Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Drift


I didn’t make it into work yesterday. I checked and the tube service I needed was running so I went to the station, but a few minutes after I got there they suspended the service. My neighbour works for London Underground and she was actually working at the ticket office at my local station, as she couldn’t get to the one she normally works at. So I had a chat with her and she wasn’t very hopeful that the service would be restored any time soon.

I went home and couldn’t get my laptop to work. I spoke to my boss and he couldn’t get his laptop to work either and he told me to “work from home in inverted commas”. I therefore spent lots of time reading very important and intellectual things and watching daytime TV.

I will see how I do at getting into work today and if I do make it in will hope that I can head home nice and early.

I did get a bit annoyed with various people on the news saying how incompetent we are as a country because parts of it ground to a halt due to the snow. It was SEVERE weather. The clue is in the name. I am assuming that each of those people who complained have now installed snow tyres on their cars, as they were clearly totally prepared to deal with over a foot of snow. Sometimes we have really adverse weather and it means that we can’t do all the things we would normally. That’s life. Stop complaining about it. Don’t even get me started me on the man on the BBC news who described the UK as “like a third world country” because he couldn’t see any grit on the road.

I leave you with the obligatory photo of yesterday’s snow. This was my back garden about 7.50am yesterday.

4 comments:

Soup said...

I felt exactly the same as you yesterday! That man on the news was a prat. Of course our transport system isn't cut out for this EXTREME weather. These sorts of severe weather events happen once in two decades so it doesn't make any sense to invest massive amounts of money in snow ploughs and the like when they'll only be wheeled out once in a blue moon.

Far better for companies to invest in their own technology so that, on the rare occasion that snow like this does stop people coming in, their staff can work from home just like so many of us did yesterday!

Spudgy said...

Here! Here! They really focused on the negative rather than praising TfL and the Train Operators for making good sense safety decisions. Boris was right when he said 120 tonnes of metal on wheels is a very dangerous object!! I see Tfl Staff had to go out and help the councils with the gritting last night too. Where would people be withoug the buses (not that I'm biased or anything)

Kahless said...

Not us much snow up north :-(

I rang in work this morning, debating whether to go on, and I found everyone else had pitched up so I ended up doing so too!

Random Reflections said...

Blue Soup - exactly. People would complain so much if all that money was invested in snow ploughs etc and they sat unused for years on end.

I should have been able to work from home, but used error meant that various passwords etc had expired... I had the technology, I just couldn't use it...

spudgy - I was a but sceptical about all the buses being out of action and then I heard about various accidents buses were in on Sunday night and realised that actually it seemed like the right decision. I for one was glad to have no dilemmas about whether I could get to work. The perfect day to spend at home!

kahless - I'll try and send you some snow. Just enough to keep you off work, but not too much. Your colleagues are too dedicated!