Engineering Works Again

Yet again there are planned engineering works taking place along my part of the line, and luckily the Station Master has a restday and then starts 2 weeks of annual leave.

Next weeks planned engineering works will be worse, with 8 lines suspended. So please check before you travel.

Believe it or not I actually had a good time at work, as I manned (or should that be personned in a politcally correct world) the main gates to my station. The day actually flew by, so I might do the same tomorrow, just to relieve the normal tedium and boredom.

What A Week

It all started of fine and dandy, then everything went pear shaped.

I went into pay my rent and I was handed a letter telling me that my lease wont be renewed as the owner need to refurbish my flat.

So now I'm flat/house hunting, and luckily I found one with in the day.

Then my problems started, I found out that because of problems with my old house where I lived with the ex wife. When it was sold up there is a County Court Judgement against both me and my ex wife.

So now I have to find 6 months rent in advance, Luckily I can apply for an emergency loan from the company but it needs to be paid back with in 3 paydays. So now i have to find £900 a month to repay it.

Oh well hopefully I can get some overtime in.

Secondly, I've been in a bit of trouble lately, as i refused to send my staff to another station when the SS from the other stationtold me to send them my CSA. The whole situation has been blown completely out of proportion, I spoke to my Manager tonight about all that happened and I've been given an Oral Warning which lasts for 26 weeks.

On a better note, for some reason I seem to be getting on well with my ex wife, now for some reason that makes me very very nervous.

Take The Quiz

Try taking the CSA quiz on the Transport for London. I tried it and only got 5 out of 8 and have great potential.
See what sort of questions that we might get asked and how little time we get to answer.
Then let me know how you did.

Back To Work Tomorrow

I've had a fantastic week off work and spent loads of time having fun with my kids.

Unfortunately I'm back at work tomorrow and after coming home to an empty flat, I realised just how much noise is in my flat when my kids are here.

Today also happens to be my sons 7th birthday and luckily enough I had the pleasure of being woken at 7:45 with "DAD IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY" shouted in my ear. So at least I got to see my son today.

I've now dropped them home to there mum and drove like a bat out hell to get home and watch the football. Now all I need to do is run the hoover over the carpets and I'm all set again to sit here alone (sad sack that I am) and finally chill before going to the great hole in London.

I'm lookking forward to seeing the Sation Master tomorrow so I can catch up on the gossip, the one thing I'm not looking forward to is seeing my DSM as something that occurred before my Annual Leave is still going on.

Oh well time to hang out the washing too.

Annual Leave

Well I'm on leave again and I have my kids with me until the 22nd, and I I'm back at work on the 23rd having deferred my second week of leave. I have worked out I'm on nights over the New Year, I think I'll ask for my week back then.

I wont be around until 23rd so there wont be any posts.

Commendation and Flowers

I've been feeling a bit down of late especially with all that has been happening to me at work (more on that at a later date).

Today though I had something to smile about.

One of my Station Assistant Multi-Functional's (booking clerk) was given a lovely bunch of flowers yesterday, just for being so helpful, the customer arrived with a failed oyster card, and all my colleague did was treat him as she normally treats other customers.

A few moments later the customer reappeared and gave her a bunch of flowers, also later in the day, the station received a call from Customer Services saying a big thank you from the gentleman with the oyster card.

It's nice for staff to receive thanks from customers, as generally customer complain more then praise.

Apologies

Sorry for not blogging over the past couple of days, unfortunately I've been having a bit of strife at work with the managers again.

I can't really go into to much details at present, as I might be heading for disciplinary action fairly soon.

More details will follow on Thursday I hope. Typical just before my annual leave.

And People Wonder Why We Get Upset

I've had engineering works going on all weekend, what with my normal contractors of 20 plus electricians. My station has been swamped with 150+ contractors replacing a stretch of track running through my station.

Today I was asked a question by a passing tourist.

Tourist: "Hi whats going on"
Me: "Engineering works on the track, so my station is closed"
Tourist: "Oh I thought it was another terrorist attack"

Sheesh.

Next Morning

Is 04:30 and my alarm goes off, I'm awake and just about alive. So it's into the bathroom for a shower and shave, a bit of porridge and a coffee and then off out the door to work.

I arrived feeling fresh as a daisy (yeah right) and with in 2 hours of arrive I get a call from the late turn man, he wont be in as he has Flu.

Luckily I'm thinking well the meal relief man is here today and I can still go home at the usual time.

But alas no luck on that front either, as the meal relief man is off out tonight playing squash.

I then had a phone call from the DSM asking if i wanted to do overtime tonight. Well as I've just bought a new car, why not.

So here I am sitting at work knowing that it is going to be a very long shift 16 hours in total. However I do have 12 hours of rest to look forward to, and the luck of having a great mother who just happens to live in London.

Tiring Day Off

I was looking forward to my Thursday off, the only thing about this rest that I don't like about this week, is the fact that I have split rest days. This week I have Tuesday and Thursday off with a late turn shift (15:00 to 23:00) in the middle.

So I arrived home on Wednesday night to a nice warm flat, and settled down to relaxing on the PC and then watching TV. Next thing I know it's 3 am and I'm still watching the Discovery Channel on Sky.

I thought to myself, right time to tuck in, and promptly lay awake for another hour twisting and turning in bed.

8:30 and theres a banging on my front door, I had forgotten that the builders were due back.
In walks the carpenter and carries on painting the door, he left about 11:30.

Ah i though I can relax now for a little while.

Next thing theres a knock on the door again, A double glazing fixer has arrived to replace my front wind. Bugger I'd forgotten that too.

He left by 5:30. I sat down and promptly dozed of to sleep on the sofa, waking up at 7pm After spending a few hours awake i tried to go to sleep at 10 pm as I'm early turn (07:30 start) next day. No luck there either so I'm still awake at 1am.

N Y C vs London Underground

I found a nice little entry on comparasions between your beloved London Underground and The NYC Subway as written by a touristfrom New York.

Nobel Prize Winner

I walked into work this afternoon and whilst speaking with the eternally happy early turn Supervisor, he told me that his father won a Nobel Prize. Isn't it amazing the sort of people you know in the world.

Nice Day Off

I had a nice day off yesterday.

Apart from being woken at 08:30 by builders wanting to get access to my flat, because under local government procedures, I need to have a huge fat fire door installed in my flat.

The best thing about this door is that it didn't fit the original door frame and you can't take anything off the doors themself except from the bottom. So now i have a lovely pretty door and a brand new door frame freshly undercoated.

My friend came over last night, and stayed the night as we were chilling watching football and had a lovely chinese, (not telling you her name).

Tomorrow I have the same thing, as I'm off again and I have more builders coming to replace one of my front windows, as one needs to be an emergency exit, also the carpenter is back to finish repainting my door frame.

The only thing I have to do for myself is go to Weight watchers again and find out how much I have put on since I last went. Oh Joy!!!

Joy And Jubilation.

One of my colleagues at my station, thinks he is the No1 Supervisor on my station, and thinks so highly of himself that, if someone else does something on the station that he hasn't done, he will re-do it in his own way. Much to the amusement of my other colleagues because most of the time he will make simple mistakes and make himself look more a prat then anything else.

How ever last night he came a cropper with some of our contractors, when he upset the Lead Spic.

I found out that when he upset the Lead Spic, all the Lead Spic did was take away his hard hat, (my staion being a hard hat area during engineering work) there by confining him to the Supervisors Office.

Also I'm suffering froma head cold only and not the flu. So no sick leave for me. I know I took a lot of sick leave last year but I realised why, because of lackof management support. However i'm trying to be good this year and keep my nose out of trouble.

Not A Well Man

I woke up this morning and I thought I was still suffering from a hang over, but as the day has gone on I'm feeling worse and worse, and even dozed off at work.

My head feels more and more bunged up and my nose wont stop running, so It's either flu or a head cold. (All the ladies who read my blog are probably thinking, typical bloke gets a cold and the world ends).

Now back to work, today I had another service suspension for engineering works, track replacement works at Baker Street. So I manned the gateline giving all our lovely polite customers "what do you mean there's no f**king train service" directions.

But apart from that I had a very very quiet day. And more of the same tomorrow, if I remember I'll get a few pics of all the trains and tractors going through my station.

Happy Anniversary

Today is the first anniversary of this blog.

Who thought a year ago I would still be at it.