TTEs get ‘ticket’ for interpersonal etiquette at work

Commercial staff from across the zone are being sent to the staff training institute in Tiruchy for the five-day course to refine their social skills.

At this five-day course, the staff are specifically asked to improve their conduct while interacting with passengers. “Officials have long been instructing them to strictly avoid being rude. 

Of late, they are monitoring staff closer than ever,” a reservation supervisor told DT Next . Started in the middle of February to which staff are being sent in batches, one of the key elements of the refresher course was being courteous and maintaining an amiable relationship with the travellers. 

After recruitment, every TTE is put through a monthlong training at the institute in Tiruchy. Thereafter, they would be send for refresher course once in a decade, based on the changes made to the rules and revisions in their list of duties – after 1998, it was revised after a long gap in 2016. 

Meanwhile, the training exercise has revived the debate on the proposal to fix bodycams on TTEs, an idea a few examiners themselves had pitched  with the chief commercial manager during a recent consultation meeting. 

For the refresher course, each staff is sent on a five-day paid leave, plus travel expense and sundries, pointed out a chief ticketing inspector, adding: “Considering the amount spent on the course that is expected to bring about an attitudinal change among the staff, hundreds of bodycams can instead be bought. which  would help keep vigil on staff as well as travellers.” 

However, though overshadowed by the complaints from passengers, railway employees say the field staff have to face numerous struggles every day. Railway Board guidelines say a TTE will be in charge of three second class sleeper coaches or four AC coaches during day time, or two sleeper coaches or three AC coaches during night hours. 

The rule also insists that TTEs cannot cover two sleeper coaches, even during morning hours, if they are not vestibule coaches. But the junior most ones are often assigned three or even four sleeper coaches, leaving them overworked and stressed.