I Believe That First Bus Are Useless!
First Bus and their real slogan:- Destroying Families since 2004.
Just recently First Bus, a transport company in the UK have launched a new and annoying TV advert with the song based loosely on “The Children Are Our Future”. So not only do they aim to torture their staff and family but now they want to take a perfectly good song and ruin it whilst aligning it with their crap brand and poor business conduct.
So if you don’t know me to well you may well be wondering what my beef is here….
In 2004 my father was alive but living with terminal lung cancer and I was a driver with First Bus, a company which at first I thought was respectable, how wrong I was!
One night I had an instance on the busses just outside our main office, a group of youths were trying to get aboard to attack a passenger. I called for police backup whilst the office management stood outside their door doing nothing to protect their staff. I was left to fend off these attackers with my passenger. One of the thugs shouted at me whilst on the phone to the police “End the call before I end your life”.
Needless to say, this mixed into the equation with my father being terminally took its toll on me and so I requested for leave from work. I asked for it to be unpaid leave so I could spend valuable time with my father.
First Bus at Doncaster, specifically Pete Mare (however the prick spells his name) didn’t want to let me have time off work to spend with my father whilst he had his final days on Earth. I begged for unpaid leave or to give me a job once my father passed away, my father begged with them also. But they were heartless and pushed to sack me, they called it “Frustration Of Contract”.
Once my father passed away, I applied for a job with them again. I was invited in for an interview and some tests. I passed all their initial tests and the interview was great, but then the Rotherham training manager called me into his office and stated that they would not offer my a job and that First Bus Doncaster stated “Due to his past conduct, First as a company are not to employ him again”.
What past conduct, being harassed and threatened on a bus, offered no driver support, given no compasionate leave. Bullied into leaving the company.
I wasn’t the only one suffering at the hands of First Bus Doncaster management – So their slogan – Destroying Families since 2004.
I would never have wished anyone dead, but if Pete Mare were to suffer like my father and our family have then I would most likely raise a smile at that and take solace in the fact that Karma is a bitch. Harsh I know, but that is life.
Sigh Of Relief, Faith In Our Legal System – Hastings Direct Suck!!
I have faith once again!!
Last August (2010) I purchased a vehicle from Wrexham, we could not pick the car up straight away however I made inquiries with my insurance company to ensure I could drive the vehicle home to which they informed me I could. A week later we returned from vacation, my brother John drove us over to pick it up and within 20 minutes of picking the car up I was stopped….. No insurance.
I posted a chronological list of events in an earlier blog should you be interested in reading it: http://auroral.co.uk/2010/12/16/reliable-car-insurance-avoid-hastings-direct-life-wreckers/
Today was my third court hearing at the magistrates court in Northwich, Cheshire, some 2 hours away from my home. This time it was a special hearings case where they look at the information to hand, all my correspondence with Hastings Direct. All my interaction with the Financial Ombudsmen. I will be honest, I’m not a bad boy and this was a rather scary prospect in that I could loose money, get points, pay more for insurance and most importantly lose my clean driving license of over 10 years and all because I was misadvised by some idiot with a headset working in a call centre!
I got there, not sure what to expect. I was called in. They verified some details with me, received my new correspondence with the Financial Ombudsmen. The worships left the room to read all my correspondence and defence. Whilst out, the Clerk and prosecutor both said I should be fine and that after reading my case I should be out in 10 minutes or so.
The worships come in and even though the Clerk and prosecutor said I would be fine, I still found it nervy! They passed their verdict of “Not Guilty” stated I would have this whipped from my record, no points and no fine!
You can’t believe what a weight this is from my mind, I know it seems so trivial really in comparison to what is happening around the world but when you try to be all you can be and it seems you are being knocked down by a system which should serve and protect us, well its a little distressing.
I have to say that before my attendance today I really wasn’t sure which way this was going to unfold. I now have faith in our system once again! 
Now……… Last week I received a letter from the Financial Ombudsmen with an offer from Hastings Direct of a measly £100 compensation…. I don’t think I will be accepting now…… Life Wreckers they are!!
Where Is Our Robin Hood?
In today’s society its all about control and dictatorship, it doesn’t matter if you think we live in a free society or not, the fact of the matter is that we are controlled by the rules and walls that govern us and no matter who we vote into power things don’t really change, perhaps someone we don’t see is really pulling the strings. 
The poor get poorer and the rich….. well you know the rest!
Money dictates how we live our life, what we do and how we survive. It restricts us and in a way it can define us with relation to how giving we can be towards Nobel causes.
So where is our Robin Hood to stave off excessive fuel prices in the petrol stations, or take on the giants that withhold electric and gas unless we pay extortionate prices. What about food and the cost of living, in an ever increasingly difficult world. We are by no means suffering in comparison to what some people have to endure in this world, in fact compared to third world countries we, ourselves would be considered rich, so are we greedy for wanting more?
No, I don’t think we are, its not greed to want a better life for you or your family and lets face it money, the controller, the dictator is what limits us in our ability to evolve as human beings. But this thing we call money which the government and powers that be use to control us, they are numbers, they mean nothing really, only we place value on those numbers because society conditions us to. When a company makes millions every day how does that change anything, it only adds a few more numbers to a balance sheet, or a computer program running a bank. Its not like the old days where you would barter with live stock because you needed something which someone else had.
Our need for money holds us back, it controls the lifestyle we live.
However, the fact is that this is how our society has evolved unless we all made it change then nothing ever will. Nothing can change because humanity is selfish, if you owned a business you wouldn’t give your things away, and if you didn’t need to work because food, water, electric etc was readily available and free, then chances are most people would simply do nothing but then again that is what a fair few draining the countries fictional numbers (money) do. As a world we need to evolve beyond selfish greed to control and dominate.
I digress a little……
If we are to live by numbers, we are to pay by numbers and die by numbers, then there are things we can do to regain a little power. Stop using some of the bigger players or related companies until their prices come down, if they are not making money then they have no choice but to become more competitive. Imagine if we stopped using a whole chain of companies of companies like BP, if they are not selling their petrol they will go under and so we take control in refusing to hand over our hard earned numbers (money) until it becomes more affordable. The same could be done for large supermarkets, stop using them and revert back to the local traders, the market traders, the people who it benefits the most because with our obsession for retail parks, shopping malls and 24 hour large supermarkets this is what is killing independent traders who buy produce locally, get our farms working again and stop relying on the EU to pay our farmers not to farm. Keep abusing your local councils to make parking near down and city/town centres FREE, this is one of the main reasons people go to retail parks and such and thats because it costs them nothing to park. We could even grow our own!
Lets bullet point:-
- Boycott one large petrol manufacturer and retailer for 6 months, 12 months or more. If they are not making money they will need to become cheaper to get people in.
- School projects could be to farm and grow produce to resell locally, keeps the money local for the school whilst educating the kids to grow.
- Use local farmers for meat and dairy products. There are plenty around who you can buy direct from, in fact buying half a pig (which they butcher for you) and freezing it will save you money.
- Use local market traders for fruit, veg, other meat and fish produce, keeps local people in business and employment whilst keeping the money local.
- Move to one supplier across the country for gas and electric (everyone) other suppliers would have no choice to cut their prices because they are simply not making money with no customers otherwise.
Doing this will hit the bigger brands where it matters for them, doing this allows us to gain some control over what we pay or at least who we pay it to and which outside country gets our numbers (money), in essence we are our own Robin Hood, we just need to step up!