Motorway Disservices
I hate driving in the middle of the day, but on Fridays I have no choice. I have to make a brief appearance at work to tidy up the admin side of the contract. It is galling that everything I do on a Friday morning could be done remotely over broadband, except for one thing. I have to get a signature from the client to say that they are happy with the hours I intend to bill them for. Half an hour beyond the time at which I should have been out of the door I finally managed to get the signature, and set off into the drizzle of a bank holiday weekend.
Normally the motorways are a battle between lorry overtaking lorry, with cars and vans all bunching up in the third lane, (if there is one), but today the battle was between lorries overtaking caravans and slow cars. I could see I was steadily losing time, about 10 minutes in the hour, and so I pulled into the southbound services at Watford Gap. The battle started immediately, the car park was dotted with mobile homes. I tried to park in spaces alongside two of them, only to find they had each left the access steps hanging down into the adjacent space.
I got parked and went inside. I could see where the toilets where, and had a go at getting to them. Either side of the thoroughfare were large stacks of special offer boxes; DVD players and MP3 quad surround speakers. Between the two pillars of bargains, in what should have been the way through to the gents, a man and a woman were standing four feet apart having an animated discussion. The only way to and from the toilets was to dodge through the shop and the queues at the tills. Coming back out of the toilets was a little electronic sign with three faces, a scowl, a bland smile, and a happy grin, and an invitation to press the face that best suited your reaction to the toilets. Nobody had punched it, the toilets were un-crowded and unimpeded.
Back at the restaurant, I chose a chicken fajitas wrap and a bottle of lemon-flavoured mineral water. I had forgotten to take my bag of fruit with me from work. There was a large crowd around the servery, and further up, at the single till which was staffed, I slotted in between a woman who was waiting for her coffees, and a man who was paying for his meals. The woman gave me a dirty look. I didn't react, as soon as the man had paid I would be quickly through the till while her coffees were still being poured.
The lady at the till was struggling to work out how to correct a mistake she had made, and the man wasn't helping matters by asking if he could add an extra child's portion to the tray if his girl went and got it from the sweet counter. I looked at the other empty till, and at the two dozen people still waiting at the hot food point. I realised that the woman fumbling with the till was also the person who would go and pour the coffee for the irritated lady waiting to my right. There was no sign of any extra staff coming to open up the second till , or help with the queue at the servery. I took my tray back to the entrance, unloading the wrap and the water back into their places, looked briefly for a sign with three faces to punch, and left unable to vent my frustration.
Management was obviously having a bad day at the Southbound Watford Gap services, probably locked firmly in their office dealing with staff timesheets that needed signatures, oblivious to the fact that on a bank holiday Friday slightly more customers than usual would be turning up.
Ten miles further south I pulled off again into another services, the same franchise, the same internal layout, the same chicken fajitas wrap and bottle of lemon water, at the same price of £5.98 (which is more than I pay for my weekly fruit ration), but thankfully twice the number of staff to serve food and man the two tills.
And you wonder why there are road-rage incidents?
I would like to see a panel at the entrance to the Southbound Watford Gap Services, with a photograph of the facilities manager, and some sort of means to summarise your overall impression of your visit there. A boxing glove, or a straw dummy and a rack of Kendo sticks might be a better idea than the electronic sign, and some of the visitors might leave the site feeling a little bit less tense than when they arrived.
Normally the motorways are a battle between lorry overtaking lorry, with cars and vans all bunching up in the third lane, (if there is one), but today the battle was between lorries overtaking caravans and slow cars. I could see I was steadily losing time, about 10 minutes in the hour, and so I pulled into the southbound services at Watford Gap. The battle started immediately, the car park was dotted with mobile homes. I tried to park in spaces alongside two of them, only to find they had each left the access steps hanging down into the adjacent space.
I got parked and went inside. I could see where the toilets where, and had a go at getting to them. Either side of the thoroughfare were large stacks of special offer boxes; DVD players and MP3 quad surround speakers. Between the two pillars of bargains, in what should have been the way through to the gents, a man and a woman were standing four feet apart having an animated discussion. The only way to and from the toilets was to dodge through the shop and the queues at the tills. Coming back out of the toilets was a little electronic sign with three faces, a scowl, a bland smile, and a happy grin, and an invitation to press the face that best suited your reaction to the toilets. Nobody had punched it, the toilets were un-crowded and unimpeded.
Back at the restaurant, I chose a chicken fajitas wrap and a bottle of lemon-flavoured mineral water. I had forgotten to take my bag of fruit with me from work. There was a large crowd around the servery, and further up, at the single till which was staffed, I slotted in between a woman who was waiting for her coffees, and a man who was paying for his meals. The woman gave me a dirty look. I didn't react, as soon as the man had paid I would be quickly through the till while her coffees were still being poured.
The lady at the till was struggling to work out how to correct a mistake she had made, and the man wasn't helping matters by asking if he could add an extra child's portion to the tray if his girl went and got it from the sweet counter. I looked at the other empty till, and at the two dozen people still waiting at the hot food point. I realised that the woman fumbling with the till was also the person who would go and pour the coffee for the irritated lady waiting to my right. There was no sign of any extra staff coming to open up the second till , or help with the queue at the servery. I took my tray back to the entrance, unloading the wrap and the water back into their places, looked briefly for a sign with three faces to punch, and left unable to vent my frustration.
Management was obviously having a bad day at the Southbound Watford Gap services, probably locked firmly in their office dealing with staff timesheets that needed signatures, oblivious to the fact that on a bank holiday Friday slightly more customers than usual would be turning up.
Ten miles further south I pulled off again into another services, the same franchise, the same internal layout, the same chicken fajitas wrap and bottle of lemon water, at the same price of £5.98 (which is more than I pay for my weekly fruit ration), but thankfully twice the number of staff to serve food and man the two tills.
And you wonder why there are road-rage incidents?
I would like to see a panel at the entrance to the Southbound Watford Gap Services, with a photograph of the facilities manager, and some sort of means to summarise your overall impression of your visit there. A boxing glove, or a straw dummy and a rack of Kendo sticks might be a better idea than the electronic sign, and some of the visitors might leave the site feeling a little bit less tense than when they arrived.
posted by Sopwith-Camel | 9:49 am
4 Comments:
Sounds like Hell on Earth
Sounds horrible, but there are also people in this weird world who seem to like things like that. I once met an elder couple who drove every weekend on the motorways just to eat in the overcrowded service stations. They videotaped their driving, too.
Taiga: The couple you mentioned sound nuts
Another reason to be glad that I don't drive. Apparently there is at least one nice service station - my parents stopped at this one the other day: Tebay services.
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