Friday 4 January 2008

Plus ca change

Back to work after the holidays today. Got up nice and early and headed off to get the Jubilee Line at North Greenwich. Only to find that the Jubilee Line suspended between Stratford and Stanmore. For those who aren't familiar with the Jubilee Line, that is the entire line. Superb. Faulty communications equipment it would seem. The escalators to the ticket hall are all roped off and I have to ask the station staff if the ticket office is in fact open as I have no money or ticket on my Oyster. Fortunately it is. So, I join the rest of the commuters trying to find an alternate route out of North Greenwich. Always tricky as there is only one tube line and no mainline or DLR out of there. Everyone piled onto buses. I got on the 188 which goes all the way to Central London. I was sitting on the bus heading to Canada Water thinking to myself "I could get off here and pick up the Jubilee Line" before I remembered that the Jubilee Line wasn't working which was the whole reason that I was sitting on the bus in the first place! D'oh.

The office appeared to be in the usual state of post-Christmas disarray. Exacerbated by the fact that no cleaning appeared to have been carried out at all. Cups and glasses everywhere, bins not emptied. I recollected that the note left for the cleaners requested them to come back on 4th January. Now, it may be that the writer intended to intimate the week ending 4th January, but that wasn't what was written. It didn't strike me at the time as I wasn't coming back to work myself until that date, so I didn't connect that everyone else would be back to days earlier and making a mess!

Having had one member of staff leave before Christmas we somehow managed to lose another one over Christmas. Back to down to the 'hardcore'. So much work, so few people to do it. Not an excellent start to 2008!

Fortunately by evening and time for the return journey the Jubilee Line was working again, which made life a bit easier!