Train attendants can be asked questions on Reddit – and celebrate huge success

Created: 08/09/2022 09:58

By: Sandra Kathe

A train attendant from Deutsche Bahn has answered dozens of questions about his everyday work on the Reddit Internet platform in the past few days.

(symbol photo) © Bodo Marks/dpa

“Do you take the train to work or do you have to be on time?” A train employee calls on the Internet to ask him questions – with great success.

Frankfurt – The Internet has an answer for everything: especially on the Reddit news platform, which, thanks to creative users, keeps bringing exciting topics to light.

Now a train attendant at Deutsche Bahn came up with the idea of ​​giving an insight into his professional life and asking people on Reddit to ask him all the questions that are burning under their nails: And there are quite a few.

In the five days since the user announced on Reddit that they would answer all questions that did not violate official secrecy, over 750 questions and comments had been collected.

This is reported by fr.de.

Everything was included, from working conditions and favorite routes to how to deal with difficult passengers.

The question with the most reactions and answers is aimed – how could it be otherwise – at his employer’s now legendary “punctuality problems”: “Do you take the train to work or do you have to be punctual?”

Delays at Deutsche Bahn: A train attendant answers questions on Reddit

While the train attendant praises the questioner on Reddit for the original formulation, he also clears up a popular prejudice, namely that everything always goes wrong on the train.

He himself takes the tram to work or walks, but there are also many colleagues who travel by train.

These are “usually on time”.

Nevertheless, delays are also part of everyday working life for railway employees and sometimes pose a mystery to them too.

So it is the “curious” experience of the train attendant that passengers are usually the “most aggressive” with delays of 5 to 60 minutes.

Of course, he understands that passengers have reasons to be upset about delays.

A user who is wondering how delays on the train are paid for employees, he explains that "with 20 shifts a month" there are usually five to ten hours of overtime due to delays, but this is additionally paid.

"The delays are actually really limited" and "3 out of 5 trains are on time," explains the train attendant, who works in the long-distance network throughout Germany.

A Deutsche Bahn train attendant answers Reddit user questions about favorite routes and violence

According to his response to Reddit, the train conductor's favorite routes include the ICE sections between Cologne and Mainz, Nuremberg and Passau, Augsburg and Oberstdorf or Munich and Freilassing.

The services between Nuremberg and Stuttgart were often the least fun (“short stopping distances, many local passengers, no federal police except for Karlsruhe, Stuttgart and Nuremberg”).

The train conductor is also confronted with prejudices against passengers during his Reddit question time.

For example, one user “read that violence/theft/harassment increased dramatically in 2015/16” and asks about the train conductor’s bad experiences with refugees.

He emphasizes that "a very large proportion of migrants" have valid tickets and that he has never noticed violence in his years with the railways.

In the case of people with a migration background, one would only have to call the police more often because passengers “do not have any identification documents with them or want to show them to me”.

Curious everyday work: Deutsche Bahn train attendants openly answer questions from the Internet

Many of the questions asked by Reddit users also refer to the curiosities in the day-to-day work of Deutsche Bahn train drivers, such as the frequency of hours spent by train passengers in the on-board toilet (“Someone looked at porn on the laptop, nothing more”), the best Train station doner kebab (“Berlin-Südkreuz”) or impudent behavior by passengers (“the day before yesterday someone wanted to take the ICE from Frankfurt to Vienna with a €9 ticket... that was funny too”).

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At Deutsche Bahn, the unconventional support of the railway employee through his involvement on Reddit is met with great openness.

The responses of the train conductor are not to be understood as official statements from the company, but many of the insights could help to give customers insights into the complex relationships that are part of the day-to-day business of the railway, says a spokeswoman for the company when asked .

Train attendant starts Q&A on Reddit

The company also experiences its employees as “incredibly committed” on numerous other social media platforms, even when it comes to mitigating criticism of the company and explaining how problems arise, for example in the areas of delays and staff shortages.

All of the approximately 300,000 employees are ambassadors for the company, emphasizes the company spokeswoman, and of course everyone is happy about all those who are particularly committed in their free time, without this being expected of them.

In fact, many of the statements made by the railway employee can be read as good advertising for Deutsche Bahn as an employer: the train attendant praises the diversity of his day-to-day work ("One of the really big advantages is that every day is varied") and describes Deutsche Bahn as one the "safest employer we have".

The train attendant also praises the work-life balance, "because you have a relatively large amount of free time thanks to the desired rest and lots of vacation time".

An alleged hardware store employee also commented on Reddit.

(ska)