{"id":16,"date":"2014-10-27T22:19:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T22:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/?p=16"},"modified":"2015-03-22T19:44:43","modified_gmt":"2015-03-22T23:44:43","slug":"via-rail-employee-made-my-mother-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/via-rail-employee-made-my-mother-smile\/","title":{"rendered":"VIA Rail Employee Made My Mother Smile"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hello fellow customer service advocates of Toronto!
\nToday’s post is a little late, but as the saying goes, it’s better late than never!\u00a0 (By the way, isn’t it sad how people often don’t post about good service, but quickly will post about bad service?\u00a0 Why can’t we be balanced in our online reviews?\u00a0 LOL)<\/i><\/p>\n

My mother visited us Torontonians on the weekend after the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, as she couldn’t come to Toronto on the actual holiday.\u00a0 No matter, her family here in T-Dot including myself made sure she had a good time, as always, and took her to the new Ripley’s Aquarium<\/b><\/i>.\u00a0 It was very cool, but that’s another post.\u00a0 Anyway the family members up here had Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday and on Sunday my mom was booked to leave on a later VIA<\/b> train.\u00a0 This would be Sunday October 19th that I am referring to, around 6 pm.<\/p>\n

When we arrived at Union station, even though we were early, there was already a long line-up for her train.\u00a0 The electronic departure sign indicated that the train was already boarding, but our line was not moving.\u00a0 I told my mom to stand put and I went to inquire because, well, ya never know right?\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42
\nSo I spoke with a friendly VIA RAIL<\/b> gentleman at the front of the line, where the business lounge is, and I asked about the train departure time.\u00a0 He asked to see my ticket and I then told him I was inquiring on behalf on my mom.\u00a0 He then asked “Oh, how old is your mom…like over 60?”<\/i>\u00a0 I said “Yes, she is”<\/i> and he said “Bring her here.”<\/i>\u00a0 I noticed some elderly folks and a pregnant woman sitting in the lounge, and then felt a bit guilty and stated “but my mom’s very healthy!”<\/i> and he said “it’s okay.”<\/i>\u00a0 So I retrieved my mom, and told her not to walk ‘too fast’ and to follow me.\u00a0 When we arrived the VIA<\/b> gentleman expressed his surprise at my mother’s youthful looks (always a great thing to say to a lady!<\/i>)\u00a0 and she smiled and said she would be turning 63 soon!\u00a0 He invited her to sit down and we all chatted about the little things in life while we waited for the official boarding, which was a little behind.\u00a0 I was so happy she didn’t have to stand in the very long line-up, and I was not aware of the “over 60 lounge” policy.\u00a0 I didn’t catch the name of the VIA<\/b> gentleman, although I did scan for a name tag, but he was a healthy-looking 57 year old French-Canadian with a warm smile and hearty laugh, who was able to reduce stress and discomfort for those around him.<\/p>\n

When boarding was finally announced, the VIA<\/b> gentleman turned to my mother, the pregnant lady and those others in the lounge and waved them forward.\u00a0 My mother, always the polite one, wasn’t sure if she deserved this special first-class treatment.\u00a0 But he urged her on and I could tell from the look in his eye that there was a brief window of time he was trying to get her through, before the line started moving.\u00a0 I ushered her on, and she said thank you and good bye to the gentleman.\u00a0 She gave me a quick kiss and hug and I pushed her on.\u00a0 She was one of the first to board.\u00a0 As she went up the escalator out of sight, I turned to leave, but wanted to thank the kind gentleman first.\u00a0 I could see now he was quickly in the midst of a sea of travellers, checking tickets and answering questions.\u00a0 A handshake was impossible, but I did catch eyes and bow my head to him, and smile.\u00a0 He bowed and smiled back.<\/p>\n

I then left, and as I did, went past an incredibly long line-up.\u00a0 I was so thankful my mom, though healthy, didn’t have to stand in it.\u00a0 After all, she may look 50, but she is almost 63!\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I truly appreciate what this VIA RAIL<\/b> employee did for us, and others in need.\u00a0 Thank you!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello fellow customer service advocates of Toronto! Today’s post is a little late, but as the saying goes, it’s better late than never!\u00a0 (By the way, isn’t it sad how people often don’t post about good service, but quickly will post about bad service?\u00a0 Why can’t we be balanced in our online reviews?\u00a0 LOL) My […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[536],"tags":[548,547],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-customer-service","tag-customer-service","tag-via"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":554,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions\/554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.communicationcoach.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}