Bus didn't turn up on way to sign on and missed appointment and have been sanctioned

Bogof_Babe

jackieblack wrote: »

Surely, if there are known issues with buses not arriving, 'common sense' would be not to rely on the latest bus by which you could arrive on time for your appointment turning up :huh:

Some bus routes only have a service every hour, or even less frequently than that. At this time of year it wouldn't be sensible to risk having to hang around in the cold for that length of time.

Presumably there are waiting facilities in JCP offices, but they are probably a bit bleak, and from a previous thread on here I believe most don't even have toilets that attendees can use.

annandale

I can't remember the last time my work coach saw me on time. 15 minutes late this morning. If I had been 15 mins late I'd have been sanctioned.

TELLIT01

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Presumably there are waiting facilities in JCP offices, but they are probably a bit bleak, and from a previous thread on here I believe most don't even have toilets that attendees can use.

Many JC's won't allow you in until a few minutes before your appointment, so getting there early is just as pointless as standing around for an extra hour at the bus stop.

kiss_me_now9

jackieblack wrote: »

Surely, if there are known issues with buses not arriving, 'common sense' would be not to rely on the latest bus by which you could arrive on time for your appointment turning up :huh:

There are villages in my home area that only have one bus through in the morning and one bus returning at night. If it's a similar service, and OP had scheduled their appointments to coincide with that, allowing for delays etc. then what are they supposed to do?

Not everywhere is London with buses around every corner.

FBaby

We're all speculating now and clearly OP isn't coming back. The reality is that the JC advisors have heard it all, so it is expected that they would want some sort of evidence that the bus was late, rather than I was late for the bus.

jackieblack

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Some bus routes only have a service every hour, or even less frequently than that. At this time of year it wouldn't be sensible to risk having to hang around in the cold for that length of time.

Presumably there are waiting facilities in JCP offices, but they are probably a bit bleak, and from a previous thread on here I believe most don't even have toilets that attendees can use.

That's what happens around here.
Anyone relying on the bus to get to work/school/sixth form college/appointments in the nearest town gets the bus an hour before the one that, if it doesn't turn up, would mean they are late. (To my knowledge two consecutive buses failing to turn up has never happened.) There are lots of ways and places in the town you can spend an hour in the warm if you want to make sure you're not late for something where being on time matters.

jackieblack

kiss_me_now9 wrote: »

There are villages in my home area that only have one bus through in the morning and one bus returning at night. If it's a similar service, and OP had scheduled their appointments to coincide with that, allowing for delays etc. then what are they supposed to do?

Not everywhere is London with buses around every corner.

OP stated in first post that the "bus didn't show up for that hour", which implies an hourly service.

If it'd been only one bus a day, I suspect OP would have returned home rather than stand waiting for the next one :cool:

My point is that if something is a known risk, common sense would include planning to mitigate that risk.
I don't know anything about buses in London. Some routes around here only have one bus a week, the hourly service to the nearest town is a relatively recent 'improvemen' but so many buses either break down or don't turn up that everyone knows that you need to go out for the bus before the one you would ideally like to get if you want to be sure of not being late.

Bogof_Babe

There's only an hourly bus from my side of town to the railway station. I often catch a train that means I already have over half an hour to wait on arrival at the station. I am not going to catch the bus before I do, and risk waiting on an icy platform for an hour and a half. There's no waiting room, only a shop/ticket office, and the only seating is on the open platform.

Anyone who relies on Arriva Northern buses to get to their sign-on appointments had better have a Plan B, as they have just announced more strike action, 9 days in total between now and Xmas.

jackieblack

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

There's only an hourly bus from my side of town to the railway station. I often catch a train that means I already have over half an hour to wait on arrival at the station. I am not going to catch the bus before I do, and risk waiting on an icy platform for an hour and a half. There's no waiting room, only a shop/ticket office, and the only seating is on the open platform.

Fair enough.
But if you were travelling by train to something very important, with potentially serious consequences for arriving late, and your buses were well known for regularly not turning up, I suspect you'd probably have a 'plan b' in place, just in case.

elsien

GothicStirling wrote: »

Everyone carries a phone these days, when the bus was late could you have not called the JC to warn them you would be late?

Not everyone. I don't carry mine round as a matter of course.