ugh, back to the grind. and really, grind is the most apt word for it. it is a singular chore to drag myself through the days, knowing that nothing more is going to get done, and the few things I would like to accomplish at this job are unlikely to see fruition before I leave. and believe it or not, that’s *not* a reflection on me. this is the only job i’ve ever held where i have achieved almost nothing concrete – the system is set up in such a way that it’s nearly impossible for anything to actually change, and where simply spending day after day slogging through the system is the only thing that keeps everything going, and is, in fact, seen as doing a “good job”. it’s running to stand still, and I was never a big fan of treadmills.

none of this was helped by the fact that the tube fare hikes threw the entire transoprtation system into a tizzy. as for me, I ended up spending £3 for my journey into work, because i didn’t have the 45 minutes to queue for the ticket line. they’re trying to forcibly move everyone onto the oyster card system (the RFID chipped passes), and so took away the option of paying for a single zone fare ticket with coins at the quickticket machine. up until now, I have avoided using the oyster card for a few reasons: a) the queue to top up the oystercard is always ridiculous b) it wouldn’t save me any money and i’m likely to lose it and c) my extreme distrust of the government. see, the oyster card is really just a tracking mechanism, as you can be followed throughout the tube system. if you want to get a season pass, you have to link the card with your personal information, and many people link it to their bank details as well. that’s an awful lot of information for the government (yes, the tube is still partly owned by the government as a public/private partnership) to have about the vast majority of perfectly law abiding tube riders. i trust the government with my information about as far as I can throw tony blair, and i am convinced that the push to get everyone on oyster cards is a direct result of the july bombings. i held on to the paper tickets for as long as humanly possible, but there is simply no way i’m paying £6 each day to get to and from work.

which leads me to my second gripe about this morning – they’ve effectively forced everyone to go to an oyster card, without making *a single extra provision* for it. suddenly, people who can no longer buy cheap paper tickets need an oyster card. yet at tooting broadway (a fairly busy station) there were still only 2 oyster card compatible machines, while the 4 quickticket machines stood useless. it was the same everywhere i saw, and the queues were out the door in many stations. further, after a full 2 years, the oyster card *still* cannot be used in many places, effectively forcing people to pay two fares when using the train and the tube, and pay-as-you-go customers also cannot use it on the overland train. not to mention, there are plenty of places where you are not able to “Touch in, touch out” in order to get the correct fare, and as a result, end up being charged the highest possible amount. the oyster card is a shining example of how the ancient city of london takes newfangled technology designed to make life easier, and just fucks it up with piss-poor implementation. and adding insult to injury, the tfl website didn’t even have fully up to date information – half the links were to the old fare info.

meanwhile, the tube workers were on strike over the new year holiday, and going on strike again in a week. what a fucking shambles of a scam.

the whole thing has become (you should pardon the pun) like a runaway train.

i know i’ve said this multiple, multiple times, but a public transportation system is judged on its convenience, reliability, and affordability. the tube is none of the above. what a shameful excuse for an infrastructure.

needless to say, i arrived at work grumpy and the day only went downhill from there.

Like this post

Unlike

oyster card, london underground, tube strike, fare hikes