I work on what is probably the most intensive commuter  rail service outside of London with a train travelling under the city centre on an average of every three - five minutes which means(in railway terms) we work friggin' hard for a living. The Company is officially the best performing Train Operating Company(TOC) in the country and that is purely down to the skill, hard work and enthusiasm of the eye-level workers, it is totally regardless of who sits upstairs in the Temple of Power.

 I would also like to tell you a little about my working environment. My traincrew depot which was once a great place to work could now be likened to a mini version of 1930's Germany during the rise of the Third Reich, there are management spies everywhere and we are fed on lies and propaganda which in turn leads to fear, mistrust and paranoia. The recruitment parameters must have changed or the standard of candidate trying to become a train guard has altered because the majority of guards coming through our traincrew depot now are no longer team players with a happy outlook on life and a sense of humour. They are now mostly power hungry narcissists who have a 'look after number one' attitude and would quite happily watch the team burn if it meant that they could get their foot on the promotional ladder. The Company do not help by changing the goal posts and criteria required every time there's a promotion available, usually to promote newly recruited friends and family of senior management although they will deny this and have been denying the obvious for too many years now.
The Company over the last two years or so have also become harder, ruling with the stick rather than the carrot, Christmas balls were cancelled, good attendance dinners changed for a monetary rewards which in turn were then taken away. Dismissals have shot up and there seems to be serious disciplinary hearings on a regular basis, I myself have recently been disciplined and very nearly sacked for something which would have once been dealt with by 'a quiet word in ones ear'. It may be just the times that we live in but it certainly feels(to me) like there's a cloud of oppression and mistrust hanging over the whole network. I feel(and this is purely my personal opinion) that the reason for this is that most of the junior management have little or no managerial skills whatsoever, so rather than try to deal with a situation to a satisfactory conclusion(for both sides), they pass it on to a higher level which results in disciplinary action.

Anyway, rant over.... besides all of that, once I'm in the train chatting and laughing, well more like sneering, with general Joe Public and I'm away from the hierarchy, who actually ignore me nowadays(But that's another story)  I genuinely like my job... there, I even said it out loud.. "I genuinely like my job"

I would also mention that this/last years Annual Employee Satisfaction Survey seems to have been buried and forgotten..... hmmmmm I wonder why?

Anyway rant over from a dinosaur with no place in the modern world.... till my next rant