Unnecessarily confrontational LST gateline staff?

[7db]

Morning commute. Noone likes it, some of us have to do it.
Gates don't like my ticket to LU123 as I'm going from Liverpool St to Tottenham Hale on the Greater Anglia service. It's a legit ticket, but gates never like it. Always ask the gateline to let me through, although today mostly they are chatting, distracted or absent. Been worse since the remodelling of the gates, I think -- it's more gregarious, less focussed on their gates. Find one a couple of platforms over.

Gateline attendant won't let me through. Your ticket isn't valid. It says London Underground 123. This isn't the underground.
Yes, I explain, it is valid. Tottenham Hale is a LU123 interchange. This is a valid route.
Don't tell me how to do my job - super aggressive response - you can't travel on this. It's 8am. I'm barely awake and not up for aggro. She asks me to step aside so she can let other passengers through, which I do.

Once dealt with. I wait and ask who we can resolve this with -- is it customer services? We agree to call Rex the manager over. He inspects my ticket as my train departs
He's straight on it. Absolutely is the right ticket. No problems. Through you go. Next train is 10 mins so no real harm done, but left with bad taste. No apology from the gateline.

I felt it was unnecessarily aggressive way to handle this. We all know that ticketing is a nightmare of complexity and a little patience and kindness is needed. I'm robust enough that I'll stand my ground and insist that the ticket is right but someone more timid might be dissuaded from travel and go and buy another ticket. Should I let Greater Anglia know?

 

[jfollows]

I felt it was unnecessarily aggressive way to handle this. We all know that ticketing is a nightmare of complexity and a little patience and kindness is needed. I'm robust enough that I'll stand my ground and insist that the ticket is right but someone more timid might be dissuaded from travel and go and buy another ticket. Should I let Greater Anglia know?

Yes, complain to GA. Maybe they’ll train their staff better.

 

[Tetragon213]

If nothing else, pencil in what happened purely on the principle of it all. We all make mistakes, but on the face of it, there was little reason for the gateline attendant to have spoken to you in such a tone. I'd have been fired 17 different ways to Sunday if I'd spoken like that to a customer when I worked in retail.

 

[AlterEgo]

Well done for standing your ground. Many don't.

 

[Coolzac]

Absolutely appalling. The railway is the only industry where this kind of behaviour is tolerated in any fashion.

It will never cease to amaze me that the staff never say 'Oh gosh, I'm not sure about that, let me check '.

 

[rg177]

Liverpool St I've often found to be deeply unpleasant. I had quite an interaction back in the Summer when I was snapped at quite aggressively for asking to be let through with an Interrail (which won't scan at any barriers). Again an air of "don't tell me how to do my job" when I explained that the tickets don't work on the scanners I was let through after demonstrating multiple times that I couldn't get through on my own.

Definitely good for standing your ground. Having been stood on gates myself in their shoes - it does you no favours getting uppity with passengers.

 

[Sonic1234]

The railway is the only industry where this kind of behaviour is tolerated in any fashion.

It's a cultural issue, both within the railway and also in wider culture - that public transport users are captive, you're only on the train because you have no other way of travelling or the alternatives are unbearable. You can get similar responses from other businesses that believe they are essential, Post Office comes to mind.

Things will only change if bad customer service costs them. If eligible for Delay Repay, ask for it (probably not as the next train was in 10 minutes). Ask for a voucher as recompense. As the Internet would say, be a "Karen".

 

[RailWonderer]

My tickets at Liverpool St get rejected at the barriers all the time, but the staff have never been rude to me, they just grunt and let me through. They tend to not be proactive or informative at all, they just shrug and try to avoid talking. I've had to explain why a ticket was valid more than once (off-peaks/sup-off peaks on a ticket means time at main terminals not connecting arrival time into London) and the staff just nodded and tapped open for me.

I've been dealing with these gateline staff over a decade now, you start to learn how to handle them.

 

[Flying Snail]

Of course the primary point of failure here is down to people much higher up the railway food chain that refuse to deal with the fact that the ticket barriers they have been so keen to install everywhere are not fit for purpose, rejecting countless valid tickets and creating a conflict point between customers and poorly trained and supervised staff.

 

[Joey Beauchamp]

It really winds me up when staff make a statement as fact, when it's absolute nonsense: I've had separate gateline staff at Coventry tell me "your ticket's already been used" when it hadn't and that "you have to go back in through the same gateline you exited from".

I also once tried to buy a return from Pevensey & Westham to Ipswich using my Annual Gold Card from a very experienced ticket office clerk, who told me that the Gold Card area only went to Manningtree and produced a Network Card area map to prove his point. I explained that the Gold Card area was different to the Network Card area and went to Ipswich and Birmingham (for example). He told me I was wrong and continued to argue until my train turned up and I had to walk away to get on it. I bought my ticket from a different station later in the day with no issues.

 

[jfollows]

There’s a subset of staff who deal with passengers who make up rules to suit their interpretation of how things ought to be, not how things are. A subset of these, in turn, are adamant that they’re correct in the face of even evidence to the contrary. However I generally blame their management for allowing them to have this attitude and not to invest in training them properly. At least complaints might get noticed by these people (the management).

 

[alastair]

It really winds me up when staff make a statement as fact, when it's absolute nonsense: I've had separate gateline staff at Coventry tell me "your ticket's already been used" when it hadn't and that "you have to go back in through the same gateline you exited from".

I also once tried to buy a return from Pevensey & Westham to Ipswich using my Annual Gold Card from a very experienced ticket office clerk, who told me that the Gold Card area only went to Manningtree and produced a Network Card area map to prove his point. I explained that the Gold Card area was different to the Network Card area and went to Ipswich and Birmingham (for example). He told me I was wrong and continued to argue until my train turned up and I had to walk away to get on it. I bought my ticket from a different station later in the day with no issues.

That's really poor, but what is surprising is that he needed to look at a paper map. I thought everything was on their screen and the fare would come up automatically, like it correctly does for that journey on BRFares.com when you put in Network Gold Card (NGC) as the railcard type.

 

[Kite159]

I've had similar with the gateline staff at Liverpool Street in the past when using a travelcard, transfering between sides (coming in from Stratford heading out towards Tottenham Hale). The barriers always reject the entry (I presume due to 'passback') and once got told my travelcard was rejected because it wasn't valid as it was 'peak time' (this was around 17;30).

I simply used a different member of staff to open a manual gate.

 

[ainsworth74]

I also once tried to buy a return from Pevensey & Westham to Ipswich using my Annual Gold Card from a very experienced ticket office clerk, who told me that the Gold Card area only went to Manningtree and produced a Network Card area map to prove his point. I explained that the Gold Card area was different to the Network Card area and went to Ipswich and Birmingham (for example). He told me I was wrong and continued to argue until my train turned up and I had to walk away to get on it. I bought my ticket from a different station later in the day with no issues.

Meanwhile I at Redcar Central (way way out of the Gold Card area, it's on Teesside) was able to have a £10 railcard issued by the ticket office staff there (I held a Gold Card at the time as I was travelling a lot in the South East so buying the cheapest annual to get a Gold Card seemed worthwhile) even though she had never heard of a Gold Card and had no idea what it was. I assured here it was a legitimate discount so she went poking around various bits of (I assume) the Internal Knowledge base until she found the way of issuing it and did it gladly for me.

The contrasting approach of some staff really is quite remarkable.

One, who should know better being in the area, steadfastly refusing to issue a valid ticket. Another with every excuse in the world to not know anything about it and refuse me on the basis she'd never been trained on Gold Cards took the time to look up how to do it and issue it for me. Probably the only time she ever had anything to do with a Gold Card in her entire career!

 

[sor]

Liverpool St I've often found to be deeply unpleasant. I had quite an interaction back in the Summer when I was snapped at quite aggressively for asking to be let through with an Interrail (which won't scan at any barriers). Again an air of "don't tell me how to do my job" when I explained that the tickets don't work on the scanners I was let through after demonstrating multiple times that I couldn't get through on my own.

Definitely good for standing your ground. Having been stood on gates myself in their shoes - it does you no favours getting uppity with passengers.

and it shows the lack of consistency. Liv St is "my" London station so I go through it when I am interrailing, no one has questioned it or challenged me either on-train or at the gateline. Meanwhile my normal rail tickets almost never seem to work at Ipswich - including the smart card day return ticket I'd literally just bought from the machine a few steps away - and IME they are always much better at handling it, whether indifferent or in an "oh that's clearly a valid ticket but I'd like to know more so I can report it" way

 

[Lockwood]

Things will only change if bad customer service costs them. If eligible for Delay Repay, ask for it (probably not as the next train was in 10 minutes). Ask for a voucher as recompense. As the Internet would say, be a "Karen".

I thought the forum position with this kind of thing is "You should have allowed more time at the station"?

 

[ainsworth74]

I thought the forum position with this kind of thing is "You should have allowed more time at the station"?

There's a Forum position?

 

[AlterEgo]

Of course the primary point of failure here is down to people much higher up the railway food chain that refuse to deal with the fact that the ticket barriers they have been so keen to install everywhere are not fit for purpose, rejecting countless valid tickets and creating a conflict point between customers and poorly trained and supervised staff.

There are ticket barriers in many parts of the world, most of whom don’t have staff as incompetent and rude as the one described in the OP.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Lots of stations have ticket barriers without this type of behaviour.

Good to see nothing has changed though. A good few years ago I’m told a fairly senior manager at another TOC got PF’d there because they were travelling on an “invalid staff pass”. Of course the staff pass was perfectly valid and, of all people, that manager would be keenly aware of the validity.

So if relatively senior TOC staff can’t get sense out of that gateline, what hope do the rest of us have?

 

[7db]

My tickets at Liverpool St get rejected at the barriers all the time, but the staff have never been rude to me, they just grunt and let me through. They tend to not be proactive or informative at all, they just shrug and try to avoid talking. I've had to explain why a ticket was valid more than once (off-peaks/sup-off peaks on a ticket means time at main terminals not connecting arrival time into London) and the staff just nodded and tapped open for me.

I've been dealing with these gateline staff over a decade now, you start to learn how to handle them.

This is mostly my experience. You get waved through without any issue. I thought the fact I was tailgating three of City of London's finest would have meant an easy ride -- didn't even have to open the barrier for me: took an extra effort to close it!

Mostly - once you find them - they get you through no problems, and I make an effort to take earphones out say hello, thankyou and good day! Gaties at Tottenham Hale are pretty good and I recognise them. Only once or twice been told I'm on the wrong route -- interestingly in different directions (try Stratford vs try the Victoria Line!)
I'm going to sit on it until I've had my lunch and if I'm still grumpy (it's not a great sandwich so my hopes aren't high) I'll drop them a polite "please retrain" note.

 

[Lockwood]

There's a Forum position?

Tongue firmly in cheek, but it seems like every time there's a question about delays caused by staff, that the reply is "Allow more time, it's your own fault"

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I've had similar with the gateline staff at Liverpool Street in the past when using a travelcard, transfering between sides (coming in from Stratford heading out towards Tottenham Hale). The barriers always reject the entry (I presume due to 'passback') and once got told my travelcard was rejected because it wasn't valid as it was 'peak time' (this was around 17;30).

Yes, the two separate sides of Liverpool Street are programmed as if they were a single barrier line, and the staff there have told me the passback time is set to 20 minutes.

 

[Mag_seven]

Tongue firmly in cheek, but it seems like every time there's a question about delays caused by staff, that the reply is "Allow more time, it's your own fault"

With the "more time" element completely unspecified.

 

[Harpo]

Tongue firmly in cheek, but it seems like every time there's a question about delays caused by staff, that the reply is "Allow more time, it's your own fault"

Quite. Just who is the railway being run for?

 

[Dr Hoo]

With the "more time" element completely unspecified.

Well, if the ‘passback/reject’ time is set for 20 minutes at a station with many legitimate ‘out-and-back-in’ changes the Minimum Interchange Time needs to be well over that.

A recent thread about Brighton drew out a broadly similar point.

 

[Spaceflower]

I thought the forum position with this kind of thing is "You should have allowed more time at the station"?

That forum position is probably currently engaged in battle (probably only got time to scan read this and mutter admonishingly).

 

[Kite159]

Yes, the two separate sides of Liverpool Street are programmed as if they were a single barrier line, and the staff there have told me the passback time is set to 20 minutes.

Which is just idiotic because Liverpool Street is a station where it can be reasonably expected passengers will exit one side and enter the other side to make a connection.

Barriers at Waterloo have no such issue even though the need to exit & re-enter is less.

 

[rocrat]

Greateranglia ticket barriers and gateline staff are notoriously unhelpful, even on the most obvious of routeings, e.g. break of journey at Norwich from Wymondham to London...

They persistently refuse to do anything about it though...

 

[dk1]

Greateranglia ticket barriers and gateline staff are notoriously unhelpful, even on the most obvious of routeings, e.g. break of journey at Norwich from Wymondham to London...

They persistently refuse to do anything about it though...

Looking at it another way they are also very proactive towards revenue protection at Norwich. They regularly follow passengers with incorrect or no ticket to the train and inform conductors as well as getting RPIs and/or the BTP involved.

 

[LowLevel]

Looking at it another way they are also very proactive towards revenue protection at Norwich. They regularly follow passengers with incorrect or no ticket to the train and inform conductors as well as getting RPIs and/or the BTP involved.

They certainly do/are. I've evicted many an unhappy scrote thanks to tip offs from Norwich station staff and the branch line conductors over the years.