There have been the usual nightmares on the tube over the past few days. The once reliable Victoria Line lately seems completely unable to operate without some form of signal failure or other; the problem being compounded by weekday early closing and occasional shutdown of parts of the line at weekends, apparently to facilitate the testing of new, improved carriages. At this stage, if they’re not rolling out trains that run on thousands of tiny little mechanical legs and can travel into the fourth dimension, I’m not going to be impressed.
Now. I’m a relatively peaceful kind of fellow, rarely moved to violence, but the Underground somehow manages to consistently move me to the point of physical harmful rage. I’m increasingly of the opinion that terrorist action pales into insignificance when compared to the years of Londoners’ lives that’ve been taken off by frustration born of incompetence, whether that’s down to TfL, London Underground, Metronet, or whatever other hastily-thrown together collection of consultants is running things today.
And the reason we should know that something is very, very wrong are the posters that are now quite common in most stations: they say things like “our staff have the right to work without fear of physical violence and we will prosecute any such offences to the full extent of the law”
There are two clear things wrong with this particular message. Firstly, that it frankly states the obvious, putting it up there with the disclaimers that say “this plastic bag may suffocate you if you wear it like a hat” or “do not eat this rat poison” as yet another in the long line of losses common sense has suffered. If only I’d bludgeoned that gate inspector to death before those posters came out, I might have had a chance in the courts, dammit.
Secondly, and this is what annoys me more, even, than a signal failure at Seven Sisters, surely if things have come to the stage where they have to put up signs saying don’t attack our staff, the problem is a little more serious than a few signs saying don’t attack our staff is going to resolve. Another example: they’ve issued DNA Swab Kits to every underground station, so staff can take samples when members of the public spit at them. They’re giving people who sell tickets for trains the kind of gear you see on CSI Miami. That’s not right.
I think it’s a doubly insidious campaign. For a start, because it’s clearly been done as a cheap way to boost staff morale – We know you’re in traction, Clive, but we HAVE put up some posters. But mostly, because it somehow implicates me every time I get irritated with the terrible service. The truth is, the only people I actually want to inflict pain upon while I’m waiting on a heaving station platform, are the people I don’t see, the ones in the tall buildings overground, with the views of parks and bridges and the river and the sky and the sun.
Big finish – and hey! not surprisingly, they’re the ones who can’t see the problem.
