gaurds suck? drivers suck? nope...its Cityrail station staff that do!

[Santosh Bhat <santob@ihug.com.au>]

<begin gripe>

Ok from a passenger or customer point of view, I think its the Cityrail
station staff that are giving the railways a bad reputation. 

Drivers I don't have to deal with, I'm sure they're professional enough
to do their job properly. 
Gaurds, ok now they are annoying with their statement of the obvious
that the doors are closing, but generally people are becoming stupider
and someone needs to remind them about common sense, yet I'm sure they
do their jobs as they are supposed to.

But, as for station staff! They don't know their trains, they don't know
their stations, they don't know how much to even charge! I was attending
the cricket final at the SCG - a simple request to the staff at my local
station "Is there a combined ticket to the SCG?" reply: "where's that?".
Do they go out of their way to hire and then train complete idiots? 

Another recent experience highlights the uselessness of station staff.
Three staff members sitting by the ticket gates, directing passengers to
use the open wide gate rather than bother to push their electronic
tickets in. Why bother buying a ticket at all when they actually WANT
you to not show a ticket?

And seeing as its the railway staff that customers or passengers usually
have to deal with, its a shame that such incompetency is allowed to
exist. I find that when Cityrail station staff go on strike, that the
service seems to improve! anyone else notice this?

</end grip>

Cheers
Santosh