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Proof of delay

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GodAtum

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Hi all,

How do I go about getting proof of the suspension of the London Overground at West Croydon this morning. I was late into work as I had to walk to East Croydon. This is the 3rd time I have been late in the past 12 months so I might been placed under formal discipline status. If I am late again I will be fired. I need some proof of the delay to back up my case.
 
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oversteer

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Firstly, it's still live on the TFL website, so if your manager is willing to look at that, hopefully it will convince them

"Overground
Suspended between New Cross Gate and West Croydon and Crystal Palace due to a faulty train at Surrey Quays. Severe delays are occurring between Highbury and Islington and New Cross and New Cross Gate."

Or the National Rail Twitter feed for London Overground
http://twitter.com/#!/NRE_LndnOvergnd

You could also try claiming for a refund, which will give you a written confirmation after a few weeks



https://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/tickets/refunds/overgroundrefund/default.asp

this is only if you are delayed by 30mins or more
 

John @ home

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Does TFL have a delay history?
Performance at West Croydon between 0800 and 0900 today was:
Station: West Croydon [WCY]
arrivals & departures for 12/06/2012 0800
Station Operator: London Overground

9C08 London Overground From Highbury & Islington [HHY] Arr : 0800 Exp: Cancelled Plat: 4
2J10 Southern To London Bridge [LBG] via Norbury Dep : 0801 Act: 0802 Plat: 1
2R08 Southern From London Victoria [VIC] To Epsom Downs [EPD] Arr : 0802 Act: 0802 Dep : 0804 Act: 0804 Plat: 4
2R17 Southern From Sutton (Surrey) [SUO] To London Victoria [VIC] via Norbury Arr : 0804 Act: 0806 Dep : 0805 Act: 0807 Plat: 2
9D12 London Overground To Highbury & Islington [HHY] Dep : 0809 Exp: Cancelled Plat: 3
9C09 London Overground From Highbury & Islington [HHY] Arr : 0812 Exp: Cancelled Plat: 4
2S58 Southern From London Victoria [VIC] To Dorking [DKG] Arr : 0814 Act: 0813 Dep : 0815 Act: 0814 Plat: 4
2U98 Southern From Guildford [GLD] To London Bridge [LBG] Arr : 0815 Act: 0819 Dep : 0815 Act: 0820 Plat: 2
2S11 Southern To London Victoria [VIC] via Crystal Palace Dep : 0819 Act: 0823 Plat: 1
9D13 London Overground To Highbury & Islington [HHY] Dep : 0823 Exp: Cancelled Plat: 3
2J77 Southern From London Bridge [LBG] Arr : 0823 Act: 0828 Plat: 1
2R23 Southern From Epsom Downs [EPD] To London Victoria [VIC] via Norbury Arr : 0825 Act: 0826 Dep : 0826 Act: 0828 Plat: 2
9C10 London Overground From New Cross Gate [NXG] Arr : 0830 Act: 0836 Plat: 4
2J12 Southern To London Bridge [LBG] via Norbury Dep : 0831 Act: 0832 Plat: 1
2R10 Southern From London Victoria [VIC] To Epsom Downs [EPD] Arr : 0836 Act: 0844 Dep : 0836 Act: 0845 Plat: 4
9D14 London Overground To Highbury & Islington [HHY] Dep : 0839 Exp: Cancelled Plat: 2
9C11 London Overground From Highbury & Islington [HHY] Arr : 0843 Act: 0847 Plat: 4
2U70 Southern From Epsom [EPS] To London Bridge [LBG] Arr : 0844 Act: 0846 Dep : 0844 Act: 0847 Plat: 3
2S60 Southern From London Victoria [VIC] To Sutton (Surrey) [SUO] Arr : 0844 Act: 0851 Dep : 0845 Act: 0852 Plat: 4
2S13 Southern To London Victoria [VIC] via Crystal Palace Dep : 0849 Act: 0848 Plat: 1
9D15 London Overground To Highbury & Islington [HHY] Dep : 0853 Exp: Cancelled Plat: 2
2J09 Southern From London Bridge [LBG] Arr : 0853 Act: 0859 Plat: 1
2R20 Southern From London Victoria [VIC] To Sutton (Surrey) [SUO] Arr : 0855 Act: 0900 Dep : 0856 Act: 0901 Plat: 4
2R25 Southern From Epsom Downs [EPD] To London Victoria [VIC] via Norbury Arr : 0856 Act: 0859 Dep : 0857 Act: 0900 Plat: 2
 
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Non railway advice.

Depending on the attitude of you employer, it is your responsibility to get to work on time. Occasionally it is impossible.
As it is becoming too often, and you value your job, I would suggest you set off say 30 minutes earlier, and have a coffee nearby, and arrive at work cool and ready to start. :D
 

hairyhandedfool

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Write to or phone London Overground and ask for written confirmation that the services were disrupted as proof for your employer and consider your options for allowing for this sort of disruption (which happens every so often as no-one and nothing is perfect).
 

Failed Unit

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Non railway advice.

Depending on the attitude of you employer, it is your responsibility to get to work on time. Occasionally it is impossible.
As it is becoming too often, and you value your job, I would suggest you set off say 30 minutes earlier, and have a coffee nearby, and arrive at work cool and ready to start. :D

Unfortunately as a nasty employer I would need to concur with this. If the railway can't run on time that is not my problem. I know it is nasty but if someone was constantly late because of the railway I would tell them to leave home earlier. (I have had to take the same line with the long suffering people that Edinburgh tram works are holding up, some of them are now leaving home 45 minutes earlier)

Saying that I am not totally evil, if they can't leave earlier I will look at ways of amending their hours (later start, short lunch etc)

Frequency is a hard thing, once per week is probably fine, but more often then it will be raised. Rail commutors do tend to be more consistant than road users. But things go wrong with all forms of transport. Todays signal failure at Newbridge is tomorrows accident on the M8
 

Clip

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Unfortunately as a nasty employer I would need to concur with this. If the railway can't run on time that is not my problem. I know it is nasty but if someone was constantly late because of the railway I would tell them to leave home earlier. (I have had to take the same line with the long suffering people that Edinburgh tram works are holding up, some of them are now leaving home 45 minutes earlier)

Saying that I am not totally evil, if they can't leave earlier I will look at ways of amending their hours (later start, short lunch etc)

Frequency is a hard thing, once per week is probably fine, but more often then it will be raised. Rail commutors do tend to be more consistant than road users. But things go wrong with all forms of transport. Todays signal failure at Newbridge is tomorrows accident on the M8

As an employer I concur with this. Also the distance between west and east isnt that far and you can take either a tram or a bus to get there too, to continue your journey.

Im guessing if this is a daily commute you hold some sort of periodical travelcard? If you do then you have multiple different forms of transport to get you to or from work and if your employer is starting to think about disciplinary actions then I would suggest as above that you leave early and get to work earlier before it become s a major issue for you.
 

michael769

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Speaking as an employer myself, I agree that if the delays are very regular it is not unreasonable to expect folks to adjust their routine to accommodate the situation by leaving earlier.

Having said that I accept that no matter what mode of transport is chosen sometimes one will encounter unexpected delays. This is just something that happens to us all. I would not consider 3 incidents of minor travel related lateness in a year to be in any way unexpected or unusual and most certainly not grounds for disciplinary measures and really would question the attitude of any employer that took such a line.
 

Deerfold

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Unfortunately as a nasty employer I would need to concur with this. If the railway can't run on time that is not my problem. I know it is nasty but if someone was constantly late because of the railway I would tell them to leave home earlier. (I have had to take the same line with the long suffering people that Edinburgh tram works are holding up, some of them are now leaving home 45 minutes earlier)

Saying that I am not totally evil, if they can't leave earlier I will look at ways of amending their hours (later start, short lunch etc)

Frequency is a hard thing, once per week is probably fine, but more often then it will be raised. Rail commutors do tend to be more consistant than road users. But things go wrong with all forms of transport. Todays signal failure at Newbridge is tomorrows accident on the M8

Can your employer be flexible at all? In mine my employer is happy for me to finish later if I started later (of course I still shouldn't miss important meetings etc). This also tends to make me amenable to working a bit later if there's some important work on.

I had a previous job which was timecarded. I used to arrive about 20 minutes early for work and typically started straight away. One one occasion I had problems with both the 2 buses I caught on the way to work and was about 10 minutes late. I was penalised 30 minutes' wages for this with no option to work later or start earlier on another day. I started reading the paper until 0900 and clocking off bang on 1700.
 

RJ

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As a Londoner, I feel there is little reason to be late for work. I have to rely on the half hourly South London Line service to get me to work. Soon, because of the wonderful Overground, I won't even have the luxury of a direct service to get me to work. I never aim for the train that gets me into work on time, but always the one 30 minutes before. In the likely event that my train is cancelled, I can still comfortably make it in using buses or taxi if in dire straits.
The problem with many Londoners is this "just in time" ethic. Yes, the transport is great when it works but sometimes it doesn't, so having a reasonable buffer should be the rule rather than the exception.
 

Matt Taylor

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That's a good point. In the recent documentary about the underground there was a woman who had her commute timed to the minute (door to door, not just the tube journey) which is great when everything works, but timing things so tightly meant that she had a very low tolerance of delays on the tube to the point that being more than two minutes down could make her late for work. In situations like that I would say that her being late for work was as much the fault of LUL as it was hers for not having enough redundancy in her schedule.
 

RJ

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Plus, in London there is the luxury of having zillions of permutations of alternative routes. In my outbase, there is no such thing, just one unreliable, infrequent bus to take me to town and the train station, where the service into London is effectively hourly.
 

calc7

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Can your employer be flexible at all? In mine my employer is happy for me to finish later if I started later (of course I still shouldn't miss important meetings etc). This also tends to make me amenable to working a bit later if there's some important work on.

I had a previous job which was timecarded. I used to arrive about 20 minutes early for work and typically started straight away. One one occasion I had problems with both the 2 buses I caught on the way to work and was about 10 minutes late. I was penalised 30 minutes' wages for this with no option to work later or start earlier on another day. I started reading the paper until 0900 and clocking off bang on 1700.

Good on you for fighting back against mindless bureaucracy! Some management philosophies are so short-sighted.
 

Clip

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Good on you for fighting back against mindless bureaucracy! Some management philosophies are so short-sighted.

Or some would prefer people to get to work on time when they are meant to. Im sure you would be the first on here moaning if your booking office wasnt open at the stated times due to staff who couldnt get to work on time.

Or is that another short sighted management philosophy?
 

calc7

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Or some would prefer people to get to work on time when they are meant to. Im sure you would be the first on here moaning if your booking office wasnt open at the stated times due to staff who couldnt get to work on time.

Or is that another short sighted management philosophy?

I am talking about how Deerfold happily started 20 minutes early each day for apparently ages, and was then treated with contempt at being late by 10 minutes on one single occasion. His subsequent protest of starting and finishing on the dot will have caused much more inconvenience in the long term - which would be the same for a booking office.
 

Clip

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I am talking about how Deerfold happily started 20 minutes early each day for apparently ages, and was then treated with contempt at being late by 10 minutes on one single occasion. His subsequent protest of starting and finishing on the dot will have caused much more inconvenience in the long term - which would be the same for a booking office.

His own choice to start work early - not the businesses. Its in the businesses interest that people do not start late.

Starting and finishing a shift on the dot is exactly what is required in a booking office. Look at LOROL one of their KPIs is to open each booking office on the dot and if not they pay a supplement - or fine if you will - for every few(10 iirc) minutes they are late opening, so you can imagine why people need to get to work on time.

There is no black and white. Starting work early is up to the employee and if they gain no benefit then dont do it, hang around in the canteen. The only requirement of an employee is to start at the time they have been allocated.
 

MikeWh

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I think this is a classic case of certain posters not being able to accept others views as just that. We don't know what sort of job Deerfold was doing at the time, but it sounds like it wasn't one where work couldn't be started early. The key message was that for being 10 minutes late he was docked 30 minutes pay. That might have been in his contract, but he still felt that as he'd been flexible in the past that his employer might have showed some discretion on this one occasion. Maybe calc7's congratulatory response was a little over the top, but it certainly matched my view of what was happening and I can fully empathise with the situation as described.

I hope some of us can take the message from the last post on this thread seriously and think about what we are writing in response to questions.
 

RJ

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I hope some of us can take the message from the last post on this thread seriously and think about what we are writing in response to questions.

I was helping that person to understand how Southeastern would see the situation and responded to her question of how likely it was that they would prosecute. I even provided advice with regards to what should and should not have gone into her letter attempting to appeal to their better nature. Some people simply cannot handle a reasonable interpretation of the truth - they just want to be told what they want to hear and the toys come out of the pram when that's not what they get. Given they made no effort to pay the fare and inferred that they attempted to avoid paying it, relenting only when they realised the RPI was not falling for it, she receieved an appropriate level of sympathy and some decent advice to limit the damage to herself. I know first hand that some RPIs are horrid bullies who employ unsavoury tactics to do their jobs but there's plenty of time to put in a customer service complaint after the prosecution has taken place, which I'd be advising against in any case.

She responded positively to CNash's post only because it stuck up for her, but that sympathetic post didn't take into account that she admitted she told the RPI she had come from the next stop more than once and only decided to change her mind when he didn't sell the £1.90 ticket, but started writing in his pad instead. Innocent slip of the tongue indeed.

If people are asking for help then they need to be prepared to accept the advice given. If they're just after sympathy from other people who have no experience of the revenue protection system or prosecutions departments, but offer naive support which is utterly useless then fair enough - it is to be expected that they will throw a strop.

Here, I feel it's sound advice to leave home earlier instead of risking employment by having poor contingency/time management.
 
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Ferret

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+1. She wanted to know how likely it was that a settlement would be reached - and my answer told her that she'd significantly reduce those chances by moaning about the RPI.

I suspect if she behaved like she did on here when she w as interviewed, then she has no chance of an out of Court settlement. Be sure that kicking off will be mentioned in any report submitted by that RPI.

Futhermore, she complained of having to sign the RPIs book. She was requested to do this for her own protection - so that the RPI cannot go and add things later to what they both said in the interview. The concept of being made to sign under duress seems bizarre to me therefore. I found her posts to be full of half truths and excuses I'm afraid!

Mike - I'm going to be blunt here - it's one thing to come on here and ask for advice, it's another thing entirely to come on here, seeking sympathy, while telling half the story in order to portray the railway as the baddy.

She received an answer to her question, a fair degree of warranted criticism and elected to storm off. That's her choice, and I'm not sure we should be losing any sleep over that.

As for this thread - I agree entirely with RJ again. I leave home early for the very reason I don't trust the train to get me in on time if I leave it until the last minute!
 

WelshBluebird

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The only issue I have with the "leave earlier" reply is how far do you take that?
If someone leaves half an hour earlier, yet on a small number of occurrences (3 times a year really isn't that many at all) is still late, would you then suggest they leave an hour earlier? And the cycle continues until you get a point where the person is never late, but 99% of days is sitting around doing nothing for 90 minutes before they start work!
 

Ferret

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The only issue I have with the "leave earlier" reply is how far do you take that?
If someone leaves half an hour earlier, yet on a small number of occurrences (3 times a year really isn't that many at all) is still late, would you then suggest they leave an hour earlier? And the cycle continues until you get a point where the person is never late, but 99% of days is sitting around doing nothing for 90 minutes before they start work!

Well, I leave 30 minutes grace and have never been late for work. Been close on a few occasions though! I just go and fester in the messroom with a cuppa - doesn't bother me in the slightest!
 

34D

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Speaking as an employer myself, I agree that if the delays are very regular it is not unreasonable to expect folks to adjust their routine to accommodate the situation by leaving earlier.

Having said that I accept that no matter what mode of transport is chosen sometimes one will encounter unexpected delays. This is just something that happens to us all. I would not consider 3 incidents of minor travel related lateness in a year to be in any way unexpected or unusual and most certainly not grounds for disciplinary measures and really would question the attitude of any employer that took such a line.

Indeed, as someone who has been a line manager, it is quite surprising how people don't see any benefit in setting off a little earlier (not just those who travel by rail, those who drive aswell).

Regarding the OP, can I enquire over what duration the three alleged transgressions are, please?
 

Deerfold

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His own choice to start work early - not the businesses. Its in the businesses interest that people do not start late.

Starting and finishing a shift on the dot is exactly what is required in a booking office. Look at LOROL one of their KPIs is to open each booking office on the dot and if not they pay a supplement - or fine if you will - for every few(10 iirc) minutes they are late opening, so you can imagine why people need to get to work on time.

There is no black and white. Starting work early is up to the employee and if they gain no benefit then dont do it, hang around in the canteen. The only requirement of an employee is to start at the time they have been allocated.

It seemed to me to be in the business's interest for me to do an extra 20 minutes of work a day, which I didn't mind doing when I had nothing else productive to do. However, once it became obvious that they were more interested in the letter of my contract, I could be just as interested in it. That particular job involved working through a large pile of non-urgent work keying in data.

If depends on what the job is, of course. Some are more time critical than others - when I had a part time job in a shop it was reasonable that there was less flexibility on my start time as they wanted me there when they were at their busiest.
 

Clip

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I think this is a classic case of certain posters not being able to accept others views as just that. We don't know what sort of job Deerfold was doing at the time, but it sounds like it wasn't one where work couldn't be started early. The key message was that for being 10 minutes late he was docked 30 minutes pay. That might have been in his contract, but he still felt that as he'd been flexible in the past that his employer might have showed some discretion on this one occasion. Maybe calc7's congratulatory response was a little over the top, but it certainly matched my view of what was happening and I can fully empathise with the situation as described.
.

In general regarding this and not just aimed at Deerfold himself, getting in early benefits everyone from the employee to the employer as they both gain - one from a little bit of overtime and the other from a little bit of increased productivity.

Be getting to work late the employer loses productivity and therefore so should the employee. Its a standard feature in a lot of warehouse contracts and such like that if you are late by over 5 minutes then you get docked 30 mins pay. Its a small enough punishment to be a good enough deterrent so it doesnt encourage lateness in the workplace.
 

Deerfold

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In general regarding this and not just aimed at Deerfold himself, getting in early benefits everyone from the employee to the employer as they both gain - one from a little bit of overtime and the other from a little bit of increased productivity.

Be getting to work late the employer loses productivity and therefore so should the employee. Its a standard feature in a lot of warehouse contracts and such like that if you are late by over 5 minutes then you get docked 30 mins pay. Its a small enough punishment to be a good enough deterrent so it doesnt encourage lateness in the workplace.

However, I didn't get any overtime pay for my extra work. If I had there would have been unfairness. Or if there had been any way to make up the lost pay.
 

Clip

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However, I didn't get any overtime pay for my extra work. If I had there would have been unfairness. Or if there had been any way to make up the lost pay.

Well im sorry to say thats your own fault for starting straight away then. Yes I am being harsh but if no one was forcing you to do that and your contract stated that latenss would see a reduction in your pay at a set amount then thats that in my eyes.
 

Deerfold

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Well im sorry to say thats your own fault for starting straight away then. Yes I am being harsh but if no one was forcing you to do that and your contract stated that latenss would see a reduction in your pay at a set amount then thats that in my eyes.

You seem to be missing the point that I didn't mind doing it but thought it petty to be penalised even though I was prepared to work later on the day I was late on. Yes, it was the letter of the rules, but it didn't foster cordial relations between workers and management. If I had been able to work later they'd have carried on getting their free 20 minutes a day out of me. Did they not rather shoot themselves in the foot there?
 

richw

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I work half an hour away from home, but always leave an hour journey time for unforeseen traffic incidents etc, I then get to work chilled out and not stressed because I'd cut my timing to the second, and then got held in traffic. Gives me chance for a coffee as well before I start. This seems to be common thing to do amongst all in my office as well, to leave plenty of time spare.
 
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