Possibly the most wide-minded TOC in Britain?

[Death]

Hail All!
To some this might seem to be a bit of a pointless thread (Apologies if you're one of those people, but I'm still a ign2: by my under 50 post count! ) but I thought that I'd share something that has pleasantly surprised me today. 8)

Whilst at the Jobcentre earlier this afternoon to try and get a benefits update, I decided to have a play around on the jobpoints and aside from crashing one of them several times and causing it to continuously reboot into Windows (Which is always amusing! ) I managed to find a very interesting drivers vacancy going at First Capital Connect. Now it was quite annoying that I couldn't talk to someone and apply over the 'phone, but this evening I went to the FCC website to apply for the vacancy online and was faced with a PDF application form (744Kb) as opposed to the HTML based online application system that I was expecting.

Now I happen to be one of those poor souls who lives in the stone age and does all of his printing on an ancient 9-pin dot matrix thing, which is certainly not acceptable for application forms...Therefore I've requested one via their answerphone service insted. However, I was reading through the form and came across the equal opportunities monitoring section from page 11 onwards, and noticed the following:

• The "Ethnic Origin" section allows people to specify their own sub-background, I.E: "White British/Welsh" insted of just "White", or "Asian/Indian" insted of just "Asian"...Although that's not exactly what caught my attention first time around.
  .
• The "Gender" section has boxes for "Male", "Female", and "Other" as well. This is the first time that I have ever seen this on such a form...Even forms from so called "politically correct" companies often omit that latter option. A rarely used box I would imagine, but at least it proves that FCC are considering all walks of life here...And if one of my trans-gendered friends ever applies for a job at FCC, at least they won't end up confusing themselves over which box to tick!
  .
• The "Religion or Belief" section was what caught my eye the most. Aside from the usual listed religions (Judaism, Islam, Christianity etc.) FCC have also bothered to include some of the lesser subscribed but still followed religions such as Buddhism, Druidry, Wicca, Shamanism, and Rastafarianism as well. As an adherent of Ásatrú, I was extremely pleased to see "Ásatrú", "Paganism" and "Odinism" included within that list as well...Even if they spelled "Ásatrú" as "Astaru", and didn't realise that "Ásatrú" and "Odinism" are two names for the same set of beliefs!

What I'm trying to say here is that I did not realise there was a company that actually recognises, takes consideration of, and actually gives a damn about followers of non-Christian/Muslim religions...That consideration/acknowlegement of such "Heathen" religions would also make it much easier for people like myself to take time off for the religious holidays/ceremonies such as Saimhain, Yule, and the Solstices that do not fit in with the standard Gregorian\Christian calendar, too! 8)
(Not to mention allowing us to work Christmas and Boxing day - Albeit on standard pay - To give us something to do! :eek

Like I said above: I'm guessing that some people may find this thread to be a bit "pointless", but at the same time I'm overjoyed that I've finally found a company that recognises people like me for what I am. This is a free internet (Well, until 'Bush has his way! :tongue3 and this is a free-speech forum AFAIK. I just wanted to "blow my trumpet" as it were - In a good way of course! 8)

Thank you, First Capital Connect, for considering those of us who belong to real "minority" groups...You're setting an excellent example that every company (Not just TOCs! ) ought to follow!​

Can anyone else think of other such ways that TOCs go out of their way to help us - The passengers and the staff? 8)

Farewell...
>> Death <<

 

[Tomnick]

I'd have thought that the best way to avoid discrimination (either 'positive' or 'negative' - whatever they're supposed to mean!) would be to just not ask these questions! If they're just after the best applicants regardless of gender, religion, age etc. - does it matter?

 

[Tom]

They're not allowed to ask age anymore due to the age discrimination laws ... (absurd I know!)

 

[devon_metro]

Everything is absurd these days.

*baba rainbow sheep anyone*

 

[Jordy]

*baba rainbow sheep anyone*

No thanks, i'll have baba black sheep :hmph:

 

[Sprog]

baba [SIZE="6"BLACK[/SIZE] sheep,
have you any wool,
yes sir, yes sir
three bags full.

How ON EARTH is this racist?

oh dear, bad me. :roll:

 

[devon_metro]

baba [SIZE="6"BLACK[/size] sheep,
have you any wool,
yes sir, yes sir
three bags full.

How ON EARTH is this racist?

oh dear, bad me. :roll:

I hope you didn't write it on a black board

 

[Tom]

Whoops you wrote it in black text too.

You need to write it in 'one' colours...

 

[paul1609]

The Royal Navy recognises any religion that has more than 100 followers.
We have recently achieved recognition for the Jedi religion

 

[eezypeazy]

Just come across this thread.....

Two things come to mind.... firstly, Death (may I call you Death? After all, we haven't been introduced yet... should that be Mr. Death?), the first thing a thought when I saw this was that it was some kind of wind-up... but no, lo and behold, in these politically-correct times when we're all afraid of being sued, yes, the Equal Opps Monitoring form appears to be FOR REAL......

This is truly mind-boggling...

And secondly, Mr Death, well done for posting one of the most thoughtful, well-written and properly spelled postings I've seen in my two years on this forum.... on that basis alone, you should be snapped up tomorrow by any sensible employer....

Regards

eezypeazy

 

[Death]

Hail All!

Baa baa Black sheep...
How is *that* racist?

The mind truly boggles on this one...I even got reprimanded once for saying that I was wearing black clothes, which I was!
Indeed...Is this the reason that schools everywhere have been swapping their bla...*ahem!*...chalkboards for more modern PVC-based dry-wipe ones?

It interests me that in the latter instance, it's still acceptable to call it a whiteboard!

Two things come to mind.... firstly, Death (may I call you Death? After all, we haven't been introduced yet... should that be Mr. Death?), the first thing a thought when I saw this was that it was some kind of wind-up... but no, lo and behold, in these politically-correct times when we're all afraid of being sued, yes, the Equal Opps Monitoring form appears to be FOR REAL......

Hi Eezypeazy!
I'm more used to just "Death" as a rule...If you're curious about my screen-name, just ask any longer standing member of the Rollercoaster Club of Great Britain!

Anyway...As you already know, I found the somewhat unusual comprehensiveness of the equal opportunities form to be a refreshing sight. After all, it's hard enough finding people who know about the religion that I follow...Let alone companies who by the admission of their forms do acknowlege this religion, and as a result won't object to or find me to be very strange for my desire to work on Christmas/Boxing day, Easter and most Bank Holidays for something to do...Although on the other hand, they might find my preference for having Thursdays off annoying... 8)
Footnote: For those who don't know: "Thursday" is a corruption of "Thors-Day"...The day devoted to Thor - God of War, and the Son of Odin. As I consider Thor to be my "patron" God, it's personally preferable for me to have this day off for worship purposes...Although unlike Catholicism, timetabled worship is not generally required in Ásatrú and many other polythesic religions. (Those having multiple Gods, insted of a single god.)

And secondly, Mr Death, well done for posting one of the most thoughtful, well-written and properly spelled postings I've seen in my two years on this forum.... on that basis alone, you should be snapped up tomorrow by any sensible employer....

No worries mate...Glad you enjoyed reading it, and thanks for the compliments on my English!
I'm pretty much a stickler for proper English when it comes to writing stuff down...Correct spellings, punctuation and everything else where I can. Have to say that it isn't exactly the easiest thing to do when the spell-checker that is built in to Firefox uses the American English dictionary, and half of the keys on my PC's keyboard keep jamming! :eek:
(No dirty thoughts please...I can assure you that it is breadcrumbs to blame! )

If there's one thing that I hate, it's the SMS shorthand that's been appearing over the last few years. I don't send text messages often, but when I do I still write the whole thing out in standard English, and only resort to dropping punctuation and abbreviations (In that order) if I run out of space in the message. Indeed, I have tried using the SMS "txt" language on a few occasions, and I find it much easier and faster to type "See you later?" as opposed to the SMS "cul8r" as my brain processes words at a time...And SMS has to be spelt out letter by letter, which is much slower. That, and I'm surprisingly fast enough to write out things like this post on a mobile keypad anyway! 8)

Only downside to this though is that my posts don't half go on...Just like me in real life! (Let that be a warning to Coxster if he decides to join me down the pub anytime soon! )

To finalise: The irony of all this is that not only do I highly enjoy reading "Engrish" (Badly translated English, often found in India, Pakistan and China.) but I only got a "D" in English when I did my GCSEs! :eek:

Farewell...
>> Death <<

 

[eezypeazy]

The irony of all this is that not only do I highly enjoy reading "Engrish" (Badly translated English, often found in India, Pakistan and China.) but I only got a "D" in English when I did my GCSEs! :eek:

Well, you obviously have a way with words..... have you considered a career that uses them? Journalism or PR?

eezypeazy

 

[Nick W]

I'd have thought that the best way to avoid discrimination (either 'positive' or 'negative' - whatever they're supposed to mean!) would be to just not ask these questions! If they're just after the best applicants regardless of gender, religion, age etc. - does it matter?

Someone finally agrees with me.

BTW what are the safety concerns of someone with a modified body driving a train? Do they have to have rigorous testing like a train would upon modification?

baba [SIZE="6"BLACK[/size] sheep,
have you any wool,
yes sir, yes sir
three bags full.

How ON EARTH is this racist?

oh dear, bad me.

I can be very racist.

Jews are good at running businesses. Asians run nice corner shops. Italians cook nice food. Polish workers make good manual labourers. Americans are good at sitting on their arses. Africans make good music.

Oh dear I've been very bad.

but I only got a "D" in English when I did my GCSEs!

I got 89/90 (A*) in one English exam, and 23/40 (D) in another.

Under scientific method, that would be considered erranous, and I would expect to be forced to repeat the exams.

But the exam boards are run by private companies, only interested in money not a fair representation.

Go figure...