7.365.2010
Receiving a few messages from home and feeling rough, home is the only place where Josh wants to be.
It worries me sometimes that the public don't think we're real people with real lives, doing things every other Tom, Dick and Harry does for themselves or their families. Nobody shakes a stick at footballers who earn millions, and even the bankers and government get away with blaming us and other people when really they're the real scumbags, toying with money that isn't theirs. The papers might say otherwise, but it's true what I say: You don't know how the Underground really works unless you've lived it. Annie Mole can tell you all she wants, and yes I wont doubt the fact she knows a lot about the Underground, but there's something she can't seem to capture about (after all, she just blogs about the Underground; she doesn't work for the Underground) – the real essence of the lives of those who work to keep this tinpot railway going – real life on the job as we say. I want to try and capture it, or the stories at least, and perhaps the ones you don't really care about because because you're too busy listening to what the Evening Standard is telling you about us.
We always tell each other to enjoy the days off and the annual leave when we do get it, because we spend our hours at work willing the time away to the ends of our shifts. Before you know it, that time has been and gone Underground. All the old-timers always tell me that if the shift work doesn't get around to killing you, something else will. There are endless stories of people finally managing to retire, but then keeling over days later. Or getting cancer (as we breathe in a lot of crap doing all that time Underground – and half the stuff we come into contact with is carcinogenic, not counting the cigarettes people smoke).
In my second year on the job, I worked a lot with a bloke called Roger, but then he passed away. I'd worked with him on a Sunday afternoon. He kept telling me now and again that this job would be the death of him. He passed away early on the Tuesday morning. It was weird. Everybody turned up at his funeral in full-and-formal uniform. There was even an Underground roundel made from flowers. Lewisham Crematorium was packed out with about 50 members of staff that day.
It's horrible not knowing what day it is because you've been working all night or because you've set the alarm for 02:30 for the dead earlies. Everything's a blur. People come and people go. We see thousands of faces everyday. Some are kind and some are not, but sometimes they're all a blur too. Things change, but some things stay the same. The stories, the traditions, the practises and the heritage. All in a fraction of a second. All forgotten by the next day.
Time might seem slow for you when you're stuck on a train for whatever reason, but for us, it flies by. I was 18 when I started and I remember my first day out on the gateline like it was yesterday, but when I think about the fact I'll be turning 22 towards the end of this year, I find it so hard to make sense of it all.
7.365.2010
Receiving a few messages from home and feeling rough, home is the only place where Josh wants to be.
It worries me sometimes that the public don't think we're real people with real lives, doing things every other Tom, Dick and Harry does for themselves or their families. Nobody shakes a stick at footballers who earn millions, and even the bankers and government get away with blaming us and other people when really they're the real scumbags, toying with money that isn't theirs. The papers might say otherwise, but it's true what I say: You don't know how the Underground really works unless you've lived it. Annie Mole can tell you all she wants, and yes I wont doubt the fact she knows a lot about the Underground, but there's something she can't seem to capture about (after all, she just blogs about the Underground; she doesn't work for the Underground) – the real essence of the lives of those who work to keep this tinpot railway going – real life on the job as we say. I want to try and capture it, or the stories at least, and perhaps the ones you don't really care about because because you're too busy listening to what the Evening Standard is telling you about us.
We always tell each other to enjoy the days off and the annual leave when we do get it, because we spend our hours at work willing the time away to the ends of our shifts. Before you know it, that time has been and gone Underground. All the old-timers always tell me that if the shift work doesn't get around to killing you, something else will. There are endless stories of people finally managing to retire, but then keeling over days later. Or getting cancer (as we breathe in a lot of crap doing all that time Underground – and half the stuff we come into contact with is carcinogenic, not counting the cigarettes people smoke).
In my second year on the job, I worked a lot with a bloke called Roger, but then he passed away. I'd worked with him on a Sunday afternoon. He kept telling me now and again that this job would be the death of him. He passed away early on the Tuesday morning. It was weird. Everybody turned up at his funeral in full-and-formal uniform. There was even an Underground roundel made from flowers. Lewisham Crematorium was packed out with about 50 members of staff that day.
It's horrible not knowing what day it is because you've been working all night or because you've set the alarm for 02:30 for the dead earlies. Everything's a blur. People come and people go. We see thousands of faces everyday. Some are kind and some are not, but sometimes they're all a blur too. Things change, but some things stay the same. The stories, the traditions, the practises and the heritage. All in a fraction of a second. All forgotten by the next day.
Time might seem slow for you when you're stuck on a train for whatever reason, but for us, it flies by. I was 18 when I started and I remember my first day out on the gateline like it was yesterday, but when I think about the fact I'll be turning 22 towards the end of this year, I find it so hard to make sense of it all.