Workers' Diaries

Articles and interviews recounting people's experiences at work. The "My life at work" series of interviews with workers; and the "Diary of an Engineer/a Tubeworker/a DWP worker"; and similar.

Ode to the pole

It’s been two years now and I can’t imagine ever getting sick of the pole. The bells go down and I shoot up from my seat and run to the polehouse. With one hand I reach up to release the latch, kick the left door open, lean into the right one with my shoulder and down I go, two storeys descended in a second and a half. I’m always shocked by people that don’t use it. The driver and watch person (the firefighter assigned to be a kind of secretary for the shift) have to go to the teleprinter to see what we’ve got and where we’re going. But plenty of others habitually neglect the pole in favour of...

Off my diamonds

I’ m “off my diamonds” and have “lost my D” having “finished my book”. We submitted the paperwork months ago, and finally I’ve been signed off as competent and can remove off my lid the big diamond-shaped stickers that marked me out as a development firefighter — leaving behind bright and unblemished circles, like brand new intensely white trainers, marking me out as an only-just-not trainee. It’s tempting to rub the helmet in the nearest pile of soot at my next job, though I resist the urge. Most milestones — or fuckups — are marked by cakes, but this one is significant enough to demand the...

Ruined by the "upgrade"

Pay talks on the Elizabeth Line in London continue at a snail’s pace, with an extra 0.5% over the previous offer. A further meeting is scheduled for 11 June and patience is starting to wear thin on the ground. There is a growing mood that we need to escalate, potentially with the threat of a ballot to force the company’s hand. Our reps say it’s too soon to ballot, as we haven’t received the “final” offer. But how often have we seen a “final” offer suddenly improved after strikes? London Overground staff have informed bosses that if they don’t receive a decent offer before the end of May then...

Cancer vs wet wipes

E collars me at change of watch as I’m coming off duty. After a job last tour, he says, he followed the new post-fire decontamination procedure, bagging up his fire gear, hosing and wiping down his breathing apparatus (BA) set and cleaning his helmet. He wiped down the exterior and soaked the fabric interior in soapy water, scrubbing and rinsing as best he could. “The next day, my lid still smelled a bit smoky but we don’t keep spares so I stuck it on the fire engine. I put it on at a shout, and when I took it off there was a black line of soot around my head.” The policy tells you to wash it...

Diary of a railworker: a first test of resolve

On the Elizabeth Line in London, barely a day goes by without delays. With the new timetable due in a few weeks, promising up to 24 trains per hour in the central section, it remains to be seen if the system can cope. Station staff will continue to take the flak and mitigate as much as possible. Pay talks for 2023/24 on the Elizabeth Line begin in earnest in the first week of April, despite the previous settlement expiring on 1 April. Management has offered 5% pay rise, 3% now plus 2% in October, but with terms-and-conditions changes, such as seven-day working. The union reps have rebuffed...

Diary of a tubeworker: paying more for less

Every time a driver is unavailable to pick up a train, for whatever reason, there are a number of knock-on effects. How these are managed can have a big impact on your mood and what kind of service passengers get. You might be on a train for up to four hours and fifteen minutes. As soon as someone isn’t available that might mean a train cancellation, and that means the current driver needs to get the train to a depot, siding, or an alternative place it can be picked up and “reformed” into a train that was previously cancelled. That headache largely sits with the Line Controllers. On weekends...

Diary of a primary care worker: The services the Tories have broken

Part of the reason I moved from the ambulance service into working at a GP was because I was fed up of taking patients to sit for hours outside A&E. I thought there’d be more chance to access the services people needed directly by seeing them in the community. Michael came into the surgery. He’d had a few episodes of chest pain when walking up the stairs recently. We have a great referral system for someone like Michael. He didn’t need acute A&E treatment, but it was important that he got a fairly quick specialist assessment for cardiac disease. So, I referred him to the “Rapid Access Chest...

The keys? You'll have to share

In January a person was stabbed at Woolwich station on the Elizabeth Line. Fortunately the victim only sustained minor injuries and the perpetrator was later caught by police. As for staff who witnessed the scene, they were given special leave to process an understandably traumatic experience. The situation has got staff even more concerned about our own safety. In case of an attack, we have a designated “place of safety”, usually the lockable Assistance pods you see by gatelines. Yet many staff do not have the requisite keys to access them. We have been told for months that more keys are...

Diary of a firefighter: On the eve of strikes?

Normally this time of year is the quietest — no grass fires, few barbecues, fewer drunk people passing out with the oven on after a night out. But the energy crisis has put people in some desperate situations, and some are resorting to extremely unsafe ad hoc ways of keeping warm when they can't afford to put the boiler on. Today, we're sent on a relief to assist fire investigation at a flat in a rather grand street in West London. An older woman lived there, who luckily got herself out before the first crews arrived. She was a bit of a hoarder so there were a lot of things around and it was...

Diary of a Tube worker: How many to change a bulb?

How many people does it take to change a lightbulb? That question, with variations, apparently dates back to the 1960s. So, how many people does it take to change a lightbulb on the Tube? Or, how many people does it take to relamp a signal in busy times? I’ll walk you through the process. It’s long, but there are good safety reasons for the length. First it takes a driver or someone to spot that a bulb has gone (1). Then they report it to the Line Controller (2). Then that Controller will log the issue, they might speak to someone else (3) who will then need to get a Technical Officer (4) to...

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