She's got a ticket to ride...(but I don't)

So I went down to London last week (Thursday, 17 April) to do an interpreting assignment. One would think, in this time of interwebs and fancy phones and iPods that getting a return (read, round-trip) ticket between 2 major rail stations in a major civilized country would be easy. Ah, not so, mon ami, regardez:

31 March: The colleague I will be working with books my ticket for me so I do not have to out lay the expense. Virgin Trains (motto: Give us money now and maybe you can ride a train later!) sends an email confirmation stating the tickets will be sent to my home address via First Class post.


Flash forward to the Sunday before the assignment 13 April. Seeing as I had not gotten the tickets in the mail, I contacted my colleague who had booked the tickets; he contacts Virgin (motto: Call us anytime! Plenty of music on hold!) and they assure him that I can pick up my tickets any time at the Preston station.

Wanting to make sure I get them, I hie myself off the rail station on Monday. A lovely lady named Yvonne is at first puzzled by my request:

‘Tickets you say? Bought by someone else? For you?? To be picked up here?’

I give her the reference number that Virgin (motto: Numbers? We don’t need no stinkin’ numbers!) has plastered over the confirmation email, saying ‘quote this number’, so quoth I.

‘Oh, I can’t put that number into THIS terminal,’ says Yvonne.

(I can not understand why not…they are all whole numbers...I see a keypad, but hey what do I know?!) Yvonne then goes into the room behind her and comes up with a piece of paper (A TV Request Form, as I will learn later. I assume the TV stands for Ticket Voucher but it could be Transvestite or Terminal velocity for all that I know.) She tells me that this authorizes her to print the ticket. Easy-peasey, right? Ahhh, not so fast.

First she prints me the ticket for that day, Monday.

No, no, no, I say, it is for THURSDAY.

Right, she says and proceeds to pint me a single (read, one-way) ticket to Watford Junction.

No, no, no I say, it is a RETURN. Oh dear, says she.

She hies off to the back to the room and returns with ANOTHER TV Request Form (see a pattern here??).

She then says that she can not print this ticket at this station given the specific type of fare that it is, and that,

‘They should have known this!’

‘They,’ I asked puzzled, ‘Aren’t YOU part of they?? You have a nice shiny Virgin Trains nametag (motto on nametag: Ceci n'est pas une nametag.) ... all I have is a worthless reference number.’

‘No, no, no,’ says Yvonne. ‘You’ll have to contact them.’ (again with the third person plural!)

Ok let me speed this up. My colleague and I speak oh, four or five times on the phone, text a half a dozen times and exchange a few emails. All the while every contact he has when he calls Virgin (Motto: We suck, but we suck consistently!) is: He can pick them up in Preston.

I return Tuesday…no dice.

I return Wednesday morning…still no dice.

I am told that they are ready Wednesday night, so I leave a dinner party and go to the station…still no dice.

Finally I figure I’ll get it on Thursday am. Guess who is working, dear Yvonne…she still has the (bloody useless) TV Request Form from Monday; she is a sentimental old thing. She shakes her head, smiles a sad smile and says, ‘Maybe you can sort it out when you get to Watford’.

My colleague texts me that he has indeed sorted it out with a woman at the Watford station. We work the assignment and head to Rail Station in the late afternoon. I have a bad feeling. We go the ticket counter and Vic, who does not work for Virgin (motto: Even WE would not hire a clod like Vic.). He works for one of the other rail companies. He knows NOTHING about any ticket. The woman my colleague spoke with earlier? Gone, like Brigadoon. My colleague gets on his mobile to call Virgin (motto: We are not happy until you are not happy.), is on hold for 10 minutes and they finally ask to speak to Vic. Vic is having none of it, but we FINALLY get him to take the mobile. He goes into HIS back room and produces…

A TV Request Form!!!

He stamps it and hands it through and says you are all set.

No, no, no, say I, you have to print a ticket USING the TV Request Form (I learned this from my dear, sweet Yvonne).

No, no ,no says Vic…go now!

I wait, then board the train with a baaaad feeling in the pit of my stomach. About 30 minutes later the conductor comes by to check tickets. I produce my TV Request Form and his eyes narrow. I say nothing. He starts to speak and I say,

‘Look, I have tried, oh how I have tried to get a proper ticket for this journey.’ I give him the condensed version of my tale of woe, concluding with the fact that Vic refused to print a ticket and all he gave me was this sodding TV Request Form!! He says he’ll check into it. He comes back in 10 minutes and says it is fine (although Vic should have printed a ticket) and apologises (bless!) for what I have gone through. I sincerely thank him for being so helpful and understanding. He then suggests I write a letter of complaint. I thank him and start composting the letter in my head.

I estimate that this 4 hour return trip has cost myself and my colleague about 8 hours of our lives…and I never ended up with a ticket. I sent the complain letter but I suspect they will probably lose it as well.

The only way this would have been worse if I had come home Thursday night and the tickets would be in the mail box. If that had happened I think I would have gone over the edge.