Roster Changes

We have a couple of new bus routes starting in the Bay on Sunday and there are a few minor changes to the timetables of other routes also. Because of this some drivers will have changes made to their duties. Now before new duties can be posted for all to see the have to be worked out up in Head office in Exeter by some one who is paid a lot more money than I am. Then the Traffic Commission have to be given 6 weeks notice just in case they, or any one else doesn't like them That doesn't include Joe Public of course, what have bus routes got to do with them? Then someone else looks at them to make sure that they actually work. No good having 5 buses turn up in Brixham Bank Lane at the same time, there just isn't room for them. Then the new timetables have to be printed. Stagecoach are good at providing timetables, we have them in all our travel shops for free and are fixed to almost all the bus stops and they are easy to read. No, stop laughing. Well OK they would be easy to read if schools included reading bus and train timetables on the national curriculum. Mind you it would help if they had reading on the national curriculum as well. And OK they would be easier to read if they were printed a little larger so bus passengers didn't have to carry a magnifying glass around with them. Any way, enough about time tables, we were discussing changes to are duties.

After all the above have been done the new duties are passed on to the Union who have a good look through them just to make sure that there is nothing in there that they don't think is legal or right. That doesn't include 32 minute breaks, they may not be right but they are legal. Then they are posted so we, the drivers can find out what hours we will be working, which duties have school runs, when we are lates, earlies, what are our days off, are there any weekends etc, etc. It is always a worrying time, will the new duties be better then the old ones or worse, worse. On my Middle 12 Rota at the moment the duties are, by and large OK. I don't want any changes, thank you very much.

Given that the process must take over 6 weeks, given the requirement to tell the Traffic commission, and given that a notice went up well over 2 weeks ago saying that the new duties would be Posted A.S.A.P. you would think that we should find out all this detail at least a couple of weeks before the new duties start. Well we found out to day, Monday, and they start next Sunday. Is it some great secret, is some one in head office a former MI5 or CIA agent and they don't want us leaking the details to the press or an other bus company, or worse still to our friend Joe Public. Or could it be they just didn't want us to know for some reason, maybe we might laugh.

Anyway after all the waiting there are posted and my duties have no changes. Which is OK by me.