London Underground Life

Another Night Down

2008-05-15T09:16:00.003+01:00

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

2008-05-14T11:14:00.005+01:00

*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

2008-05-14T10:57:00.003+01:00

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

2008-05-12T13:07:00.003+01:00

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

2008-05-09T12:41:00.003+01:00

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.

2008-05-03T16:03:00.003+01:00

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.

Whore House Cats

2008-05-02T05:01:00.002+01:00

Well it's that time again, a full seven days of getting up at stupid o'clock (that's 4:30 in layman terms).

I switched off my light around 12:01 and settled down for a night of slumber and I was quickly away with he faeries, however by 1:56am my eyes were wide open wondering what the hell that noise was.

As my brain finally caught up with my ears I realised it was those f**king cats having a wild orgy once more, this time right outside my window, as the noise progressively got worse I got out of bed to see what the hell was going.

There across the road were two cats having a field day, shagging away to there hearts content, whilst all the time destroying any remaining chance I might get of a decent nights kip.

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse along came a jealous Tom and an almighty brawl started taking place in the middle of the road.

However silence finally settled once more when my neighbour across the round threw a pint of water out of the window, which landed straight on top of the fighting toms.

Silence is golden.

Back To Normality

2008-04-30T11:52:00.002+01:00

As far as I know all the over time I have been doing should have come to an end, so as of today it's back to working my normal shift patterns.

At least I feel less tired today, but then again I probably wont be home until 12:30 tonight as I'm working at a different station and will end up chatting to my night turn colleague, well at least I can abuse the Shiny Demon and the Lesbian all night all night.

Before you freak out the lesbian is male and no he isn't homosexual either it's just an in house joke between us.

The benefits of working shift patterns are that you get to see your house at all different times of the day.

Tomorrow is another rest day and I'm off for a bit of shock treatment, OK not really shock treatment, I'm just going back to Weight Watchers to see if I can kill the scales with my weight.

I'm just waiting until Friday when my week of earlies start once more and I will only have to be up every day at 4:30 again even over the bank holiday.

Punctuation, Grammar Or Should That Be Grandma

2008-04-29T10:31:00.006+01:00

This post came about thanks to a conversation I had this morning in Facebook IM.

As any of my regular readers to this blog will realise, punctuation and written grammar aren't one of my strong points.

i know i use the word there instead of their (thanks Doobrie) and i normally don't use question marks ? (thanks Barry), however although these minor grammatical mis-spells occur, you still get the general gist of what i mean.

So for all the less picky readers of my blog, thank you for not criticizing, and for all of you who do criticize, here's a big raspberry in your general direction.

So Much For The Rest Day

2008-04-29T09:58:00.002+01:00

As I lay in that comfy, warm, don't want to move spot sound asleep, ok dead to the world more like, knowing I don't have to get up until at least 9:30 before getting up and ready to face the world, do some housework, chill out, relax, rest, see a friend .... and the phone rings.

"Hello daddy" pipes a happy little voice "Did I wake you"?
"No I always sound this miserable at 7:55 on my day off".

I love my daughter to bits but she does have a lovely habit of calling me extra early on my days off.

At Last A Rest Day

2008-04-28T23:58:00.003+01:00

As I went into work today, I thought at last just eight more hours to do and then it's off home for a well earned rest, that didn't last long.

As I basked in the glory of my meal relief my AG1 called and asked for another favour, you guessed it more overtime.

So instead of finishing at a planned 7pm I stayed on until 11pm and another four hours overtime which amasses to a grand total of 42 hours. So that's me done for the month, no more OT as I'm maxed out, right up to the 30% extra we are allowed to work.

Chatting to a colleague tonight, one of his colleagues has worked out that an SS2 (which is my grade) can work up to 15 days before hitting the super tax bracket and the dreaded 40% tax, so in 15 days since I've been back off leave, I've hit just under six days worth.

But at least I'm now off until Wednesday.

Doing The Double

2008-04-26T05:15:00.002+01:00

Today is double shift day, which means that I'll get into work around 7am and walk out again around 11pm tonight, this will also mean the end of a 38 hour overtime battle done over just two weeks, after today I'm back on the normal shift routine which I'm looking forward to as I might just be able to get myself back into a more normal shift pattern.

Oh wait I've just remembered, next week is odds and sods week, so basically my shift patterns are once more all over the place and I wont be getting back to the same shift pattern until next Friday when it's the "Oh my god what am I doing up at 4:30" yes the dreaded early turns and worst still I'll have to contend with the drive to work Sunday as it's a bank holiday and engineering works are taking place on my line in.

Oh well off to mothers after work so I'll probably wake up to a nice "FRIED BREKKIE" of eggs, bacon, sausages, black pudding and beans mmmmmm cheers mum.

Good job I haven't started on the diet yet.

The Eyes Of A Tired Man

2008-04-25T21:32:00.003+01:00

You can always tell when you have done to much over time and haven't slept enough. I'm just glad that tomorrow afternoon is the last bit I'm doing

Much Appreciated

2008-04-25T05:01:00.003+01:00

A couple of days ago I posted an item about battering the body clock, so here is an update on the situation.

Unfortunately there has been a multitude of problems just recently where a few supervisors have been either off sick, on leave or had to take emergency leave (my prayers are with my colleagues son), so whilst I was on leave I received a text from one of the reserve SS asking if I was free to do any overtime on the Friday and Saturday the 18th and 19th, which were straight after my late turns.

Normally this is the weekend that I have my kids, but as I had them all over the Easter, I agreed to work the OT and I changed the plans to see my kids on my other weekend off instead.

Now for the fun part, after I worked both my rest days for week one my AG1 (Gods secretary) called me Sunday afternoon around 1:30 and asked if I could do her a favour and work that night as well, so this would have been my eighth day straight on (framework of agreements not broken) which I'm allowed to do.

Monday was a rest day but as I got home around11ish it wasn't much of one. The rest of this weeks shifts are already on my previous post, however another SS has gone sick as of yesterday, so tomorrow (Saturday) I have a 16 hour shift to look forward to instead of the usual eight hours I was intending to do.

Now for the nice part, I was summons down by the AG1 to my GSM's offices, firstly I though " Oh bugger the results of coming clean about my blog are in" so I popped in to the AG1's office and as they were busy I popped across to chat with the GSM.
As I was sitting there, both of the AG1's walked in and between the three of them I found out that because of all the shift changes I had done recently I was being awarded a bronze "Thanks to you Award".
I had been nominated by my AG1's for all the help over the past two weeks and all the changes at short notice.

That will teach me to batter my body clock.

So cheers boss and the lovely AG1's

Contemplating The Future.

2008-04-24T08:40:00.002+01:00

Because of the antics of certain individuals at my job I have had to officially declare this blog to my GSM, as basically I don't know if I have breached LUL's policies and procedures although going through my blog I recently realised that two possible entries have, so I deleted these off my own back.

My GSM has forwarded my link to IT security so they can have a look at my blog and say yes or no and give me advice on the future.

Hopefully this wont be the demise of my blog as I have mainly enjoyed writing it for the past three years.

Oh well my blog is now in the hands of the gods so to speak.

Left Wondering What If

2008-04-22T17:57:00.002+01:00

At the end of my shift I have to pop to another station to give a meal relief, so as I left my office and landed myself on to platform 2 I came face to face with a young girl of around six and a baby of around 18 months old propped up in a buggy.

I looked around and couldn't see any adult near by, so I made my self known the the little girl and asked where her mum or dad were.

"Oh" she replies "she has taken my brothers to the toilet up".

As a father was stunned, I would never let my kids out of my sight at that age and especially just leave them sitting on the platform of a busy underground station in the middle of the evening peak, where god forbid anything could happen.

When the so called mother re-emerged I let rip into her about leaving her kids alone and her part to act (and I use the term loosely) like a mother.
After I had let rip at her she didn't even acknowledge that she had been wrong to leave her children alone.

Remember the McCanns any one.

Not A Conversation I Was Expecting

2008-04-21T06:20:00.002+01:00

There are certain thing that all SS should do when the station has opened and the staff are in, one of these are to witness the opening of safes in the ticket office.

Today was no exception, so after I was called to witness the contents by my SAMF, I wandered up stairs and whilst my SAMF carried out the opening of the safe he turns to me and says something so unexpected, my brain shut down for a few seconds to assimilate the words he had just used.

"My wife keeps telling me she used to be a man".

Where this came from I have know idea, did I need to know this, no I didn't, did I flee the ticket office.

Yes I did.

A Night Of Discomfort

2008-04-21T02:51:00.003+01:00

Well this is a nice 1000th entry.

I've just spent one of the most uncomfortable times ever at work, around an hour ago I started getting pains just at the bottom of my rib cage and right slap bang in the middle of my stomach, the pain started to build for around 20 minutes when all of a sudden I let out a belch that reverberated around my office.

Wind.

So for the past 40 odd minutes I've been belching like trooper, the discomfort is worse then the burping, as it keeps building and building, just to rumble out through my throat and end up more of a growl then a burp. At times I sound more like a lion on heat then a human, the wind builds and builds and builds with little pop burps until my rib cage feels stretched like a balloon and the main burp releases itself with a vengeance into the big wide world, it's better then and orgasm as I feel totally deflated afterwards and then wait for it starts all over again.

I just wish the bloody things would stop.

The Old Body Clock

2008-04-20T22:29:00.002+01:00

I gave my old body a clock a bit of a battering last week what with going to sleep at stupid hours of the night, 6am one morning, working seven straight days and two of those being overtime, so after last nights lack of sleep because of my friends bastard of a cat I decided today and tomorrow will be just chill days.

How wrong could I get.

My phone rang around 1:15pm and I was surprised to hear my AG1 (posh title for a secretary) would I like to do overtime again tonight, I mulled it over for at least 30 milliseconds and thought well i could chill out for the rest of the day getting over that bloody cat or I could earn £200 relaxing at work, so I decided the latter.

So this week I will be battering the old body clock once more, working odds and sods shifts putting the clock through more changes then prostitutes underwear.

23:00 to 07:30, off Monday, 11:00 to 19:05, 11:00 to 23:00, 11:00 to 19:05, 07:30 to 14:45 then finally 07:30 to 14:45 next Saturday.

God only knows how I'm going to feel by then, but it should be worth it, at least I'll clear a couple of bills.

Bastard Of A Cat

2008-04-20T12:02:00.003+01:00

I finished work last night and headed off towards a friends house for the night. It was one of my friends from a post a couple of days back. The day that I took a break from everyone her fella dumped her, so last night I spent a pleasant evening answering WHY????? questions.

Don't get me wrong it was a nice night. There was no alcohol or sex involved just chatting, Chinese and coffee and separate beds, I crashed out on the living room trying to sleep on what I can only describe as the most uncomfortable mattress in the world. I'm used to a solid orthopaedic mattress, not the flimsy spring type that wouldn't hold the weight of a mouse.

I had just fallen asleep when I was startled into wakefulness by the crash of my friends cat leaping at the back door glass, you know when you wake up and thing what the f**k was that and where the hell am I.

I tried to doze off again when wallop that bastarding cat did it again, as I started dozing I'm all of a sudden disturbed by the prevailing stench of cat shit as her cat decides to have a dump in the litter tray and then covers it up.

I thought bugger that, so I got up and closed the utility room door with the cat still inside, two reasons for this, one to hold the stanch at bay and the second to keep the cat from disturbing me again.

How wrong I was.

Meow, meow, meoW, meOW, mEOW, MEOW, bastard.

I drop off to sleep around 4am only to be disturbed once more by that f**king cat, this time running round the room playing with a toy.

Finally the little bastard stops and settles down to sleep.

Once more I'm woken, but this time by my friend around 8:30 asking if i want a cuppa and some toast, when I sit on the sofa the cat comes up to me and wants stroking with a happy little purr

Bastard of a thing.

I've Just Been Flirted With

2008-04-17T17:56:00.003+01:00

I had a small problem with the station PC where there PC clock is running around 15 minutes behind normal BST, I called the helpdesk and get through to a young lady on the other end of the phone.

As she is sorting out the problem, an annoucement cameof the internal speaker from NOC (god) about a service disruption to the Jubilee line, so as per usual I did the recorded PA and set it all up for play.

As I got back to the helpdesk call, the young lady on the end of the phone pipes up with "You have a lovely voice"

Now it's not everyday I'm told something like this, so straight away I replied with "Are you flirting with me"?

Now I have a young lady stuttering and stammering and just as obviously blushing on the end of the phone dealing with the fault.

Around 15 minutes later, the phone rings again and it's the young lady from the help desk

"Ah you've called back to her my lovely voice again" I said "stop that" she says with laughter in her voice.

Sometimes little things make the world seem a happy place.

Stand Behind The Yellow Line Please

2008-04-17T11:35:00.003+01:00

You might think that the yellow line on the platforms were just placed for the fun of it, however LUL might do a lot of confusing things that there leaves the staff thinking I have no idea why (including the latest management propaganda that's happening on all stations right now).

So please stand behind those nice yellow lines.

OOOPS Wrong Number

2008-04-16T12:00:00.002+01:00

I tried to contact my internet service provider AOL last night to find out why they have taken two payments from my account this month.

The contact number is 0844 499 5555.

However I rang 0844 999 5555 instead and heard the following message.

"Hello and welcome to Gay Date".

CLICK.

Two Conversations

2008-04-15T22:13:00.004+01:00

As I was walking through St Pancras on my way to work an elderly gentleman saw me approaching and waving his hands frantically got my full attention.

First Conversation.

Him "Where do I get the British trains"?

Me "Where are you going"?

Him "Well not on that bloody foreign train that's for sure".

Me "Yes I know that but you still haven't told me where you are trying the get to".

Him "Oh Nottingham".

After giving him the correct and easiest directions to the East Midland Trains to Nottingham, I get a nice thank you and watch him toddle off in completely the wrong direction, sheesh.

Second Conversation (please consider the way my head was feeling mushed).

I'll set the scene, it's just gone 5:57pm and a passenger has pressed the PHP (passenger help point).

Me "Hello, how can I help you"?

Customer "Yes, can you tell me where the 18:01 (6:01pm) train to Amersham is please"?

Me "Hang on sir, I'll just check ... Yes the train is approaching Barbican and will be approximately seven minutes late and should arrive by 18:08".

Customer "Oh did I miss the announcement over the PA about it running late"?.

Me "No sir, you didn't.

Customer "Oh how comes"?.

Me "Because I haven't made and announcement"

Customer "Why not?.

Me "Because I have been busy making PA recordings for the service suspension on the Jubilee line and the delays on the Victoria line .... Good day".

Feeling Very Stressed

2008-04-15T11:28:00.005+01:00

At the moment I feel more like an agony uncle then a normal (debatable) person as I'm caught up in a few peoples relationships problems and other things going on in their lives.

I'm caught up with a couple female friends who are being both being played by the same bloke (the ex husband of one and current boyfriend of the other), yet neither of them are willing to let go of the bloke.

I was also caught up over the weekend with another two female friends, one woman has had the boyfriend of the other boyfriend flirting with her and was in such a quandary about what to do, and although she has done the right thing, she still feels guilty, yet the second woman knows she has done the right thing but is still angry.

Another female friend is having a torrid time with her fella because she isn't happy with things that are happening and she doesn't want to leave him because she thinks he might be suffering from depression and post traumatic stress after witnessing an accident where he climbed into the smashed up car and found the driver dead with the car engine sitting in his lap.

I know I have a good few female friends (natural flirt alert) and I do give advice when asked, for some reason I seem to always get stuff dumped on me when it comes to relationships, then I think why do I never take my own advice.

So at the moment I feel torn from pillar to post and back again, my head is so full of mush from all that's going on that I think my phone will be staying on silent for a few days to help me clear my own head out.

There is only one person who I will answer the phone to (she knows who she is), no matter what time of day as she has more things going on in her life then all the above and I've always told her I'll be their when or if needed.