Date Posted: 14 January 2010
Still gripped with the winter weather and plenty of time to reflect whilst sat at Horsforth station waiting for the Harrogate Line to work. How much effort should be put into meeting conditions that normally arise a couple of times a year, though once every 10 years or so we get a sustained period like this…? It is a classic business problem and like many others a little more pre-thought would help. For example, schools need to guarantee that they can provide supervision for children throughout the school day for those that get there – how about have a pre-planned adverse weather code that is invoked to get teachers to go to their local school rather than struggle across the region to get to their normal place of work. It’s a process used in the health system and should be workable in Education too.
As for the trains…another generalist point around communication. If we knew what was happening we’d accept the situation much better. Spending hours on a station platform wondering whether to give up and join the traffic jam is an exercise in decision making with partial (and possibly false) knowledge. It’s like Game Theory. But surely the knowledge transfer could be better. The automated announcements at Horsforth are met with hoots of derision as another train is “delayed, please wait for further announcements”.
However, I do think business is much more flexible these days – remote working, better technology and more understanding employers – so long as it’s for a manageably short period. I for one am starting to think we could do with a break in this soon.
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