Postive experience with IE staff

XPS_Zero

Yes I'm gonna say something nice about CIE staff, so check the temp in hell.

Anyone who's read my stuff on here will note a general - disgust - with CIE's lack of customer service standards, but I never thought this was a personal matter of bad behavior on behalf of staff per say but a systemic issue (one that affects the DOE, HSE and DSP in my experience too).
So I suppose it follows that if I'm gonna tear into them in rather terrible ways (as I have done, and will again) I should say it when I note them doing their job well. I say they did this well not just on it's own but also because having recently returned from the US I have seen (on news broadcasts and in real life) how they deal with these situations over there and the contrast reminded me for all I complain about how incompetently this island has been governed since 1921 we still don't have the US's mistakes.

I was at Connoly waiting for a DART and I noted a passenger was right up at the top of platform 5 having a very loud convo into the phone, I'm not sure who they were upset with (I think it may even have been 999 since they later said they'd no credit), and the person was quite obviously within the general special needs category . Anyway some of what they were saying made my heart jump into my chest and I began asking myself if there would be any trains passing Connoly at speed. I thought no everything stops here...and transfers would not be racing through with all those signals etc the way they would smaller stations. I also figured trains that did stop would be coming in too slow, and if they are at the top there is no way they could get hit so - deep breath - ok. So I dismissed the idea that I was gonna have to stop someone jumping and went back to my book.

When the passenger got on the train they stayed very upset and got more upset - quite hysterical to the point where I put the tablet down and so did everyone else it was impossible to concentrate. She was asking whoever was on the phone to ring someone for her that she'd no credit so another passenger clearly trying to end her torment offered to use his phone - but then she gave him more digits than a phone number contains and got confused - and thus more anxious and upset. I felt the poor guys pain. I was getting up to go ask the driver to call some medics (she was panic attack upset, repeating the same phrase over and over, I dread to think what her BPM was) when I realized we were lingering at Pearse and he was already able to hear it through the cab. Two IE staff got on and I gotta say I had this image of a scream-off, I learned in my security job you can't out shout people.

But they asked her some questions clearly designed to focus her away from her emotions and onto something rational, where are you heading? what has you so upset etc (which did calm her down) and when her phone rang they got onto whoever was on the other end and tried to figure out what they should do. Despite her initial refusal to move, they got her to voluntarily step off and very quickly calmed her down.

This may seem like an uncomplicated thing but I've seen in the aforementioned security job situations like this go south really really fast, really really easily, where people use the wrong approach and only end up inflaming things and aggravating the person even more. Your tone of voice, what you say and even your body language could be enough to spark off a disaster. People suffering from certain mental health conditions (even the 'milder' ones) won't always interpret things the way you mean them.

The drivers first thought was calling medics - which made me immediately think of my time in the US and what their first thought always was - the cops - who inevitably made a balls of things sometimes to the point where they ""had to"" taser or even shoot the person. They had a tricky balance to be had where they had to get the train moving (it was approaching rush hour fast) but also could not inflame this and make it worse and they got it just right.

They were cool , professional and assertive but still had obvious empathy in their voices. So - nice job guys, I've seen many people make an unholy balls of situations like that really easily.