Faff
After the incident yesterday I was faced with a conductor this morning who looked at my ticket, looked confused, then went “ah!”, smiled and moved on. I checked my ticket, I’d put it back in upside down yesterday. So it’s acceptable and readable upside down.
To avoid any future problems though I riddled to the ticket office and got my replacement. While she was filling out the required forms (by hand, love this modern age we’re in) I mused about the plastic tickets.
“Our machines won’t print on plastic” was the reply.
“Yes, but you could print a temporary one and send a nice plastic one by post later”, I suggested.
“Our machines only print on plastic.”
Giving up I waited for the form filling to be complete and then enquired about a refund for yesterdays ticket.
“Oh dear, you leave your ticket at home yesterday?” was the slightly condescending reply.
“No, I’d have a return then”, I said, “The conductor wouldn’t accept it. Made me buy a ticket.”
“Really? Why?”
“Claimed he couldn’t read it.”
The lady actually got the ticket out from the drawer looked at it and said “Well I can see it’s faded, but you can still read the date.”
“Exactly!” I replied, “But I was told that if you can’t read the station names it’s not valid.”
“Really?” she said.
“Apparently so.”
And so we started filling in the refund forms. By hand. Joy.
Still, I got my new ticket, got my refund and was only 15 minutes late for work. God I hate NXEA.
Oh please try and claim for 15 minutes of wages from NXEA head office.
It’s hard enough claiming for a ticket that I am rightfully entitled to claim for. Do I really want to spend more time chasing them for money they don’t want to give me? No, I think that’s a mission for when I’m retired and have time on my hands.