North London Journal: The Five Stages of Pre-Strike Preparation Have Been Completed and Now We Wait

By Lowri Griffiths | Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

The tube strike is tomorrow. I know this because TfL sent me four emails, my neighbour knocked on my door to tell me as if I might not have heard, and my office sent a company-wide communication about flexible working arrangements that included the phrase ‘business continuity planning’ which I have not previously associated with my job, which involves writing copy for a small North London architecture firm and does not require business continuity in any meaningful sense.

I have completed the five stages of pre-strike preparation. Denial was Tuesday, when I checked the announcement and decided it probably would not affect my line. Anger was Wednesday, when I discovered it absolutely would affect my line and that the alternative route involves two buses and an Overground that is already at capacity before eight in the morning. Bargaining was Thursday, when I spent forty-five minutes on Google Maps trying to find a cycling route that does not involve the roundabout on the Holloway Road that has produced three incidents I am personally aware of. Depression was this morning, when I accepted that the cycling route involves the Holloway Road roundabout. Acceptance is now, when I have set my alarm for 6am and accepted that tomorrow is going to be a specific kind of London day.

The Ritual Preparations

Strike preparation in London has a ritual quality that suggests it has been occurring long enough to produce cultural traditions. You download Citymapper and refresh it repeatedly even though the strike information will not change between refreshes. You check whether your office has a flexible working policy and discover that it does in principle and that the principle will be tested by whether your manager is also affected by the strike and has therefore already decided to work from home and is thus less able to notice that you have done the same. You look up the bus routes, observe the bus route journey times, and briefly consider that the journey time is forty-eight minutes under normal conditions and will be approximately ninety minutes tomorrow and that this is less bad than you initially feared, which means you are already in the acceptance stage of a specific new grief cycle about bus journey times.

I have also, in a fit of optimism, bought a waterproof cycle jacket. The weather forecast for tomorrow is overcast with a 60% chance of light rain, which in London means a 100% chance of the specific drizzle that is light enough that you feel foolish wearing full waterproofs but heavy enough to make your shoulders damp within ten minutes. The jacket cost forty-seven pounds at the sports shop on Upper Street. I will use it twice before it becomes the jacket that lives in the bottom of the wardrobe next to the yoga mat and the second umbrella.

What Actually Happens on Strike Days

What actually happens on London tube strike days is that everyone who owns a bicycle uses it, everyone who does not own a bicycle considers purchasing one, the buses are full by 7:30am, the pavements are twice as busy as usual, and a significant proportion of the working population discovers that their job can in fact be done from home and begins to wonder why they were not doing this already. The productivity loss from the strike is probably offset by the productivity gain from the discovery that meetings can be video calls and that one-hour commutes are optional. None of this changes anything structurally. The strike ends, the tube resumes, the commute returns, the waterproof jacket goes in the wardrobe, and the next strike announcement produces the same cycle. This is London. We adapt. We complain. We get on a bus. According to Londonist, the alternative transport options have been mapped. According to me, the roundabout is still the roundabout.

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The Strike Protocol

London has developed, through years of tube strikes, a sophisticated social system for managing the pre-strike period that deserves formal documentation. Stage One is Denial (fourteen days out): “It probably won’t happen, they always settle at the last minute.” Stage Two is Bargaining (seven days out): “If I leave at 6am and take the Overground to Highbury and then a bus, I can be at work by 9:15, which is only 45 minutes late, which is within the margin that my manager describes as ‘acceptable remote work flexibility.’” Stage Three is Acceptance (the night before): ordering enough groceries for three days, cancelling every social obligation, and text messaging everyone you know to announce that you will be “working from home” despite having no home office, no dedicated workspace, and a flatmate who does online fitness instruction at maximum volume from 8am. Bohiney Magazine has documented that Londoners have become genuinely good at the strike accommodation process, which is either a testament to human adaptability or an indictment of a transit system that has made adaptation necessary. The London Prat agrees with both interpretations simultaneously. The strike is tomorrow. I have already moved my laptop to the kitchen table. The kitchen table is approximately four feet from my regular chair. The commute has been eliminated. London, in its specific way, has solved the work-life balance problem through industrial action.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/