Like Attila the Hun standing before the walls of Constantinople, I could have thought “no chance, let’s attack those pussy French instead”, but no, instead I am Mehmed II, standing victorious within the Golden Gate - season ticket in hand.
Season ticket in hand? Yes, the object of my travails, these past two days has been to renew my annual season ticket - Peterborough to London (FCC only).
And I have to admit that actually I was no Mehmed either. Instead of conquerer I was conformer. I have succeeded by doing as I was told and jumping through every hoop that was held in front of me. “You want me to jump - how high?”
Just how hard can it be to get a new season ticket? Not hard at all one would think, especially as I now have a photocard and I’m “on their system”.
This year, I’m not so cash rich, so instead of stumping up all the cash on my own account as I have previously, I applied for a company travel loan (interest free and repayable over 12 months, with repayments automatically deducted from my salary). It’s available up to a maximum of £4,500, so doesn’t cover the whole cost, but goes a long way.
The cheque arrived on November 22 and I waited a while in order to renew the ticket as you can’t do it too early (learned that last year). It expires on December 29 and on Wednesday evening, after work, I popped into the ticket office at Peterborough station to get it renewed. There was a short wait for a window to become available and then a further short wait while the woman at the desk had a little fiddle with the papers, got up and disappeared for a few seconds (they love that trick) and then reappeared, pressed her light and met me with a look of utter disdain.
That look intensified when I uttered the words “renew my season ticket”. She immediately became flustered and fired off a string of questions. Where to, when did it expire, when did I want it to start from? I said I’d like it to run consecutively - I could have been speaking French or barbarian. It must have sounded like ba, ba, ba to her. The next stage of the process involved shouting down a long line of desks to her colleague, who seemed to be trained to a higher level in season ticket obstruction.
It could be done, but I couldn’t have a Gold Card. What was a Gold Card? That’s what I’d got now apparently and she couldn’t issue one. What did it do? Well, it seems I can book discounted fares on the whole FCC network using my Gold Card. I said I never went anywhere except London, so it didn’t matter, I’ll have the standard card - not silver, not even bronze, just paper.
It could be done, but she’d have to cancel my existing ticket. Why? Because you can’t have two season tickets. I wouldn’t have two, I’d have one finishing on December 29 and one starting on December 30. That’s two. Well, how can I travel in the meantime, I’ll be losing a week’s travel. No I wouldn’t, she’d do me a new ticket starting now and finishing on December 30 2013. It seems unnecessarily complicated but I said yes.
How was I going to pay. I got out my company cheque and her eyes lit up. She knew she’d got me:
We don’t take cheques (triumph).
You don’t take cheques (incredulity).
We haven’t taken cheques since (checks with her colleague); some time last year (der).
But my colleague has just renewed his season ticket with a cheque. That’s probably a First Capital Connect ticket office, they might take cheques, I don’t know, we’re East Coast, we don’t take cheques.
There’s little more to be said. The Theodosian walls are standing high above me and if I don’t move aside some Byzantine grunt will drop a rock on my head.
Margaret was quite angry and was keen that I knew that the woman behind us in the queue had been tutting and shaking her head. Apparently, she couldn’t believe it either. Well it might have been more helpful if she’d joined me at the walls instead of standing back there tutting, but no matter.
I texted Richard Nash, who had renewed his ticket at Royston without fuss or bother and also called First Capital Connect customer care. A woman at the Indian call-centre said they did take cheques at FCC. Was there an FCC ticket office at King’s Cross? No, but there was one at St Pancras. Did she know where? No.
So I have two new plans:
1. The FCC ticket office at St Pancras
2. Renew at Royston
Plan A (sorry, plan no 1) was enacted on Thursday morning. I walked across to St Pancras’ station, pushed through the Eurostar crowds, through the shopping mall and found the FCC ticket office. A short wait and I’m faced with another window and an unhelpful face behind the glass, another disembodied voice speaking to me through twin speakers.
I went through the preamble ... renew my season ticket ... Peterborough to London ... no tube ... do you take cheques? You do, that’s great!
Have you got a letter from the company?
Ah, the ladder was against the walls and the first janissaries were getting to the top when it was cruelly thrust down.
Letter from the company? It turns out that I need a letter from the company saying that the cheque has been issued to me to pay for my season ticket. This is despite the fact that the cheque is made out to First Capital Connect (why else would the company give me a cheque for £4,500).
I was a broken man. I might have got my debit card out there and then if I’d had enough money in the bank to cover it.
Anyway, still sans season ticket, back in the office Richard said he’d sailed through the renewal at Royston, but Marc Tucker had been to Royston and had also been knocked back for lack of a letter (new rule since November). Later that day accounts kindly provided a letter, Davina forged Kerry Mullins’ signature (very badly in my view) and I had the requisite paperwork. If I’m forging a signature, which I don’t do very often, I like to do it with an illegible flourish. Davina basically wrote her name, but spelled it K Mullins.
This morning I arrived at King’s Cross and thought I’d try the ticket office there to see if I could save myself the time of walking to St Pancras. Everything fine, except you can’t renew your season ticket (according to their rules) until seven days before and I was one day early. The chap at the counter said it with a smirk, but I didn’t care; I knew I could break through the walls just around the corner.
St Pancras station FCC ticket hall, same chap as yesterday (he remembered me and I remembered him - thank god I wasn’t rude). Every question (and there were lots of them) answered, every bit of paperwork produced, there was one slightly wobbly moment when I said I wanted to pay part by cheque and part by credit card, but that was only a slight stutter and then I was over the line.
Never ever before have I had to work so hard to spend £5,600. Was it a good experience? No, I thought this kind of petty bureaucracy had disappeared from public services in the Thatcher era. It’s alive and well in the railway industry and and just waiting for its moment to return.
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