So long, farewell Auf Weidersehen, goodbye

15 to 18 April 2015

Wednesday morning seems to come round way too fast and the time between going to bed on Tuesday night and the annoying alarm at five fifteen on Wednesday morning is way too short. Week three of my early shift and it’s still a struggle to drag myself from my bed. At least there was a beautiful looking sky outside my window, dark blue graduating to a peachy glow with the bare trees silhouetted against it. It almost made the wee small hours worth getting up for. From the look of it one of my neighbours was also up as there was a light in one of the house windows.

The weatherman said it was going to be a hot day, maybe twenty five degrees. It didn’t feel like it when I left for work in my thin parka. It also seemed far lighter than it had just three days before at the same time. The season is moving forward and the sun rises earlier each morning. There will not be many more dawn photos of the river. In fact, when I got there, the sun was already peeking over the tree line in a cloudless sky. There wasn’t a swan in sight and I wondered if they were all off building nests like the one I saw at Lakeside on Tuesday. If so, where exactly? By the time I reached the end of the boardwalk the orange ball was high enough to be reflected in the still water of the Itchen. There was barely a ripple. I’ve never seen it as peaceful.

It did turn out to be an unseasonably warm day and, for once, there were no major incidents in the south of England. The phones were quiet and we had a new trainee starting. The poor girl was given a very false sense of what it’s like. Her name is Terri and she’s going to be part of my Saturday team, a replacement for the irreplaceable Elaine. It’s early days yet obviously but she seems quite switched on, which is always handy in such a fast paced job.

There was a shock on Thursday morning when I came to the Big Bridge. The workmen had all departed overnight and the road was open. The night before they’d all still been there working away with tarmac so they must have worked overnIght to finish off, paint the white lines and clear away all those cones. Just days before we’d been saying they’d never have it finished before the Southampton Half Marathon and wondering what would happen when the runners reached the bridge.

Feeling rather dazed, as if all the mayhem of contraflow systems and piles of rubble had been a dream, I crossed and made my way to the river. It felt colder than it had the day before and I wished I’d stuck to my warm coat. By the rocks one lone swan, a cygnet from last year by the sprinkling of grey feathers, lingered by the bank but didn’t bother to come towards me. The sky seemed lighter, the rising sun hidden behind a bank of cloud on the horizon. In the far distance a gap in the clouds revealed an orange glow but it felt like a disappointment after the golden beauty of Wednesday morning.

Feeling cold and rather grumpy, I carried on along the boardwalk.  The window of sunrises over the river was rapidly closing and it felt as if this one was a wasted opportunity. When I reached Suki II though, the golden rays finally burst above the clouds turning the higher clouds to candy floss. This was more like it. By the time I came to the end of the boardwalk a fan of crepuscular rays shot through with the silver arrow of a morning flight striated the water and my grumpiness vanished.

Our newbie got a taste of things to come with a day of grumpy, unreasonable callers. Sometimes it feels as if there’s something in the water as the shouters, swearers and downright difficult customers come through one after another. All around colleagues were having the same battles and there were a few exasperated signs and grumbles between the calls.

My personal favourite was the man who had ordered the wrong ticket on line. He’d discovered his mistake when the bus driver explained his weekly ticket didn’t cover the area he wanted to go to and he’d have to buy another if he wanted to get on the bus. He wasn’t a happy chap. We’d already waived the admin charge to exchange the ticket because he’d kicked up such a fuss and, as a gesture of goodwill, we’d even offered to send him a day ticket for the ticket he had to buy. All this seemed over and above what he deserved as the mistake was his not ours. He didn’t think it was enough.

“I’ve already got a weekly ticket, what use is a day ticket to me? I want my money back and I want it right now!” he screamed into my ear.
“I’m afraid the only other thing we can offer you is vouchers,” I explained “and, unfortunately, we’re waiting for a new delivery so I won’t be able to send them until the new ones come in.”
“Well that’s not good enough,” he grumbled, “I want you to refund my card and I want it done immediately. It’s not my fault the tickets are so confusing, why should I be out of pocket?”
“The website is very clear,” I said, “there is even a link with a map of the areas. We are offering you a gesture of goodwill because you made a mistake and I’m afraid we don’t have a facility to refund your card.”
“What’s the point of a link to a map when I couldn’t even see it? It’s misselling, that’s what it is. I’m going to go to trading standards and the papers if I don’t have my refund right now. Anyway. I don’t see why the driver had to make me pay again, I had a ticket, even if it didn’t cover the right area.”
On and on he went until I felt like telling him the goodwill was rapidly running out and I wasn’t going to send him a voucher after all. Finally I told him, “a voucher is all we are prepared to offer you and that is as a gesture of goodwill. You were the one who chose the wrong ticket and if you’re not happy I suggest you contact our mediating body.”

Poor Terri was listening in to all this looking faintly shocked.
“They’re not all like that,” I tried to reassure her.
“Just most of them,” Mia laughed.
Seriously, I’m surprised she didn’t just walk out there and then, especially as we could hear Lewis dealing with another awkward customer in the background. Still, the chilly sunshine and the blossom beginning to come out on the tree in the car park cheered me a little at lunchtime.

Friday was always going to be a sad day as it was Elaine’s last. The walk to work provided buds on the wisteria along Monks Path to make me smile though. Then there was a hint of pink to the sky behind the Church of the Ascension as I made my way to the river. By the time I got to the Triangle clock tower the colour had deepened and spread. There was no time to dawdle and take photos because I had to pop into the shop on my way.

We were surprising Elaine with, amongst other things, a buffet. Everyone brought something and, when we put it all together, we had so much my offering was probably superfluous. Word soon got round and suddenly the customer service office was the in place to be. It seemed like everyone in the building popped in under one pretext or another and all left munching on something.

Needless to say Elaine was slightly overwhelmed by it all, especially when we gave her the new office survival kit we’d put together for her. The final straw that had tears flowing was the amazing picture Sandy had put together. He’d taken photos of us all over the previous week and photoshopped them into a bus. The result was hilarious, especially with Lewis as the grinning driver. It is quite possible the tears were due to laughter rather than emotion.

When the day was finally over we made our way to the pub for a farewell drink or two. As I had an early start on Saturday I left the young ones to it at about eight and made my way home. To make up for missing the best of the sun rising on the way to work, I caught the best of it setting on the way home. From the Triangle, the dramatic clouds seemed to be rushing headlong towards a point in the distance.

In no time at all, or so it felt, I was walking back the other way with the sun coming up over Cobden Bridge on Saturday morning. The sun was a golden arc behind the trees when I reached the other side of the bridge. By the time I made it to the slipway it had stopped hiding and was beaming across the gently rippled water. It warmed my skin as I walked past the boats moored by the Millennium Flats.

It felt like an odd kind of Saturday, with no Elaine turning up at nine and Terri sitting beside me. There was a lot to get done too because it would be my last day at work for a whole week. Unfortunately it was a busy one on the phones. The man who wants drivers to give him a ticket when he uses his OAP pass was back again. Of course he wouldn’t take no for an answer and rang again and again. At least he wasn’t swearing this time so the RCSM’s telling off must have sunk in at some level. He was still shouting and arguing though. Eventually he resorted to saying he wanted to complain that the drivers were all rude to him  but I told him I wasn’t surprised if he spoke to them like he speaks to us.

When five o’clock came round I’d just about tied up all the loose ends and I handed over to Mia with a sigh of relief. Now for a week of proper walking… Where shall I go first?