Mastodawn

How do I overcome my railway Groucho Marx problem? 🤔

It's not “I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member” but “Why would any company in the railway sector consider me to work for them, as there’s nothing I know they don’t know already”

But I do need to find paid work, somehow. Question is how and for whom?

Explained 👇
https://jonworth.eu/how-do-i-overcome-my-railway-groucho-marx-problem/

How do I overcome my railway Groucho Marx problem?

"I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member" Groucho Marx is supposed to have said. And I have come to the view that I am facing something similar in my railway work. "Why would any company in the railway sector consider me to [...]

Jon Worth

Sorry to be worse-than-Groucho, but the point is not whether you'll tell them something they know/don't know yet, but whether you'll tell them something they want/don't want to hear.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@cyclotopie Fair point, but given the nerd fact based nature of the business, you get heard thanks to technical knowledge, mostly.

Dubious Blur Jan 26

@jon I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. :)

My experience of big corporates is that there is an awful lot they don’t seem to know. Diseconomies of scale are real. Many group dysfunctions are to be found that work against their objectives.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@dubiousblur Perhaps. But they would still need to know what they don't know. (Now I am sounding like Donald Rumsfeld, not Groucho Marx)

Simon Waldman Jan 26

@jon @dubiousblur Seems to me that a lot of companies like to have expert consultants come and tell them what they already know so that they have been told it by somebody else? I don't know if this applies to railways, though.

Dubious Blur Jan 26

@jon @swaldman I think it’s after the fact - decisions made that consultants are used to justify?

Simon Waldman Jan 26

@dubiousblur @jon sometimes. And one would have to be pretty cynical to be happy in that role. But not always, at least not in all industries.

Dubious Blur Jan 26

@swaldman @jon sure. :) It’s maybe hard to tell one from the other from the outside tho.

Dubious Blur Jan 26

@jon what they don’t know hasn’t obviously hurt them yet :)

Unless and until the Minister makes it their problem, they won’t have to care.

Per that Erasmus study, the sheer size of the social value returned versus subsidies & losses for NS ought to give some people inside NS, pragmatic but visionary, room to say, we can do better if we try.

Moreover: the study of Chinese high speed rail profits (when fully accounted) should be embarrassing to _everyone_. Maybe that’ll help, too.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@dubiousblur Doubt it. That assumes the political accountability loops work in railways, and I am not at all sure they do.

Dubious Blur Jan 26

@jon privatisation seems to have given the worst of all possible combinations: neither real democratic oversight for goals, nor market forces. (Gareth Dennis in particular very annoyed that GBR will not have passenger modal shift as its statutory goal. Perhaps that will change during the Rail Bill’s passage, but at the moment GBR will only have to really care about freight.)

Jon Worth Jan 26

@dubiousblur Precisely. And - weirdly - some of the semi marketised state railways (like Trenitalia, or ČD) do a better job at upping passenger numbers than some of the less opened ones, like SNCF.

Putting it another way: to get a good outcome out of a state owned railway, you need enlightened political leadership that you're highly unlikely to get.

Dubious Blur Jan 26

@jon I am following Marine Tondelier closely :)

Jon Worth Jan 26

@dubiousblur I am yet to encounter anyone in Les Verts in France who has any deeper diagnosis about what to do with French rail. WHAT they want is clear-ish. HOW to get it, they have not even begun.

(Not that I can help, as trains are so bad around here I cannot even get to political meetings in Dijon or Paris and back home)

Quixoticgeek Jan 26

@jon @dubiousblur a lot of the problems with SNCF feel a bit like when I stopped someone in Ireland and asked for directions "oh? I wouldn't start from here" and wandered off. (Another person I asked for directions said "it's not so much a place, more a state of mind")

Phil Dennis-Jordan Jan 26

@jon I mean, more generally in other industries, consultants get paid a lot of money to tell management what they should already know. The chances of the information sinking in are just much higher when it comes from a highly-paid consultant rather than lower-ranked employees. But I suppose hiring said consultants presupposes that there is some kind of institutional desire for improvement. (Whether genuine or not.) And it sounds like this is rare among European railway companies.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@pmdj Right. If the company has no desire to improve, whatever I could tell them is not going to work (and working for them is probably going to be disheartening). If a company does have a desire to improve, they would logically know already everything I could tell them, hence there'd be no point!

Phil Dennis-Jordan Jan 26

@jon I don't know if the latter is necessarily true. I'm not sure even the more well-meaning and well-run railway companies are necessarily aware - at a level where it could make a difference - of the many death-by-thousand-papercuts customer experience issues.
One thing that likely sets you apart is that you don't just ride the headline-grabbing main line services between big stations but have deep knowledge of the issues passengers run into in the more fringe reaches of the networks.

Hraban (fiëé visuëlle)Jan 26

@pmdj @jon
Maybe one of the smaller rail companies? E.g. with HLB (Hessische Landesbahn) I get the impression they’re trying, but they struggle against DB all the time. But if they’re really trying, then they know their stuff and probably don’t need you (since they don’t serve international lines anyway). 🤔
Maybe try something with https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Bahn_Bodensee (international regional rail), the work would be more political than technical?

S-Bahn Bodensee – Wikipedia

Bruno Girin Jan 26

@jon
It sounds to me like you would be a great Product Manager for a railway company. They wouldn't hire you for your knowledge, they would hire you for your ability to collect knowledge from a number of specialist sources, understand it and its limitations and come up with a strategy to deliver a solution.

Your projects perfectly show your ability to do this.

I do exactly this in my day job, albeit in a different domain, if you want to have a chat about it.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@brunogirin My partner is a product owner in the IT department of a healthcare firm. So I know what it entails, largely 🙂 And yes, I could probably do it for a railway company, but there's no way I can demonstrate I know how to do it currently as I do not have a qualification to show I can!

Nils Pickert 🚂Jan 26

@jon @brunogirin your posts here and your blog are a quite convincing demonstration...

Jon Worth Jan 26

@nilspickert @brunogirin A rail firm is not going to see it as a convincing demonstration though! "I can project manage a ridiculous crowd funded project to every corner of Europe, now will you give me real money and responsibility to handle?" "Errr, no!"

Nils Pickert 🚂Jan 26

@jon @brunogirin you manage to get finances for a project you have passion for, with zero official structure, without a support system and you generate continuous high quality output...

Megan Lynch (she/her)Jan 26

@jon @nilspickert @brunogirin Try to consult in Albania. God knows they need to make their rail work and the ruling party's drive to join the EU puts a little pressure on them to actually make such improvements.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@meganL @nilspickert @brunogirin LOL 😂

I got in hot water at an event in Czechia in 2024 where some people from Albanian railways were present. "We will have an electric railway running by the end of 2025!"

No way I said, and listed the reasons.

It is now 2026... and... yep, no electric trains running. And indeed barely ANY trains.

Megan Lynch (she/her)Jan 26

@jon @brunogirin Well, hopefully they don't remember you!

I understand that you need to pick where you shoot your shot, but I also think in the blog entry and the replies that you're saying "no" to yourself instead of letting others say no. They might say "yes".

You're clearly very knowledgeable and you probably have some skills that they don't in terms of synthesis, being accessible to passengers, etc.

Megan Lynch (she/her)Jan 26

@jon German GIZ works with the public transit bus system here in Tirana. Makes me wonder whether they've got anything going on trains... Or at least bus connectivity to proposed trains. https://www.giz.de/en/projects/sustainable-urban-transport-albania

https://www.giz.de/en/regions/europe/albania

Sustainable Urban Transport in Albania

The project promotes innovative and climate-friendly urban mobility solutions in Albania, using comprehensive data management methods.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@meganL A person from that project was in the audience at the event in Czechia. Quite rightly I think they have not touched the rail stuff - it is too hopeless!

GinevraCat Jan 26

@jon
Quoting from I-don't-remember-where:

Tired: I told you so
Wired: As it was foretold....

@meganL @nilspickert @brunogirin

Michael Dewey Jan 26

@jon @nilspickert @brunogirin I think you are running yourself down here. At least some recruiters would want someone with real life demonstrated skills than paper skills.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@mdewey If there are those people I so far have not found them! Maybe they exist somewhere. @nilspickert @brunogirin

Bruno Girin Jan 26

@nilspickert @jon
Yes, that's what I was going to say: do you need a qualification when your posts demonstrate your skills?

Jon Worth Jan 26

@brunogirin @nilspickert If I were in the UK still, perhaps not. In Germany or anywhere in continental Europe I am not so sure.

Hraban (fiëé visuëlle)Jan 26

In Germany, you need certificates and degrees to get hired at big companies or in public administration. You don’t need any qualification to get hired as a consultant.
I don’t know what you need, besides being best mates with someone in power. A big mouth probably helps, a critical blog less…
(Sorry…)

@brunogirin @nilspickert

Jon Worth Jan 26

@fiee Right, that is exactly it. I am not sure having a proven record of putting my finger where it hurts opens doors as a consultant! @brunogirin @nilspickert

Quixoticgeek Jan 26

@jon the implication here is that SNCF know they are cruel unthinking arseholes who hate passengers, and that's intentional.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@quixoticgeek They don't think they are arseholes. But the outcomes are the system working as intended.

Quixoticgeek Jan 26

@jon something something purpose of a system is what it does...

Jon Worth Jan 26

@quixoticgeek Yep 🤷‍♂️ https://jonworth.eu/international-rail-ticketing-that-is-customer-unfriendly-that-is-the-system-working-as-intended-we-need-eu-law-to-change-the-system/

International rail ticketing that is customer unfriendly – that is the system working as intended. We need EU law to change the system.

Justin Scholz, a thoughtful friend of mine, sent me a link to this post by Anil Dash, entitled "Systems: The Purpose of a System is What It Does" - do read it in full. Let's have a go applying this to international railway ticketing, and use what - superficially - [...]

Jon Worth

@jon I subscribe at that price and double it. Therefore make sure you include a pay more section. Main issue might be financial authorities where your place of living is. I have heard good things about Steady from Germans and mixed experiences anout Patreon. Whatever platform you choose I will show up and throw something in the hat!

Thank you for your work - I have learned a lot from just following you <3

Jon Worth Jan 26

@vermeer Thanks! It will be run using Ghost, with Stripe as payment processor. Which ought to work easily enough everywhere in Europe!

@jon working solutions exist many. Indie-Podcasters (Tim Pritlove, Tilo Jung etc) usually share an IBAN, but I guess the choice is one of professional preference. Possibly an Indie-Podcast meetup like Subscribe can help you finetune your setup in future

Quixoticgeek Jan 26

@jon also. Where do I sign up to your newsletter?

Jon Worth Jan 26

@quixoticgeek The old system is here: https://jonworth.eu/email-notifications/ That will be migrated to the new system.

Email notifications

* – I operate a unified email system across all of my projects. “Transport” means email updates from Jon Worth, Trains for Europe and #CrossBorderRail. “EU Politics”, “Technology”, “German Politics”, “UK Politics & Brexit” are topics from [...]

Jon Worth

Quixoticgeek Jan 26

@jon rephrased. How do I give you money for such a newsletter?

Jon Worth Jan 26

@quixoticgeek Once I have shifted it to Ghost, and sorted out the editorial plan for it, there will be a way. For the moment there is not a way!

Jens Jäger Jan 26

@jon Never underestimate the incompetence of others, maybe they don't in fact know everything you think they should know...

While reading the part your blog post about railway media, I thought "Maybe he should start a news outlet of his own", and at the end you propose just that. An archive of these newsletter articles could become something like that, maybe.

(I wouldn't subscribe because I'm not interested *enough* and want to avoid recurring expenses generally.)

Jon Worth Jan 26

@JensJot I didn't say so, but it would be important that after, say, a month everything would become free and public anyway. A person would be paying for *current* info.

Androcat Jan 26

@jon
Consider this: It's not about what you know, or what they know, but about how you say it?

The truth does bear repeating.

Cycling on Rails Jan 26

@jon (Replying on the pitch before reading the post)

If companies only hired irreplaceable people with exclusive knowledge, the companies would be in serious trouble once a person is sick, quits, etc. That's sounds like terrible management and a recipe for disaster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor

However, what any person can bring is skills, experience, time, etc. And a unique perspective. Things that a company doesn't have: without people it's just an empty shell that only has belongings.

Bus factor - Wikipedia

Cycling on Rails Jan 26

@jon On crowdfunding, donations commonly follow a power law: many give small amounts, some give more and a few give a lot. By setting a fixed price, you don't match that distribution, and both miss out on those willing to pay less and those willing to pay more. Finding the optimal fixed price is hard. That's why content creators often provide a ladder of donation tiers.

Alternatively, free content with option to donate might miss out on donations, but brings visibility. I'd try that first.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@cycling_on_rails I will try to design some tiers into it, and all content will become free after a month or so.

@jon @cycling_on_rails Combining this with p/time active travel job? There seem to be some in UK - I realise you're in FR but perhaps there is something similar? I've seen local authority jobs here that are part remote w 2-3 days on site.

Jon Worth Jan 26

@annehargreaves Not a hope in hell I can get that in France. And honestly I don't want it here, as I don't trust the political system. In Germany, maybe. (And I am not opposed to moving). @cycling_on_rails

Cycling on Rails Jan 26

@jon @annehargreaves Not a tricky question, but I'm curious about what specifically you don't trust in the French system, what you'd change if you had a magic wand, etc.

Not saying the system works in its current form, however pointing at "the system" without elaborating further has basically been Le Pen's rhetoric for the last 20 years...

Jon Worth Jan 26

@cycling_on_rails @annehargreaves It misses the middle level to get things done.

Either locally (e.g. Ville de Paris, or Dijon) you can get things working, or nationally (something the central government decides). It is the part in between that I struggle with.

Were - for example - we to want a proper Canal de Bourgogne cycle plan, hell knows how to even begin.

@jon @cycling_on_rails @annehargreaves two new positions just opened for you today! ;) https://www.vilaweb.cat/noticies/destitueixen-director-rodalia-director-manteniment-adif-caos-ferroviari/

Destitueixen el director de Rodalia i el director de manteniment d'ADIF pel caos ferroviari

Josep Enric García Alemany havia estat nomenat director de Rodalia al juliol

VilaWeb