I actually recall with some wry amusement in context, that some twenty years ago I was turned down for a bus driving job (psv training included) because in all likelihood they deemed me over qualified, or simply unable to comprehend why someone with a relatively cushy desk job would want the switch to driving.

The desk jobs steadily dissappeared due to globalisation, and so now I find myself in a job most bus drivers would find too hard or boring, and certainly too poorly paid. Had I got that job, it seems likely I'd have worked my way up to cushy continental coach driving by now, all by staying with that one company.

My dad was a truck driver, multi drop supermarkets. I recently saw on trucknet, one such agency driver counting his absolute good fortune to have found his way into a National Holidays type (UK only) driving job, even now, when his job is very well paid and he's never going to be short of work, his only legitimate gripes being perhaps that the overtime rate isn't all that, and it's less secure than permanent work, if you forgot for a moment that overtime rates and job security are down across the board, as a decades long trend.

To quote the political class, if they were to broaden their minds and consider other people's lives and the history of work in general, I put it to the floor that Sunderland bus drivers have never has it so good, all things considered, in terms of wage, conditions, prospects and job security. On the latter, even Jesmond drivers have a more legitimate right to strike this week, and nobody seriously believes they're doing so out of a realistic prospect of large numbers of forced redundancies coming down the line.