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Stations are little island nations. They give the illusion of being part of the public highway/footpath system, but they're all classed as private property much like any other business. As such, if people want to perform activities that aren't part of our usual business, and/or require permission to do in public places, you can bet that we have rules & regulations a-plenty.
Charity collection is a Big Deal, as the implication is that by allowing you to approach our customer base we're showing approval of whatever charitable scheme it is you're collecting for. This is a not-inconsiderable revenue stream, and as such there's major competition for slots and there's rules out the wazoo which must be adhered to at all times. The single most important rule once you're on a station is "the station staff's word is law" and it's no exaggeration... What we say goes, or you do.
Anyway.
Yesterday I had someone turn up to perform a collection. I hereby submit the email report I made to my managers, anonymised where necessary; if anyone spots something that might give me away, please PM me so I can correct it!
So, that's how I realised I'd been accused of Tellytubbyism; shame he didn't have a handbag as part of his costume, maybe he could have tried adding homophobia! 
I sent this to every relevant manager I could think of, and the responses I've received have all been very supportive. This isn't the first time we've had charity collections go wrong, but this is certainly the first one that's gone this far out of whack!
Charity collection is a Big Deal, as the implication is that by allowing you to approach our customer base we're showing approval of whatever charitable scheme it is you're collecting for. This is a not-inconsiderable revenue stream, and as such there's major competition for slots and there's rules out the wazoo which must be adhered to at all times. The single most important rule once you're on a station is "the station staff's word is law" and it's no exaggeration... What we say goes, or you do.
Anyway.
Yesterday I had someone turn up to perform a collection. I hereby submit the email report I made to my managers, anonymised where necessary; if anyone spots something that might give me away, please PM me so I can correct it!
This evening I have had a very bad experience with a charity collector, which has highlighted a few issues. I have typed all this as soon after events as possible, commencing writing {an hour after events began}. These events occurred in rapid succession over a brief period, and as such an exact timeframe is hard to establish as I was busy participating rather than documenting.
They arrived {in the early evening} during a busy period, which obviously suits collections but it means that I was having to fit checking his credentials around serving commuters, as well as answering calls from {another local station} regarding a wheelchair passenger they were sending here.
Firstly, the only letter of authorisation they were able to show was a printout of an email which only went as far as showing that the company he was allegedly collecting for agreed to our terms & conditions ( {link to our company policy on the web} - this exact URL was on the printout). This was both good & bad, for reasons to be explained as I go.
Secondly, no record could be found in the station or by calling {station liaison dept} regarding the scheduled collection, and no managers were available in the local area. Not wishing to prevent an authorised collection without cause, I decided to allow him to proceed based on his claimed knowledge of collecting at other stations, his ID, and the email printout.
It was at this point that I made an error which I deeply regret; I forgot to have him sign into the station log. This means I cannot be 100% sure of who he claimed to be working for, or his name. I accept full responsibility for this; the reasons for my distraction are set out above, and at no point was he allowed into any area not open to the public.
Once I had told him that I would allow him to proceed, I advised him to ensure he didn’t block anyone’s progress through the station and went back to serving a steady stream of customers; I checked the monitor screens to ensure he wasn’t blocking the path outside the front of the station & didn’t see him there, so assumed at those times that he was outside of camera range.
{After about 15 minutes}, I observed him standing opposite me in the ticket hall, putting the finishing touches to a Tinky-Winky (purple tellytubby) costume. I presumed at this point that he had been out of my sight earlier due to his getting dressed {in a corner of the ticket hall} which isn’t covered by any cameras, and that he was preparing to step out onto the pavement. When it became apparent that he intended to collect from a position between the ticket barriers and the departures board, I signalled for his attention & stated that he would have to collect from outside the ticket hall as I understood that to be one of our company conditions. This was the start of the real troubles.
He started going on about how he’d always done it inside the station, that it said on his papers that he could (which, being incomplete, it didn’t), that other stations didn’t have a problem with it. My reply was that I am not responsible for what happens at other stations, but my understanding was that it had to be outside, and that one of the other conditions they agree to is abiding by station staff requests. As his email did include a link to the Ts&Cs, I decided to consult them for guidance & hopefully backup. While I did not find explicit mention of being inside versus outside the ticket hall, it did assert that distance had to be maintained between the barriers & the collection point, and also that they could NOT be costumed – this is something I was previously unaware of, and when I pointed it out things deteriorated further.
He’s always collected in costume, no-one’s ever complained, they collect on {another company's} stations & no-one complains (I pointed out we’re not {them}, to which he replied “it’s similar”), it’s a Charities Commission approved costume because you can see his face... Then he started asking to see where these rules were written, so I showed him my screen & highlighted the relevant passages. He asked how he could access this information to review himself, and I had to point out multiple times that I had found this information by following the URL written on his own paperwork. He complained that I’d watched him dress up & not said anything, to which I apologised but explained that I had not realised about this restriction at that time, but now that I was aware I had to enforce it.
At this point he started to ask about our complaints procedure. At this point a queue was beginning to form behind him. I asked if he wished to complain about my upholding the terms & conditions his paperwork said his organisation had agreed to, and he said no, as a customer. He asked for my full name, I indicated my namebadge (which is always on my tie in plain view) and he asked why I was afraid to give him my full name. I pointed out I was under no obligation to provide more than he could see, and that having the name on my badge, my description, and the station location would be more than sufficient to identify me in any complaint; he still persisted and at this time I informed him that my belief was that he was trying to intimidate me into allowing him to collect in breach of his conditions (which in itself is a further breach), and as such informed him that I would no longer permit the collection and advised him that he had to leave the station.
He continued to proceed to comment along the same lines, and about how he’d been nothing but reasonable while I was being rude & aggressive, and that all this would come out when we got to the complaint proceedings – I’m not sure how he believes such complaint are handled, but it sounded like he expected some kind of court-style affair. I called {station liaison dept} and advised them as to what had & was continuing to happen, and they offered support for my decision. During this call, the collector finally moved to one side & started to remove and store his costume & collection bucket.
I was able to continue serving customers for a few more minutes, until he rejoined the queue & started asking about the complaints procedure again. I felt that at this time his intention was to harass me and cause unnecessary delays to waiting customers, so I informed him I was calling BTP & stepped away from the window while I discussed the issue with them. Reference {deleted}
Once he was satisfied that the police were coming (which he felt was to his advantage), he stepped aside in front of the middle window & allowed me to continue working unimpeded. BTP were on site {quite quickly actually, like 10 minutes or something} having caught the train from {local depot} (arrival time I believe was {30-40 minutes after this all started} although I cannot now be certain), however in the intervening time the gentleman finally decided to take his leave of the station; I did not see the exact time of this due to serving customers.
If this was indeed a fully authorised collector, then according to what I remember from his documentation he will be attempting to collect at {another of our locations} tomorrow. Judging from events today, there’s every chance he will again be in breach of our Ts&Cs while doing so.
** from a follow-up email **
It has occurred to me since I wrote this last night why this gentleman thought a police presence would work to his favour; it took me some time to calm down & repeat events back to myself to realise I had missed some subtext. When he was talking about having events reviewed, he made references to his being discriminated against – as he was a young black man, and I am a middle aged white man, I feel now that he was inferring that he wanted to try & categorise the incident as a racial issue.
They arrived {in the early evening} during a busy period, which obviously suits collections but it means that I was having to fit checking his credentials around serving commuters, as well as answering calls from {another local station} regarding a wheelchair passenger they were sending here.
Firstly, the only letter of authorisation they were able to show was a printout of an email which only went as far as showing that the company he was allegedly collecting for agreed to our terms & conditions ( {link to our company policy on the web} - this exact URL was on the printout). This was both good & bad, for reasons to be explained as I go.
Secondly, no record could be found in the station or by calling {station liaison dept} regarding the scheduled collection, and no managers were available in the local area. Not wishing to prevent an authorised collection without cause, I decided to allow him to proceed based on his claimed knowledge of collecting at other stations, his ID, and the email printout.
It was at this point that I made an error which I deeply regret; I forgot to have him sign into the station log. This means I cannot be 100% sure of who he claimed to be working for, or his name. I accept full responsibility for this; the reasons for my distraction are set out above, and at no point was he allowed into any area not open to the public.
Once I had told him that I would allow him to proceed, I advised him to ensure he didn’t block anyone’s progress through the station and went back to serving a steady stream of customers; I checked the monitor screens to ensure he wasn’t blocking the path outside the front of the station & didn’t see him there, so assumed at those times that he was outside of camera range.
{After about 15 minutes}, I observed him standing opposite me in the ticket hall, putting the finishing touches to a Tinky-Winky (purple tellytubby) costume. I presumed at this point that he had been out of my sight earlier due to his getting dressed {in a corner of the ticket hall} which isn’t covered by any cameras, and that he was preparing to step out onto the pavement. When it became apparent that he intended to collect from a position between the ticket barriers and the departures board, I signalled for his attention & stated that he would have to collect from outside the ticket hall as I understood that to be one of our company conditions. This was the start of the real troubles.
He started going on about how he’d always done it inside the station, that it said on his papers that he could (which, being incomplete, it didn’t), that other stations didn’t have a problem with it. My reply was that I am not responsible for what happens at other stations, but my understanding was that it had to be outside, and that one of the other conditions they agree to is abiding by station staff requests. As his email did include a link to the Ts&Cs, I decided to consult them for guidance & hopefully backup. While I did not find explicit mention of being inside versus outside the ticket hall, it did assert that distance had to be maintained between the barriers & the collection point, and also that they could NOT be costumed – this is something I was previously unaware of, and when I pointed it out things deteriorated further.
He’s always collected in costume, no-one’s ever complained, they collect on {another company's} stations & no-one complains (I pointed out we’re not {them}, to which he replied “it’s similar”), it’s a Charities Commission approved costume because you can see his face... Then he started asking to see where these rules were written, so I showed him my screen & highlighted the relevant passages. He asked how he could access this information to review himself, and I had to point out multiple times that I had found this information by following the URL written on his own paperwork. He complained that I’d watched him dress up & not said anything, to which I apologised but explained that I had not realised about this restriction at that time, but now that I was aware I had to enforce it.
At this point he started to ask about our complaints procedure. At this point a queue was beginning to form behind him. I asked if he wished to complain about my upholding the terms & conditions his paperwork said his organisation had agreed to, and he said no, as a customer. He asked for my full name, I indicated my namebadge (which is always on my tie in plain view) and he asked why I was afraid to give him my full name. I pointed out I was under no obligation to provide more than he could see, and that having the name on my badge, my description, and the station location would be more than sufficient to identify me in any complaint; he still persisted and at this time I informed him that my belief was that he was trying to intimidate me into allowing him to collect in breach of his conditions (which in itself is a further breach), and as such informed him that I would no longer permit the collection and advised him that he had to leave the station.
He continued to proceed to comment along the same lines, and about how he’d been nothing but reasonable while I was being rude & aggressive, and that all this would come out when we got to the complaint proceedings – I’m not sure how he believes such complaint are handled, but it sounded like he expected some kind of court-style affair. I called {station liaison dept} and advised them as to what had & was continuing to happen, and they offered support for my decision. During this call, the collector finally moved to one side & started to remove and store his costume & collection bucket.
I was able to continue serving customers for a few more minutes, until he rejoined the queue & started asking about the complaints procedure again. I felt that at this time his intention was to harass me and cause unnecessary delays to waiting customers, so I informed him I was calling BTP & stepped away from the window while I discussed the issue with them. Reference {deleted}
Once he was satisfied that the police were coming (which he felt was to his advantage), he stepped aside in front of the middle window & allowed me to continue working unimpeded. BTP were on site {quite quickly actually, like 10 minutes or something} having caught the train from {local depot} (arrival time I believe was {30-40 minutes after this all started} although I cannot now be certain), however in the intervening time the gentleman finally decided to take his leave of the station; I did not see the exact time of this due to serving customers.
If this was indeed a fully authorised collector, then according to what I remember from his documentation he will be attempting to collect at {another of our locations} tomorrow. Judging from events today, there’s every chance he will again be in breach of our Ts&Cs while doing so.
** from a follow-up email **
It has occurred to me since I wrote this last night why this gentleman thought a police presence would work to his favour; it took me some time to calm down & repeat events back to myself to realise I had missed some subtext. When he was talking about having events reviewed, he made references to his being discriminated against – as he was a young black man, and I am a middle aged white man, I feel now that he was inferring that he wanted to try & categorise the incident as a racial issue.
I sent this to every relevant manager I could think of, and the responses I've received have all been very supportive. This isn't the first time we've had charity collections go wrong, but this is certainly the first one that's gone this far out of whack!
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