station stories

Tattooed Love

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Back at work after a holiday. Blah!
But we amuse ourselves as best we can. Yesterday I got talking to one of the regulars, a highly tattooed man with a false leg who attends the nearby physio classes.
He wears tattoo sleeves on his artificial leg so that it matches his real one and I must say it’s a good way of disguising it. Also I find people with only one leg tattooed always look as if they are limping.
While he was telling me you had to be tough to get tatts, a woman on the other side of the waiting room pipped up and said it didn’t hurt all that much. Soon she was telling us how she drew a tatt in texta on her ankle back in the 70’s (“when women didn’t get tatts”) for two weeks just to try it out and see if she could handle the attention. Apparently she could, because she had lots now. The two of them got talking and when the train came they got on together still talking. Have I created a relationship here? Maybe started a true love? Probably not. But it’s nice to dream.

Three mobile phones

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One skill I’ve developed over the years of working on the railways is the ability not to scream the words “Are you insane?!!!” the minute they come into my head.  This was useful this week, when I saw someone walking down the cutting beside the tracks.  There’s not a lot of space in there and while not actually deadly, it’s certainly not “minimizing the risk” as the Occ. Health and Safety folks say.  Also it upsets the drivers who are inclined to be jumpy over people walking beside the tracks.

I was surprised to discover the trespasser was a young woman.  They usually have too strong a sense of self-preservation for such hi jinks.

“Hang on,” she replied, absent-mindedly poking around in the bushes when I went down and yelled “Hey get off the tracks it’s not safe.”

At length she came up and handed me three mobile phones to hold while she climbed up onto the platform.

“What are you looking for?” I asked, thinking I could help.

“A Pokemon!” said she.

Hence the jaw-dropping moment when I discovered the Pokemon-Go craze.  Apparently my station is a Pokemon-Go point of interest.

Oh Joy!

http://fullact.com/pokemon-go-players-looking-for-pokemon/

Best wishes to all you Pokemon-Go players.  Glad to see you around.  But stay safe.

 

 

Preconceptions

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Noisy miner in the waiting room
Noisy miner in the waiting room

When working at the railway station or even just with the public, its important to keep an open mind. Last week I was giving the stink eye to a tough looking group of young men in hoodies and tattoos on platform 2 because I thought they were hanging around waiting to do a drug deal. I mean it’s the Zoo station!  There are children here!

I considered it particularly low that one of them had bought a baby capsule with him – clearly to hide his stash.  So I felt kind of mean when the train came in bringing a newcomer and one of them started showing the newcomer how the capsule worked.  I am so middle class!!  The capsule owner showed up later with his partner and toddler-in-pram and confirmed that yes, they had all been hanging around to pass the capsule on “to my cousin whose fiancée has just fallen pregnant.”  Just because someone is close to twenty and has tattoos doesn’t mean he can’t be a responsible family man, Jane.

On the other hand earlier this year a zoo-visiting Buddhist monk surprised me, by indicating I should use my broom to chase out the birds roving round the waiting room. I had expected him to be all “animals are my friends – all life is one” not “get that grubby bird out of the indoor space.” Another preconception bites the dust. Maybe I’m better off without either of them.

Trial of an ex-Metro employee.

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http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-01/nicholas-archer-pleads-guilty-to-train-derailment-sabotage/7467344

Bad luck for Metro and the CFA! Glad they finally caught this guy.

Metro has around 3500 employees and in that number there are sure to be a few bad eggs that make you look suspiciously at the rest of the carton.  Most of my workmates are lovely highly decent people.

HOWEVER …

My first week at my first station a man rang and asked for X.  I’d never heard of X so I asked my station master who took the call.  After he hung up he told me that X was no longer working for us.  He was in jail having held up 8 service stations!

“Startling” news when you are just fresh out of working in libraries, where assigning the wrong Dewey number is the worst offence you get from other staff.

But I stand by my assertion that my workmates are mostly lovely decent people.  2 in 13 years among 3500 is pretty good odds.

Difficult lives.

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Melbourne Street Art by Kranky. It doesn't have anything to do with the story, but it looks like those dolls are having a difficult time.
Melbourne Street Art by Kranky. It doesn’t have anything to do with the story, but it looks like those dolls are having a difficult time.

 

Looking back over my blog posts, I’ve noticed the station stories are much darker these days.  In the old days it used to be about getting cakes from men in wheelchairs.

This Thursday when I got to the junction they were running all the trains through Platform 4 until the ambulance came for the man who had passed out right on the edge of Platform 2.  The police arrived and recognized him as someone they’d just booked for assault, which made the ambo’s a bit jumpy.  But when he woke up he went away quietly enough, though with a police escort in the ambulance. The trains switched back to Platform 2

The saga of M and C continues.  C has disappeared again and M has reported her missing to the police.  He used my phone to call her father who denied knowledge of her whereabouts but said he’d look. M worries that she has gone back to her violent ex.  I worry full stop. Who knows what goes on between a couple?

I like them both especially M who is outgoing and personable in a kind of larrikin way. He seems to have a tremendous urge to take care of people which is sad because I see in him a nurse or elderly care person wasted.  I’m not sure how he comes to be living on the street and can’t find out without seeming to pry.  Perhaps it’s the lunchtime bourbon and cokes.  Certainly from the stories he tells me it seems that when he has had choices to make, he’s always made the wrong one.

Still this is a judgement free zone so I give him change for the phone and store his spare iced coffee in my fridge (the kind of thing lots of station staff do) At the moment I’m asking around to see if I can get him a new backpack because the straps on the old one which holds all his worldlies is broken.  I have a strong sense that you should be the change you want to see, as the saying goes, but if I was a truly good person I’d invite him to live in my spare room.  I want to be helpful but at the same time I’m worried – about not crossing boundaries and about whether I’m being a fool to trust M as much as I do.  My bosses would certainly not be pleased if he set up house in my waiting room.

A Moment of Stardom

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This picture by chopalop comes from the Reddit, Melbourne subreddit https://i.reddituploads.com/a39cba295bdf4df8ab124f5a7d7842f4?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=c20cdacd14f8545e07ec75ad081314b8
This picture by chopalop comes from the Reddit, Melbourne subreddit
https://i.reddituploads.com/a39cba295bdf4df8ab124f5a7d7842f4?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=c20cdacd14f8545e07ec75ad081314b8

On Tuesday a huge TV crew were at the junction filming scenes for a new Channel 10 series called The Wrong Girl starring Jessica Marais.  They needed someone qualified to wrangle the escalators so I spent an hour and a half pushing the stop button every time the location man tapped me on the shoulder.

The patience of film people!  They did the same 20 seconds of scene half a dozen times with the stunt double, a couple of times with the actress, and then they did it all again from a different vantage point.  They had to stop, and I had to restart the escalators, every time a train came in.  I never realized how many trains come in on Platform 1 before.

The customers were startled to reach the top of the escalators and find a middle-aged Metro employee hiding cross legged behind the railing, but my knees are shot and it was much easier to risk being trampled than get up and down.  The film crew were lovely. They kept offering me cushions to sit on and bringing me tea.

Of course I forgot to take a picture but luckily someone going past in a train did and you can see Jessica Marais and her stunt double behind the extra in the purple top.

The location man assured me that my big moment was a pivotal scene and wouldn’t wind up on the cutting room floor.  When you see the escalator stop, you won’t see me, but you’ll know I’m there pressing that button!  Watch out Jessica Marais!  I’m on my way and I’ve got stars in my eyes.!!! 🙂

 

Wouldn’t a nice cup of tea be better?

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This week’s star customers were the three teenagers I caught drawing with red pen on the poster cases. I was “somewhat peeved”.  Does being nice to people when they first arrive count for nothing?!!

“Hey stop that! Someone’s going to have to clean that up. I yelled.(not to mention that I have to report it… in triplicate.)

“Oh sorry Miss” said the girl with the pen.  And then she made it all worse by coming up to me with an incredibly cheeky grin on her face and saying, “I’m very, very sorry. I couldn’t help it.  It’s been a stressful day.”

I was confounded by this.

“Um Fair enough!” I muttered.  But the grin sent a bright red bullet of fury into my brain.

As she turned to go, I called out “Hey” and as she turned back to face me, I lifted up my mobile and clicked it at her.

By then I realized I’d done something rash. There were three of them and one was a very large lad.  So I took myself off and locked myself in the office till the train came and took them away.  As I closed the door behind me, I heard her friend say,

“Did she just take your picture?” so they knew what I’d done. Result! (pumps fist in air)

(I didn’t actually manage to take a picture – I’m a complete Klutz in these matters)

They haven’t been back.

But honestly. Since when has graffiting been a cure for stress.  What happened to a good book, a nice cup of tea or a lie down?!!!!

Station Stories – where we ask all the hard existential questions.

 

Touched by celebrity

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Station Story
I always chat with any Scandinavians who come through the station after visiting the zoo. I have such happy memories of my 7 years living in Copenhagen. They are lovely countries and Social Democracies are my government of choice. Got talking to a couple of young Swedes the other day and they told me they were from Malmo – Home of Scandie Noir.
“Does it annoy you to have all those crime thrillers set in your city?” I asked.
“No in fact, my father’s apartment was used for a setting in The Bridge!”  said one.
Turns out it was the home of the first victim in the latest (3rd) series.
OMG! I have been touched by celebrity! 🙂

M and C – the story continues

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I’ve written before about my homeless friends M and C, How they got themselves into a house and how then they broke up and C went off somewhere. I saw M a lot going past in the train after that and then for a while I didn’t.
Suddenly he started getting on at my station. He told me he’d found C – she was at her mother’s in the country – but that he’d lost the house. He told me he’d been in jail for a few months. “I punched a guy who was fiddling with little kids,” he told me. “But I was good in jail and worked on a trade certificate. I’m a qualified plasterer.”
He’s quite a nice person -he always helps tourists with the ticket machines and timetables very kindly – but it’s also clear he’s got a short fuse and he does love his Wild Turkey and coke. He has a big scar across his head which implies maybe Acquired Brain Injury or is simply due to his epilepsy. For a couple of days he had work on a building site. Then he was back to begging. So one step forward two back.
Then a few days later I saw a familiar figure on the opposite platform. It was C. She waved at me. She looked good.
The next day M waved at me out of the train. “Great news. She’s back,” he shouted.
They stopped by the station a couple of days later. They seemed pretty happy. Though C seems a bit reserved. They had a wizened little old man in tow. C introduced him as her father. “He’s staying with us for a bit,” she said. Staying was a strange word to use. They were all off into the city to do some begging. If they didn’t make enough money for a room, well they had sleeping bags.
M and C make me aware of my own middle-classness – my assumptions about work, houses and stability. You can’t have a relative to stay with you unless you at least have a floor for them to sleep on, can you? They also make me realize you don’t have to travel to experience other ways of life. They are here in Melbourne, right under your nose.

Too much information

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My regular customer J, told me early on he was autistic. If so, he’s pretty high functioning as he holds down a good blue collar job. He feels this entitles/requires him to call all women “shelias” and to say “good day mate” at every opportunity. Evidence of an ironic sense of humor? (Not a common autistic trait, I would have thought.) He’s a nice young man apart for that and we often talk. His main autistic trait seems to be that he has no filters. Sometimes I catch the other customers sniggering at things he says. Fortunately there was no one else in the waiting room recently when he startled me by replying to an ordinary “how are you?” with the information that he’d caught a venereal disease. (And no I didn’t ask for details – he probably would have told me and I really didn’t want to hear.)Still he has informed his partner/s very assiduously so it is no business of the station staff to judge.