Back to work

I got back from Egypt on Monday night, only to find the picc line was suspended because of radio communication problems. Ah well, only had to take 2 buses to get home, so it could have been worse. Apart from the fact that I left my jacket at home and was bloody freezing on the way home.

I am currently hard at work on my last night shift for the week, with one day off then back on early turns. When I get the chance I\'ll post some pics from Egypt.

No work for 10 days

Off on a short 10 day trip to Egypt tomorrow morning, so no LUL for a while :) Nothing much has been happening at work with the exception of having very few staff since the introduction of the shorter working week. I think a few of our staff would probably prefer to go back to the old rosters as they seem to be working more hours than before.

I've finally got rid of the car. I was spending over £200 a month on petrol, insurance etc, which is a bit daft as I get free travel. Since I have to walk about 20 minutes to my local tube station, I should hopefully be losing a bit of weight.

Anyway take care everyone, and see you all in about 10 days. Don't work too hard either.

Best blonde joke ever ...

An oldie but hey who cares?:-

blonde joke

Shattered

Boy am I ready for bed. All of the evenings contractors have just booked off the station, after banging, drilling and cursing through the night, no doubt upsetting some of the local residents.

I have to give the OPO monitors a quick check, do a station check, do an emergency gate test, and then I can open the station to the public.

2 and a half hours until my relief turns up, then its a (hopefully) 30 minute drive home and straight to bed for about 4-5 hours before getting ready to pick the kids up from school.

Did I mention that I hate nights!!!

Strike action still on!!

At the present time, and to the best of my knowledge, the planned strike for NYE is still on.


The strike is due to commence at 12 noon tomorrow until 12 noon on New Years Day, what this means is that any staff due to book on BEFORE 12 noon on NYE should still book on as normal, and finish their duty at the rostered time. Any staff due to start work AFTER 12 noon are being advised by the RMT NOT to book on. Also on New Years Day, any staff who start work BEFORE 12 noon are advised NOT to book on, and any staff starting work AFTER 12 noon on New Years Day should book on as normal.

I suspect a few depots may have a picket line to persuade train ops NOT to cross the picket line in support of their comrades, even though the train ops are not involved in this particular dispute.

What really adds insult to injury though, is that according to my trade union rep. BC is currently on holiday in Egypt (schmuck!!!!)

Strike called for on New Years Eve

The RMT have announced strike action to take place from 12 noon on NYE until 12 noon on NYD. (link) In the ballot for strike action, there were 1,327 votes (84.6 per cent) in favour and 241 (15.4 per cent) against. In the ballot for action short of strike, there were 1,435 (91.8 per cent) votes in favour and 129 (8.2 per cent) against. I personally wasn't even ballotted but from the numbers above, it seems not even half of the station staff even voted (or received a ballot paper)

3 weeks of freedom

Just got back from escorting the Mrs. to Heathrow who should be about now boarding her plane to go and visit some of her relatives in Africa.

Whilst the idea of 3 weeks alone, sounds good, I'm already missing her. I suppose after 11 years of marriage, it feels really weird to have the house to myself for such a long time.

Nothing happening

Haven't blogged for a while mainly because nothing of interest has happened, and also because I've been feeling a bit lousy with flu-like symptons and stuff.

One of our regular VIP's (Visually Impaired Persons) who we assist to & from trains on an almost daily basis was considerate enough to bring all the staff a tin of chocolates to express his gratitude for our help throughout the year. Although I don't celebrate Xmas as I am not a Christian I thought it was a really nice gesture and thought.

I will be working as usual over the holiday period, although for once I am not doing late turns or nights so I shouldn't have to deal with all the drunks, even though we did have one drunk start a fight with one of our station tenants today.

Useless USB gadgets

How about a USB powered fondue set, or a lovely pair of USB slippers (?), a USB drink warmer (just the type of thing you want near an electrical appliance). Perhaps a USB ashtray is more to your liking, or a USB noodle strainer, USB gloves & Eye massager/poker. The list is endless.

All quiet on the western front

Only had about 30 contractors to deal with last night, fairly quiet compared to most nights.

Phishing

I normally get about one email a week purporting to be from various financial institutions, paypal, ebay etc. On a good week, I get about 4.

My latest one is supposed to be from Barclays (I don't even bank with them)





Barclays Bank Membership Update

We recently reviewed your account, and we suspect an unauthorized ATM - based transactions on your account. Our banking service will help you to avoid frequently fraud transactions and to keep your savings and investments confidential.

To ensure that your account is not compromised please login to Barclays Bank Online Banking by clicking this link, verify and update your profile and your current account will be 128-bit encrypted and guard by our security system.


- Log-in on: https://ibank.barclays.co.uk/fp/1_2l/online/1,,logon,00.html
- Enter your personal membership details
- Verify and update with Barclays IBank

Thank you for using Barclays BankSecurity Check




Important information from Barclays Bank(R)

This e-mail contains information directly related to your account with us, other
services to which you have subscribed, and/or any application you may have submitted. Barclays Bank and its service providers are committed to protecting your privacy and ask you not to send sensitive account information through e-mail. You can view our privacy policy and contact information at www.barclays.co.uk. If you are not a Barclays Bank customer and you believe you received this message in error, please delete this e-mail.


© 2005 Barclays Bank Global

At least they have improved the spelling from the earlier attempts. Interesting that they haven't yet learnt to mask their message ID's yet. This particular email comes from Russia (obviously Barclays new HQ) (E1Ed0ZB-0008KH-29@daybreak.herold.ru) If anyone is feeling nasty send them some spam lol.


I do wonder if people still fall for these blatant attempts at fraud nowadays.

ITV1

Just a rememinder that the first episode of the tube programme is starting tonight. Should be interesting as I know at least one of the people featured. I think it is also going to be repeated on sky travel.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Public transport drink ban plan

BBC NEWS | Politics | Public transport drink ban plan


Can't really see this being enforced but one can always hope. :)

I give up.

I don't think I will ever understand customers. Last week I had to assist a very irate customer who had a debit on her Oystercard. As the fault of the debit laid with both the customer for not getting an extension on her Oystercard and still touching in & out with it, and Wimbledon station for not doing so either; I wasn't able to speak to Wimbledon station staff as it is run by national rail.
I was then asked to come to the ticket office as the customer was refusing to leave the window thereby causing a long queue and inconveniencing other customers. I had to keep her waiting about 10 minutes as I was already dealing with another customer.
Rather than asking her to pay back the debit owed and apply for a refund, I instructed the ticket office staff to cancel the last pre-pay which would then bring her pre-pay balance back to zero and then her travelcard would work again. The ticket office could have just done from the beginning and saved everybody the hassle, but her attitude wasn't condusive. Eventually she went off and we even shared a joke about it as she left. This morning I get called to see the DSM.
I was extremely annoyed and angry to get called to the managers office because this person wrote a letter of complaint about me, said I was very unhelpful, rude and I needed retraining.

In my nine years since joining LUL I have never had a complaint, rather I have had numerous letters of thanks from customers. (well a few)

I think next time I'll just give then the generic card with the customer services details on it and leave them to it.

Other metro prices

Japan (7 day travelcard) for the whole country: £140.80
Paris (7 day travelcard) £10.64
Madrid (single ticket) £0.88
Cairo (single ticket) £0.075p
New York (7 day travelcard) £13.70
Mexico City (single ticket) £0.10
Singapore (single ticket maximum price) £0.65
Bangkok (flat rate single) £0.14p
Newcastle (7 day all zones) £16.00

2006 fare increases announced

The new proposed fare increases for next year have been announced by Ken, and to be quite frank I think they are a bloody extorniate rip-off.

Some of the highlights of the announcements:

The Tube Zone 1 Oyster fare down from £1.70 to £1.50 and as the equivalent cash fare will be £3, this will be a saving of £1.50.

A single journey in Zones 2-6 will cost £1 on Oyster if you pay as you go, compared to £3 if you use cash

Outside Zone 1, the cheapest cash single fare will increase to £3 from £1.30 but the comparable Oyster fare will be reduced from £1.10 to £1

The Family Travelcard will be withdrawn but a £1 Off-peak Child Travelcard will be available for up to four under 16s accompanied by adult Travelcard holders.

Its going to be the casual users, families & tourists who are going to be hit the worst by these price increases. They already got rid of the VERY POPULAR weekend travelcard (even now, we still get tourists asking for them), now they are scrapping the family travelcard. Whereas now a single parent & four sprogs can travel in central London at the weekend for £3.10 that option will no longer be available to them. I expect loads of people to complain and take it out on the station staff as usually happens every January.

Tourists are lovely

My favourite kind of commuters are definitely tourists. The majority of the time, they are friendly, polite and generally nice folk, especially Japanese tourists.

Fortunately I can reasonably converse in Japanese, giving directions, selling tickets etc so I try to help them where I can. I was helping one old Japanese couple almost everyday last week, with directions, tourist attractions etc. On their very last day, they came to the station and brought a box of Japanese coffee sweets as a token of thanks. Really cheered me up. A few months ago, another Japanese family gave me a box of Pocky which realy are to die for. Luckily there is one shop in West Acton that sells them. Not likely to get that from a regular commuter though :)

Last trains/first trains

It still surprises me the sheer number of people who turn up way after their trains have departed. I mean how long does it take to check the last train times (every station has at least 3 posters) before they head back home. I was closing my station the other night and one bloke came dashing down the platform stairs. I informed him that the last trains had already departed, then this guy pulls out his staff pass and shouts "But I'm staff". Sorry mate, but what the bloody difference does that make, are we supposed to magically produce a train just because he's a member of LUL staff.

Also in a similar vein, if you are relying upon public transport to get you to a certain place at a certain time, wouldn't it be prudent to check the train times. Every morning we get droves of people lugging their suitcases in order to get to Heathrow for a flight that boards at 06:00am for example. The first train for Heathrow airport doesn't leave central London until around 05:40 ish. There isn't a cat in hells chance they'll get there in time, especially when it going to take at least an hour to check in with the airlines.

Oystercards

Remember that from the 25th September (tomorrow) all adult weekly travelcards will all be issued on Oystercard stock. No more magnetic tickets. So all those naughty people buying zones 2&3 for example and then travelling through zone 1 won't be able to do that anymore.

I imagine we are going to have loads of angry/annoyed customers when they found out they will have to pay the correct fares for their journeys.

It's been a while.

Haven't really made any blog entries for quite some time. I work on a group of stations, rather than being rostered at one particular station like my colleague. The problem with this is the uncertainty as to where I am working at what shift pattern. For some unknown reason I have been given a large amount of night-shift duties approximately every week and a half I have been working nights. I am alas working nights this week also until Tuesday:(

Not much has been happening at work though, its been a pretty uneventful month or so.