Allocations

As I have said the group was called Allocations and it was then and is still now the busiest of all the teams on Cardiff Bus. It was highly specialised and has become more so over the years. More to come in later blogs about that.

There are two areas that we worked in, Leckwith depot where the early morning drivers signed on and Wood Street where the later staff sign on. The same job was done in both but whereas the depot man worked on his own in Wood St there were three people as the holidays and lieu days were organized there and more staff were needed.

When I say that the depot man worked on his own, we did have in the early days what was known as a 'number one'. This was a driver that worked with us behind the counter and would keep an eye out for any drivers that failed to come in. They were trained on every route that we worked and could at a moments notice go out and drive for me.

They were damn useful at times but as they got older and retired they were not replaced. All parts were busy but I liked and still like today the depot area more than town. It was then and still is today noisier and you could laugh and joke a lot more. Think of it as the factory shop floor of the bus depot.

By the time 6.00 to 7.00 in the morning came there would be up to 25 drivers signing on every five minutes or so and many wanting overtime or with other queries. You were on the go and by the time the last one came in glad of a break.

The only downside of the depot sign on was the early start. I started at .03.45 in the morning, a time I am still starting today at. The upside was the early finish as you were away by 12.00. I was OK at it and it certainly sorted out any problems getting up that I might of had!

One part of the job that bored me silly was the manual making up of the sign on sheets. We had to write these out by hand and did for years until the computers came in. That is for a later blog though. We also had to pay all overtime manually and take the sheets to the payroll section so they could sort out the weekly pay.

In the next blog I will describe the change in shifts that came around because of staff shortage.