Snow in the UK En-route environment
Join Date: Jan 2004
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Just watched the national news.........despite over a foot of snow in the borders of Scotland today on top of all the stuff they had last few days ( 3 feet now!! ) not even a mention.......it appears though Oxfordshire/Hampshire is about to suffer armagedan!!!!! still they never mentioned about England winning the world cup for a few minutes!! :-)
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Being a PC chap 
all credit to everyone down South who made every effort to get in to work. It just goes to prove that, in spite of the "laughter police", when push comes to shove we are all still dedicated professionals in ATC.
Well done guys.
all credit to everyone down South who made every effort to get in to work. It just goes to prove that, in spite of the "laughter police", when push comes to shove we are all still dedicated professionals in ATC. Well done guys.
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Just watched the national news.........despite over a foot of snow in the borders of Scotland today on top of all the stuff they had last few days ( 3 feet now!! ) not even a mention.......it appears though Oxfordshire/Hampshire is about to suffer armagedan!!!!! still they never mentioned about England winning the world cup for a few minutes!! :-)
So the amount of the population affected and the fact that this very rarely occurs in the 'milder' south goes some way to justify why the recent snow has featured so heavily in the news.
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"Be nice if Barron et al appreciate the efforts of all who make it, and those who try and fail"
My manager did thank me
And it is "noticed" the ones who do make the effort to get in
Very bizarre coming off the M27 @ J8 to be met by hundreds of abandoned cars. The A27 was like a car park this morning.
Snow was very local to Swanwick, there was virtually nothing in Dorset.
My manager did thank me
And it is "noticed" the ones who do make the effort to get in
Very bizarre coming off the M27 @ J8 to be met by hundreds of abandoned cars. The A27 was like a car park this morning.
Snow was very local to Swanwick, there was virtually nothing in Dorset.
Join Date: Apr 2006
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A couple of us stayed over after the afternoon shift yesterday to cover for any nightshift or morning shift that couldn't make it in. Ended up sleeping all night and offering to work this afternoon, albeit a tad unshaven and in need of a shower!
The way I saw it, as I was sitting around slurping coffee and eating sandwiches, was that plenty of people have been forced to do worse things in worse conditions in places like Dunkirk, Stalingrad, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc and never moaned about it or asked for recognition or a days leave back.
Oh not to mention the many nurses, quacks, ambulance crews and police officers who all seemed to make it to their respective shifts last night and today no problem without saying 'sod it, lets stay at home and make a snowman instead.'
**** happens, just get on with it.
The way I saw it, as I was sitting around slurping coffee and eating sandwiches, was that plenty of people have been forced to do worse things in worse conditions in places like Dunkirk, Stalingrad, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc and never moaned about it or asked for recognition or a days leave back.
Oh not to mention the many nurses, quacks, ambulance crews and police officers who all seemed to make it to their respective shifts last night and today no problem without saying 'sod it, lets stay at home and make a snowman instead.'
**** happens, just get on with it.
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At least they have not mentioned winning the world cup for a couple of days!!!!! as for Talla wearing his shorts......dont mind that but please please please get a life with the socks!! :-)..........see you tomorrow 
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re docking a days leave - made even more galling by the fact that Swanwick GM sent an e-mail round telling all non-essential staff to go home. So the weather is deemed bad enough that non essential staff should go home, but if 'essential' staff get stuck in a snow drift, they get docked a days leave 
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I assume that was a tongue in cheek question, but if not... 'essential staff' are without whom NATS could not provide an ATC service (ATCOs, ATSAs, Engineers).
'Non essential' staff are those who support the business in other ways - project staff, HR, management etc...
At times like these NATS management remembers what ATC is actually about - at other times 'essential staff' are seen as a pain.
'Non essential' staff are those who support the business in other ways - project staff, HR, management etc...
At times like these NATS management remembers what ATC is actually about - at other times 'essential staff' are seen as a pain.
If an SLF can be forgiven for posting on this thread I would just like to say that us commoners very much respect and appreciate what you guys do and your efforts to keep us safe at all times, but especially the last few days when there has pretty obviously been some above-and-beyond stuff going on. Thanks.
Tog
(PS By all means remove this if I shouldn't be posting here)
Tog
(PS By all means remove this if I shouldn't be posting here)
Last edited by togsdragracing; 7th Jan 2010 at 13:08. Reason: Missing word
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If an SLF can be forgiven for posting on this thread I would just like to say that us commoners very much respect and appreciate what you guys do and your efforts to keep us safe at all times, but especially the last few days when there has pretty obviously been some above-and-beyond stuff going on. Thanks.
Tog
Tog
It has been a difficult week for many people tryimg to cope with an infrastructure that is just now designed to cope with this situation.
I know of people who spent nearly 6 hours the other evening going to a hotel close to Swanwick that NATS had offered them for the night to try to keep the operation going on Wednesday morning. their journey was only around 10 miles and they had already done a morning duty on Tuesday. There were also people who had done an afternoon duty on Tuesday who stayed on to help out the night duty and they didn't leave the unit till late Wednesday morning.
These are just a couple of examples and I'm sure there are many more. Almost the entire morning watch volunteered to stay on an extra 3 hours if required to keep the traffic moving on Wednesday afternoon despite then putting their own journeys own in jeopardy.
Well done to all no matter where you happen to be.
Now when do the 2011 pay negotiations start?
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I was on the afternoon duty on Tuesday when the snow arrived - didn't get relived until 0130Z. The senior management were in the ops rooms - they appeared to be organising Hotel accommodation for me and my colleagues plus help the morning shift staff get rooms. The canteen was open until 0300 and there was free sandwiches and tea/coffee. I think it was an all round great team effort considering the weather. 
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senior management
I too was on that afternoon duty and stayed on. I believe senior management were there because they were attending a meeting and got stuck! The hero of the day really was the lady from the canteen who stayed on and made the sandwiches and coffee etc. A lot of lessons to be learnt from the whole experience. Hopefully this will remind management that we are a professional group of people who are willing to go the extra mile to ensure continuity of service. we dont need to be cajoled or bullied into doing this. Once again when the chips are down it is the controllers , assistants and engineers who keep things moving. The managers would do well to remember that and treat staff with the respect they deserve.
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I hope you filled in a comments card at the canteen - I did and I encouraged others in TC to do so. The canteen staff get paid a pittance so it would be good for them to get feedback on the sterling effort of Tues night .
To be fair to management, I think the meeting they were having was about how to ensure that provisions were made to make it as easy as possible for operational staff to maintain a service i.e. calling people at home and offering hotels etc. The fact that by being proactive they then ended up being stuck themselves is just ironic.
.To be fair to management, I think the meeting they were having was about how to ensure that provisions were made to make it as easy as possible for operational staff to maintain a service i.e. calling people at home and offering hotels etc. The fact that by being proactive they then ended up being stuck themselves is just ironic.
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They (Simon, Paul, Stu, Mark etc) could all have left when it started to snow - they stayed to assist the watch supervisor and ops manager ensure the staff were looked after and had hotels to stay in, canteen had food, roads got gritted etc. I did witness 5 north sea controllers on the afternoon shift who stated to the watch sup they would unplug and close the sector at 2200 unless they got 550 pounds to stay till midnight. he politely turned their offer down. Thankfully not all their colleagues need the financial incentive to stay.
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And that will be the same watch sup who said they would forget about sratcoh but if you had an incident the next morning if you stayed on then it would be on your own head.
I'll think you will find that the North Sea atco's probably had a tongue in their cheek when they offered to stay on for 550.
I'm sure come the summer the sup's will reward your company loyalty with................
I'll think you will find that the North Sea atco's probably had a tongue in their cheek when they offered to stay on for 550.
I'm sure come the summer the sup's will reward your company loyalty with................