The chorus of outrage over housing UK asylum seekers in the Bibby Stockholm barge berthed off Dorset was one I found curious. Curious, given the barge was used as recently as 2013 to house construction workers from a Shetland Gas Plant project…or when berthed off Sweden during a 2018/2019 wind farm project where it also housed workers.
Now that the legionella test results on the Bibby Stockholm have come back as “acceptable”, it seems likely that this berthed barge will soon be a short-term home for those seeking asylum.
I do not recall anywhere near the same volume of outrage (or any at all really) at this same barge being used to house energy sector workers. Is it just that Energy Sector workers have a wider tolerance of the accommodation they are willing to accept? From personal experiences whilst (during my working life), I have stayed in better, similar, and somewhat worse accommodation!
For many of us working in Engineering, travel was often a necessity – thankfully less so post-covid in the new “internet meetings” world. I often thought that people who would say to me “you are so lucky to get to travel so much with work” did not do so themselves.
Personally, traveling for work got old very quickly and I rarely looked forward to it. There is nothing enjoyable in spending time away from home transiting airports and taking flights. Often the accommodation at the end of that travel would have made the Bibby Stockholm barge seem like a welcome upgrade!
Whilst (some) airport lounges. hotels and business class make travel more tolerable; I would not say that I would choose to travel for the experience of the hotels, airport lounges and the flights. At the end of the day, airplane food is still airplane food irrespective of being in “Coach” or business class. I have never travelled beyond business class, so cannot comment upon the classes above this.
In most cases, I had things to do upon landing and so those rare business class flights mostly served as an opportunity to undertake work-related activities and catching some sleep so as I could “hit the ground running” (as the saying goes) when I arrived at my destination.
It would be my personal experience that people working in company administration at the various engineering service companies that I have worked for would often seek to circumvent business class flights for engineers, even when due and offered by the end client.
It is a question I never received an answer for as to why such people chose to “stick their oar in” to prevent business travel for engineers when it did not really involve them and (ultimately) was a direct pull-through cost from the end client.
I would challenge that if such people believed travel to be a “perk”, then they were (for the most) mistaken. A real life (actual) example (one of many) of such people “in action” is as follows:
I was working on a project near Vigo in Spain in the early 2000s for one of the larger engineering service companies as a contractor following completion of activities (with same engineering services company) as the deputy construction manager / commissioning manager on an Irish sited project for a different client.
This previous (Irish sited) client put a request in for the “Irish project team” to mobilise to Basel, Switzerland for kick-off of a new project phase asap. The request came to me to up-stumps in Spain and travel to Basle at the earliest.
As my Spanish is fairly basic, I asked the local project support to arrange (at the earliest) one-way flights out of “Aeroporto de Vigo” to Basel in Switzerland. A number of options were possible (all documentation in Spanish), however the only direct flights (that did not involve multiple airport transits) available were somewhat expensive… but for the two remaining business class seats.
For reasons that only the airlines could explain, the business class seats were significantly less expensive than the remaining economy seats… so we (myself and another engineer) took the least-expensive option thinking we were doing the right thing.
Seemingly, head office administration at this Engineering services company thought differently. When I came to process my expenses (as a contractor – given I had to pay personal monies for this flight, and then claim it as expenses), they were declined as “business class flights” were not “allowed” despite:
- End client stated in writing that they were happy to pay whatever it costs to get us to Basel a.s.a.p. Time was their criticality, rather than cost. As far as the Engineering service provider was concerned, this was a direct pull through cost that was 100% covered by end client.
- A wealth of documentation to show that the business class flight was (clearly and undeniably) significantly less expensive than all economy class seating options.
- An email from the project admin. Person in Vigo locality translating the Spanish language email from the local travel agent stating explicitly that they had “found” a significantly cheaper option than the previously offered standard economy class flights (the very business class seats that we took).
It took many months of argument, and eventually a direct instruction from the end client for this Engineering services company to (reluctantly) pay these legitimate and due expenses. All the while I was out of pocket awaiting reimbursement.
The question is, as always, why such people choose to get involved, and why so many companies allow such people to get involved??! Welcome to the world of travel as an engineer in 100% reimbursable works for an Engineering services company! At least the accommodation (furnished apartments) that the end client provided us in Basel was fantastic!
That has not always been the case for other projects / other clients where the Bibby Stockholm barge would have been a welcome upgrade! Unlike the various people protesting in Dorset, for the most I find that Engineers simply get on with it and make the best of whatever accommodation is offered/available – as was the case with very Bibby Stockholm barge previously.
