It Always Happens

I did my usual routine for my first rest day and that was stay awake for as long as possible, and then die.

So yesterday I crashed out on the train (and I mean crashed) and had a little power nap before I got home, I like these little sleeps as it boosts your system and gets you ready for the long day ahead, which entailed me taking a load of crap from a friends house to the local tip, all this because she hasn't got a car.

When I got home I did something I've been meaning to do for a while and that was clean the kitchen, it's just that the floor needed doing and I hate mopping, after that I went through all my old bills and shredded tons of stuff as it's collection day today.

I dozed off on the sofa about 9:30 last night and woke an hour later and thought bugger this I'm gonna spend the night in my bed instead of on the sofa, so off I trundled, up the stairs and into the quiet comfort of my big comfy bed. Ah bliss.

This morning my phone starts to ring and at first I thought it was my alarm as I needed to be up by 8am, however it's not the alarm but my ex wife (not sure which is worse) ringing me at 7am and asking me if I would mind paying for our son to do Karate, damn she knows when it's pay day and when is the best time to catch me by surprise.

I can't really have a go at the ex this time because she knows I've been working nights all week and didn't realise I was on rest days, and I don't mind paying out for the Karate lesson as I think it's good and it never hurt me.

Well only the once but that was because I got a kick in the balls.

Hooray For Rest Days

They're here at last and all I can say is thank f**k for that, this has easily been one of the worst week of nights I've done for a good while, with more twist and turns then a prostitutes knickers.

My mental fatigue this week has astounded me, if it wasn't for happy little texts from my number two daughter I think I would have crumbled sometime over the weekend, with the nicest one being "How was your last night at work" which I received only just this morning around 8:25 (sorry I started to slip into Python mode just then thanks to my colleague at Tufnell Park).

So finely I have two days of for rest and relaxation and I wont have much of that either as I'm off to a friends in Northampton at 9am to take a load of shite to the recycle dump, and tomorrow I'm helping a mate move house and hopefully wont catch pneumonia again.

All I can really think about at the moment though is Friday morning at 10:00 when tattoo number three starts to take place, all I have to do is sit there for 20 hours work (not all in one go).

An Eventful Journey To Work

Normally when I leave home and travel in to work it's a risk free and very quiet journey, today though three things made it very different.

1. I arrived with plenty of time to spare for the 21:09 service to London St Pancras only to be told that due to a faulty train in the Leicester area the service was being delayed. When my train finally arrived at 21:38 I thought ok I'll only be 30 minutes late and arrive at 22:50 instead of 22:15, and the reason for the fault was vandalism, somebody had lobbed a brick at the front of a High Speed Train, which smashed the window.
2. As we hurtled towards London making up time at break neck speed the train starts to grind to a halt and stops completely at Radlett, the P.A comes to life and due to a fatality at Borehamwood & Elstree we will be held up until we have a green signal to pass through the area at caution speed (around 20 miles per hour), we finally trundle off towards London where we spot the BTP with torches looking at the body parts on the track and the continue on and reach the terminus at 22:55
3. And last but not least, as me and two of my colleagues wandered along the concourse towards the Metropolitan ticket hall at Kings Cross we round the corner to be greeted by the bent over bare naked arse of a semi clad woman who happens to be getting changed in the middle of the ticket hall area.

So a pleasant ending (literally) to a nasty journey.

A Great Start To The Day

Having spent the past two night in relative peace and quiet, that all changed this morning.

I'd opened the station at the usual time and around 20 minutes later I watched a man stagger into the station and reel down the stairs on to my westbound platform, as I sat monitoring the situation I was left thinking how the hell could you be in this condition at 05:10 on a Monday morning.

As I kept an eye on him, he slowly sank down onto the stairs and waited for a train, first one, then another and then another went passed without any movement from the inebriated man, as I looked more closely I noticed that his head had slumped forward between his shoulders and he had assumed the sleeping whilst sitting on the stairs look.

I pop out to see if things are OK and on rounding the corner I'm greeted by a huge snore, bugger I'd been to slow and he has fallen into a deep, deep slumber. I grip his shoulder and give him a little shake. Nothing. So I reach over and give a more vigorous shake, Nothing. So I try one more time and practically shake the life out of him. Nothing except a grunt and a snore.

Oh well I tried to wake him, but seeing as he was dead to the world I decided to call out the British Transport Police, as I go to make the phone call I see he has slumped into the laying down comfortably on the bottom stair look, now I can't have that as he has now become a trip hazard, so I walk out and before he gets to comfy I give him another one of those vigorous shakes that must have rattled down to his core as he sits up and looks at me with glazed eyes (I don't think they were focused) saying don't touch me.

"I'm trying to keep you awake"
"Don't touch me"
"I'm trying to keep you awake so you can get home"
"I wasn't asleep and don't touch me"
"Well if you weren't asleep you were doing a damn good job of snoring"
"Don't touch me"
"I'm not touching you now, I'm chatting to you to keep you awake"
"Just don't touch me"

You can't win sometimes.

As he goes to lay back down, I try to keep him awake and all I keep getting is "don't touch me". Seeing as he was becoming more agitated I moved away and left him sitting on the steps and quickly tell him his train is coming in.

As he tries to get up to board the train, he is a bit to slow so doors just close in his face and misses the train altogether.
Unfortunately this only agitates him even more, so in a moment of being peeved he kicks that side of the train and limps back towards the steps. As he gets more aggressive towards me I'm now thinking right time to call the BTP, but first I look up where the next train is as I might be able to get rid of him that way first.

Three minutes later another train comes along, so I'm out of the office and telling him that his train is here and he should hurry up or he might miss this one too, as he finally boards the train he looks towards me and draws a thumb across his throat and then points at me.

I just love dealing with aggressive drunks at 5:30 in the morning, don't you.

Bloody Nights

No it's ok, I've not been covered in blood so don't worry.

I just seem to be having one of those bad weeks where you name it, it seems to have happened.

Last night I ended up dealing with four different drunks, so what with more vomiting, no communication, reeling around the platform and someone who doesn't know where he lives, so an interesting night was had by all.

The first drunk of the night ruined my nice clean platform with this. I would hate to try and work out what he was eating but I can't see any carrotts
See nice isn't it.

The second drunk of the night couldn't even speak, all he could do was nod. After attempting and failing for five minutes to get him to tell me where he was trying to get to I gave up and settled for sticking him on the last Circle line train of the night only to see him an hour later sound asleep in the same seat.
I know that wasn't a nice thing to do but after the night before I just didn't need the same hassle all over again.

Drunks number 3 were a nice enough couple but as the man bounced off the side of the train as he was walking towards me, I thought it best to go towards them as it was safer, after chatting to them and finding them both happy drunks, I got them on there way as they were going west instead of east.

Then along comes drunk number 4, as I was closing up the station, in wanders a staggering man, but at least he could talk.

"Where you going to mate"? I ask.
"Home" he says.

Don't you love those obvious answers.

"Do you know where home is" I ask.

You might be surprised I asked that, but one thing I've learnt and seen in my 20 years on this job is most bladdered people can't remember where they live or who they are.

So we carry on the conversation and I get the reply "Yeah I live locally".

Phew

"So where do you live and I'll point you in the right direction" being the helpful person that I am.

"Sevenoaks"

It was at this point I started thinking, I lived in this area for almost 30 years and I've worked at my station for just under nine years but I'm pretty sure I'm no where near Sevenoaks.

Oh well it's a long and sobering walk home for this poor fella.

Getting My Hands Dirty ... Again

Not to mention my shirt, my tie and my name badge...

As I popped out of the office to see off my last Harrow on the Hill train, I turned to the left and noticed two smartly dressed women getting off, all of a sudden .... crumple.... down goes one of the women ending up in a heap on the floor and almost ending up wedged between the train and the platform edge.

As I make my way to the two women, the one on the floor is dry retching, you know the attempting to vomit that really hurts the stomach, next second an explosion out of her mouth of what looks like white wine and apple strudel.

Now I have a problem, one of my last trains are in the platform and I have a semi conscious passenger crumpled on the floor beside it, luckily her friend seems totally sober which is a right bonus as going through my head is what should I do, because if I lay my hands on this woman I could be accused of anything.

So I plant my legs between her, the train and the platform edge, making sure her feet were completely clear and let the train depart, afterwards I contacted the controller to ask the next train to come in at caution speed and tell the two women that the drunken one will either have to move herself from the platform edge or I'll have to do it myself, seeing as she can't stand let alone walk, roll or shuffle I had to move behind the woman and grip her around the waist locking my hands together (I'm not getting accused of anything here) and proceed to drag her across the platform and prop her against a wall, next thing more dry retching and then the wine flows again.

As I have a night DSM on duty, I ask if he can book a special taxi as the drunken woman was going to be a right struggle getting her up the stairs and off towards Euston, much to my amazement he agrees to try and one is booked.

Success

Now for the fun to begin, as I helped the woman first to sit up and then stand up (ok basically yank her up off the floor), I start guiding her towards the stairs, and as I have two flights of the buggers I'm just not looking forward to it, off we go one step at a time, all of a sudden I have both her arms clinging to my neck, this doesn't bother me to much until I realise her right arm has been laying in the vomit and it's now plastered across my neck, chest, shirt, tie and name badge.

And were off again, the first flight fly by and then the tight turn at the top has her stumbling and if it wasn't for me basically lifting her off the floor we would both have hit the deck, she helps a bit on the second flight and across the booking hall area until we are outside and the bench is rushing towards us, just in time as another cascade of vomit erupts from her mouth and leaves me thinking that could have been on me.

The taxi arrives fairly sharpish, and with a bit of man handling on my part, no not groping but physically moving her about and into the back facing seat and leaving her tied up like a bondage queen with the safety belt, the taxi disappears into the night.

So now I am left at work wearing a white vomit stained shirt which is smelling of white wine and stomach acid.

Nice.

Another Night Down

So it's 3:15 in the morning and as I'm relaxing at work on my unpaid meal relief, I happened to look up on the camera monitors and noticed three unknown people in the ticket hall area using the Multi-fare machine to top up there oyster cards.

Now considering that my ticket hall is in semi-darkness and the gate is only open by approximately 10 inches, I pop upstairs to witness the three people squeezing there way back out of the station through the partially open gates, so as I wander over to have words I spot another person cuddled up against the Metro newspaper rack trying to sleep, so after waking him up and verbally throwing him out of the station, he settles down once more to sleep outside the Bostwick gates.

I spoke to all the contractors about leaving the gates open and then settled back down into my comfy chair to once again relax, but instead of that I catch movement outside the gates again, the sleeper is up and about and looking through the gates at the contractors, as the contractors make their way back down the stairs, the sleeper pops the gates open, even though they I had locked them, but as the contractors come back upstairs he proceeds to walk away only to come back when the contractors go back down stairs.

Once the contractors are out of sight the sleeper opens the gates, comes into the ticket hall area and carefully closes the gates, he snuggles up against the Metro rack once more and tries to go to sleep again, so once more I'm off out of the office and making my way upstairs, and this time in a less then friendly manner I basically tell him to leave the station, his face gave me the look of "how did you see me" so I point out the camera looking straight down at him, as he finally walks off, he sounds a lot like Mutley from Dastardly & Mutley fame.

But the most fun of the night though, was finding myself on my hands and knees with 10 minutes to go before I opened the station for normal service, two tiles had popped off the floor, so instead of leaving them there as a trip hazard it was a case of hammer, chisel and a lot of hazard tape to make a nice picture on the floor.

Oh well hopefully my art work will still be there when I get in tonight.

Technical Terminology

*Foul Language Alert*

Sometimes I'm glad that I started my main working life on building sites, as it makes it easier to deal with contractors.

Last night I had a set of contractors working on the AC units in my office, as one of the contractors was beavering away on the unit I all of a sudden hear a muttered "Jesus Christ".

"What's wrong"? I asked.
"Some twat has completely fucked the fucking pump" Comes the reply "and the prick has bent the pipe, what a wanker".
"Why, what's happened"? I ask nervously
"He's wired the fucker all wrong and crimped the bastard pipe together" He says.

So there you have it in (very) plain English, basically the pump on the AC unit is broken and whoever did the last bit of maintenance on the unit made it worse by wiring in the pump wrongly and bending the drain off pipe in the process, so a new pump is needed before the AC unit will work properly again.

A Little Bit Of Customer Care

I've been dealing with customers for almost 20 years and no matter what the situation I always try to deal with them the same way and I'm one of those members of staff who doesn't mind going the extra mile to help out a customer, don't get me wrong, if the customer is fluent in English I will explain up to three times before I think the person is taking the piss, however if the customer is a foreign national I will try to explain as much as possible even if I have to use my local tenants if they speak the same language. One thing I don't like about certain staff is the attitude of "well I'm not here to spoon feed them", and unfortunately I have two CSA's like that at my station.

However around 23:10 last night I had a distressed customer rapping on my door, the situation i was given by the customer was this.

She had to be at Victoria for 23:30 to catch a coach to Manchester (a bit of a tight squeeze I thought to myself) and that my CSA had given her incorrect information to get to Victoria (strange how it's always our fault).

After chatting for a while she asked if I could check up if there were any other coaches to Manchester tonight or when was the next train from Euston, after looking on the National Rail and National Express coach sites, she then asks what the prices would be as she has no money until tomorrow morning when the bank opens, at this point I'm left thinking what are you doing in London with no money and don't even think about asking me.

As the conversation moves on and the different options are eliminated I notice a phone number on her coach ticket to Manchester, so I call the number.

Luckily there is a 24 hour emergency number for National Express and after explaining the situation over the phone to their service assistant we find out she has an open ticket and she can catch the 01:00 coach to Manchester arriving after a connection in Birmingham at 07:15 this morning.

So now I'm left with a very happy customer who then tells me I've just saved her from being sacked.

Also after speaking with the CSA he explained what happened and I have no worries that he did anything wrong and gave all the correct information but as the customer was in a rush and became more flustered all the information flew out of her head.

That's Better

So as the sun beats down on my bare naked head, it's times like this I wish I had hair.

I've just spent a relaxing weekend with my kids, even though my eldest did get a tongue lashing for kicking her brother in the kidneys, and if you've ever been hurt in that region it hurts like buggery. Saturday was spent over at a friends in Northampton drinking copious amounts of lager and chilling out at a BBQ.

That's when my eldest kicked the boy.

Why do these things always happen in public or at friends and not at home where you can beat them to within an inch of there life, not that I would lay a hand on my kids, a stick or a belt maybe but never a hand.

So eldest girl then threw a strop to be proud of and sulked for the remainder of the night and even into the next day, now I don't often thank my ex wife but I must admit that she came up trumps when it came to dealing with my eldest as I called her to let her know about the bollocking I had given her, so the next day my ex called daughter and spoke to her, and strangely a different girl appears. God knows what my ex said but it did the trick.

On the trip back to Southend I had two silent kids as they were both out like a light, and the peace and quiet was lovely. Only another few weeks before I start it all over again.

Today though has been spent cleaning and tidying up and assaulting the garden to it's habitable again after winter, so this afternoon it's going to be a small BBQ and a couple of beers to help keep me cool.

Back To Work And Rest Days

So after spending around 6 days in the above position, I returned to work and although I was still in pain at least I could finally walk upright. It's strange the looks you get when you walk anywhere and lean to the left at the same time.

I saw my DSM on the Wednesday and luckily enough one of my other DSM's was also in the office, you might wonder why it was lucky, well the second DSM had actually seen me struggling to walk upright the week before when my spasm first kicked in.

The only problem about going sick though is that I have triggered another sickness warning, as the last time I was sick was for the whole of December which was only five months ago, so I'm now wondering if they will hit me with the warning as my first sickness was down to pneumonia (so either come to work and die or stay home and get better - my words not the companies) and this one has been witnessed by a DSM.

On a better note my tattoo artist called me and said that he has drawn up my latest tattoo and can I pop in and see if it's ok, after viewing the new drawing of the tattoo to be all I could say was "Fuck me that's good".

So my first appointment will be a two hour session on the 23rd and then I've pencilled in another 10 two hour sessions to complete it, so it should be completed by March 2009.

So now the rest days, wow two days back after sick and then four days off, this job can't be bad can it. It's travelling time once more, so off to Southend and back again (twice over the weekend) to collect the kids, only the eldest and the youngest this time as the middle one will be at rehearsals, BBQ tomorrow so an influx of alcohol too, what more can be said for a weekend.

F**king Back Spasm.

Once more my back has gone into spasm, I bloody hate when this happens as it's one of those pains that you can do nothing about but no matter what you do it always hurts.

It all started on Wednesday night when I was walking from St Pancras station to the platform at Kings Cross to go to work, as far as I know didn't twist my back or do anything strenuous, it just happened. As the night progressed the pain increased and by the time I left to go home my back had properly seized up to the point that when I was walking, I wasn't walking in a straight up right position but was leaning towards the left, my right side was solid and I was getting short of breath from the pain.

Luckily Thursday was my rest day, but the pain continued, but Thursday night I almost hit the deck when the pain almost took me to my knees, I was just taking some cloths out of the washing machine to put in the tumble dryer, my knees buckled and if it wasn't for grabbing the work surface and my knees landing in the tumble dryers drum and keeping me on my feet, I would have been a gonna, as I started to crumble the stupidest thought came to my head "mayday, mayday, mayday, I'm going down, I'm going down, I'm going down".

Friday was no better either what with struggling through the pain and being at work, moving around the station in that slow motion way only back pains can cause isn't going to be much help if something happens and I felt the same today.

So today as my shift came to the end I let my DSM know I wont be in for the next couple of days,
Back pains really are a pain.