Bureaucracy V Humanity

I always delight in unexpected touches of humanity or conviviality. Train conductors, when they let slip their official masks, can put smiles on the faces of the most hardened travellers. I chatted to an especially cheerful conductor recently, and wondered why he had to stick so tediously to the company script when making his announcements. He explained: a colleague had got into trouble for doing just that. His crime was to refer in teasing terms to the train in front which was holding them up. A rail company director was on board and took offence. The poor conductor, who had probably cheered the whole train up and averted the likelihood of complaints about the delay, was moved to another job – saved from the sack by the union. Thus bureaucracy and caution conspire to keep unexpected dashes of colour out of our lives.