{"id":327,"date":"2011-12-15T21:54:27","date_gmt":"2011-12-15T21:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/?p=327"},"modified":"2011-12-15T21:54:27","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T21:54:27","slug":"dear-rail-companies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialscienceresearchfunding.co.uk\/?p=327","title":{"rendered":"Dear rail companies…."},"content":{"rendered":"
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"Good morning, look you, Jones-the-absolute-ripoff"<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dear rail companies,<\/p>\n

Just a quick note of appreciation for your wildly unpredictable and logic-defying pricing structure.\u00a0 I enjoy trying to navigate the labyrinthine maze of different fares whenever I want to travel.\u00a0 I highly recommend the Semi-Super Saver Single Return Railroader Autumn Summer Traveller Student Nurse District Pet Family Oxbow Lake Pass<\/a> incidentally.<\/p>\n

It’s irritating enough doing this for myself, but it’s even more annoying when trying to cost a research project involving a lot of train trips.\u00a0 The project could be fairly cheap, or it could be massively expensive, depending upon brute luck, how organised academic colleagues are in requesting tickets, how soon the administrators can book them through the special magical portal of trail travel that universities seem to have, what time academics have to leave\/arrive, and whether Mars is in the ascendant.\u00a0 Do we go optimistic, take an intermediate position, or take a wildly pessimistic one?\u00a0 Travel costs could end up being negligible in relation to the project as a whole, or run to a significant share of expenses.\u00a0 We could end up returning a fairly substantial slice of cash, or we could run out of money and\/or cut the project activities short.<\/p>\n

Guess what, rail companies?\u00a0 The rest of the budget is predictable.\u00a0 So why are you making life difficult?\u00a0 You don’t get research associates charging extra for work before 9:30, or offering to work for substantially less if you tell them what to do six weeks in advance.\u00a0 Transcription costs aren’t more expensive if the tapes leave London via Waterloo rather than St Pancreas International.\u00a0 Overheads aren’t more expensive in peak hours.<\/p>\n

All this is bad enough.\u00a0 And then one train company – I’m looking at you, East Midlands Trains – makes it worse by plastering adverts featuring Jedward all over every phone box in the Greater Nottingham area.\u00a0 Damn you all.\u00a0 Damn you all to hell.\u00a0 On an apex network first advance single.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear rail companies, Just a quick note of appreciation for your wildly unpredictable and logic-defying pricing structure.\u00a0 I enjoy trying to navigate the labyrinthine maze of different fares whenever I want to travel.\u00a0 I highly recommend the Semi-Super Saver Single Return Railroader Autumn Summer Traveller Student Nurse District Pet Family Oxbow Lake Pass incidentally. It’s … Continue reading “Dear rail companies….”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,6,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-frustrations","category-funding","category-research-costs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t