Southern Rail, an embattled train operator in southern England, has not been having a great time recently.
It is embroiled in a long-running dispute with its drivers' union that frequently ends in strikes and cancellations, and recently ranked at the bottom in a nationwide satisfaction survey.
The job of Southern's social media team is usually to soak up the anger and frustration of the thousands of commuters left stranded and raging at the company's management.
So its social media team's decision to put Eddie, a 15-year-old student in for work experience, in charge of its Twitter feed looked like a car crash in the making.
Hi, Eddie here! Here on Work Experience and ready to answer your questions! 😊
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017#PrayForEddiehttps://t.co/l0pj8e76Iy
— Oliver Cooper (@OliverCooper) July 11, 2017And, sure enough, Eddie was soon confronted with complaints about service, depictions of his bosses as the dark lord Sauron, and enthusiastic predictions that Britain's railways will soon be nationalised, a policy backed by Jeremy Corbyn.
It's been magnificent Eddie. Are you enjoying your work experience? Don't look directly into the eyes of senior management btw pic.twitter.com/2gNTADKP1w
— John Brown (@brownbare) July 11, 2017
Hi Eddie, hope you're enjoying work experience. On a scale of 1-10, how excited are you for the inevitable nationalisation of the railways?
— Ollie Zarb-Cousin (@ollieington) July 11, 2017
We're showing a 15 year old the wonderful world of work today. Appreciate if you could lay off the abuse for a bit. ^Neil
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017Some NSFW messages prompted this response from Eddie's supervisor:
But ultimately, the experience of having somebody young and pretty innocent-seeming cooled the temperature drastically in a usually very heated social media space, and ended up in friendly chit-chat between Eddie and a host of well-wishers, many under the #AskEddie hashtag.
Hi, for an unladen swallow, it is 50-65mph.. #google ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
Couldn't say. I support the better claret and blue side 😉 although would love to see them back up. ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
Hi, I don't think so but you never know there could be a girl that can. ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
100 duck-sized horses. A horse-sized duck would be pretty scary! You? ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
Rollerblades for feet, I feel like I would get used to them pretty quickly and be able to get places quicker! You? ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017
Hi, I don't play a great deal but when i do it is usually FIFA. You? ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017Eddie even managed to answer the occasional train question and post a service update:
Hi Max, as you have an off-peak ticket, you can stop anywhere between Victoria and Gatwick. ^Eddie
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017✅ #Wivelsfield - Services have now returned to normal https://t.co/1TSmmcq0FA
— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 11, 2017The unusual exchange shows that perhaps the space where Twitter and brands meet doesn't have to be an unending spiral of awfulness, especially if you have some very chill teens to sort everything out.
And if the tweet from ScotRail shown below is any indication, this may not be the end of Eddie's career in train PR.
@SouthernRailUK Hi Eddie, you're doing a great job! Fancy joining us for some experience too? ^M #AskEddie
— ScotRail (@ScotRail) July 11, 2017Join the conversation about this story »
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