Virgin East Coast Twitter

[yorkie]

That's good to hear. Keep up the good work ^BG

 

[Chrism20]

It's not a regular staffer, it is something we've noticed and it is also something that we'll be discussing with the individual concerned.

I’m not being funny here but if it were me who had posted those tweets and I found out that it had been announced by a colleague on a public forum that my actions were going to be discussed with me I’d be on the phone to my union rep.

The situation needs to be addressed with the individual, I don’t think the public need to know about it though.

 

[jon0844]

On the flip side they do have to deal with many customers that are unnecessarily arrogant, and very often just plain wrong in their requests and reasoning.

Absolutely. But you have to remain professional. You're a better person than they are!

 

[_toommm_]

Another quite sarcy response, this time about Azuma. Please note I didn’t go looking for a sarcy response, this was the first thread I saw? For our partially sighted readers:

Twitter User A: Darlington? (Questioning where the Azuma is)
Virgin: Afraid not Jay. Azuma is a seasoned visitor at Darlington, and this snap captured a first for one o our calling points
Twitter User B: so if It’s not Darlington where is it, your reply was incomprehensible
Virgin: what is it that you didn’t quite understand Geoffrey? Azuma is often at Darlington, but this was the first time the train called at the station in the picture.

 

[IanXC]

View attachment 45701

Another quite sarcy response, this time about Azuma. Please note I didn’t go looking for a sarcy response, this was the first thread I saw? For our partially sighted readers:

Twitter User A: Darlington? (Questioning where the Azuma is)
Virgin: Afraid not Jay. Azuma is a seasoned visitor at Darlington, and this snap captured a first for one o our calling points
Twitter User B: so if It’s not Darlington where is it, your reply was incomprehensible
Virgin: what is it that you didn’t quite understand Geoffrey? Azuma is often at Darlington, but this was the first time the train called at the station in the picture.

They're just trying to perpetuate the 'guess the station'. I'm not sure how any of their reply was sarky or incomprehensible?

 

[AlterEgo]

They're just trying to perpetuate the 'guess the station'. I'm not sure how any of their reply was sarky or incomprehensible?

Nor me. Seems fine to me.

 

[_toommm_]

‘What is it that you didn’t quite understand Geoffrey?’

Would you be pleased if someone said that to you. I agree about it not being incomprehensible hence why I didn’t mention it.

 

[AlterEgo]

‘What is it that you didn’t quite understand Geoffrey?’

Would you be pleased if someone said that to you. I agree about it not being incomprehensible hence why I didn’t mention it.

What would you like them to say instead? Their reply was pretty easy to understand, and because you (if it was you?) said they were incomprehensible, they’ve replied asking what it is you don’t quite understand.

Seems alright to me.

 

[_toommm_]

What would you like them to say instead? Their reply was pretty easy to understand, and because you (if it was you?) said they were incomprehensible, they’ve replied asking what it is you don’t quite understand.

Seems alright to me.

What part of my post wasn’t understandable?

I didn’t, nor Will describe any of this as incomprehensable. The bit below was a transcript of the picture, as per the forum policies. My Name is Tom so clearly that wasn’t me using the adjective incomprehensible

 

[AlterEgo]

What part of my post wasn’t understandable?

I didn’t, nor Will describe any of this as incomprehensable. The bit below was a transcript of the picture, as per the forum policies. My Name is Tom so clearly that wasn’t me using the adjective incomprehensible

Ah right, but I’m not sure what you think is wrong with their response. Thought you were complaining about the response to Geoffrey? There’s nothing wrong with it.

 

[_toommm_]

It’s in exactly the same league as some of the others earlier - unwanted and not needed sarcasm

 

[AlterEgo]

It’s in exactly the same league as some of the others earlier - unwanted and not needed sarcasm

It isn’t sarcastic. They’re asking him what it is he didn’t understand, because he (wrongly) called their reply incomprehensible. If someone says they can’t understand you, you need to ask them what it is they didn’t understand.

 

[FQTV]

Ah right, but I’m not sure what you think is wrong with their response. Thought you were complaining about the response to Geoffrey? There’s nothing wrong with it.

I wouldn’t have picked out that particular tweet as an example of some of the horrors that appear on the Virgin Trains East Coast feed, but now that it has been, I’d agree that it’s potentially not an appropriate response.

For example, there are contributions in this very thread about this company’s supposed awareness of and support for those dealing with issues unsophisticatedly termed as being mental health related.

Let’s say, then, that the Twitterer talking to Virgin Train East Coast could be on the Autistic spectrum. My experience would be that it’s entirely possible that they’d be looking for very specific responses to their query, and they may not find it straightforward to rationalise the company representative’s response.

Twitter is broadcast media; it’s not necessarily a conversation between people who know each other or who are friends. Not all parties always understand that, however, so it should be incumbent, I think, on the ‘corporate’ participant to treat those that they deal with based on their lack of knowledge about the ‘public’ participant.

 

[AlterEgo]

I wouldn’t have picked out that particular tweet as an example of some of the horrors that appear on the Virgin Trains East Coast feed, but now that it has been, I’d agree that it’s potentially not an appropriate response.

For example, there are contributions in this very thread about this company’s supposed awareness of and support for those dealing with issues unsophisticatedly termed as being mental health related.

Let’s say, then, that the Twitterer talking to Virgin Train East Coast could be on the Autistic spectrum. My experience would be that it’s entirely possible that they’d be looking for very specific responses to their query, and they may not find it straightforward to rationalise the company representative’s response.

Twitter is broadcast media; it’s not necessarily a conversation between people who know each other or who are friends. Not all parties always understand that, however, so it should be incumbent, I think, on the ‘corporate’ participant to treat those that they deal with based on their lack of knowledge about the ‘public’ participant.

If someone’s on the autistic spectrum and you don’t know about it then I don’t think there’s an awful lot you can do about that. I don’t think any of us have any information to determine whether any of the participants are on the spectrum, let alone VTEC’s Twitter team.

 

[FQTV]

If someone’s on the autistic spectrum and you don’t know about it then I don’t think there’s an awful lot you can do about that. I don’t think any of us have any information to determine whether any of the participants are on the spectrum, let alone VTEC’s Twitter team.

I completely agree - which is why I think that corporate communications should always be polite, responsible and respectful, whether private or public.

 

[mde]

Much as I know several members of this forum have a disdain for the meme team at VTEC, it has to be said this set of replies (transcribed below) from ^KM have been well received and generated a fair bit of good feedback. It's all about the '#trainbow' and pride.

Why is this worth highlighting? Sometimes the chatty/meme style can come off a bit badly, but, other times it does really work, and, the proof is in the pudding, by in large, it was well received, and, does give people a positive feeling about the brand (which is important when there is choice in the market). Perhaps more importantly though - it shows there is a face behind the otherwise anonymous social media handle, and, that it does respond back to people who perhaps wish to have a moan. Well done VTEC

The actual responses pictured are on VTEC's facebook page (referencing a change to logos and including a statement about diversity - "We believe everyone should be able to love who they want, and be who they truly are") and are transcribed below. I've removed the commenters names.

I suppose when you're just about to have your franchise taken away from you, what better way to react than with a pointless publicity stunt to show how hip and modern you are

VTEC reply: Yes, supporting the rights of people in the LGBTQ+ community is just a publicity stunt, and not because we're decent human beings Rory with a large and diverse workforce. ^KM

I should have thought you ought to be concentrating on running your train service.

VTEC reply: We can support basic human rights for all while running our train service David. It's called multi-tasking. ^KM

Further reply: All style over substance, you are a transport company not Amnesty International.

VTEC reply: We don't have to be a charity to be decent human beings David. We support numerous initiatives including CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) which tackles male suicides, one of the biggest issues we face as a transport company. We also have a large and diverse workforce and it's important we continue to represent those who society has historically let down. ^KM

 

[whhistle]

Perhaps it's the use of the persons name that makes it seem a bit more sarcastic?
You don't normally do this in conversation. Seems a little condescending.

The person could have just written "Sorry, what don't you understand?"

 

[SaveECRewards]

What's not been mentioned in this whole #Trainbow incident is VTEC have now ditched their trainbow logo and fell in line with VTWC and used the generic Virgin Trains pride logo. The trainbow logo served two purposes, it gave them a visually distinctive identity to VTWC which meant it was easy to tell the two apart quickly if you followed both and also promoted the work those at VTEC were doing.

Apparently the VT style guide was more important than a bit of individuality:


It's also worth noting that in 2015 when VTEC did a lot for Newcastle pride they also received similar comments on Facebook. One of the people there at the time posted similar responses, but soon both those responses and the offending Facebook comments were deleted by a manager. I can imagine the same might have happened to ^KM's comments had they not proven to be so popular.

So I'm saying well done to ^KM on this one, not VTEC. I've been very critical of him in the past as it did seem at one point if incorrect information was tweeted out it was likely to be him (but accuracy improves with time) but he has done a lot for York Pride this year.

As for the change in logo here's my take on that: https://saveecrewards.co.uk/blog/identity-be-proud

 

[thenorthern]

Just seen this.

Virgin Trains puts man in place for asking why they celebrate Pride Month

Virgin Trains has put a man who asked why they celebrate Pride Month in place with a brilliant reply. When questioned by customer Steve Hinchcliffe why the rail company wasn’t honouring ‘straight pride’, a social media employee for Virgin Trains East Coast, only known as KM or Kris, highlighted the abuse faced by LGBTQ people across the world.

Mr Hinchcliffe wrote on their Facebook page: ‘Absolutely nothing against our gay community but I do find it bizarre as to why it should be celebrated! ‘After all if it wasn’t for the straight people none of us would be here. Isn’t that worth celebrating?’

Kris replied: ‘When your love is illegal in multiple countries and you’ve been beaten to death for holding hands with your partner in the street, then we can talk about celebrating Straight Pride Steven.’


https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/05/virg...ng-celebrate-pride-month-7606485/?ito=cbshare

To be honest I think Virgin Trains go a bit overboard with their Pride celebrations as their twitter and Facebook feed is covered in references to it. Also given that Virgin Trains East Coast is about to cease running services because of poor management one must question if they have their priorities right.

 

[rdeez]

Just seen this.
To be honest I think Virgin Trains go a bit overboard with their Pride celebrations as their twitter and Facebook feed is covered in references to it.

We may have different definitions of "covered in references", as a quick look at their Twitter feed reveals they've added a rainbow to their profile pic and retweeted a message of thanks from the York Pride account. On Facebook, they've changed their profile image and added a Pride-related caption to it. Unless I've missed something, it doesn't really seem over the top in any way.

 

[westv]

I'm ashamed to say I've never heard of Pride Month.

 

[Up_Tilt_390]

If I'm honest, it is reasonable to question if their priorities are correct, but VTEC is a completely separate firm to VTWC and thus under different management. Not to mention, Virgin as a whole conglomerate probably has over 50,000 employees, some of which are bound to be of the LGBT community who have worked and helped build up the company to what it is today. Richard Branson didn't create a billion-pound brand by himself, he had people. Even if it is a bit preachy, they have made a very valid point in their response.

Very few if any countries persecute people because of their straight sexual orientation. By contrast, there are still a lot of countries in the world that beat people to death for what they clearly cannot help, especially religious nations who for some reason believe everyone is made in their god's image but say homosexuality is a sin. Isn't that in god's image? Are you questioning the creation of your all-good, all-powerful omnipotent overlord? You see how silly that sounded? Well that's usually the reasons homosexuality is punishable for death. Because apparently some book they read doesn't approve. Load of nonsense to say the least.

As such it's really lucky for gay westerners to not be prosecuted or executed unfairly for their naturally sexual orientation. I think the fact I refer to that as lucky is unfortunate, but it's true. Despite the fact homosexuality has been observed in many other species of animals, gay people are still persecuted in the world for their ways. Even if on the off-chance humans were homosexual purely by lifestyle choice, so what? Unless they actively attempt to rape you, their sexual preferences aren't anyone's concern. So to be able to freely be openly gay in the United Kingdom is reasonable cause for celebration, though it may get a preachy at times.

But subjectively preachy marches and speeches and so on is a small price to pay for freedom. I may have sounded a bit unusually preachy there myself, but I think if Virgin Trains are able to do this and still run themselves on a day-to-day basis, I don't see any reason for them not to celebrate pride months. Obviously straight people are pretty much the reason we can continue as a species, since homosexuals can't reproduce (least not to my knowledge), and it's true we wouldn't be here without them. But it's no big deal really, because as I've said homosexuality is natural and observed in many other kinds of animals. I've even seen it with dogs myself.

 

[thenorthern]

One thing to remember is not everyone is comfortable with Pride events.

An example of which is a friend of mine who isn't gay invited a group of us to Pride, another one of the group told him that they didn't want to go to Pride as it wasn't their thing and it made them uncomfortable. Obviously there were the accusations of homophobia but they explained that its not the homosexuality that made them uncomfortable but having semi-naked people parading the streets and seeing loads of people publicly displaying ways of affection wasn't his thing.

 

[Up_Tilt_390]

One thing to remember is not everyone is comfortable with Pride events.

An example of which is a friend of mine who isn't gay invited a group of us to Pride, another one of the group told him that they didn't want to go to Pride as it wasn't their thing and it made them uncomfortable. Obviously there were the accusations of homophobia but they explained that its not the homosexuality that made them uncomfortable but having semi-naked people parading the streets and seeing loads of people publicly displaying ways of affection wasn't his thing.

People feeling uncomfortable with pride events does not suddenly mean Virgin lose the right to celebrate pride month, or paint their trains in a manner they wish, or even organise pride events. I mean I too take very little interest in these kind of events and also take discomfort in things like public displays of affection. I think it's indecent and needs a time and place. So my solution is to steer clear of any of these events and their coverage, and if I accidentally stumble across any of it in public, it's nobody's fault. It's a public area after all, and my discomfort is my problem alone so long as I'm not having my, nor anyone else's personal space or rights violated.

Although walking around semi-naked is a different matter that really dances on the line of indecent exposure in public. I'd have to let the law enforcement decide the acceptability of that, and I'd rather it be done through the objective manner rather than simple discomfort. But I am pretty sure indecent exposure is illegal, though I don't know at what point it becomes indecent in the eyes of the law. Semi-naked seems like it would be well within that line, but I've no idea how it works. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of the topic will correct me.

 

[CeeJ]

One thing to remember is not everyone is comfortable with Pride events.

An example of which is a friend of mine who isn't gay invited a group of us to Pride, another one of the group told him that they didn't want to go to Pride as it wasn't their thing and it made them uncomfortable.

Obviously there were the accusations of homophobia but they explained that its not the homosexuality that made them uncomfortable but having semi-naked people parading the streets and seeing loads of people publicly displaying ways of affection wasn't his thing.

Virgin Trains aren't forcing passengers to actually attend a Pride.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Virgin Trains aren't forcing passengers to actually attend a Pride.

Will Brian Souter be going to one?

 

[Pete_uk]

The trains look nice. A diffrent version on various trains, one shades of yellow, another shades of green, blue, red, purple etc would look nice

 

[Megafuss]

You can be a train operator and also support LGBT rights. The two are not mutually exclusive.

 

[MrCub]

One thing to remember is not everyone is comfortable with Pride events.

Then they probably need to get over themselves and have a reality check.

 

[farleigh]

Then they probably need to get over themselves and have a reality check.

That is a very bigoted view - people are allowed to choose what they like.