Suicide by public transport

I am in full rant mode today...

Have you ever wondered why people choose to kill themselves by throwing themselves under a train? Actually, have you wondered why they choose to do so during peak hour??!!
It is almost as if they want to drive the rest of us to do the same....

There were 3 such peak hour incidents in London week ending 15th Sept. 2 tube, 1 rail.
Thousands stuck on tube trains, Paddington station closed - thousands having hours added to their journey home after a hard days work.

I mean if they did it at 3pm or 2am even, they would accomplish their goal but without the resulting travel chaos and inconvenience to the rest of us.

Perhaps it is time we studied this phenomenon further. It appears to be happening with increasing frequency - why why why is my question. If we study it, perhaps we can put measures in place to prevent it and the resulting impact on those left behind.

I don't mean study depression and suicides in general. I think we should study specifically why people choose peak hour to kill themselves in such a public manner. Of course collecting accurate data from the source could be a bit difficult...

September breakup blues

Sept is a bad month for relationships, if anecdotes from friends is anything to go by.

Here is the list:
2 girlfriends have found new boyfriends only to be told that the guys had to go on pre-booked holidays shortly after. Then no word from them and no word from them.

Another 2 breakups reported in the past week and that is just those I know of personally.

Hearsay - 4 more breakups reported.

How about you? How many relationship breakups have you heard of in the past fortnight?

Union Recruitment Failure II

One other thing - perhaps they should train up their switchboard operators to actually deliver customer service instead of just spoutting policy at you. It has been rather difficult to get anyone that actually represents IT professionals...unless you work in a callcentre or financial institution.

Is it the nature of the IT industry that the practices of software companies has gone undetected for so long?

No wonder there have been no public protests about software outsourcing overseas.

Which leads one to question: do white collar workers deserve less protection than blue collar workers?

Bullying happens everywhere at all levels and society/unions, etc. need to be aware of this.
Workers' needs appear to have moved from better/equal pay, sexual/racial discrimination to bullying and workplace abuse. As evidenced by recent awards for bullying by the courts.

I urge unions to adapt and survive.

Union Recruitment Failure

Now I understand why unions in this country are failing both in recruitment of new members and their political standing....

This is a classic example of not meeting customer/potential customer's needs. Bad marketing and bad business.

Here is the story of me trying to find a union for DH to join....more on that later - but if you have ever been bullied/discriminated against at work, we are now 'experts' at this. Hence the long silence from the blog, we have been too bogged down to blog!

OK here goes my rant:

Hmmm....if I were in trouble, I would think about seeking help from a body that has experience dealing with these matters - ie. a union. Now never having been in trouble, it would not occur to me to join a union. What with their public image of militancy and association with train strikes.

So when the situation arises that one needs the help of the union - the response one gets is rather incredulous.

''We are unable to assist with any matters pre-dating the membership application''.

From a purely marketing point of view - isn't that why people join a union?

From a business point of view - their rationale is that legal representation costs money so you have a be a member for more than 6 months before you can benefit. Now, since in the course of one's career, one does not expect to be bullied, harrased or discriminated, thus joining a union would not even cross one's mind...doesn't this mean that those who do join unions are more likely to seek legal representation thus use union resources? Self-selection policy it seems to me.

Now, if they introduced a higher joining/membership fee for people with existing issues who would now like to be part of a union, wouldn't that solve that particular problem and increase their members, thus their clout and coffers?

Furthermore, that new member who had been helped would feel compelled to spread the word about benefits of union membership. Thus increasing membership coffers even further. In fact, it could lead to a class action as it is rare for a company management to mistreat just one staff member.