Be The Jam

The First Capital Connect representative at Three Bridges station this morning must surely be a contender for most unhelpful person ever.

I was awaiting the 11.12 departure, advertised at 11.16 as being "on time and formed of 8 coaches".

When I asked the representative when it was actually going to turn up her first response was "it's not late, because in the eyes of the railway if it's within three minutes it counts as being on time". After a fellow passenger pointed out the obvious that even by this definition it was still late I made the remark that I couldn't expect to turn up three minutes late for my connection and still catch it. This was met with a confusing ramble about exactly how late (in minutes and seconds) the train was in her eyes and "if I could stand up there and change the clock back I would".

This nonsense rendered me speechless so rather than ask her how that was meant to help I left her to resume her rude and insolent pose as she made no effort at all to find out what was going on and inform the many passenger on the platform.

Words by James Pritchard