facebook and then lost their job. I remember a case a few years back where something was said in the pub on a work night out and a judge ruled that they were still considered to be at work and what they say and do can be used to take disciplinary action.

 

[Starmill]

Obviously. I haven't suggested otherwise. Whats your point ?

You complained about the guard "being nailed" and questioned if it is appropriate to post. This is your answer.

Should there be staff forums where they can air their personal views ?

I am sure there in fact are.

 

[ComUtoR]

I am sure there in fact are.

Is this one of them. Should staff be encouraged to post here ? It makes for a good forum to have all sides of a discussion. Enthusiasts get to see an insider view and staff members get to interact on a semi professional level. This is something that should be promoted by TOCs and passengers alike. However; that comes with rather passionate and often extreme views. Just sit in a DOO thread to see how passionate people can become.

The problem is that the social media policy doesn't make a specific distinction to what can and should be posted. If I was to say that I despise Networkers, then it could be considered that I am posting negatively about my TOC and its stock. Breaching social media policy. Que 'Daily Mail' style headline 'Driver Slates TOC trains, says they are S"!£$'. But look through the Traction forum and you will see both negative and positive comments from staff about their stock. The policy can easily be used to 'nail' the staff member.

How can any reasonable discussion take place when that sword of Damocles hangs over you ?

At what point is that line of technical discussion crossed and at what point would the TOC Management decide that is constitutes a breach of policy and goodbye staff member ? It is the fine line we tread.

The complaint about the Guard being nailed is because of the attitude that comes with it. It is because the implication is that you can freely nail the Guard using the policy is what is wrong. I agree with what AlterEgo and Yorkie are suggesting. But there is, sadly, the other side of that coin.

 

[theageofthetra]

This is a serious claim against management!

This is not recommended.

As with most lines of work. What point are you making?

Can you give an example of why your employer's social media policy is 'draconian' and how you think it should be changed? Not that doing so may be a breach of the policy.

Unless in the public sector of course when you can criticise with impunity.

 

[muz379]

Careful; if they are telling the truth, you may be causing your company to be breaching the law.

And if they are not telling the truth then they may be breaching the law , only in arguably a worse way .

The company may be in breach of contract law , the damages for which would amount to a refund for the incorrectly charged ticket .Unless I am mistaken that is the most damages the person could seek to recover

The customer if travelling on an invalid ticket but dishonestly claiming to have authority to travel could quite easily be seen to be intentionally avoiding payment so could be committing a regulation of railway act offence .

Personally I go with the view that as far as I am aware policy is station staff are to only issue authority to travel in exceptional circumstances by endorsing the ticket or in the case of booking offices providing a stamped slip confirming the authority to travel so it immediately poses questions when they are absent and someone is claiming to have authority to travel . I appreciate by law if the station staff do verbally authorise travel then that becomes binding , but in that circumstances because it is not policy to do so it is then arguably the station staff who are putting the company at risk of breaching the law . Not other staff members relying on company policy .I certainly would argue about the fairness of disciplining a guard or RPI for placing the company in breach of the law in those circumstances and have certainly never heard of any staff being disciplined for such

The times I have charged someone when they claim to have been told they can travel would be because upon questioning they have not offered up an explanation that sounds plausible to me or even been able to describe the person they spoke to .The other alternative I always offer is to take the details and report the circumstances to the prosecutions department for them to investigate and they do prosecute in some cases when they further investigate the circumstances . More often than not the choice made is to buy a new ticket or pay any excess due .

This is all a rare occurrence compared to the more regular event of someone approaching you on the platform saying "are you the guard" and "the barrier staff said to ask you if I can travel on this train even though my ticket is for the xx:xx " In those circumstances unless the train is overcrowded the difference in time is ridiculously massive , ticket is for a different day (believe me some do try) or the ticket is for another operators service I will allow travel . And as well as endorsing tickets I will always tell any future guard if I am relieved on route that I have authorised travel for someone with an advance/otherwise invalid ticket . I think most barrier staff know the problems it causes on board revenue staff authorising travel with no documentary evidence .

 

[Bromley boy]

Careful; if they are telling the truth, you may be causing your company to be breaching the law.

Causing it to breach a contract, perhaps, and only if they’re telling the truth.

As discussed earlier, if a passenger is on a train without a valid ticket, a guard can’t simply take their explanation at face value and should follow whatever their TOC’s procedure is in that situation.

Much easier if gateline staff are always required to endorse tickets to avoid any doubt.

 

[HowardGWR]

I once had my ticket endorsed by a guard. She had misheard my end destination requirement and sold me a ticket to the station prior. Her endorsement consisted of 'Diana says - OK'. (!). This did not alleviate my concern, frankly, but the gateman hardly looked at it; they are a friendly lot on GWR.
Could not staff be issued with a stamp that gives a little more confidence to a passenger (and examiner), I wonder.

Edit: Diana is a made up name, so if there is a GWR Diana, it's not you!

 

[al78]

Careful; if they are telling the truth, you may be causing your company to be breaching the law.

It does appear to put the member of staff in an awkward position, if I say I've been given permission to travel but have no evidence. The person challenging me has the choice of believing me and potentially letting a fare dodger through, or not believing me and potentially forcing an innocent passenger to cough up money they shouldn't have too.

It sounds like the best thing to do is for the passenger to ask for written confirmation if they are given permission to travel in a situation where it wouldn't normally be allowed. If they won't give written confirmation then try getting their name (probably unlikely to comply). If neither of those are forthcoming and I get my wallet raped further down the line, put in a formal complaint giving the date, time and location of where I obtained verbal permission and where I was challenged, someone in authority will be able to identify the staff concerned from that.

 

[Bromley boy]

It sounds like the best thing to do is for the passenger to ask for written confirmation if they are given permission to travel in a situation where it wouldn't normally be allowed. If they won't give written confirmation then try getting their name (probably unlikely to comply). If neither of those are forthcoming and I get my wallet raped further down the line, put in a formal complaint giving the date, time and location of where I obtained verbal permission and where I was challenged, someone in authority will be able to identify the staff concerned from that.

Indeed and in this situation it might also make things easier if you go and see the guard immediately upon boarding to explain the situation, rather than waiting for them to pass through the train.

 

[HowardGWR]

If neither of those are forthcoming and I get my wallet raped further down the line, put in a formal complaint giving the date, time and location of where I obtained verbal permission and where I was challenged, someone in authority will be able to identify the staff concerned from that.

See bold - I think you meant ransacked didn't you?

 

[PR1Berske]

Of course you can say anything you like about the staff....

I know of no company without a social media/internet policy that advises employees to act with care. I work for the NHS, and we have very strict rules about what we can say online about our work. I'm sure patients and visitors have said, and will say, pretty ropey things about the NHS. Passengers, like patients, don't have a company's reputation to uphold.

 

[adc82140]

The Bournemouth Echo is my local rag- let's say it has a loose affiliation with facts and certainly no interest in presenting the whole story. The commenters on the website are mostly a handful of people with multiple logins who like to praise themselves, so I wouldn't take things too seriously there. I do log in there occasionally to put a few facts straight when you get the stories of signal failures with the predictable "this wouldn't have happened with SWT" comments.

 

[185]

Depends what he actually posted. It sounds like it was a just a general moan about passengers trying it on rather than specifically discussing details of this individual case.

Unfortunately for the guard, SWR is now effectively FirstGroup who have an ultra-OTT Social Media Policy. IMO, staff should all adopt pseudonyms for online profiles. That said, at one of FG's employment tribunals they had to admit to a court they i) accessed someones facebook which was ii) set to private, friends only.... and the judge threw a substantial part of their defence out with a very stern warning.

 

[bb21]

The Bournemouth Echo is my local rag- let's say it has a loose affiliation with facts and certainly no interest in presenting the whole story. The commenters on the website are mostly a handful of people with multiple logins who like to praise themselves, so I wouldn't take things too seriously there. I do log in there occasionally to put a few facts straight when you get the stories of signal failures with the predictable "this wouldn't have happened with SWT" comments.

As a local lad myself, my opinion of the OHEC has always been pretty low and the contributors to the comments section online probably only have on average half a brain cell anyway.

 

[bb21]

Unfortunately for the guard, SWR is now effectively FirstGroup who have an ultra-OTT Social Media Policy. IMO, staff should all adopt pseudonyms for online profiles. That said, at one of FG's employment tribunals they had to admit to a court they i) accessed someones facebook which was ii) set to private, friends only.... and the judge threw a substantial part of their defence out with a very stern warning.

Enforcement at local level will vary greatly and I doubt things would have changed much from Stagecoach days.

 

[Bromley boy]

When someone wants to 'nail the guard' using said policies; you begin to understand how draconian such policies can be when used against staff members.

Can you give an example of why your employer's social media policy is 'draconian' and how you think it should be changed? Not that doing so may be a breach of the policy.

I'd imagine the kind of scenario Com is thinking about might be where someone is identifiable as being an employee of X organisation, perhaps because their Facebook picture shows them in uniform or gives their job title. Supposing that person then makes comments of an "unpolitically correct" nature (but nothing to do with work) and someone with a grudge against the individual then sends the comments to the employer's public twitter feed for comment.

I'm aware of this kind of thing happening in the police force and other industries, especially in uniformed jobs where peoples' job titles may be more readily identifiable than most, from their pictures. It's very easy for people to give too much away and forget themselves, making comments that breach policy, given how much information is online these days.

Not dissimilar to the case we are discussing here where someone has, for their own reasons, made this guard's comments on a Facebook group available to the TOC and complaining passenger for their own motives.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

“by Laurie Penny”!

Saw that at the top and didn’t read it.

That dreadful woman...

 

[Tetchytyke]

It is mostly a response because a poster wanted to 'nail the guard' using said policy. But in my years of experience, a hard line is easily taken and often a 'Zero tolerance' approach is taken.

I have explained my position. Interesting that you choose to persist with this line rather than address what I actually said.

If you cannot or will not see the difference between idle forum chat and slagging off an identifiable member of the public on Facebook, then there's little point talking further.

As I said, in my work, if my staff did this against a client then a) they'd be getting a severe telling off and b) I'd be having to write a report for my bosses to send to national management to explain the significant breach of data protection.

I am not aware of any (enforceable) social media policy that prevents the use of the internet in its entirety. But people ought to remember it isn't an idle chat down the pub, it is public publishing.

 

[Tom Quinne]

My default response to anything like "the ticket man in the station said xyz" was...right oh and walked on.

I really couldn't bothered with the hassle, social media polices are corporate super injunctions these "celebrities" have to gag former staff etc.

Say something we don't agree with fact or fiction your gone sunshine.

 

[matt_world2004]

If there is a case of gateline staff telling people to get on and guards having no proof of that. Shouldnt this be something that the guards raise in meetings so there is a clear unambiguous policy on that matter.

 

[yorkie]

You won't eliminate this sort of issue. Even if your suggestion was to happen, there are many more occasions when customers who have documented evidence of validity, or whose validity is clearly defined in the iKB or NRCoT, are still asked to pay for a new ticket.

I become aware of more of these issues than most for various reasons, but for every issue I am aware of, there must be many more I am not, so it's a big problem that there is no easy solution to (other than a cultural change).