I had the misfortune of purchasing a mobile annual e-ticket from them. It worked for a few days and then suddenly started telling me it was registered to another device. I called customer service on no fewer than three separate occasions and on each occasion they failed to actually fix the issue and instead handed me over to their “app department” (hard to believe this poor excuse for an app is managed by an entire department and not a monkey with a laptop) who {when they finally bothered to respond to my email) informed me it would take TEN DAYS for them to deal with my request. That’s TEN DAYS I have to wait for them to flip whatever switch they need to flip to restore my access to a service I’ve already paid for.

Here’s an idea I’m sure the gaggle of single-celled organisms populating your “offices”(see: “toxic waste dump where the toxic waste is people”) weren’t sentient enough to think of – if you’re too incompetent to make and manage a functioning digital platform, don’t make one. Don’t stretch yourselves to be “modern” and “convenient” when you’re clearly as far-removed from the concepts of modernity and convenience as it’s possible to be without actually being a limbless caveman. You’re barely able to run a network of buses that run on time as it is. I suppose I’m partially to blame for thinking it would be more convenient to have an e-pass knowing what I know about Arriva and the level of self-satisfied, complacent mediocrity they fester in. I once slammed a finger in the door and broke it in two places and even that was a more fulfilling and meaningful experience than trying to navigate the moronic eccentricities of Arriva’s “app” because at least I opened and walked through the door afterwards.

At the time of writing this interview I’m STILL waiting for them to fix this issue while paying for individual tickets. If I don’t get a full refund for this botched month… Well I won’t be livid, because that’s precisely the level of garbage I’ve come to expect from this poorly coordinated monument to utter, utter worthlessness. I’d hope you go out of business, but you’re not even worth the effort it would take to do that. You are worth nothing. You are the shining, archetypal example of what happens when capitalism stops being about healthy competition and becomes about a cabal of nepotistic dullards and fattened hogs propping themselves up at the expense of their customers by capitalising on a system that is stagnant and hollow. One day we will replace you with something that actually works and, on that day, I will relish your appeals to decency and tradition. But, until that day comes, enjoy your dutiful commitment to doing the bare minimum required to be ever so slightly above not doing anything at all.