All Change Please, All Change

I'm often quite quick to moan about my dear employer, and often I'm entirely justified.


It's only fair that when the Plymouth to London rail service provider does something right and well, I should say so.

Anyone following these pages recently will have worked out that I'm having more trouble than usual with my not-very-satisfactory eyesight. Indeed, I've not been to work since before Christmas because I've not been able to see well enough to do my job.


Until today my job title has been "Customer Sales Advisor" which means I sat behind the glass screens, dispensing tickets and information (mostly correctly) to the great travelling public at Plymouth Station. Sometimes, I even wore something that didn't quite meet uniform standards, but as on this occasion it was Christmas Eve, it seemed perfectly in order.

After lots of correspondence, lots of union support (thank you RMT) and management working hard to accommodate my worsening condition - as of today my grade has changed, without loss of salary, to CO3.


Effectively this means that because my vision is no longer good enough to work in the ticket office, I get to work in a back-room away from the public. I get to count money and look after on-board ticket machines (a bit like the one below) and that's about it.

In other words, I've been "re-protected" into another role so the future is looking a tad more secure than it has for the last few weeks. Not many years ago it would have been a simple case of "you're not fit for purpose any more, so out the door you go"; thanks to good working agreements, reached after long negotiation, between union and employer we have reached a more civilized way of doing things; I'm not out on my ear and applying for incapacity benefits. Huzzah!