Asking for a friend. The friend is me. I am the trainee. 19:04 out of Zurich HB, direct to Interlaken. Doing my rounds. Scan scan beep. Carriage 3, young guy holds up a ticket to Zurich Flughafen. Brother. This train does not go to Zurich Flughafen. This train goes to Bern. These are different places. I checked. His face. You know that look dogs get when you pretend to throw the ball but don’t? That. Now. A lesser trainee might have panicked here. A lesser trainee might have, say, hypothetically, issued the guy a fine for being on the wrong train. A lesser, younger, dumber trainee might have done that, in a hypothetical past situation. But not me. Not tonight. Tonight I went straight to my supervisor Brunner. Brunner lives in carriage 4. He reads 20 Minuten when he thinks nobody’s watching. He has never once told me I’m doing a good job. I respect him enormously. “Kid in carriage 3. Wrong train. Has a flight to catch.” Brunner put down the 20 Minuten. Two phone calls. Unscheduled stop in Aarau, approved. Connection back to Flughafen, confirmed. He got on the intercom, told 200 passengers about the additional stop, apologised for the delay. Voice like a pilot announcing light turbulence. Then walked back to carriage 4 and picked the newspaper back up. Kid grabbed his bag in Aarau, thanked us nine times, sprinted off. Some woman near the front started clapping. Solo. Nobody joined. She stopped. Peak Switzerland. So yes. To answer my own question. SBB trainee conductors do sometimes know what they’re doing. Specifically when they shut up and go get Brunner. He still hasn’t complimented me. But he also hasn’t mentioned The Incident From Last Month, so I think we’re even. submitted by /u/bonfraier
Originally posted by u/bonfraier on r/Switzerland