Making Things Better For Customers
Short Stories from the Suburbs
‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m sorry to inform you that we’ve run out of quiche. I repeat, there will be NO quiche available from the buffet car for the duration of this journey.’
And people wonder why we should re-nationalise the railways.
‘Mummy, I heard a noise’
Not this again. When Steve’s at home, she sleeps like a log. But when I want to get a good night’s sleep? There’s always something.
Everything is exactly as it should be.
People in seats, looking smug, avoiding eye contact with new arrivals who are old, pregnant, or have a crutch. Others in the aisle, thrusting groins and armpits into the faces of those seated
It’s summer. There’re tourists. And they’re everywhere.
Tourists with their over-sized bags, exploiting a luggage-shaped loop hole in the ‘stand on the right’ request.
Another normal day, another normal commute, and I’ve got my normal standing spot by the bin-seat, a useful substitute for when my legs start to give way should one of those very-rare, nearly-never-happen, but-when-they-do-they-take-ages delays occur.
The announcer’s voice acts like a starting gun for the well-dressed, middle-aged, suited-and-booted office workers piling through the ticket barrier.
‘Ladies & Gentlemen, the train now approaching platform one’
johnJsills 