I can't for the life of me figure out why so many people want to jump ship to train driving from their current career.
Train driving can be pretty friggin' crappy when you get down to it. After 20 years doing it, I'd love a 9-5 job where I can see the family at least once a week and not be half comatose from 3 weeks of 0300 starts straight onto 3 weeks of 0200 finishes stopping 100 times a day on breaks so short I can bolt food down or **** but not both
It depends on what sector you are leaving and what your working life is like. Everything is subjective. I left policing for very good reasons. Some highlights:
- Cancelled rest days with no notice due to 'events', especially in London (doesn't happen on the railways). When the next terrorist atrocity happens in London it will be case of 'no rest days until further notice'. Impossible to plan your life.
-Short notice compulsory overtime - we had no 'timetable' - everything is determined by events when that person rings 999. Late arrests, public disorder. If your shift ends at 10pm and you arrest a shoplifter at 9pm, you'll still be there at 1am. Happens all the time. Very draining.
- Frozen or declining wages. The police have not long come out of a three year pay freeze. They got a measly 1% last autumn. Over the past few years my wages in real terms actually went down (doesn't happen on the railways)
- No extra pay for Sundays. Current proposal is only to recognise two Bank Holidays per year and treat the others as normal rate working.
- Uniformed Met officers on 999 teams now get only EIGHT full weekends off per year.
- High probability (especially in uniform) that you will be working August bank holiday, Christmas and boxing day and new years eve. Only a small % get these off and its a lottery, with constant last minute changes. Impossible to plan.
- Few (if any) employment rights. No right to strike. The Police Federation (not a union) have no teeth, which is why the police lose at every pay/pension negotiation.
- No equivalent of the railways Hidden Regulations. There is notional guide that you should have 11hrs between shifts, but try and stick to that and your life would be made very uncomfortable by your supervisors. It doesn't happen.
-Having to beg and send email after email to get paid overtime you are owed for hours worked (when you'd of rather been at home anyway).
- Ever increasing violence from the public towards officers. Hundreds are assaulted every week up and down the country. Punishments are negligible. I was seriously assaulted a couple of years ago, the offender got a pathetic sentence.
- The constant risk of catching viruses from people you're dealing with - HIV, Hep B, Hep C etc etc. They bite and spit at you on purpose. Searching a man with scabies was not the highlight of my career!
- Constant criticism for things which are outside your control and you have no influence over (ok...I see a parallel with Network Rail there!).
- An oppressive internal culture from senior officers that stamps on criticism and dissent. You do as you're told and if you don't like it, there's the door...
- The pressure of your case load. I have colleagues in CID/child protection that cry at work due to the strains of their jobs. They work overtime unpaid and come in on rest days just to keep on top of their work files.
- Budget cuts that have an impact on services you can provide - the Met have closed 60+ police stations. The buildings are falling apart, the cars are the cheapest they could get. There aren't enough staff to respond to the volume to work (e.g. 999 calls, crime reports) that come in.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
I hear what you're saying about shift work. But so long as someone fully researches the role before they apply, they should have too many surprises, no? Thanks to many on this forum I knew before I applied that I would be doing 3am starts and finishes.
Anyhow, just my two cents worth to show that life isn't rosy elsewhere.
