Rail travel voucher expiry

[lyesbkz]

I am at Westcombe park station trying to use a rail travel voucher issued by East Coast. The voucher states "Valid for TWELVE months from 21 Aug 2012".

The station manager is insisting that the voucher expired on 20 July and won't accept it! But I believed 12 months to be until 20 Aug 13? Can someone clarify?

I called the helpline for SET who were happy to help until they spoke to the station manage then they changed their tune. The station have also torn off the voucher stub to make matters worse.

 

[Harpers Tate]

20 July is 11 months from 21 August by anybody's reckoning. Except perhaps a certain member of railway staff......??

 

[AlterEgo]

The last day that you can use the voucher is 20 August 2013. Some people are just thick, unfortunately.

 

[bb21]

Tearing off the stub won't affect the validity of RTVs.

 

[lyesbkz]

Thanks, thought as much. Have eventually received a compensation letter containing a second voucher for the same value as a goodwill gesture.

 

[Goatboy]

How are people this lacking in basic intelligence able to secure management positions? Even a small child can tell you how many months have passed since a certain date. Madness.

 

[reb0118]

How are people this lacking in basic intelligence able to secure management positions?

The unfortunate thing is once one or two thickies get into positions of authority they then get control of the hiring & firing and only seem to promote similar people to themselves into any vacancies that arise. One rule of thought is that they are scared of any person with a better education to them showing them up!

Just look at Stalin's rise to power - he climbed the administrative ladder but greatly feared the intelligentsia . Ultimately he was in the position to have them eradicated. Think yourself lucky that your boss does not have similar powers.

Madness.

Too true!

As an aside a lot of thickies do not actually realise that they are thick so, often with great confidence, apply for positions of authority. We have a colleague at work who goes by the name of "Empty Heid". He applies for every management position going. We have to be lucky 100% of the time (in case he gets it! ), he just once ~ it does not bear thinking about.

 

[hairyhandedfool]

How are people this lacking in basic intelligence able to secure management positions? Even a small child can tell you how many months have passed since a certain date. Madness.

My father refers to this phenomenon as 'promotion to their level of incompetence', which apparently is an easier way of sacking someone than putting someone who can do the job in charge and waiting for the right moment to sack the useless one.

 

[OwlMan]

Yes, the Peter Principle - it seems to apply quite often in the rail industry

wikipedia
The Peter Principle is a proposition that states that the members of an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence." In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given increasing authority until they cannot continue to work competently. It was formulated by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle, a humoroushttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle#cite_note-1 treatise, which also introduced the "salutary science of hierarchiology".
The principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Eventually they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. Peter's Corollary states that "n time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle#cite_note-2 and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence." "Managing upward" is the concept of a subordinate finding ways to subtly manipulate his or her superiors in order to prevent them from interfering with the subordinate's productive activity or to generally limit the damage done by the superiors' incompetence.
This principle can be modeled and has theoretical validity for simulations.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle#cite_note-Pluchino-3

 

[Welshman]

Thanks, thought as much. Have eventually received a compensation letter containing a second voucher for the same value as a goodwill gesture.

So just make sure you use your second voucher before its 11-month expiry date is reached.

 

[Goatboy]

And yet every time we get a farce and people here comment there are a great many flames thrown around, the general premise being everyone in rail management knows exactly what they are doing and how dare anyone comment.

Countless threads like this prove otherwise.

 

[lyesbkz]

How are people this lacking in basic intelligence able to secure management positions?

It had recently occurred to me that the employee claiming to be 'station manager' in my first post was in fact probably not the station manager, given that in the compensation letter they indicated passing on details of the incident to the station manager - and gave a female name. And the person from the original incident claiming to be the station manager appeared to be a male.

I calculate that either the management has changed in the mean time, or the employee was making a deceitful claim about his position (or perhaps some other irregularity occurred). In any event, I have passed these concerns on to SET who have promised to investigate further.

I cannot understand why an employee who would refuse the voucher "so that he does not later get into trouble for accepting it" would claim to be the manager when they are not one!

 

[maniacmartin]

Perhaps you spoke to a duty manager or shift manager, and there is another more senior manager who is in charge of one or more stations.