The modern messroom’s missing ingredient
Today, many messrooms are a far cry from the hubs of information exchange that they used to be. How can we get people talking again? asks Arriva Rail London’s Scott Ive.
Remember when messrooms were noisy places? When Fred, Bert and Judith ran a card school, when there were long conversations about Harry’s SPAD last week, or Jamal’s near miss yesterday.
There’d be jokes, banter…knowledge sharing (not that anyone would have called it that). Even if nobody admitted it, they would learn from other people’s errors as they considered if the same could happen to them.
Most messrooms are different today. They’re more like libraries, dead quiet, but without the books. Everyone’s on their phone, with their headphones on, scrolling, endlessly scrolling.
I know that times have changed, and today’s rail worker doesn’t necessarily want to read railway classics like Red for Danger. Also, many people get some of the information they need from audio books, podcasts or videos. These may be more impressive, more immediately engaging, but is anything as good as talking to a real person?
Look around your own messroom. Someone in there will have been involved in an incident or near miss or know someone who has been. The experience will have made a great impression on them. They will have learnt from it. They will have a story to tell.
There is a lot of material out there on the Ladbroke Grove accident of 1999, for instance, but nothing is quite as impactful as listening to Pam Warren, who was injured in the accident, speak at a conference. Better than that is talking to her afterwards. The human contact is vital. But are we in danger of losing human connection altogether?
Next time you’re in your messroom, why not talk to someone? Ask them what they’ve learnt in their career so far. Share on your journey in rail, too. I’m confident that striking up conversations will help to create an atmosphere and culture that supports your safety-critical work. Knowledge can only stay alive if people share it with others.
Never
Now and then
More often than not
All the time. They can't keep me quiet