Annoying things people do on trains
Discussion
djohnson said:
Even now, with all the hyper-awareness of data security which pervades most organisations it’s incredible what information you can pick up on a train. I recall sitting opposite a lady who started a call. She thought she was being discrete in the references she used. However, I was able to work out she was senior in the tax team of one of the big4 accounting firms. A quick google confirmed she was a partner, and which office she came from. I could hear a one sided conversation about a transaction she was working on. She mentioned an industry, used first initials for company names and referred to certain CEOs and CFOs by their first names only. However it being a region I knew, that was enough for me to figure out what the transaction was, who was the target and who the purchaser, and I also heard a lot around transaction structure and some details on pricing. No listed companies were involved so it wasn’t price sensitive data, however I suspect her clients wouldn’t have been that impressed had they realised she’d just announced the deal along with current structure and pricing to some guy on a train.
At risk of eleveneriefe-ing, I once had a fascinating train journey to Bormingham listening to a competitor's bid team run through their pitch and pricing for their proposal to the same client we were on our way to pitch to.djohnson said:
Even now, with all the hyper-awareness of data security which pervades most organisations it’s incredible what information you can pick up on a train. I recall sitting opposite a lady who started a call. She thought she was being discrete in the references she used. However, I was able to work out she was senior in the tax team of one of the big4 accounting firms. A quick google confirmed she was a partner, and which office she came from. I could hear a one sided conversation about a transaction she was working on. She mentioned an industry, used first initials for company names and referred to certain CEOs and CFOs by their first names only. However it being a region I knew, that was enough for me to figure out what the transaction was, who was the target and who the purchaser, and I also heard a lot around transaction structure and some details on pricing. No listed companies were involved so it wasn’t price sensitive data, however I suspect her clients wouldn’t have been that impressed had they realised she’d just announced the deal along with current structure and pricing to some guy on a train.
Crazy that a partner in the big 4 would be that dense. These people are on salaries on average £1m/year.Blackpuddin said:
blueg33 said:
I forked out an alarming £488 for a return between Cheltenham and York yesterday
Christ on a bike, at those prices I'd be thinking about buying a car for the same money, taking a gamble on it getting me there, then selling it.ClaphamGT3 said:
At risk of eleveneriefe-ing, I once had a fascinating train journey to Bormingham listening to a competitor's bid team run through their pitch and pricing for their proposal to the same client we were on our way to pitch to.
I use the Cotswolds line a lot, many property types. I heard a guy discuss with his team their financial model and price for a site. We were bidding the same site. I got details of all their assumptions on drainage, selling prices etc. I even knew what margin they had in the appraisal. All useful stuff for me. Another time I heard a similar conversation, so I pretended to phone my land director and said loud enough for them to hear. “Offer £4m on the Alderton Road site”. There was a hush from the other side of the carriage and frantic phone calls. It amused me!
Edited by blueg33 on Friday 20th January 21:27
TameRacingDriver said:
djohnson said:
Even now, with all the hyper-awareness of data security which pervades most organisations it’s incredible what information you can pick up on a train. I recall sitting opposite a lady who started a call. She thought she was being discrete in the references she used. However, I was able to work out she was senior in the tax team of one of the big4 accounting firms. A quick google confirmed she was a partner, and which office she came from. I could hear a one sided conversation about a transaction she was working on. She mentioned an industry, used first initials for company names and referred to certain CEOs and CFOs by their first names only. However it being a region I knew, that was enough for me to figure out what the transaction was, who was the target and who the purchaser, and I also heard a lot around transaction structure and some details on pricing. No listed companies were involved so it wasn’t price sensitive data, however I suspect her clients wouldn’t have been that impressed had they realised she’d just announced the deal along with current structure and pricing to some guy on a train.
Crazy that a partner in the big 4 would be that dense. These people are on salaries on average £1m/year.DukeofBork said:
The one thing I’ve learned in my career (systems design) is the nature of stupidity is often excessive at the top of the food chain.
It's amazing isn't it! I had worked fairly independently as a contractor for years then I quite recently moved to a huge organization as a PAYE. This exposed me to the working of a big firm.... my goodness there are a lot of useless people about! The amount of useless meetings, wastage and general incompetency is shocking, and some of these peoples salaries are remarkably high.Chainsaw Rebuild said:
It's amazing isn't it! I had worked fairly independently as a contractor for years then I quite recently moved to a huge organization as a PAYE. This exposed me to the working of a big firm.... my goodness there are a lot of useless people about! The amount of useless meetings, wastage and general incompetency is shocking, and some of these peoples salaries are remarkably high.
Yep, sounds like my time consulting with a few large public sector orgs, I sat there thinking, how on earth do these people even manage to start their cars in the morning let alone run a company with 5000+ employees and take home well into the higher end of 6 figures. I spent three hours in one explaining how they already had the required system in place and how we were already using it and how we would only charge them £200 to plug it into another system, Capita had quoted them nearly 100K for the same job, they were about to sign the contract with Capita but thankfully someone in their IT team with a brain thought they would ask us because we happened to be in the building anyway on another meeting.ClaphamGT3 said:
At risk of eleveneriefe-ing, I once had a fascinating train journey to Bormingham listening to a competitor's bid team run through their pitch and pricing for their proposal to the same client we were on our way to pitch to.
I hope you said Hi when you both got to the clients 
untakenname said:
One thing which hasn't been touched upon is the stupidity of the revised timetables, trains now come in batches so there will be three trains within four minutes but then gaps of nearly half an hour with no trains at all.
Living near a rail station that I have to cross when I go to the office, this also causes chaos on the roads. Whereas previously you'd have 5-7 minutes of free traffic, 3 minutes of level crossing, rinse and repeat, you now have up to 20 minutes of road delays because the level crossings are closed for so long as the trains pile in together. On rare occasions the trains will stop across the level crossing, and I feel sorry for the train passengers who are probably getting some rather choice words hurled their way by the drivers they've inadvertently blocked.
The most irritating one for me, personally, is when the barriers come down because a train is pulling into the station. The level crossing is on the other side. You have to sit there and wait for a few minutes while the train does train things at the station platform, then wait until it's slowly departed. You'd think a sensible system would be to keep the barriers open until the train doors are shut, but that sadly doesn't happen.
I've seen plenty of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians, skip the barriers in various ways. A friend of mine once saw a car drive through them after being held up for 15 minutes and only 2-3 cars getting through each time.
Luckily I live a >10 minute detour from the level crossing, involving a strange contraption called a bridge, so if I see things are backing up I normally go that way instead. On occasions where I'm at the pub somewhat near the level crossing, you can always tell when the batches of trains come in because even 3/4 of a mile down the road, the traffic snarls up.
Oh, also don't get me started on the freight trains that roll through at 20mph but have 5 minutes of barriers before they trundle through.
/rant
People who bring their work on to the train, either shouting loudly down their phone or using speakerphone, or my personal pet peeve….. noisy typists
Those people working on laptops who seem incapable of typing an email without punching away on the keys as if they are the hero in a disaster movie desperately trying to hack into the baddy’s system and stop that nuclear bomb
Those people working on laptops who seem incapable of typing an email without punching away on the keys as if they are the hero in a disaster movie desperately trying to hack into the baddy’s system and stop that nuclear bomb
menousername said:
People who bring their work on to the train, either shouting loudly down their phone or using speakerphone, or my personal pet peeve….. noisy typists
Those people working on laptops who seem incapable of typing an email without punching away on the keys as if they are the hero in a disaster movie desperately trying to hack into the baddy’s system and stop that nuclear bomb
Observations from Scotland,Those people working on laptops who seem incapable of typing an email without punching away on the keys as if they are the hero in a disaster movie desperately trying to hack into the baddy’s system and stop that nuclear bomb
The spreaders are the worst (I'm not stereotyping here, just what I have observed in my years commuting where I live) its usually a woman in her late 30's to early 50's in some semi senior management role, the take up the whole table as they usually have some massive laptop, their bag, a bag with files and documents in, the laptop bag and the whole lot is spread out over the table like its their office desk.
Its a bit excessive as most of the journeys where I am (central scotland) are less than an hour, they usually spend a good 10-15 mins unpacking and repacking their 'office' at each end of the journey as well.
Equally bad are the blokes in similar roles, usually some form of management of a similar age, however its more of an aural spread we are treated to, it varies if they are on their own a phone call to a subordinate (dominating the phone, powerfully built etc) at a volume that's just a bit louder than necessary for reasons of aural domination of the carriage.
That or they are surrounded by 5-7 of their underlings taking over a table and a few adjoining seats where he continues his aural domination of the carriage.
- special subnote, if said balls in suit gets onto football I will try and move to a different area of the train.
DukeofBork said:
menousername said:
People who bring their work on to the train, either shouting loudly down their phone or using speakerphone, or my personal pet peeve….. noisy typists
Those people working on laptops who seem incapable of typing an email without punching away on the keys as if they are the hero in a disaster movie desperately trying to hack into the baddy’s system and stop that nuclear bomb
Observations from Scotland,Those people working on laptops who seem incapable of typing an email without punching away on the keys as if they are the hero in a disaster movie desperately trying to hack into the baddy’s system and stop that nuclear bomb
The spreaders are the worst (I'm not stereotyping here, just what I have observed in my years commuting where I live) its usually a woman in her late 30's to early 50's in some semi senior management role, the take up the whole table as they usually have some massive laptop, their bag, a bag with files and documents in, the laptop bag and the whole lot is spread out over the table like its their office desk.
Its a bit excessive as most of the journeys where I am (central scotland) are less than an hour, they usually spend a good 10-15 mins unpacking and repacking their 'office' at each end of the journey as well.
Equally bad are the blokes in similar roles, usually some form of management of a similar age, however its more of an aural spread we are treated to, it varies if they are on their own a phone call to a subordinate (dominating the phone, powerfully built etc) at a volume that's just a bit louder than necessary for reasons of aural domination of the carriage.
That or they are surrounded by 5-7 of their underlings taking over a table and a few adjoining seats where he continues his aural domination of the carriage.
- special subnote, if said balls in suit gets onto football I will try and move to a different area of the train.
blueg33 said:
ClaphamGT3 said:
At risk of eleveneriefe-ing, I once had a fascinating train journey to Bormingham listening to a competitor's bid team run through their pitch and pricing for their proposal to the same client we were on our way to pitch to.
I use the Cotswolds line a lot, many property types. I heard a guy discuss with his team their financial model and price for a site. We were bidding the same site. I got details of all their assumptions on drainage, selling prices etc. I even knew what margin they had in the appraisal. All useful stuff for me. Another time I heard a similar conversation, so I pretended to phone my land director and said loud enough for them to hear. “Offer £4m on the Alderton Road site”. There was a hush from the other side of the carriage and frantic phone calls. It amused me!
Edited by blueg33 on Friday 20th January 21:27
They thought they were being discreet, but I guessed who he was. He was a pretty big player in a media industry allied to mine. I didn’t know him, but I knew how well respected he was and how good.
When the group disembarked, I set about contacting him. I got
as far as his immovable PA. She’d not let me pass until I said “It’s about the four people from - insert name of big newspaper group - who are arriving for tomorrow’s meeting at half nine.”
I got through to him. He was very grateful, and also very amused. He told me in confidence that they weren’t there to sack him but to persuade him to take on a bigger role he didn’t want. He told me that he was going to have great fun letting them know they’d been overheard and wanted every detail.
That call did me no harm at all. I made a new friend who now and then has been of help to me.
Latest phenomena on 8-12 carriage trains seems to be get on at one end and get off at the other. Don’t get off at the closest door to where you were sitting, no squeeze past everyone to get off next to the exit of the platform. Reality being you end up queued behind 30 other people who’ve all done the same thing. Morons.
djohnson said:
Pedro25 said:
Got a train into Leeds pre covid, at York a lady got on, found her reserved seat and then went on a conference call with her work colleagues, she then let the whole carriage know where the venue for the forthcoming conference was going to be, who the important speakers were going to be, the running order for the day and VIP slots, what catering company had been booked for lunch supply after telling her colleagues she had managed to batter them down on cost, lots of peoples work emails verbally given over her call, the crowning bit was at the end of her call she announced the conference title 'Combating Cyber Crime' Ended the call and then phoned one of her children to remind them to get to school on time!
If there was ever a person more not suited to their profession it's her!
Even now, with all the hyper-awareness of data security which pervades most organisations it’s incredible what information you can pick up on a train. I recall sitting opposite a lady who started a call. She thought she was being discrete in the references she used. However, I was able to work out she was senior in the tax team of one of the big4 accounting firms. A quick google confirmed she was a partner, and which office she came from. I could hear a one sided conversation about a transaction she was working on. She mentioned an industry, used first initials for company names and referred to certain CEOs and CFOs by their first names only. However it being a region I knew, that was enough for me to figure out what the transaction was, who was the target and who the purchaser, and I also heard a lot around transaction structure and some details on pricing. No listed companies were involved so it wasn’t price sensitive data, however I suspect her clients wouldn’t have been that impressed had they realised she’d just announced the deal along with current structure and pricing to some guy on a train. If there was ever a person more not suited to their profession it's her!
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