Since the station job cuts were introduced, it is almosted expected that the few staff now remaining will work extra hard to paper over the cracks. But ticket sellers at Bank station have not buckled under the pressure.
When there has been a fault with a ticket machine in either the Northern Line or Monument Ticket Hall, staff have secured their money in the float safe before closing the Central Line ticket office, walked ten minutes to the other side of the station, and re-opened the window properly when the fault has been resolved.
The ticket office has also had to close for banking, POM servicing and collections.
This has resulted in the ticket office being closed for 1.5 to 2 hours on some days. IRFs (Incident Report Forms) have been filled out each time.
Why should staff have to run around ragged because noone is on-hand to service machines? If management are only going to provide one ticket seller, of course the ticket office will have to close when a machine goes down! Management cannot expect ticket sellers to cut corners when it comes to securing their money before leaving the ticket office. We have to insist on taking sufficient time to do our job properly, irrespective of how many staff are on the station.
Sadly, around the combine, the pressure of too few staff has meant many of us shouldering more than our fair share of work. We can all learn something from the staff at Bank.
