(29 Aug 2022, 9:30 pm)Drifter60 wrote I’m sorry this may be controversial but this is where certain workers get things wrong in my opinion. Unions fighting for better pay and conditions yes I’m all for that and I do happen to think bus drivers deserve more than what is seemingly the average hourly rate looking at the information out there. But if you accept a job as a bus driver in my opinion you sign up to out of hours working, complaining you had to do a late shift, a Saturday shift or bank holiday is like someone working a bar job complaining they finished late or an paramedic not liking shift work. Bars tend to attract more people in the evening just as paramedics and ambulance are need 24/7 (including Christmas Day believe it or not) and to me it’s the same way buses operate 7 days a week. There’s need a whole mindset change on the issue. Where is the outcry about the waitress and chef serving Christmas Day lunch at a restaurant, or the checkout operator working a 12 hour shift on bank holidays, including Boxing Day.

It’s a complete sense of entitlement with some people, where they want the job to change for them, and that’s shouldn’t always be the case. If a load of bus drivers doesn’t want to do anything but a Monday-Friday 9 to 5, what’s the a solution? Cancel bus post 5pm Friday until Monday morning? It’s crazy. I have a friend a few years got a call centre job at Doxford in Sunderland, shifts were 8 hours long but could be Monday to Sunday 7am to 11pm. He hated it, he was in his early 20s, enjoyed going out at weekend, played football for a Sunday pub team etc. the job interfered with his social life too much, he didn’t demand the job changed for him. He quit. And got a job elsewhere, now does a more suited to him office based 9 to 5 Monday to Friday. He didn’t expect the company to change just for him.

Now I appreciate in the current driver shortage, losing any more drivers may not the way to go but this isn’t a new problem. There’s been a lack of decent evening and weekend services for years and mindset on this should have changed a few years back. Demand has increased in recent years for more ‘off peak’ services, I liken it to supermarkets, twenty years ago a checkout operator job at Asda may have only been shifts between 8am and 8pm at most. But now most are 24 hours or at least 6am til 12am, the business model changed and the staff shifts presumably had too also. No doubt some people left but any new starters would know the requirements and shift patterns in advance, you can’t then complain when the store is still open past 10pm or at weekends!

I appreciate this is a bus forum with many current and force employees from various companies who obviously have a vested interest, but I’ve done weekend working myself, which has included Bank Holidays, Easter, Boxing Day, New Years Day etc. and I don’t see anyone outraged for me…