15 December 2006
Written by Jakob
Warfare part II – the campaign continues
Now, if anybody read the last post, you know that I’ve been having a wee fight with Bus Eireann after having had a particularly bad experience another day. After having received a reply – of sorts – from a mr. O’Shea, I decided it was time to continue with a letter that was somewhat more moderate in tone of voice.
The reply I received was as follows:
when you decide to send a complaint without abusive or degrading language we will consider replying to it
regards
dan o shea
I thought I had taken enough precautions with regards to “abusive” language in the first letter, but obviously mr. O’Shea was having none of it. So here’s me having a crack at expressing my feelings in a way that wouldn’t hurt the linguistical sensitivities of Bus Eireann’s employees:
Dear mr. Dan
Fair enough. I will refrain from the “abusive or degrading language” to as large an extent as I can. Let me, however, point out that your employers way of going about their business this autumn – actually, well before this autumn as well – can be described as a bit of a shortcoming. Obviously, I would not make such a statement without some type of basis for my claim. The basis for my claiming this is as follows:
- Your buses do not seem to follow any type of schedule. If you have a timetable, it is ignored. This can be anecdotally proven by referring to last nights’ incident when three scheduled buses in a row simply failed to appear. I might also mention that during yesterday morning, I was experiencing problems with Bus Eireann services – despite being by the bus station at 8.25 in the morning, I didn’t reach Hollyhill until 9:10. The reason? No bus arrived until 8:50. So that’s four failed services – on one line, in one city – in one day. God knows what the number of failed or late services would be if one extrapolated it to the republic as a whole. If you do not at least acknowledge that this is an utterly pathetic service, and provide some type of explanation – or at least dignify a paying customer like myself with trying to concoct a plausible lie – you are surely a cold, cold man indeed. I don’t think you are, mr. Dan. So please, just explain and apologize.
- Your buses, when they do grace us with their presence, are dirty, badly maintained, quite often smelly and does not in any way provide the paying customer with a pleasant journey. Most days, I notice at least one or two seats ripped out in the back. If you do not acknowledge that failing to perform basic maintenance tasks on your buses is not just disgusting but dangerous as well (do you ever check the brakes, at least?), you a surely a hypocrite. I don’t think you are, mr. Dan. So please, just explain and apologize.
- This is hardly news. This has been on the radio, in the newspapers and on the internet for months. Even years. Yet the company fails to respond adequately to the complaints. I may point you to the following web site, as an example of what I mean: http://www.petitiononline.com/busline2/petition.html.
Bus Eireann has so far done nothing – at least nothing that is tangible to the poor people trying to avail themselves of the service Bus Eireann supposedly provides – to address these complains. I notice that you, once, had a Quality Customer Service Committee, but that obviously folded after 2002 since 2001 and 2002 are the only two reports downloadable from your site. Maybe this would be something to consider re-opening? If you do not acknowledge that Bus Eireann and their Cork services have come in for a lot of justified criticism lately, you are surely a most uninformed man who does not bother reading papers. I don’t think you are, mr. Dan. So please, just explain and apologize.
See what I mean? It is not difficult finding things to complain about when it comes to Bus Eireann. I notice you are not run for profit. You are a whole-owned subsidiary of CIE, who is owned in it’s entirety by the Irish state. If you are not run for profit, then you are run as a public service. That service is extremely poor, if indeed it can be described as a service at all. Therefore, I made a complaint, albeit a very harshly worded one. The gist of my complaint, however, was relevant and I would like to see it at least answerred. And if you had taken the effort to provide the public service that you are hired to provide and bothered reading through the whole thing, you would have recognised this fact. Now, I honestly concede that my letter might have been somewhat choleric in nature. But do you really think, that a peppering of ‘dirty words’ in a letter of complaint could possibly offend as much as the vicious cocktail of years and years of infuriating incompetence and intolerable, most certainly criminal greed and neglect that you continue to serve up to paying customers such as myself? Surely you jest!
I think my complaint is perfectly reasonable. Why? Let’s recap, without the blue language this time, since it seems I will get no answer that way:
No bus appeared for over 50 minutes, when one finally did it was insufficiently big to take care of everyone waiting. This is not a first occurrence, and the company has been criticized before. Trying to call the enquiry line was pointless as it was closed. It was was rainy, and windy, and there was no way of getting any information as to what was going on. This has happened several times. I’m sure I’m not the first to complain.
Now, how about my complaint? Will you now show some semblance of professionalism and respond to it? Surely there’s not a single abusive word in this e-mail?
Regards, and with great anticipation,
Jakob Ronander
categorised as » Current Affairs
ShortURL for linking: http://lime.rahina.info/?p=152
2 Comments currently posted.
andakmaye says:
Topias says:
Ditto what andakmaye said, the original letter had so much more zass, I want to hear how this story ends too.
I much preferred your original letter, but I applaud your efforts nevertheless. :) Hope we see a reply soon.