Letter from work, Changes to parking your bike!

[Nutty1979]

Letter to all staff from the MD at my work, read below.

Dear All,

Now that the building work, and subsequent relocating of staff has been completed in the basement, we now find ourselves at the stage where we need to relocate staff into other areas of the building, to enable our continued commitment to refurbish other floors.

The unfortunate knock on effect of this is that we can no longer allocate space for cycles within the building.

To help accommodate the cyclists amongst us I enquired as the possibility of using the car park in White lion street.

I have been informed that this would be fine, at a cost to you of £1.50 per day or £5 per week, payment up-front.

Also there are bike rails both directly outside the main entrance and also across the road opposite our side entrance, these spaces are a first come basis.

This will start as of next Tuesday 1st September.

Sorry for any inconvenience caused but I'm sure you all appreciate that to accommodate as many as 30 bikes per day has become unrealistic.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.

Regards

After reading this i was very stressed, i don't like the idea of leaving my £700 bike out on the street and i also don't like the idea of having to pay for something i've never had to before. My bike wont last 1 week out on the streets in London. I bought my bike using the cycle to work scheme, so the bike is still the company's but if it gets stolen i still have to pay for the stolen bike which is coming out of my wages monthly and i'd also have to replace the bike out of my own pocket! Not a happy bunny.

 

[thomas]

Maybe suggest that your company should subsides the cycle parking at the other car park - would it even be secure there?

 

[ELL]

My bike is in the toilets at work as we dont have anywhere outside to put them

 

[bonj2]

find another job. Is there anything really THAT great about your current one?

 

[ACS]

I work in a school so mine goes in the Server room the only place the little darlings cannot nick it from.

Do you have a janitor, resident cleaning staff or security guard because if you do they are great people to befriend, there is always space somewhere and guess who will know where?

 

[Nutty1979]

Thanks for the feed back!

A new job is a great idea but with the credit crunch in play, well payed creative retouching jobs are hard to come by.

I've sent an e-mail to the MD asking if i could keep it in my office as it is big enough but i know what he will say, if i let you then i'll have to let all the others blah blah.
We don't have Security, i cant even get into the server room and the IT guys aint very friendly and there's not allot of room in the toilets.

Looks like i'll have to fork out £20 a month or just sneak it into my office until i get told off haha.

 

[trustysteed]

I've sent an e-mail to the MD asking if i could keep it in my office as it is big enough but i know what he will say, if i let you then i'll have to let all the others blah blah.

Looks like i'll have to fork out £20 a month or just sneak it into my office until i get told off haha.

i wouldn't have sent the email to the MD, I would have just snuck it into my office. no point in making them aware of anything!

 

[Dan B]

I bought my bike using the cycle to work scheme, so the bike is still the company's

This is a good point, actually. Surely it's financially irresponsible for high-value company assets of this kind to be left outdoors and unmonitored? Isn't this the kind of thing that accountants/auditors should be checking?

 

[ttcycle]

Nutty

try and get hold of all the 30 or so people who cycle - several voices has more impact than just one voice. If they're providing cycle to work then realistically they need to have provision for the uptake. Contact the person in HR perhaps who sets up the cycle to work scheme to negotiate parking costs and if that doesn't work try contacting LCC or God forbid Boris Johnson.

 

[HLaB]

As I don't commute far I bought a cheaper Ridgeback velocity and leave that in the bike cage at work, still wouldn't want to leave it on the street to often and I'm not in London. Having said that the deerer kinesis road bike I bought through cyclescheme is in today but it only comes in for even club runs (straight from work).

 

[SavageHoutkop]

ummmm..... so what is the story exactly? you had a basement that was being redone, now they are going to put people in the basement (while redoing somewhere else) so you need to take your bikes out?

If so; why can't you put the bikes in whereever else in the building they are re-doing the decor? if it worked in the basement...?

 

[eldudino]

A friend of mine had the same thing happen, except the management wanted to charge them £10 per week to park their bikes in the office basement! Again, a supposedly 'cycle friendly' employer who thought it'd be a great idea to exploit a section of their work force. I can see an issue if the bikes are a hazard in the instance of a fire but what about turning the tables on the company and asking why their refurb has clearly not addressed the staff requirement to park expensive bikes away from prying hands on the street.

If there are 30 of you then a bit of power in numbers could go a long way. Or as others have said, park it in your office and get everyone else to do the same. Just make sure you lock it to something immovable to prevent a jobsworth from taking it outside.

 

[jonny jeez]

Odd...I actually work for a large fit out company/architects, one of my responsibilities is to ensure that all of a client's needs are considered and met (where possible) within the feasibility/brief stage. To undertake a refurbishment without considering offsetting staff costs for cycle parking seems more than a little maverick.

To my mind, the cost of the refurb, including the cost to accommodate staff needs should have been built into the entire budget and amortised over say, a five year period...in other words, if a company removes a utility or privilege from their staff then they usually pay to replace or mitigate that loss, not just dump the problem with their staff.

Otherwise their staff attrition rates go through the roof!

I suspect your company had no other option than to take this route, possibly due to the recent financial situation and have just got to crack on regardless.

I guess in that position, its better to keep your job and loose your cycle space, (rather than visa versa.)

Have you considered a folder (stash it under your desk)

 

[Nutty1979]

ummmm..... so what is the story exactly? you had a basement that was being redone, now they are going to put people in the basement (while redoing somewhere else) so you need to take your bikes out?

If so; why can't you put the bikes in whereever else in the building they are re-doing the decor? if it worked in the basement...?

Been here 8 years and allot has changed, there used to be a little room for ppl to leave their bikes but that changed, then they found another room but that got turned into an office, the company keeps growing and they keep moving stuff about, they have refurbed the basement with studios, the 1st floor was empty so we all put out bikes up there. Now they plan to refurb that floor so they want the bikes out.

The MD involved sort of handles HR, we dont have an HR department. He still hasnt got back to me about leaving it in the office so i'll take it as a yes for now. There are quite a few annoyed people in here today, there was talk about making one of the parking spaces a bike shed but then one of the poor managers would loose a parking space so that was never gonna happen.

 

[silverbow]

Good luck! You're right, it is not worth losing a job over. Are there any bike parks near you in Canary Wharf? Probably more than the 1.50 a day but cheaper than losing your bike. Otherwise its ebay or a folder I would say. Hope it all works out.