Three year old left screaming when customer service goes wrong

My youngest ended up screaming after a worker on the trains nearly rammed us with her trolley.

After a hectic two days braving the train journey to Manchester with five children between two mums, being asked for ID (despite my age), playing super mum to ensure the youngest didn't miss any of the fabulous Peppa Pig Live show despite needing the toilet and playing 'avoid the laptop' on the train home to ensure the children weren't exposed to any inappropriate content from fellow travellers; we were on the last stretch.  Home was in sight.  Our station was only ten minutes away.

But of course, the excitement hadn't finished.  Just as I am beginning to think about gathering our 'stuff' together, the food trolley enters the carriage.  My youngest was still sat on my knee, angled outwards to avoid the screen of the laptop of our fellow traveller, and her feet were obviously in the aisle. She then started to get down off my knee (she wanted to go around the table to her sister) just as the lady pulling the trolley entered our carriage.

Trolleys with tardis-like proportions, managing to hold any snack you can imagine.  They are only just slim enough to fit down the corridor between the seats.

The lady responsible for the trolley was pulling it behind her incredibly quickly. 

The lady didn't slow, she didn't appear to be taking any notice of anything other than pulling that trolley down the carriage as fast as possible.  I don't even think she saw my daughter, who isn't quite one metre tall yet, stood in the middle of the aisle in front of her. 

I hoisted my daughter back up onto my knee as fast as I could and swung her legs in under the table.  The lady and her trolley were bearing down on us and my foot was still angled outwards into the aisle.  I had to quickly pull it inwards, not realising that the motion of moving my leg in also raised my knee, squeezing my daughters legs between my knee and the table top.

The lady and the trolley sped past, oblivious.  My daughter on the other hand; my daughter who is a strong, brave girl and who rarely cries even if she's fallen off her bike, opened her mouth wide and howled!

I spent the next five minutes trying to console her.  Just as she calmed down, we were pulling into our stop and my friend and I had to move fast to gather her and the other four children (all five years old or less) together, not forgetting any belongings, to get off the train.

There was no time to find the trolley lady.  No chance to complain.  No chance to say; hey!  Look where you are going!

I went to the station manager's office and tried to raise a complaint there.  Funnily enough it wasn't theirs to deal with.  I received the usual answer "it's not our responsibility.  The catering is subcontracted.  But if you take a leaflet you could write in."

I was livid.  Hiring subcontractors for part of your service does not absolve you of responsibility.  Telling me to 'write in' is not what customer service is all about.

Charging down a busy aisle without giving warning, or watching out for potential obstructions is NOT good customer service.

And of course, I still blamed myself.  Because it's my responsibility to look out for her.

What do you think?  Is it too much to ask for people to look where they are going - particularly when there are young children around?

Censorship? What should we censor for children?

Our journey back from Manchester, after the excitement of seeing Peppa Pig Live, was, since it was on the train again, full of the same stresses of the journey there, only with the added interest of a couple of incidents.

I was in two minds as to whether to talk about both of them here, but I'm going to split them out and deal with them separately in two posts, so: -

First up, the "filmwatcher" and a question of censorship.

You know how you often get folk on the train with their laptops out, pretending to work but actually watching films or playing computer games on-line?  Our train home was so full that yes, you've guessed it, three of the children and I had to squeeze around a table already occupied by a gentleman who was watching a film on his laptop. Don't I sound all posh referring to a gentleman.  Would 'man' be better?

The two older children sat opposite, and I sat next to him (the man) with my youngest (aged 3 years - that's relevant later) sat on my knee.

My girls and I immediately managed to cover every remaining portion of space on that table with "stuff".  Magazines that we'd bought for the children for the journey home, snacks, drinks, and a lunch box.  The man took it all in his stride, and simply continued watching his film with his headphones on.  I had respect for him at that point.  He was coping remarkably well.  I concluded that he either had children or was used to them being around.  Anyone else would have been tutting by now.

I glanced out of the corner of my eye at the screen (he was sitting next to me.  It's not officially nosey if I can't help but be observant is it?) to see if I recognised what he was watching.

On catching site of the screen and taking in the image, I immediately twisted my youngest around slightly more on my knee so that she was facing away from it, and rested my hand on top of the lunchbox to block her view, despite the fact that she probably couldn't see it anyway due to the tight angle of vision she'd have had.

The reason for this, is that the scene I caught sight of was Daniel Craig with a plastic bag fastened over his face in some sort of torture scene.  I wondered initially if the film was James Bond, but I'm reliably told that it was probably Layer Cake.

The man seemed oblivious to the fact that his film was showing a torture scene and a small child was sat next to him.  Honestly, she couldn't see it at the angle I had her, probably couldn't have seen it before, but still, he was completely oblivious.  I re-evaluated by conclusion that he was used to being around children.

However, that film also had 'scenes of a sexual nature'.  And, very interestingly, the second that a naked Daniel Craig was on screen on top of a naked female co-star, the man's hand shot out to the laptop touchpad to fastforward and skip the scene.

I have never seen a hand move that fast.  I had to try hard not to giggle.  My instinct was not to embarrass him; so I pretended to be equally oblivious to his scene skipping.

He then realised he'd skipped too far ahead, tried to skip back a little bit, overshot and ended up back at the naked bodies, and had to skip right back off them again!

I sat wondering whether he was skipping the scene out of courtesy to me?  But if so, why?  Did he think having breasts on his screen would embarrass me?  Why would that embarrass me?  I see naked breasts every day - it's a (debatable) advantage of being a woman.  Because it had a naked Daniel Craig in it?  Don't skip that on my account.  I definitely won't be embarrassed by that!  Or just for the sake of the 3 year old?  In which case, if he censored the sex, why on earth didn't he censor the torture and suffocation?

I wondered what principles he was basing his censorship on?  Whether he was doing it for himself (embarrassment), for us (compassion or empathy or both), or because he felt he should (peer pressure)?

I'd have preferred him to skip the torture scene and leave the sexual scene on; if I had to choose between the two.  Ideally I'd have avoided both until she's a little older!

What do you think?  I'd love to hear your views on what, if any, responsibility falls on someone watching a film in a public place.


If you want to hear more about our half term trip, with tips to avoid the pitfalls we fell into click the following links:
Taking children to the theatre? Our adventures at Peppa Pig Live
Taking children on the train?  Here's what you really need to consider.
Trying to buy wine?  Tesco Express choose bureaucratic nonsense over common sense

Taking children on the train? Here's what you really need to consider.

 
And so, it's Valentines day and my friend and I are taking our children over to Manchester for an overnight stay (without husbands) so that we can see Peppa Pig on stage the next morning. We are so romantic. But it's half term and Peppa is only on for a couple of days.

East Midlands Trains

We decide, somewhat foolishly you might think, to take them on the train, partly because we have been getting a fair bit of snow over the peaks and we didn't want to get caught out and partly because it just seemed to be the easiest option.  At least it did.  Before that marvellous thing called hindsight.

We drive five minutes to the station in my mate's 7-seater, supposedly stopping off for a bottle of wine en route (click here for why I came away empty handed and won't be shopping with Tesco again anytime soon)

Then we all climb into the train just after midday.  We have packed lightly knowing that we'd need to carry everything.  I think we did pretty well.  My mate had one medium trollycase and I had one dispatch bag.

I feel the need to elaborate on that point for a moment to stress the momentous nature of it.  My mate had one medium trollycase - for an overnight stay for herself and her three daughters (five, three and three).  I had one dispatch bag for myself and two daughters (five and three).  That's pretty impressive packing for women! All we took were toothbrushes, PJs and clean pants (that's knickers by the way, not trousers).

We also had a separate picnic bag and a single pushchair (buggy) just in case the little ones got tired.

My first tip for travelling with children on the train is definitely to pack efficiently. You don't have enough hands for the children, never mind for bags as well.  A dispatch bag that you can slot over your body leaving both hands free, or a rucksack, are probably the best two options.

My second tip is to ensure 'before' you get on the train, that you are stepping into the carriage that has a large enough storage space for your pushchair.  It turns out that East Midlands Trains aren't that great for storage space!  It took ages to find a slot to shove the thing.  In fact their website doesn't even appear to mention them, though cycles, luggage and even pets are covered, so presumably they don't expect anyone to need them.  Mother's with babies be warned.

Our next problem was sitting down.  Remember, there are seven of us.  The carriage wasn't particularly full, but of course the four table areas, which seat four each, all had a single person sat in them.  All other seats were in pairs.  Now my friend is excellent at multi-tasking, but even she couldn't manage to sit in block of two seats with three children.  So we really needed to get around a table.  Did any of those individuals already sat at the tables offer to move?  Of course not.  We were struggling to get five children sat down safely and within eye shot of us and no-one even thought to say; "would it help if you sat here?".  We were, on this stretch of the journey, lucky that the next station was only five minutes away and lots of people got off.  You can imagine how fast we jumped onto the table that become free.  I'd still not even sat down myself until this point to keep eyes on them all.

So finally the five girls are sat around the table eating their packed lunch (still in only four seats of course - it's lucky they are fairly small) and we are sat just behind them so that we can see everything, and they can pass us their rubbish between the seats.  The rest of the journey was pretty good.  They ate, we chatted.  Time passed pleasantly. Third tip - take a packed lunch!

It's only when you have to get off the train that the panic sets in and stress levels peak.  Particularly when, just five minutes earlier the youngest decides she needs to toilet and we all find ourselves down by the exit doors, kids nearly falling over as the train does that slowing down thing is does before stations, and panicking when the toilet door rolls itself shut automatically with the youngest in there on her own.  You can't hold it open either - I tried.  So we were lucky to get her finished and dressed just in time to get off the train.  I'm seriously tense now.  Nervous that we've left something behind (coat?, child?)  In the words of McNulty (The Wire) we 'front and reared' them: my mate getting off the train first and helping them down, me following to ensure no-one got left behind and bringing the pushchair with me.  You won't be surprised that there were no members of staff on hand to help, despite the massive gap between the train and the platform and the tiny legs that had to jump over it to get off.

So fourth tip, if I'm honest, is don't get on a train unless you have a much improved ratio of adults to children than our measly 2:5.  It's a real shame though, because they do love it.  It's just so stressful for the adults.  I was terrified they were going to somehow fall off the platform.  I spent most of my time simply re-counting them.

Trains are great at getting you from A to B, at doing it without you having to drive, or park, or navigate town centres in a car.  What they are not great on is remembering who their customers are and what their customers need.  Maybe if they addressed that shortfall and thought about how their trains could be more child friendly, they could encourage more people to use them.

And next we had to find the MetroShuttle...more on that later with our antics at Peppa Pig Live (here)
And had to brave the train home again.  Find our why I had to consider censorship on the train ride here.