Dilemma - Tube driver or office job?

[tabim]

Hello everyone,

I am in a big dilemma and I am hoping to get other people's views about my situation, please.

I started a new job a few weeks ago which is in a TfL head office, I haven't even had a chance to settle down when suddenly my tube driver job application also proved to be successful and I have been offered that role as well. (I just wanted to move from my previous people management role so I applied for everything that seemed interesting and did not involve line management of people. In fact, this was the third time I applied to become a tube driver.)
My biggest concern is that I might be assigned to a depot very far from home where my commute would take 1.5 or 2 hours, especially for dead early/late shifts, and it would take years to move to a preferred location or get the shifts I want. I just don't see how it is worth it for me to wake up at 2am to get to the depot for a 4.30am start - or get home at 3.30am after a late finish. I listed below some of the other factors I am considering. What should I do???

The office job pays £14k less but I am hoping to make up probably around £8k with overtime so the difference is around £6k before tax - but this is not guaranteed of course and I might remain on my £50k-ish salary
The tube driver salary is guaranteed, it will increase substantially year after year, and I don't need to work extra hours to be paid that money
The office job gives me 30 days annual leave plus bank holidays, LU gives me 43 days but that's due to working 36 hours a week and only being paid for 35 hours
The annual leave with LU is allocated, in the office job I can pick my own dates. I travel a lot and book my flights on the cheapest possible dates, with LU I might end up paying extra cash just because my leave is at the "wrong" time as it's dictated by the company
Tube drivers don't take the work home, office workers often do
RMT/ASLEF are very strong, TSSA for office staff do not come across as such
The office job is Monday to Friday with working from home 2-3 times a week, the LU job is shift work and I only find out my rota on Thursday for the following week
The office work gives me some flexibility, e.g. I can disappear for an hour or two if I have some urgent business and make up the time later, LU will never allow that
Swapping leave and shifts is possible with LU but it is an additional hurdle and there is no guarantee it will be successful, especially when I am new. Not all depots have a Mafia either
LU will assign a depot to me based on business needs which can be extremely inconvenient to get to from South West London, the office job is around 40 minutes commute.
It's not a major concern but I am worried that my health might suffer from the constant noise, dust, vibration and driving in dark tunnels all day, notwithstanding the trauma of incidents I might witness
I heard that in LU I will be the lowest of the low as a newbie and I will get the worst shifts until I become more established and can move from the pool. I will also be tied to my depot for 24 months at least
I am concerned that I will be bored to death if I get the tube driver job on an ATO line with no interaction and not using ny brain most of the times, in the office I interact with people and need some creativity, decision making and problem solving
I am concerned that I might have SPADs or will be pulled up for various minor customer or safety incidents, whilst in the office as long as I do my job management will leave me alone
I am known in the office in a good way because I have been around for several years in different roles and I have proven myself, in LU I will be one of the many and I don't see how can I show what I am capable of
My experience with LU so far has been that there is no flexibility whatsoever, comms have been abrupt and running the service is more important than the person who drives the train, but there is some sense of wellbeing in the office job
I really look forward to my office job, I think I will enjoy it and I will be good at it, and I don't want to let people down and quit my job after a few months. Afterall, it was a very competitive recruitment campaign leaveing many people with more experience than me disappointed


So in my situation, would you go for the guaranteed money, more annual leave, and not taking work home; or would you choose the flexibility, shorter commute/no shift work, and social interactions that come with an office job?

 

[bramling]

Hello everyone,

I am in a big dilemma and I am hoping to get other people's views about my situation, please.

I started a new job a few weeks ago which is in a TfL head office, I haven't even had a chance to settle down when suddenly my tube driver job application also proved to be successful and I have been offered that role as well. (I just wanted to move from my previous people management role so I applied for everything that seemed interesting and did not involve line management of people. In fact, this was the third time I applied to become a tube driver.)
My biggest concern is that I might be assigned to a depot very far from home where my commute would take 1.5 or 2 hours, especially for dead early/late shifts, and it would take years to move to a preferred location or get the shifts I want. I just don't see how it is worth it for me to wake up at 2am to get to the depot for a 4.30am start - or get home at 3.30am after a late finish. I listed below some of the other factors I am considering. What should I do???

The office job pays £14k less but I am hoping to make up probably around £8k with overtime so the difference is around £6k before tax - but this is not guaranteed of course and I might remain on my £50k-ish salary
The tube driver salary is guaranteed, it will increase substantially year after year, and I don't need to work extra hours to be paid that money
The office job gives me 30 days annual leave plus bank holidays, LU gives me 43 days but that's due to working 36 hours a week and only being paid for 35 hours
The annual leave with LU is allocated, in the office job I can pick my own dates. I travel a lot and book my flights on the cheapest possible dates, with LU I might end up paying extra cash just because my leave is at the "wrong" time as it's dictated by the company
Tube drivers don't take the work home, office workers often do
RMT/ASLEF are very strong, TSSA for office staff do not come across as such
The office job is Monday to Friday with working from home 2-3 times a week, the LU job is shift work and I only find out my rota on Thursday for the following week
The office work gives me some flexibility, e.g. I can disappear for an hour or two if I have some urgent business and make up the time later, LU will never allow that
Swapping leave and shifts is possible with LU but it is an additional hurdle and there is no guarantee it will be successful, especially when I am new. Not all depots have a Mafia either
LU will assign a depot to me based on business needs which can be extremely inconvenient to get to from South West London, the office job is around 40 minutes commute.
It's not a major concern but I am worried that my health might suffer from the constant noise, dust, vibration and driving in dark tunnels all day, notwithstanding the trauma of incidents I might witness
I heard that in LU I will be the lowest of the low as a newbie and I will get the worst shifts until I become more established and can move from the pool. I will also be tied to my depot for 24 months at least
I am concerned that I will be bored to death if I get the tube driver job on an ATO line with no interaction and not using ny brain most of the times, in the office I interact with people and need some creativity, decision making and problem solving
I am concerned that I might have SPADs or will be pulled up for various minor customer or safety incidents, whilst in the office as long as I do my job management will leave me alone
I am known in the office in a good way because I have been around for several years in different roles and I have proven myself, in LU I will be one of the many and I don't see how can I show what I am capable of
My experience with LU so far has been that there is no flexibility whatsoever, comms have been abrupt and running the service is more important than the person who drives the train, but there is some sense of wellbeing in the office job
I really look forward to my office job, I think I will enjoy it and I will be good at it, and I don't want to let people down and quit my job after a few months. Afterall, it was a very competitive recruitment campaign leaveing many people with more experience than me disappointed


So in my situation, would you go for the guaranteed money, more annual leave, and not taking work home; or would you choose the flexibility, shorter commute/no shift work, and social interactions that come with an office job?

I take it the office job is 9-5 or similar?

That being the case, for me it would boil down to whether you want to work shifts, and in particular whether having things like weekday days off, not having to do rush-hour commutes (etc) would suit your lifestyle.

I wouldn’t let the worry of having a safety incident worry you, LU is slightly more tolerant than mainline, and providing you discipline yourself by ensuring your knowledge is up to speed (for example by putting the effort in during training) and avoiding pitfalls like taking domestic distractions to work then this shouldn’t be something to be unduly concerned about.

 

[tabim]

I take it the office job is 9-5 or similar?

That being the case, for me it would boil down to whether you want to work shifts, and in particular whether having things like weekday days off, not having to do rush-hour commutes (etc) would suit your lifestyle.

I wouldn’t let the worry of having a safety incident worry you, LU is slightly more tolerant than mainline, and providing you discipline yourself by ensuring your knowledge is up to speed (for example by putting the effort in during training) and avoiding pitfalls like taking domestic distractions to work then this shouldn’t be something to be unduly concerned about.

Yes, it's 9-5. I don't mind shifts but not the extreme I mentioned like leaving 2 hours early for a 4.30am start. I could live with an hour or maybe slightly more commute but not with going to Rickmansworth/West Ruislip and similar locations from deep South.
The unpredictability of these shifts is also concerning, I like to know what I am doing for the next few weeks at least. I heard that if a driver needs a specific day off, they need to send a memo to the depot admin who will not respond, and on Thursday the driver will find out if they had been granted the requested day off. This is unacceptable and a major setback.

 

[Mojo]

Yes, it's 9-5. I don't mind shifts but not the extreme I mentioned like leaving 2 hours early for a 4.30am start. I could live with an hour or maybe slightly more commute but not with going to Rickmansworth/West Ruislip and similar locations from deep South.
The unpredictability of these shifts is also concerning, I like to know what I am doing for the next few weeks at least. I heard that if a driver needs a specific day off, they need to send a memo to the depot admin who will not respond, and on Thursday the driver will find out if they had been granted the requested day off. This is unacceptable and a major setback.

Where do you live? You mention you don’t want to go to Rickmansworth or West Ruislip, but all depots in East London have waiting lists several years long, so you aren’t going to be sent there as a new recruit.

 

[Flange Squeal]

From what you've written, it sounds to me that the perceived negatives of the drivers job outweigh the perceived positives for what you want from a role. Allocated leave (although you can often swap... IF you can find someone who wants what you've got), the variable start and finish times (you often can tell from a roster what days you are working and up to a certain number of months whether earlies or lates, but start/finish times can be amended at short notice for example movement from spare to a running turn, engineering works, training day/periodic assessment etc), limits of how many people can have ad-hoc leave per day (and the sometimes short notice of finding out if you've got them granted or not) are all parts of the territory with driving jobs most places - whether tube or mainline.

They are things you have to accept if you want a driver's job, and the more positive things that come with it. If stability and routine are something you value highly, then the office job might be the better fit for you.

 

[AverageJoe]

I think the question you need to ask is

“is money more important or happiness?”

You seem happy in the job you have and almost every difference you describe it looks to me LU comes off worse.

I’m a train driver and I enjoy it but the shifts are a killer and the assigned leave is irritating (although it can often be moved)

If however I didn’t like the job and there was a nice 9-5 on offer for only a little less which also allowed me to managed my own time and work from home Id defo drop the train driver job.

 

[Aviator88]

Fast forward 35 years and ask yourself if you regret having never become a tube driver. I've always found this the kind of sobering thought experiment that reveals your real motivations for a job.

 

[tabim]

I think the question you need to ask is

“is money more important or happiness?”

You seem happy in the job you have and almost every difference you describe it looks to me LU comes off worse.

I’m a train driver and I enjoy it but the shifts are a killer and the assigned leave is irritating (although it can often be moved)

If however I didn’t like the job and there was a nice 9-5 on offer for only a little less which also allowed me to managed my own time and work from home Id defo drop the train driver job.

I think you are spot on. I think I would enjoy the tube driver job but I would be certainly irritated and see many aspects of the job vexatious - especially the aspects limiting the freedom I would have in a lower paid office job.
Somebody who comes from an LU operational background (E.g. CSA) who never experienced what it's like to pick their own leave dates, work from home or disappear for an hour if they need to, would more easily ignore these negatives than me who is used to managing my own time and having an extent of freedom during my working day.

 

[Mattyblob]

There's a lot of inaccuracies with your perception of the train op role...

- Start times are no earlier than 4:45
- You are not tied to your depot for 2 years
- There's plenty of people who start out at east end depots
- You can absolutely know your shifts in advance once you're out of the pool - which can be pretty quick (nobody's forcing you to join a mafia)
- it's really easy to swap into empty spaces/with others for the leave you want, the only scramble tends to be for the school holidays
- Social life amongst train ops is pretty good, you rarely have a break alone and because of the sheer number of people you often find a group to hang out with outside of work too
- welfare for train ops and all LU employees is excellent.

The way you're chalking it up it seems obvious you're going to prefer to the office role, but just leaving these points here so the misinformation doesn't influence others

 

[tabim]

Fast forward 35 years and ask yourself if you regret having never become a tube driver. I've always found this the kind of sobering thought experiment that reveals your real motivations for a job.

I don't know! Honestly don't. Where would the tube driver job take me? Service control is not something that interests me. Trains Manager role probably - but I had enough of managing people for now so rather not. Equally, senior management in TfL is not for me. So should I sit in the cab until I retire?
The tube driver money is not lifechanging for me but still more in the long run which is something that makes me really conskder the role. But I'm not sure if the cost it comes with is worth it.
TfL can have org restructuring and I might be out of my job, equally what's with the driverless trains, or medical conditions? I might find myself on a station as a CSA if things don't go to plan.

There's a lot of inaccuracies with your perception of the train op role...

- Start times are no earlier than 4:45
- You are not tied to your depot for 2 years
- There's plenty of people who start out at east end depots
- You can absolutely know your shifts in advance once you're out of the pool - which can be pretty quick (nobody's forcing you to join a mafia)
- it's really easy to swap into empty spaces/with others for the leave you want, the only scramble tends to be for the school holidays
- Social life amongst train ops is pretty good, you rarely have a break alone and because of the sheer number of people you often find a group to hang out with outside of work too
- welfare for train ops and all LU employees is excellent.

The way you're chalking it up it seems obvious you're going to prefer to the office role, but just leaving these points here so the misinformation doesn't influence others

Thank you for adding these points, this is the kind of conversation I am looking for.

Thanks for clarifying the start time, I read in a policy that drivers can be asked to book on as early as 4.30am - maybe it's not happening though.
My understanding from the policy is that I am tied for 24 months. Where did I get this wrong?
East end depots don't really work for me. Recent classes had trainees aocated to Acton Town -- I could live with that but Morden/Elephant woiud be ideal.
I spoke with several drivers (5+) on the District/Pic lines who started upto 2 years ago and they are still on the pool.
Thanks for giving me this insight into social life and welfare facilities.

I don't obviously prefer the office job, I just don't know what to do and really would like to see that positives of the train op job which might not be obvious to me at this stage. So thanks for your input.

 

[notadriver]

Just my opinion - I think most routes are ATO and you’d find that very boring. Also I think spending most of your day in dark and dusty tunnels will get depressing. There’s also no direct stepping stone to becoming a main line train driver
So I’d take the head office job and see how that goes - will do wonders for networking and on your cv.

 

[ATrainSpotter]

Hello everyone,

I am in a big dilemma and I am hoping to get other people's views about my situation, please.

I started a new job a few weeks ago which is in a TfL head office, I haven't even had a chance to settle down when suddenly my tube driver job application also proved to be successful and I have been offered that role as well. (I just wanted to move from my previous people management role so I applied for everything that seemed interesting and did not involve line management of people. In fact, this was the third time I applied to become a tube driver.)
My biggest concern is that I might be assigned to a depot very far from home where my commute would take 1.5 or 2 hours, especially for dead early/late shifts, and it would take years to move to a preferred location or get the shifts I want. I just don't see how it is worth it for me to wake up at 2am to get to the depot for a 4.30am start - or get home at 3.30am after a late finish. I listed below some of the other factors I am considering. What should I do???

The office job pays £14k less but I am hoping to make up probably around £8k with overtime so the difference is around £6k before tax - but this is not guaranteed of course and I might remain on my £50k-ish salary
The tube driver salary is guaranteed, it will increase substantially year after year, and I don't need to work extra hours to be paid that money
The office job gives me 30 days annual leave plus bank holidays, LU gives me 43 days but that's due to working 36 hours a week and only being paid for 35 hours
The annual leave with LU is allocated, in the office job I can pick my own dates. I travel a lot and book my flights on the cheapest possible dates, with LU I might end up paying extra cash just because my leave is at the "wrong" time as it's dictated by the company
Tube drivers don't take the work home, office workers often do
RMT/ASLEF are very strong, TSSA for office staff do not come across as such
The office job is Monday to Friday with working from home 2-3 times a week, the LU job is shift work and I only find out my rota on Thursday for the following week
The office work gives me some flexibility, e.g. I can disappear for an hour or two if I have some urgent business and make up the time later, LU will never allow that
Swapping leave and shifts is possible with LU but it is an additional hurdle and there is no guarantee it will be successful, especially when I am new. Not all depots have a Mafia either
LU will assign a depot to me based on business needs which can be extremely inconvenient to get to from South West London, the office job is around 40 minutes commute.
It's not a major concern but I am worried that my health might suffer from the constant noise, dust, vibration and driving in dark tunnels all day, notwithstanding the trauma of incidents I might witness
I heard that in LU I will be the lowest of the low as a newbie and I will get the worst shifts until I become more established and can move from the pool. I will also be tied to my depot for 24 months at least
I am concerned that I will be bored to death if I get the tube driver job on an ATO line with no interaction and not using ny brain most of the times, in the office I interact with people and need some creativity, decision making and problem solving
I am concerned that I might have SPADs or will be pulled up for various minor customer or safety incidents, whilst in the office as long as I do my job management will leave me alone
I am known in the office in a good way because I have been around for several years in different roles and I have proven myself, in LU I will be one of the many and I don't see how can I show what I am capable of
My experience with LU so far has been that there is no flexibility whatsoever, comms have been abrupt and running the service is more important than the person who drives the train, but there is some sense of wellbeing in the office job
I really look forward to my office job, I think I will enjoy it and I will be good at it, and I don't want to let people down and quit my job after a few months. Afterall, it was a very competitive recruitment campaign leaveing many people with more experience than me disappointed


So in my situation, would you go for the guaranteed money, more annual leave, and not taking work home; or would you choose the flexibility, shorter commute/no shift work, and social interactions that come with an office job?

Office IMO. You'll get bored very quickly logically as everything's just ATO and you're under pressure to provide a safe service (with track jumpers and stuff). At least in a office not too much serious can go wrong and if it does you don't get scarred for life

 

[LokiB]

Hello everyone,

I am in a big dilemma and I am hoping to get other people's views about my situation, please.

I started a new job a few weeks ago which is in a TfL head office, I haven't even had a chance to settle down when suddenly my tube driver job application also proved to be successful and I have been offered that role as well. (I just wanted to move from my previous people management role so I applied for everything that seemed interesting and did not involve line management of people. In fact, this was the third time I applied to become a tube driver.)
My biggest concern is that I might be assigned to a depot very far from home where my commute would take 1.5 or 2 hours, especially for dead early/late shifts, and it would take years to move to a preferred location or get the shifts I want. I just don't see how it is worth it for me to wake up at 2am to get to the depot for a 4.30am start - or get home at 3.30am after a late finish. I listed below some of the other factors I am considering. What should I do???

The office job pays £14k less but I am hoping to make up probably around £8k with overtime so the difference is around £6k before tax - but this is not guaranteed of course and I might remain on my £50k-ish salary
The tube driver salary is guaranteed, it will increase substantially year after year, and I don't need to work extra hours to be paid that money
The office job gives me 30 days annual leave plus bank holidays, LU gives me 43 days but that's due to working 36 hours a week and only being paid for 35 hours
The annual leave with LU is allocated, in the office job I can pick my own dates. I travel a lot and book my flights on the cheapest possible dates, with LU I might end up paying extra cash just because my leave is at the "wrong" time as it's dictated by the company
Tube drivers don't take the work home, office workers often do
RMT/ASLEF are very strong, TSSA for office staff do not come across as such
The office job is Monday to Friday with working from home 2-3 times a week, the LU job is shift work and I only find out my rota on Thursday for the following week
The office work gives me some flexibility, e.g. I can disappear for an hour or two if I have some urgent business and make up the time later, LU will never allow that
Swapping leave and shifts is possible with LU but it is an additional hurdle and there is no guarantee it will be successful, especially when I am new. Not all depots have a Mafia either
LU will assign a depot to me based on business needs which can be extremely inconvenient to get to from South West London, the office job is around 40 minutes commute.
It's not a major concern but I am worried that my health might suffer from the constant noise, dust, vibration and driving in dark tunnels all day, notwithstanding the trauma of incidents I might witness
I heard that in LU I will be the lowest of the low as a newbie and I will get the worst shifts until I become more established and can move from the pool. I will also be tied to my depot for 24 months at least
I am concerned that I will be bored to death if I get the tube driver job on an ATO line with no interaction and not using ny brain most of the times, in the office I interact with people and need some creativity, decision making and problem solving
I am concerned that I might have SPADs or will be pulled up for various minor customer or safety incidents, whilst in the office as long as I do my job management will leave me alone
I am known in the office in a good way because I have been around for several years in different roles and I have proven myself, in LU I will be one of the many and I don't see how can I show what I am capable of
My experience with LU so far has been that there is no flexibility whatsoever, comms have been abrupt and running the service is more important than the person who drives the train, but there is some sense of wellbeing in the office job
I really look forward to my office job, I think I will enjoy it and I will be good at it, and I don't want to let people down and quit my job after a few months. Afterall, it was a very competitive recruitment campaign leaveing many people with more experience than me disappointed


So in my situation, would you go for the guaranteed money, more annual leave, and not taking work home; or would you choose the flexibility, shorter commute/no shift work, and social interactions that come with an office job?

I'll be perfectly honest.
After reading all your post it sounds to me that the office job is where your heart and head are.
Yep, it might be more money as a driver but is it worth the extra if you're not going to be happy?

 

[Economist]

OP, you could always take the office job, see how it goes and then apply for a driving role on NR metals, there's a lot of TOCs who have depots at the main London terminals. If you want to go driving you're in the best place in the country to start out.

I used to work in an office in banking and leaving the toxic politics to go driving has, six years in, been a great move for me.

 

[whoosh]

With regard to ATO, there are hours (middle of the day/evening/all day Sundays) where you can opt to/have to drive manually to keep up your driving skills. It's only the Victoria Line where this doesn't apply and which is ATO all the time I believe.

Morden and Acton Town Piccadilly Line are large traincrew depots, so will have a greater number of people to swap leave with, and also have more than one rota - there's one for people who like early mornings (dead earlies), one for more reasonable mornings (called 'inside earlies'), one for afternoons that finish not too late (called 'inside lates'), one for 'dead lates' and one for nights. There's also a mixed rota for people who want variety and don't want to be tied to a group of shifts.
I think District Line Acton Town is quite big as well, but not sure about their rota.

 

[Mojo]

Morden and Acton Town Piccadilly Line are large traincrew depots, so will have a greater number of people to swap leave with, and also have more than one rota - there's one for people who like early mornings (dead earlies), one for more reasonable mornings (called 'inside earlies'), one for afternoons that finish not too late (called 'inside lates'), one for 'dead lates' and one for nights. There's also a mixed rota for people who want variety and don't want to be tied to a group of shifts.

I can’t speak for Morden, but Acton Picc doesn’t have the link system for which you describe, for full-time Train Operators it’s just one roster which includes all shifts. It does however have a very good mafia but obviously no guarantees, especially for someone junior in service.

I don’t know if it’s changed since originally announced, but the proposals for changes for Trains grades will see the abolition of this fixed link structure.

 

[MotCO]

TfL can have org restructuring and I might be out of my job,

If there is a restructuring, TfL should try to redeploy staff in the first instance, rather than having to fork out redundancy money. If you were being made redundant, and you then expressed a wish to become a driver, they may help put you to the front of the waiting list.

 

[pitdiver]

I was not a driver but a station supervisor under "Company Plan". Even that long ago the pay was good. However the shift work was crippling, nights were dreadful. However when the opportunity arose to transfer to the LTM i immediately took up the offer. The money was less but the hours were better. Guaranteed every other weekend off and a great social side. I stayed there for six years until I was offered voluntary redundancy which i took. I don't regret the move one bit.

 

[whoosh]

I can’t speak for Morden, but Acton Picc doesn’t have the link system for which you describe, for full-time Train Operators it’s just one roster which includes all shifts. It does however have a very good mafia but obviously no guarantees, especially for someone junior in service.

I don’t know if it’s changed since originally announced, but the proposals for changes for Trains grades will see the abolition of this fixed link structure.

Sorry, you are right, I got mixed up - it's Arnos Grove with the separate rotas, not Acton Town.

The proposals for changes for Trains Grades didn't look good at all, but they have been put on hold at the moment following a meeting at ACAS, with the promise that any changes will be negotiated. So, for the time being, the threat of rubbish conditions (including a blank 'flexible cover' week every so many weeks, where you wouldn't know what shift or days off you'd be having until last minute) has abated.

 

[Applepie356]

Shift work you can easily plan around and in some ways it can be better than a 9-5 job if you can get used to it and have your own transport. The work/life balance is pretty good if you can get used to shift work.

Despite the holiday blocks it is fairly flexible as you will have other drivers looking to swap. Same goes for shifts, if you are only looking for dead earlies there will always be other drivers looking to swap out their dead earlies for your middles/lates.

The Terms & conditions of Tube Ops is second to none when comparing it to TOC’s nationwide. The “downside” is no RDW.

It does put you in good stead if you ever want to move mainline. Your CV as a tube op will pretty much tick all the boxes of a trainee train driver post and will be very attractive to recruiters.
The caveat being you need to pass the psychometrics and having to go through training.

Of course it is up to you. If you already enjoy your job then why move?

 

[tabim]

Thanks for everyone's valuable input. I just wanted to reflect on a few points.
My heart and head are not with the office job but I am most worried about getting a bad location where I cannot get to. I don't have my own car/bike because I genuinely don't need it at the moment, buying even just a bike so I can get to work does not make the tube driver job more attractive.
NR driving would certainly be much more my thing and if I had been offered a job there, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. Somebody highlighted that there is no direct entry from LU to NR even though LU driver looks good on the CV to them.
I hear your points about the ease of swapping shifts, leave, rest days, etc. but I think my whole dilemma comes down to the UNCERTAINTY the tube driver job brings from the very first day. And it was the same with my training date. One day they were telling me all courses were booked for this year and there were 80 people on the waiting list, literally on the following day the same person then emailed me with a start date.
I don't mind working shifts, I did them for several years for TfL and actually enjoyed that I could do my shopping, visit museums, etc. when everyone else was at work and it was quiet for me. I would be more than happy to get to Morden or even Earls Court for a 04:45 start but not to Rickmansworth.

The proposals for changes for Trains Grades didn't look good at all, but they have been put on hold at the moment following a meeting at ACAS, with the promise that any changes will be negotiated. So, for the time being, the threat of rubbish conditions (including a blank 'flexible cover' week every so many weeks, where you wouldn't know what shift or days off you'd be having until last minute) has abated.

What are these proposed changes about? Where do I find more information?

 

[Samzino]

I mean most trainee drivers take depots that aren't ideally their first choice but are still in their range of travel initially and then work some time before getting a move out via a transfer when the availability and time comes. I'd consider honestly doing the same imo. But if your heart isn't full into tube op driving then agreed the travel may get annoying if the workload or other job politics take its toll, just one of the things with these highly sought for jobs.

 

[skyhigh]

I'm unfamiliar with LU, but does maximum commute times for depots due to fatigue management reasons not exist in the same way as it does for NR drivers?