Ode to Via Rail

There's great news in Canada. That miserable excuse for an airline, Air Canada, is closing quite a few of its bases. Terrible enough for its employees, but no doubt the chickens come home to roost for an organisation that has made offensively bad customer service the hallmark of its operations. These days there's plenty of desperate airlines out there and customers don't have to put up with Air Canada's nonsense. I wonder how many Canadians, quietly or not so quietly, are pro-actively boycotting Air Canada (as I do) after one too many bad experiences.

Anyway, compare that to Via Rail, that delightful Canadian rail company. I love Via Rail to bits. Mind you, the trains are not what us spoiled Europeans expect in terms of high-tech and speed, but they take you faster to your destination than a trip in the car, the food is nice, service usually impeccable, and they're remarkably frequently on time. Unlike Air Canada, which these days thinks nothing of cancelling your long-haul flight a few hours before your departure, using 'Act of God' as its rationale for not reimbursing you for additional expenses and inconvenience, Via staff here in Kingston were hugely apologetic for a 10 min delay of a Toronto - Montreal train. - 10 min... that's nothing.

The only nasty thing Via Rail has done recently is to replace a delightful red wine (Ontario produced at that) that came in little glass bottles with overseas made Tetra Pak products. Now, if that's done for environmental reasons, let's get some facts straight: transporting wine all the way from Spain to Canada is probably environmentally worse than using Ontario made produce. Also, 90% of bottles these days are being reccycled in Canada, while much less of the Tetra Pack stuff is finding its way into recycling schemes. In short: it is doubtful that the 'green' Tetra Pack scheme Via has come up with works.

However, unlike Air Canada, which happily SELLS you stinking hamburgers on long distance flights, Via Rail offers sandwiches these days that even have your 1:5 portion of veggies included. Good on ya Via. The other thing about Via is hat their frequent traveller points system actually works. I called them the other day and asked that some of my accumulated miles be used for a free trip to Montreal. No problem, did it on the phone in less than 5 min. Try the same with Air Canada frequent flyer miles. Almost certainly you won't be going where you'd like to go. But then, that's even true if you buy a ticket from that outfit. Guess what, Via didn't even levy fuel, taxes, looking-at-train and touching-seat surcharges on my free trip, as Air Canada would have done.

So, people, use the train whenever you can. It's environmentally friendlier than any other alternative that we have currently and you don't have to put up with the kind of crap airlines like Air Canada heap on you.

Royal Bank of Scandalous (aka Scotland)

Regular readers of this blog will know that I made atrocious experiences with the Royal Bank of Scotland. For the record, the stuff-up the bank caused months ago during a stay in San Francisco has still not been rectified. Even my branch manageress thinks that the organisation's conduct has been shameful at best.

Having declared my personal conflict of interest, I should probably also mention that I continue to monitor this record profit making organisation for further evidence of truly scandalous conduct. And indeed, given half a chance, the Royal Bank of Scandalous (as a reader of this blog renamed the organisation) will almost certainly jump at it.

Well, here's what's happening. Just like other organisations, the company requires that its staff also buy its products. Any of its staff members caught not having a bank account with the Royal Bank of Scotland will be subject to disciplinary procedures. I don't understand why the company's staff would be so recalcitrant. Is it because they know better than most of us how crappy the bank's customer (dis-service) really is? May be they don't want to wait months to see an apology for bad service and some kind of compensation? After all, the bank pretty much instantly charges the living hell out of you if you overdraw your bank account. If they (by their own admission) mistakenly drain your account of money, they quite happily charge you (yes, you!) instantly. They then fail, months after having punished you for overdrawing an account that they accidentally drained, to compensate you or fix the mistake.

Of course, I shouldn't be unfair. There are plenty of other companies requiring their staff to buy their products. Rolls Royce for instance demands that its staff drive only Rolls Royce, and so do Bentley, Jaguar and Mercedes Benz. Come to think of it, thousands of Lufthansa staff were recently disciplined for flying other airlines. Worse, McDonald's staff seen with a Burger King burger in their hand will be shot on the spot by McDonald's Staff Monitoring Services. - OK, I guess you realise that I made these stories up. I also hope you get the point that I am trying to make. Take the opportunity to cancel your account with the RBS when you have a minute. As a bank it fails to provide decent customer services, and as an employer it undoubtedly sucks big time. Move on while you can.