I ponder on this a lot. It annoys the heck out of me.
I went to Wymondham Railway Station yesterday with the intention of picking up train tickets for a journey on Friday.
Wymondham is a small station that is unstaffed. The ticket machine was faulty. I know this because instead of telling me how to collect my pre-paid tickets it had the words "Machine out of order - Greater Anglia apologised for any inconvenience."
Now there's the important word "inconvenience." They are causing ME inconvenience and not the other way round. In no way am I causing them a jot of inconvenience.
So after abandoning my attempt to get the tickets I have paid for and they have been unable to produce, I looked up what would happen if we travelled without tickets. And the reply didn't surprise me one little bit. Here it is.
"If you find that the ticket machine is faulty, please make the fault known to a member of station or ticket office staff, who will endeavour to help you. Please be aware that you may not travel without a valid ticket. You are NOT permitted to travel using your reference number or email confirmation.
You will be charged a Penalty fare if you chose not to travel with a valid ticket."
So there we have it. Now I'm going to be a bit coarse here. They cock up and we have to pay for their inability to provide the service they have failed to provide.
Of course many of you will say - well these things do happen and machines do go wrong and all you have to do is go to Norwich where there are numerous machines which will be working.
But ultimately as usual it's the customer who has to suck in the inconvenience. By the time I got back home I was feeling decidedly crabby. My favourite card shop was shut, my favourite cafe was full and I had little time anyway. So I returned home to do more work on Hethersett Herald.
Earlier in the day I had spent a very interesting hour talking with Debs Chedgey about the Norfolk Lowland Search and Rescue organisation.
They are a fascinating group who will be holding a fete and open day in June in the Norfolk Police training complex just off the B1172. I found out about their functions and their voluntary work for a feature for Herald which will be online early in March.
It was a very interesting hour.
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A few weeks ago our local surgery came out publicly to admit they haven't been providing the service that people need. It's all very well admitting this, but doing something about it is another kettle of fish as they say. I tend to put water in my kettle rather than fish.
And messages on social media suggest that the whole thing is getting worse. One person needed an appointment for their son or daughter (I forget which). Their child is diabetic. They couldn't get an appointment at the local surgery despite going there in person. They were told to go to the walk in centre in Norwich. This they did only be told that was full up and they should go to A and E department at the hospital.
I don't know about you but being pushed about like this is just not acceptable in any way, shape or form. It leaves people with a feeling of desperation. When it comes to medical matters I know that feeling only too well from the time my father was virtually thrown out of hospital and told to return to his home with little or no care package in place. But that's not somewhere I want to live through again.
I think one of the comments on that poses the question: "Where is our MP?" I will leave all of you to answer that one.