News & Views

Sitting on a (yet again) delayed First Capital Connect train this morning, the chap next to me was busy tweeting his views on the service and reading out extracts of abuse from other tweets, and the Facebook FCC hate group.  All a pretty entertaining way to wile away the time while the train crawled through south London. Searching Twitter and Facebook for comments on FCC and Southern Trains, its counterpart on the Brighton line, I could only find negative remarks: “The lesser spotted ‘On Time’ variety of the First Capital Connect train” and “Train is clearly running late. Not a single announcement. First Capital Connect at its best” and “First Capital Connect services have all the vim and vigour of a hungover panda with its head in a pail.” Some people put a great deal of thought, wit and effort into their 140 characters. Yet only a few had thought to thank the train companies when their train arrived on time – “Bizarrely First Capital Connect have done something that makes sense for once.”

And why should they? They pay for a service (£3,708 for an annual season ticket from Brighton to Victoria in 2012) and they expect to receive it. Commuting is enough of a hassle without late trains, packed carriages and diverted routes (the London Bridge train this morning rather remissingly failed to stop at London Bridge).

It’s all rather reminiscent of facilities management. The feedback (read complaint) board at my local gym is a litany of moans (why isn’t the Jacuzzi working? The shower are always dirty, why don’t you clean them? The music is crap, can we have something decent?) and most FM helpdesks are the same – my bin wasn’t emptied this morning; the toilet isn’t flushing properly; the sink’s blocked; the car park is always full; you ran out of jacket potatoes again today; the coffee tastes disgusting. And, like with the train companies, our customers aren’t afraid of sharing their views. Facebook groups have been set up complaining about everything from an organisation’s new lifts to the restaurant food; while internal social networks such as Yammer are ubiquitous with facilities-related comments.

Of course, it’s not all negative. Before I visited the Mintel office last week, a Twitter search revealed some fantastic comments about its fabulous new office from both staff and visitors.  But it’s human nature to only find the time to comment when we want to complain. So much so that when I had some great service from an Asda delivery man a while ago, there wasn’t a button on their website to give feedback, just to complain. Maybe they’re so deluged with complaints, they don’t expect any praise?

Perhaps that’s just the way it is in service delivery companies and we’ve got used to it. But as fellow members of this diverse and often thankless industry, I think we should take the lead and if not stop complaining, then at least remember to praise when we receive exceptional service. And hope that somewhere along the way, someone remembers to return the favour.

You can’t call yourself a true Brightonian, I reckon, unless you’re often seen coasting around on a rusty, secondhand bicycle with some sort of basket, ideally wicker, attached.

Cathy disagrees. Once she all but went into shock at the mere suggestion of owning a bike in Brighton – the same Cathy, that is, who admits to going for a jog one morning in the pitch black to shake off sore legs caused by “too much sleep” (too much sleep?! 6.30am?! A jog?!). “A bike?!” Cathy said. “Are you mad? But think of the hills in Brighton!”

Indeed there are hills, gigantuous ones, really more like mountains. And I have on occasions when I’ve felt my thighs and lungs begin to burn about two feet into the incline, cursed the day hills and bikes were born. But there are also loads of cycle paths throughout the flat parts, including a magnificent route all the way along the seafront from east of Brighton Harbour to west of Hove. What’s more satisfying than, at the weekend, being propelled gently by the sea breeze along the seafront to a café selling chippie chips, beer and even ice cream?

By cycling rather than walking into work I also slash my journey time by 10 minutes (including the five minutes I spend fumbling at each end with my bike lock). That’s 10 whole luxurious extra minutes snugged under my duvet dreaming about one day owning a brand shiny new bike.

The other day the owner of the building that Magenta happily lives in requested that I remove my bike from the railings outside, carry it down stairs to a makeshift area and attach it to a flimsy hoop in the wall. I obliged, somewhat grudgingly. My bike on the railings hadn’t been harming anyone, just as the other bikes on railings outside other properties in the street are out of the way, not harming anyone. Now not only was my bike insecurely attached to a hoop moonlighting as a towel-holder, but I could harm myself carrying a steel frame bike up and down concrete stairs. Adding insult to my injured sense of fairness, when I retrieved my bike at the end of the day it was covered in a thick layer of dust from the building works in the yard next door. Since then I’ve had to secure my bike to a lamppost a few feet down the road.

This unnecessary palaver got me thinking about the importance of providing good cycle parking to keep an increasing number of cyclists happy. Larger companies (courtesy of FMs), building owners and councils all have a responsibility. You might say that I’m somewhat out of season. But down south at least, there are still a good few cycling days left of the year, I think.

So how should cycle racks be managed properly? A range of issues must be considered: is cycle parking safe and secure, visible, accessible, easy to use, available; what type of parking should be provided; how much should be provided; what else should be provided to support cycle parking; and how should staff be encouraged to cycle to work (a workforce that regularly cycles to work is likely to be fit, healthy and on time), among other issues. Transport for London’s excellent Workplace Cycle Parking Guide, fortunately, has many of  the answers.

Back in Brighton, Brighton & Hove City Council provides a stellar amount of safe and secure cycle parking all over the city. Saying that, should they someday soon wish to provide some in the middle of Grand Parade next to Magenta’s office …

Does anyone else cycle into work? What are the issues you’ve encountered in doing so? Does your employer provide good cycle parking – or could they do better? We’d love to hear your comments.

Charlie Bunn joined the Magenta team for a week’s work experience. Here he writes about his adventures.

It may be of those semi-mythic activities which generally only happen in sit-coms, but this week I rode the tube from one end to the other. Well, from one end of the Metropolitan line to the other. Accompanying Cathy on a couple of client meetings in London, I found myself riding from Uxbridge to Aldgate and thinking how bizarre this whole travelling lark is. Seasoned pro that she is Cathy somehow contrives to make every second of the journey productive. At the first hint of time spent away from the office out comes the laptop or the iPhone, often simultaneously, accompanied by a notepad and her work commences. There are no wasted seconds, the last minute scramble to find tube tickets aside, and I admit that such incredible use of time is a skill I am far from mastering. My attempt at tube-board laptop use resulted in a very jittery few seconds of trying to maintain my precarious hold over my PC so that it didn’t simply crash to the floor. It was perhaps three minutes before I admitted defeat and passed my time reading the tube map time and time again.

Now in a week with Magenta I have undoubtedly learnt much and certainly been productive but I have also spent a lot of time on trains. A lot of time. Even Cathy is occasionally stumped when she enters an area without Wi-Fi. Me, while commuting I’ve finished the book I was reading, worn down my I-pod battery twice and developed fairly constant back ache but nothing which could be described as particularly constructive. And that’s the other thing, even though I’m 19 and on work experience I’m not completely unfamiliar with working all day, but I’ve not been confined to the same chair for so long before and my body’s rebelling. My back hurts, my neck hurts and now when I stand up my legs are not so much instruments of stability and propulsion as collapsible jelly sticks. Strangely I’m more tired from this than I have been from weeks of physical labour which I’ve previously endured.

Incidentally a Magenta client told me that an office-based worker will put on an average of 2kg a year in weight more than an ‘active’ worker, a depressing statistic which means that my mere presence is causing me to gain weight I can ill afford. This slide hasn’t been helped by the mountains of food I’ve made my way through, I’ve been treated to lunches and snacks and I find that my journey home passes in a satisfied haze if I have one of the delicious bagels from a shop I’ve found waiting in my pocket. At least if I’m lucky enough to find space to eat it. And this search for the empty seat, preferably two side by side has become my personal Everest. This week I’ve been squashed against the window by a caricature of every conceivable stereotype, the fat man with the greasy tie armed with a donut, a teenage Gangsta with gigantic headphones and baggy jeans, and an old lady who spent at least 20 minutes mindlessly bellowing ‘hello?’ into a phone that I’m 90 per cent sure was switched off. Initially it’s all quite amusing. Initially.

I’m worried now that I’ve made my time here sound exceedingly miserable which is far from the case. All the people I’ve met have been kind and helpful, I’ve learnt a lot of things and I’ve been enjoying myself, certainly it has been a worthwhile experience, even if every time I’ve told someone I’m doing work experience they’ve automatically assumed I’m 16 or 17 and killing time during half term. I might have to take up drinking on street corners just so everyone knows I’ve left school. Seriously though I’ve had good fun and even though I got home too late for the Arsenal match one night I’ve had my first Wagamama’s and I liked it, so that’s okay.

So it just goes to show that if you do a week’s work experience at Magenta, you’ll really go places … literally. And of course in the future. All the best, Charlie – from Cathy and Marianne