The Expected Unexpected

Tube strike, the two most dreaded words to the London commuter. And it is expected but still manages to catch you out and be unexpected at the same time. And boy does it screw with your life! Starting from the 16th of May there will be TWO WEEKS of tube strikes over two dismissed drivers. Now, the reported reasons for these sackings were as follows.

- The first driver was sacked for overriding the safety protocols and driving with "disregard for established procedures"
- The second driver was apparently abusive towards his co-workers.

I have very little time for striking tube drivers at the best of time. They get paid very very well for what they do, they get free travel and apparently excellent additional benefits. So when they decide to get their collective panties in a wad over a sacking, that if true was gross misconduct, I really don't care much about their feelings. IF the sackings were unfair dismissal as is being claimed then how about you wait until the court proceedings are complete before throwing in towels and refusing to work. If I refused to turn up to work because a friend of mine was fired, I'd be reprimanded and then likely fired, so why is it different for them?!

The effect this is going to have on already provenly grumpy commuters is making us even worse to be around, so nobody benefits from that! I either have to cram onto a hideously overcrowded bus (not. frickin. happening!) to make my way round a convoluted route to my office, or give up and go home to sign in from there. And to be honest working from home sounds like a blast, but it's not, but that's for another post.

They're trying to hit the company in the pocket, I get that's the plan, but it's not working. The people they're hitting are the regular commuters, the ones of us who've paid out for weekly, monthly, or annual travelcards so if they still want to try and salvage ANY sort of sympathy they seriously need to rethink. Amateur Transplants hit the nail on the head when they sang about them, and as someone pointed out recently, if they want to hit profits whilst keeping people on side then just leave the barriers open so no one gets charged... It's a pretty good idea to be fair, and yeah then I would actually have no problem with them getting on with it.

Or, even better, the RMT can start refunding me for every day of travel I can't actually use the ticket I've paid for. I prefer that actually, show me the money...!!