Yesterday I learned that the folks at the train station have less order and organisation than a pile of headless chickens.
I was waiting for my train. Usually, I'm there very early because the train stops at my station for a long time (it's both the end and starting point of the train route). To my surprise, the train didn't show up. It was very cold and I was freezing. Then, after the train was already supposed to leave the station again, but had not shown up at all, there was an announcement that the train would be "45 minutes" late!
Do you notice what's wrong here?
Imagine you are waiting at a train station for a train that usually shows up 20 minutes before its scheduled departure time. Imagine that train doesn't show up until the point when it's supposed to leave for the next station. Now consider that it takes the personell of the train station until AFTER the train is supposed to go to informer customers that it will be 45 minutes late, and consider how much ahead of time they must have known this... I mean.... 45 minutes!
So I had wasted about 20 minutes of my life waiting for a train that, when I got to the station, was already hopelessly late. It was so late that it could have been brought to my attention the very second I set foot on the platform. But nope. Who cares about the fucking customer, right?
Then, all hell broke lose down at the main hall of the train station. The display boards were going crazy. Various trains had different delays, and my train had displays on that went from "30 minutes delay" to "70 minutes delay" to "45 minutes delay" to "train service ceased" in that order. Nobody knew what was happening, appearently. Everything is crazy.
At that point, I decided not to put any trust in trains on that day, because if the service people at the train station can't decide whether there will even be a train or not, I don't think they have the competence needed to bring me home.
So I went to the bus station and luckily found a bus that was going the right way. It only took me more than an hour extra to get home compared to what I had planned to take to get home. But hey, at least I didn't have to get a room in this crazy city to spend the night.
It is actually amazing to believe that people whose job it is to deal with delays are acting like headless chickens when things don't go as planned. I mean, all I need is a clear statement. Train is coming, yes or no, and if yes, when. If no, fine, I'll take the shitty bus home. Just don't make it a wheel of fortune kind of thing. It's not my job to find out IF I'm going to make it home, it's yours. You stupid massafassas....
