Ajay’s Blog - Why do I get so angry?

This is only a bit of fiction on my part, but I guess that the current level of Customer Services grew out of the old ‘Code Of Practice’ and ‘Customer Charter’, which were introduced in public service organisations like the Police where the abuse of power by a small minority (possibly institutionalised!) led to public outcry and protests by the activists on behalf of the suffering public in the 1940s and 1950s.  And right it was too!  Such pretence became effective and the practice was used more and more to appease the public and to create a more public friendly face of the police and other law enforcing agencies and furthermore, public offices and government departments.  The PR gurus of the corporate world then thought of utilising such tactics to make their organisation more ‘customer friendly’ and attract more customers with hollow promises and, sometimes, baseless unproven claims.  All this backfired when the legal claims from customers started pouring in (1980s and 1990s)as many such promises could never have been delivered.

The corporates in this day and age are now unable to turn the clock back and have to continue with  an offering of ‘Customer Services’ to the public which causes the front line staff to have to bear most of the consequences…

I am sure you know of people who would buy an item of clothing to wear to a specific occasion and then return it to the shop after the big day has passed or ladies going to return a pair of expensive shoes after having broken the heels during the chase after a drunken party (not admitted to the shop owner/manager) and many such similar examples can be cited… Why should the shop manager have to take the heat for stupid company policies! So they just agree with the customer and possible write the stock off! In the field of public services like hospital staff, transport, council office staff, etc. the situation can be much worse for the public facing staff.  A slight bit of discomfort to the member of public caused by the actions of a member of staff, irrespective of the customer’s behaviour being acceptable or not, can lead to violence against the member of staff.  Admittedly, there is a small percentage of the population who will resort to violence, but that is still a significantly high number as the people working in such sectors will verify.  They are subjected to such unacceptable acts on a daily basis.  The staff have to be on their guard at all times and be ready to act if such a situation were to arise.  They become experts at reading human behaviour, with daily occurrence and interaction with the members of public, some polite and an unacceptable percentage at the other extreme.  One can be highly professional at their approach to their job, but daily taunts and remarks and public behaviour towards your work can gradually take its toll and affect your performance and make you extremely edgy and react to a situation in a way you would not have otherwise.  The bosses and management in their offices do not recognise this and only want to go by the rule book if the employee is brought in front of them after a complaint from the member of public.  The complaint, obviously, would not include details of the verbal abuse the customer may have subjected the employee to before the situation got out of hand.

Such scenarios present the conundrum – should a member of staff in a customer facing role offering public services be expected to be professional at all times or be expected to protect their self-respect and give abuse back to the member of public who seem to have forgotten that they have duties to perform if they wish for their rights to be respected.

(This article has been in my head for several months and further thoughts have appeared since the London Riots, which will need to appear in a separate article now!)

2007/2008 saw the collapse of some of the biggest names in the financial industry; banks that had been in existence for over a 100 years.  There has been lots of commentary, analysis and editorials all around the world on the subject.  There are plenty of interesting facts emerging from all this writing. The greed of the bankers and lenders, the impotence of the Financial Regulatory bodies, the toothlessness of the governments and the suffering of the ordinary tax paying public to have to pay for this crisis have been the common themes in all these writings.

In the UK, like in many other western economies, the governments have bailed out several banks to the tune of 100s of billions with no penalties associated; soo.. unlike the penalties you or I have to suffer if we miss a single loan repayment to the bank.  The governments pledged (during the election campaigns) to put restrictions on what the banks can do and limit their bonuses and penalise for non-fulfilment of their promises. These have all been forgotten and all is well again in the banking world (post elections in 2011!), thanks to the tax payer’s money. The big expense on the ‘Merlin Report’ of public funds to pay for the experts has been lost behind all the smoke and forgotten about.  Whilst the huge amount of taxpayers’ funds have been used up by the treasury to help out the banks, they need to find the monies now to pay for what the governments are really supposed to do - looking after their subjects. They have found a shameless way to do that - cut public services, increase taxes and reduce AND delay pension payments to the public services employees who have no recourse to anything else.  Very few politicians have the guts to stand up and fight for the common man!  The overriding desire to look after no. 1, in these hard times have made it very difficult for anyone to oppose the government initiated ‘austerity’ cuts.  If you oppose or strike, you are branded as being removed from ‘Reality’ and not accepting the market forces.  Why should you have to?

The local governments are being asked to cut down their budgets and cut short any programmes, which are not deemed to be ‘essential services’.  What is needed is a whole shift of attitudes and a more business-like approach to running public services.  The Civil Servants still think of their jobs as ‘jobs for life’ and once they get to a certain decision making position in the authority, that is when the abuses start.  The generation old practices of setting up budgets and then making sure it is spent fully to get a similar (or higher) allocation for next year is all nonsense.  Awarding contracts to outside commercial organisations with poorly worded contracts and little respect for the public money being spent (wasted), outsourcing services with no idea of what you are expecting to receive from the supplier and having no penalties in place if they fail to meet the standards appear to be the most common ways how government agencies waste money.  It makes me laugh when I hear of commercial organisations being hired (and paid!) to dish out the social security benefits and other social programmes spending, purely because the government bodies do not have the ability to manage their affairs efficiently.  Won’t it pay to hire ambitious and more dedicated staff and promote people with the right spirit to the positions of decision making.  People who generally make it to the top are those who are ‘old friends’ or ‘pub mates’ who have refined the art of social networking to an extension of the Interview Room.

I once worked for a ‘not for profit’ organisation in a Department Management capacity.  What a joke that term is!(‘not for profit’). Do the chairman and cronies not get huge salaries and contracts to provide services to these ‘not for profit’ organisations?  In a meeting with the Finance Director, I once commented if it was possible to encourage the department managers to run their departments as their business and reward efficiencies and help cut wastage.  What a ludicrous idea I had suggested, because the FD thought that it was impossible to expect managers to work in that way.  I thought of myself as being so naive at that point.  This makes me think of most businesses in this country, which are owned and run by Indians.  There must be a cultural thing to manage things well without too much wastage as most of these business go on to become highly successful, irrespective of the field they are in.  The process of ‘Lean Management’ comes naturally into all Indian businesses! Additionally, the thing about Indians is that they do not shy away from hard work and are, generally, loyal and trustworthy and have a natural acumen for business development.  Why not find such people (not just any old Asians, but Indians!) to run government departments and see how the services flourish.  Obviously such people should be able to present themselves well in public and possess good business knowledge or, at least, show the willingness to learn the trade!!  The reason I spend all this time on this section is because, I believe, that the key is NOT cutting down services, it is to manage the services well, cut down wastage by poorly managed outsourced services, ensuring that the organisations which are given funds by the local or central government are properly monitored on their spending and their programme structures.  Many ministers and local councillors have such faith and trust in the goodliness of fellow humans that they form an unduly high opinion of themselves once they have agreed to fund the ’social-uplift programme’ proposed by some crude businessman with excellent presentation skills.  They fail to put any checks and procedures in place to oversee the progress of such ‘charitable’ organisations, who then continue to drain the public funds for years, purely to get rich on public funds!!  Such practices need to STOP!

Poor monitoring and haphazard selection of business partners appears to be one of the biggest reasons for draining of public funds from local and central governments.  If such wastage can be controlled, many of the cuts and the cancellation of services will become unnecessary and the governments can still control their budgets.  The governance methods of the councils and central government need to become more transparent and effective along with introducing a mentality of accountability, which has been missing for decades in government. 

The now all prevalent austerity measures (a lovely phrase!), is a way of saying that most services to public are being cut, while the bankers and our politicians have not suffered a bit!  All thanks to the capitalist greed left to get out of hand by their colluding government partners (worldwide!).

I have come across reader’s letters and editorials in many magazines and tabloids asking this question.

Oh yes, they do! When they are new to the job! Like most humans, drivers want to please their customers and peers, when they start a new job, but it soon wears off.  After the driver has been threatened by 12 year olds, spat at by 10 year olds and sworn at by 65 year old women, racially abused by anyone who’s having a bad day, they learn to ignore the public.

In any other job, if you are being abused by a customer, there will be a team of people around to protect you and support you, but NOT in this job. You are an easy target and, rarely, will anyone step forward to back you up; not even the police.  the police is as ineffective in tackling this menace as the TfL despite all these big promises about protecting ‘their’ staff and pushing for the hardest penalties for the perpetrators, which is all just a good PR exercise.

Generally, the trouble only occurs when a driver challenges a passenger’s ticket or asks them for one if they have forgotten to present it. The genuine mistakes are resolved with a smile from the passenger and a ’sorry I forgot’, but the habitual fare evader is ready for a fight immediately.  There is no process in place to eliminate such regular occurrences: not even the ‘Revenue Officials’. TfL have this team of people who board the buses randomly and, supposedly, check that all passengers are travelling with a valid ticket.  It is hard to find these teams in the notorious East London routes and when you DO come across one, it is amazing how quickly they can check a full bus, sometimes without even climbing to the upper deck on a double decker.  They are equally aware of the menace and want to stay clear of any trouble!

In light of the above facts relevant to every day in the working life of a London bus driver, is it a surprise that not many of them smile to the public?

TfL have been running a ‘Considerate travel’ campaign for several years now aimed at making people understand simple things to do and also ‘not to do’ to make the journeys on public transport a little bit more enjoyable (if that is possible).  At least, make them more tolerable.

What is the point of sending people a message like ‘I will not eat smelly food on the train/bus’ for several years if TfL do not have the guts or will-power to do anything about it when people continue to abuse the facilities.  How often have you boarded a bus littered with empty drinks cans and boxes of ‘chicken and chips’ with the remnants left on the buses?  I am sure many a times.  Do people who engage in such behaviour not think of other people who might want to travel on the bus after them?  Have they never heard of a protrusion on our streets called a ‘dust bin’?  I teach my kids never to discard any litter on the streets, and I wonder how many other parents do.  Especially when I see adults discarding rubbish on the ground, when there might a bin only about 5 steps further away!

If you are new to travel on a London Bus, or even if you have been doing it for several years or all your life, following the things below can make the life a whole lot easier for the traveller and the driver of the bus:

* While waiting at the bus stop, please be aware of which direction the traffic is flowing in.  I have been hailed by a person waiting at a bus stop on the opposite side of the road!

* The bus has two sets of doors.  The ones at the front are for boarding the bus and the ones at the rear are for alighting from the bus.  Please use them for those purposes only, unless in an emergency.  Some drivers get very offended if you try to board the bus from the rear doors!

* Aim to have your Oyster Card or ticket or money ready before you board the bus.  Isn’t it annoying when someone spends up to 2 minutes ruffling through their pockets or a handbag looking for their tickets and the driver wouldn’t move till he/she has seen the ticket!  Especially when the bus is full during peak time and traffic is building up behind the bus as there is only single file traffic and this was the only person who boarded the bus at this stop.  You get the picture!

* Aim to have the correct change to buy the ticket if you intend to purchase a ticket on the bus.  Please note that drivers are not issued a float by the driving companies and even though it might be 5pm, the driver may have just started their duty for the day and may not have any change available.

* Do allow your arms to raise a little to let the driver of the bus know that you are interested in boarding the bus as it travels towards the bus stop where you are waiting.  If not the whole arm, even a suggestive muscle movement to convey your desire to board the bus does help the driver.  Often statues of people on bus stops make the driver drive past the stop without stopping when there is nobody who wishes to alight from the bus at the stop.  I have seen statues come to life with heavily animated arm movements, as I drive past bus stops.

* Once boarded the bus, please remember to let the driver know that you have a valid travel permit by showing them your paper ticket with the date visible and not hidden behind your fingertips, or the date side being upside-down or flashing the ticket for a split second in front of the driver expecting them to be in possession of superior powers to be able to take it in.  Agreed that 99% of London Bus Drivers do not now concern themselves with such issues (a matter to be covered in another article by me), but you might be on the bus with a driver from the 1% category who will not let you go past till he/she has seen a valid ticket for every passenger.

* If the bus is full to the brim, please don’t blame the driver if he does not stop at the bus stop or will not open the doors to allow more people to board the bus.  There is no point in shouting or swearing at the driver from the roadside or boarding from the Rear doors while the bus has stopped to let people alight.  Remember the driver has mirrors and cameras to keep an eye on the exit doors as well.  Some get very upset when people do this and may turn the engine off and refuse to drive further!

* When you are ready to alight from the bus as it approaches your bus stop, please remember to press the magic red button available near most seats on the bus.  This informs the driver that someone wishes to get off.  Do so giving the driver enough time to stop at your stop.  Pressing the button as the bus is just driving past your stop is not good, especially if you don’t like walking much, as the driver is NOT going to do an emergency stop for you!  Please remember, hardly any driver has telepathic powers to know if any passenger wishes to get off at the ‘next’ bus stop.

* My pet hate is the people who come running down the stairs on a double decker bus as the bus is just about to move off after the driver stopped at the bus stop, opened the doors, people got off and the doors were shut again!  Get off your arse early and be near the exit doors when the bus gets to your bus stop.  It is not a taxi service!

What gives me the right to write about bus drivers and their experiences?

Along with having been a Financial Advisor (that’s a laugh!), a computer programmer, a reasonable cook, a property enthusiast, a self-develoment freak and many other things, I also happen to be a PCV License Holder in the UK.  This was obtained after a period of training with a private bus company in London.  They trained me because I had applied to them for a job as a bus driver.  Seemed like a good idea at the time!  Hours are flexible, which means you can still do other things you like to do in life and be off at home during the weekdays enjoying your weekend (sometimes)!  This was the theory anyway!  I needed a ‘job’ to fund my property expenses when funds were drying out and the freelance IT work stopped bringing in sufficient funds to pay for all the expenses at the houses.  Plus, I have always enjoyed driving, so I thought this would be a job doing something I enjoy anyway (so naive!).

I wrote all this just to let you know why I decided to write about buses and the driver experiences, not because I am some sort of a bus geek/anorak (no disrespect to those people who have such interest in buses, just thought that it looks good in a written article!).