I generally never write or even complain much about public transport although there may be certain times where I mention how annoying delays kick in without any reason from TFL. But this one time, I experienced a service I was not satisfied with…
Firstly, I’d like to mention my smart watch I purchased a while back. So this is a Sony Smart Watch where it gives you the capability to connect your phone to this device using Bluetooth. You’re able to read tweets from Twitter, statuses from Facebook, a trigger to call your phone in case you lose it… Oh and obviously look at the time. Although there are a few drawbacks to this device but I won’t go through it now. Anyway, back to the story.
So in the morning around 8.40am, I was on my way to work and usually I travel from national rail, and then 2 underground trains. On the first underground station, I was prepared to get off and as usual, I am readying myself to pace to the exit as soon the doors open to get off the train. As the train door opens, I shot out with my foot onto the platform and my arm swinging pass the door. As my arm passed the door, my watch clipped on to the edge of the door resulting the watch to drop on to the side of the tracks. Here is one thing I did not mention – the smart watch was made of two parts: the wrist band and the watch itself. It gives you an option to detach the smart watch from the wrist band and clip it somewhere else.
Seeing my small white smart watch on the side of the track, I could identify directly where it is and was very much annoyed with my action. I could even just jump down right there and then to pick it up but two things stopped me from doing that. The first being that it’s dangerous and secondly, a poster is plastered around the tube stations saying somewhere along the lines of: If you have dropped an item onto the track, have a little patience and speak to a member of staff. Trusting this poster, I marched to a member of staff on the same platform and described precisely what happened and said what can he do about it. He took down my details and told me that I should return back the next day to claim my little smart watch. Reason that he couldn’t get it immediately is because as I said before, it was dangerous to do it at that time seeing that it was rush hour and all but in the evening, the tracks will be free so a member of staff can check the tracks. Also, I couldn’t wait around as I had work so I left it and trusted them.
The very next day, I followed the member of staffs advice which was to go upstairs and ask someone for a supervisor. So I found someone who was able to help me and he told me that he will check. I assumed there was a box of lost stuff so I described precisely what I lost just to put emphasis that the thing they are looking for in this box did not look like a watch, it was a clip on watch. About 10 minutes of waiting, I was told that no one checked the track last night! He told me “We logged it in the book for someone to check the track but I don’t think anyone did so you will have to check tomorrow”! WTF!? As patient as I am, I replied “Okay that is fine however, can I just double check that you have my details”. They confirmed it in the book and so I went off to work.
The next day, returning back to the same place at the supervisors office, I bumped into “Supervisor Andy”. I told him my situation thinking “Yep… This is the last time I’ll be doing this” and he said “Ok, let me check for you”. He went to the back to check and came back saying “Nope. Nothing there and it seems like no one checked the track again…”. Standing there like a right muppet, I told him “Oooookayyyy. So what can I do about this?” He tells me “Can you go down to the platform and take a look to see if your smart watch is still there? If it is, I’ll just jump down and get it for you!” So hang on a minute, these people made me wait 2 WHOLE DAYS and then giving me a conclusion that if it is STILL THERE, they will jump down to get it at RUSH HOUR on a FRIDAY!? With my head firing out so many questions in my head, I accepted his quest to journey through the huge amount of people rushing to get to work versus me walking the opposite direction just to check. As to no surprise, the smart watch is gone. Returning back to the supervisor empty handed, he goes on to say “Ok you’re not going to like what I am about to say next…” At this point, I really didn’t care anymore. He says “You will have to fill out an online form indicating that there is a lost item”.
After all this, I have accepted that I will never see this smart watch EVER AGAIN.
So, my final thought is: Don’t make “have patience and get a member of staff” posters… You just make us look like a mug when you don’t do anything about it! Thanks TFL…