Diary of a Tube worker: "You saw the email about supplies"

Submitted by AWL on 12 May, 2020 - 9:03 Author: Jay Dawkey
The Tube

The streets are fairly clear at 0410 when I leave the house. I don’t meet anyone else until I get on my first of two night buses. I could get the staff taxis. They’ve changed it to only take one passenger at a time now. But I would be walking in the rain for 15 minutes to pick it up.

The bus is not busy, but it’s hard to socially distance as another set of orange overalls or Royal Mail hi-vis jackets climbs up the stairs. I exchange a solemn nod with the other tube worker on here as I get off. No one is in the mood for talking. Everyone looks tired and ready for the bed they’ve only just left.

The gates open up at 0516. A couple of people trickle in. I go back to the mess-room. Do I have a coffee or do I go to sleep? Perhaps I can do both. Get the coffee, fall asleep before it works and wake up feeling refreshed? We turn the light off and close our eyes.

The part-timers trickle in after 0700. Looks like too many of us are in for this to be sensible. And several of the part-timers don’t hold the same licence as me.

Bollocks, I think. Means I won’t be getting out of here early. Of course everyone in can do the jobs that my licence allows, but the company want to save money, and it can pay these people six grand less because they haven’t been given an extra week’s worth of training.

D comes to the door. “Can you go down to Platform 5? I think there is a black rucksack on a bench. No one is with it”.

“I’ll get some gloves”

“Can you just take one?”

“How can I look inside it once I have checked it, if I only have one glove”

“Yeah I know, but you saw the email about supplies”.

“If that wasn’t a joke, then this surely is. I am getting a pair of gloves”.

As I go down, I realise I haven’t been onto the platforms in work time since the crisis started. Platform is empty, as is the bag. I go back inside.

“Base to all radios, good morning, good morning. Can we have someone in the GLAP (glass box by the barriers) on rotation from 0800. Customers starting to come through”.

M answers. I hadn’t seen him, he must be in the other mess room. “Kilo 32 to base. If customers are making essential journeys only then they’ll know where they are going”.

Throughout the week certain managers try to encourage people to go out. Some do, but only to sit, looking down and keeping the door closed.

“Why do managers want to just exercise this power, sitting in their offices and asking us to risk ourselves?”

“How will they do it when there is meant to be more people travelling? There will be queues worse than the shops. We can’t manage that. It’s scary.”

“We are going to find out in two weeks. And it won’t be good, I know that much.” N says as he leaves.


Other entries in the “My Life At Work” series, and other workers' diaries

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