Will those unfortunate enough to be press-ganged into working at the Olympics have to go through the 'sensitivity quiz'.

'Patronising' sensitivity quiz for Olympic volunteers - Telegraph

Could be a good way of getting out of it with almost no effort.

Brilliant. Not rocket science to work out which answer they want. Unfortunately for your plan (which I like very much), all our serving personnel are so incredibly well versed in these issues due to repeated diversity training that my guess is that the requirement to take the test might be waived.:rolleyes:

A shame really, WW, 'cause I think your cunning plan might have ben a winner!

My guess is that some bright spark will insist that all the armed forces take the test to allow for short notice tasking....

Oly Stooge

That sounds bizarre enough to be plausible. But WTF has manning car parks got to to with security? If this comes about, it is a disgraceful way of obtaining no-cost labour, while depriving short-term contract temporary staff of an earning opportunity.

Just to make all you volunteers feel better, here is part of an article today from the BBC news online:

Staff on London Underground (LU) have been offered a bonus pay of £850 each to work during this summer's Olympics.
Howard Collins, LU's chief operating officer, said: "We have put forward an offer which would see station, maintenance, service control staff and operational managers receive up to £850 for working flexibly during the 2012 London Games, subject to attendance, customer satisfaction scores and agreement from operational staff to work flexibly in order to deliver a successful games.
"In return we are asking staff to work longer hours at different times of the day, to be prepared to work extra hours and to be more flexible in how and where they carry our their role for us during these crucial weeks."

The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union said it would consider the offer made by LU, which would benefit 18,000 workers.

I expect they will be allowed to sleep in their own beds and go down the pub of an evening.

Ah, the warm fuzzy glow of knowing that you are doing your duty and serving your country. All for the greater good...

Mister B

[QUOTE=Olympic stooge;7069245]Heard this great bit of news off my Flt Sgt this morning. I have been pinged to do car parking duties for the Olympics for a month and a half. Not too bad so far. Next came the good bit, because we here at the secret super air transport base in the prime ministers back yard are less than 90 miles from London we will be sleeping on a camp bed in base hangar and will then be transported to our respective car parks to keep a check on the great unwashed public lucky enough to get tickets to the greatest show on earth.:rolleyes: As well as having to sleep in a hangar we are not allowed to go home (even though I live in one of her majesties finest pre fabs in cartoontown a two minute drive from base hangar) or drink during the times we will be between shifts. They haven't fully published the exact details but from what I can glean they will be 4 on 3 off.
I am looking forward to all that overtime, just like the tube drivers and police will be earning.[/QUOTE]

Number one son is in the Met and has been told that he will be expected to work 12 hour shifts. Extra hours accrued will be paid in leave - which as he's said will then be impossible to take because of shortages. Tube drivers meanwhile will be coining it thanks to brother Crow and his sense of socialism.

I can sense a degree of seething resentment bubbling away beneath the surface over this. Come the end of August beginning of September, whatever, transpires, I can see some bad feeling being felt, if not by Service Personnel openly, by someone else on their behalf.

Especially so under current circumstances.

By the way Olympic Stooge; what OT have you actually been offered by Mr Hammond? Time and a half, Double, Triple or have you bee given no choice at all in the matter? :}

FB:)

And 4 days on, 3 days off doesn't sound too bad, hope they apply working time directive regs too.

So what to do with 3 days off? Living in a tent/hangar somewhere and with receipted actuals that probably won't actually cover the living costs...... I would also wager that you won't be allowed to travel away from the area. I would rather be working to pass the time - otherwise it may prove to be a very expensive and boring detachment.

Receipted actuals, if they are on base then it will be the mess for food and god help them if it's PAYD :}

If in a "tent city" field conditions should/will be in place so it no doubt it will fall to 3MCS to feed them/provide packed lunches etc so not too bad there (I've had 1st hand experience recently and it was very good grub), also would/should be entitled to LSA if unable to return to home unit on days off due to service need (No different to being on Salsbury plain/exercise). So that should help cover the extra costs a little bit.

Note I used the word "Should" a lot, the reality might be something completely different to save money.

Once again the Lame sick and lazy are excused you need a world wide deployment med cat to do the Olympics!
All catering provided by MCSU hence no pennies
3000 tented accom with upto 3 hours travelling time in between 12 hour shifts
Short stayers 6 on 1 day off
long stayers 5 on 1 off
will be interesting to observe how various battalions will intermingle once the beer flows. even with a proposed alcohol ban how can they possibly enforce it. sent home in disgrace?
Then again if you have paid for tickets you will not get the time off to attend the games and a refund is out of the window, one of my guys as lost about £300 kick a man whilst he is down, thats on top of missing out on his holiday abroad with family.
the list goes on

Surprised the red-tops have not picked up on this. As one long retired it does seem that service personnel are being short changed to a huge degree over this one. Military Covenant - bah, humbug!

And where are our lords and masters in all this? No doubt preparing to pick up their latest award for 'services to the Olympics'. It is an absoloute disgrace that they are allowing highly trained personnel to be used for 'car parking'. They know full well that the majority of servicemen under there command DO NOT want to become car park attendants and other cost saving roles during the Olympics. Strangely enough they would probably rather be with their families watching the Olympics or being as far away from this event as possible. Like has been said, military covenant, do be serious.
On the other hand, they are looking to loose more servicemen without having to pay redundancy, mmmm cunning plan.

HMG has missed a trick. Why didn't they ask the spacies to help out? Just call it an annual camp and they'd be all over it. The parents would be thrilled too :E

This whole Olympic running/jumping/splashing about event is a Poison Chalice that only the Borgias could have bettered. UK PLC needs this gross extravagance like a Moose needs a hat-rack.

When London was awarded the Games, I bet a number of other countries (who had thrown their hat in the ring, but were since afflicted by the same fiscal Plague as UK) breathed a silent 'phew'.

Is there any hard evidence to show that any Modern Olympics has ever rendered a profit to the host nation? I think not; this is nothing but grandstanding (pardon pun) by UK Gov, with our politicos savouring the kudos of international prestige (they hope).

I am reminded of the years when Ireland seemed to win the Eurotrash Song Contest every year, which then saddled them with hosting the next dreadful instalment of the biggest Blight to afflict the Irish people since the Potato Famine of 1845. In the end, they entered some deliberately dreadful refrain first released by Walid Jumblat & the Druze Militia. Job done, & the Euromob moved on to graze other pastures. We could learn from this, offering to host some future Games in, say, Bradford?

HB

HB,

Greece were the host in 2004 with the Athens games, I think it's fair to say that the current economy in that country is a magnificent indictment of the effect of hosting the modern games.

HM forces being used to cover for the incompetence & negligence (dare I say corruption) of LOCOG?

Well, they have been either moronically inept in underestimating the true cost of the games or alternatively they wilfully covered the truth up, up to the point which the country signed the contract to deliver the pageant so that now the taxpayers must pay for them.

Some people are getting very rich here. Others are being shafted.

Bah...Humbug:E

Now we all have to submit a photo and our personal details so we can be security vetted by an NGO, to check we are fit for the job! No details of ROE, accomodation, chain of command etc.
Police not happy either they are only getting an extra £50 per day for the Olympic duties, told my mate it is better than nothing!!!
Daily we receive request for more and more manpower, we have no fit bodies left yet they still can't / Will not use any officers because the duties are still to demeaning for them to do.

Sorry but you are just plain wrong.

2x Flt Lts nominated for Olympic duties from my Sqn and many more from the rest of Stn.

I'm pretty neutral about things, I don't care which ancient, agnostic homo/dyke wins the medal, it's all the same to me.

Will I make a good volunteer?:ok:

I think we could see this coming since about 2005. What a clusterf---. As usual the forces are doing more with less, covering other people's arses. Let's just hope the firemen don't go out on strike at the same time.:ugh:

I tell you what, if I was forced to do this f*cking demeaning job of a glorified car park attendant and forced to sleep in base hangar I would have traffic jams back to Liverpool by 10am and no one and I mean no one would be going anywhere in a car.


All you need to do is screw the system up big time and tie it in knots and by the time they figure it out they would be screwed.

Nobody is being made to sleep in Base Hangar.

I believe there may also be a shortage of itinerant Eastern European casual labourers for the Norfolk asparagus picking trade this season. Polish your wellies chaps, we're going in.

only because a risk assessment said too risky....:E
Seriously - I think a cunning plan is in order - Crow's thieving unionites get a fortune and you'se all get shafted.....

So have a wee sitdown plan with a few of the lads - work out how BIG a chaos engine you can create and do so.........

What was the urban myth..... take out four traffic light control units in central london on key points and it all goes gridlock

From the outside, looking in, I think that you lads and lasses have been completely shafted for this by the politicians.

What about those with leave with families booked over the school summer holidays - are you in anyway compensated for the costs if you have leave cancelled ?

Meanwhile for the army guys, are they suddenly looking to get the TA out of their regular workplaces for two months (which might include a couple of chaps at my place) just to overcome the issue that G4S have completely messed up their organisation due to complete incompetence with recruitment, and desperation to pay minimum wages while charging LOCOG maximum prices ?

I notice no one has mentioned who is paying for all the MoD people.

Will G4S be billed at top rates or is the Gov't going to wear it just
so the Olympics looks good ?

Downsized post 45

Simply redirect traffic back on itself then time for tea and biccies.. Or security check cars, and stop every car you deem suspicious...... what can they do? Nothing you are doing your job, that should get you out of it free and clear. You could quite easily shut down car parks whilst it is being dealt with.

The trouble is, you start doing that and you end up hurting good old Joe Public and their families whose fault this isn't. Would you like it if you had a potentially once in a lifetime family outing planned with your kids and it was ruined by someone playing silly buggers?
Not defending the way this has been handled but I don't think that is the answer IMHO.

True, but it would be easily rectified by replacing him.

So, these military people are under the command and control of a private company that has already demonstrated its incompetence? This could be fun ... :uhoh:

A friend of mine, retired cop, applied for a job as a supervisor with them for a four month gig (in Scotland) to cover the Olympic stuff. He thought it might make a wee change from his normal job, and with his decent police pension he can afford to be picky.

A few months ago, he told me he had applied and put me down as a ref.

About 4 weeks ago they called him and said he was in, subject to vetting.

Then they asked him to travel from Scotlandshire to London, at his own expense, stay three nights in London, at his own expense, and travel home after attending a two day training course.

He told them where to shove it.

Two weeks ago they asked him to attend a training course in Glasgow to be qualified as a night club bouncer.

He told them to shove it.

At the end of last week, G4S called me to check out his references and told me (confidentially) that he would be getting a letter this week offering him a job.

I'm expecting him to tell them to shove it.


So, if that's typical of how they are going about the recruitment process, no wonder they are having issues. I'm surprised that hey didn't ask the MOD for help sooner. If we are all in this together, how many civil servants are being sent to kip in TA halls or live on ships?

So they have offered him a job and haven't even met the person ?

I agree, they have obviously cocked up the whole thing.

They offered him two jobs before they did the vetting. How many others have slipped through that particular hole in the net?

So you have people who could potentially be doing security checks not having been vetted ? Almost as bad as Heathrow Airport !!!

At the very least they will have people who fail vetting, after having attended the training course.

Sounds ideal for a terrorist gathering intel.

Then trying to pass himself off as a member of the team, he meets folk who were on his course and they accept him on the basis that they were in training together.

WAFU!

Beats being under the command and control of a 'public' company (MoD) that has continually demonstrated its incompetence. Same !!!!, different uniform.... :ok:

When this story broke yesterday, it was covered at length on LBC Radio in London, a news and phone-in station. Listener after listener phoned in with accounts exactly along these lines, of worthwhile applicants messed about and ignored, checks out of sequence, you name it. The radio journalist was astounded at such a series of stories about the screwed way the whole process had been managed.

Its a joke. The business of business and government has become so top heavy; so festooned with over paid, self important people chucking out chaff to conceal their own duplicated and pointless jobs that nothing gets done. More effort is spent presenting the mission than executing the mission.