I know that it may sound like disorganisation, but it is quite unreasonable that two individuals cannot separately use their railcard at non-coinciding times.
E.g. my wife might (if I had two children) go away by train with one child for a few weeks to stay with relatives, leaving me with another child. She would have to take the railcard with her. During the fortnight she's away, I can't use the railcard to get the discount I'm entitled to - simply because the card is at the other end of the country! That isn't fair or logical.
Then buy a second railcard. Simples
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I've come up with a new reply to the "You're being a Jobsworth" accusation.
"No, I prefer to call it efficient!"
Discretion is a good thing. I do use it a lot. Every time I am charging anything short of the Open Single, I am using discretion. It's just that a lot of people think that discretion means "Let me off scott free".
The definition of discretion (noun) applied by Lord Scarman was
"The Art of suiting action to particular circumstances"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discretion
Now, according to the NRCoC, we do not have the power to exercise any discretion:
59. Limitation of authority of a Train Company’s staff or agents
A Train Company’s staff or agents have no authority to waive or change these
Conditions.
Therefore by exercising discretion, we may be leaving ourselves liable to disciplinary action -
at the discretion of our employing TOC
Now, if I am going to risk losing my job, I am going to make sure that I am not going to risk that for something minor.
A complaint from a passenger that I applied the NRCoC to the situation is not going to impact on me, as it means I was doing my job as laid down by my employer.
A complaint from a passenger that I applied "discretion" to a case, either involving that passenger or a situation where the correspondent witnessed something (and passengers do e-mail in about something that happened in the seat in front), has the potential to impact on me, as there is a revenue loss to the TOC and I will have to explain why I was not doing my job using the NRCoC that I am supposed to apply.
Does anybody see where this discretion thing is going yet?
From my point of view, I like my job. I like my paycheck even more, as does my family. I am not going to risk either of them because somebody is disorganised / dishonest enough to present me with a railcard-discounted ticket and no railcard. For all I know they may be a mystery shopper looking to see how I handle the situation.
If that makes me a jobsworth, then so be it.