No, it's not a GCSE maths question:
Householders in Little Lever, near Bolton, Greater Manchester, had assumed that the mattress would be promptly removed by one or two workers after it was reported to the local authority.Oh, this'll be good!
But they had failed to take into account the health and safety requirements of Bolton Metropolitan Council.
An official was duly dispatched to the scene to carry out a risk assessment.Naturally!
He decided that the only safe way to shift the mattress was to scoop it up in a 1.7 ton JCB digger – an operation that would require the services of a driver, a banksman to guide him, and two officials to make sure it was done properly.Well, why not? It's only money, right?
Sadly for the council employees, the actual owners of that money thought they could resolve this themselves:
The council said it could be a week before the item was removed but a local councillor and a cafe owner then joined forces to drag it onto the roadside and on Monday the mattress was taken off to a nearby tip in the back of a council van.Driven by a council workman whose strength is as the strength of ten because his heart is pure? Or who simply isn't aware of the need for a full team to remove one mattress?
Bolton Council confirmed that the on-site assessment had been carried out by a trainee with the council’s “performance and improvement team”.Ah. I see. A trainee.
Well, that makes sense. If he'd been a fully qualified council worker, he'd have concluded that at least four officials would have been needed to make sure it was done properly, not two...
7 comments:
How do they think the mattress got into the house in the first place? Was it delivered by JCB? Air dropped from a Chinook? Was a ramp contructed outside the house then removed afterwards? Teleportation?
No you cretins! It was carried up the stairs by two people the way things are done in the real world. Once again I can't decide if these H & S types are really that stupid or if they are just deliberately taking the piss.
Trying to be charitable lets say it was a trainee who had never seen an item of furniture moved in his life. Maybe his house only had bean bags and persian rugs or something ... surely to God some common sense and thought could have been used. Do they lobotomise these people as part of this training??
"How do they think the mattress got into the house in the first place?"
Having just spent twenty minutes on the phone to a council worker...no, sorry, that's clearly not the right word...a council employee regarding their failure to send out resident parking permit renewals, I think they'd probably believe all four of those things. Simultaneously.
I could feel my own IQ leeching away down the phone line the longer I spoke to her!
"Once again I can't decide if these H & S types are really that stupid or if they are just deliberately taking the piss."
I vote the latter. After all, there won't be any consequences for this trainee, will there?
Esther Ranzten had considerable success years ago in a crusade that sought to eliminate this kind of mind set with her "more than my jobs worth" TV program. We need her back or someone like her to do the same on the misuse, abuse and absurdities of government high and low.
Remember this story the next time anyone bangs on about the Germans being 'evil', 'Nazi' and 'guilty' and then harps on about 'they should have done something' and 'they owe the entire world compensation'.
These council muppets can't manage to say 'no' to an assault on common sense by pen pushers but blithely apply 'the rules' no matter what or how ridiculous...
Now imagine it being 1940 and any dissent(or even the rumor thereof) is going to get the real Gestapo knock on your door at dawn.
Just count your lucky stars that the new Nazis are health and safety weenies instead of the real thing.
Although, the way this is going... (bleah).
WV:grubsome (in-effing-deed)
"We need her back or someone like her to do the same on the misuse, abuse and absurdities of government high and low."
It seems that that sort of programme has fallen out of favour at the Beeb. I wonder why?
"These council muppets can't manage to say 'no' to an assault on common sense by pen pushers but blithely apply 'the rules' no matter what or how ridiculous..."
Indeed. Bureaucrats the world over are all alike.
I visited the citys bulk removal office and gave the clerk a list of 5 items that I would pay to have removed.
2 X wooden garage doors
2 X mattresses
1 X engine block.
The blokes turned up in their van but said
"We don't do engines, elf&safety"
I told them that their manager had written down in his little log 'engine'.
"Whatever mate, we don't do 'em; County do engines!... But they don't collect".
I revisited the office to speak in person to the same chap who seemed oblivious of his own ignorance. I tried a little joke on him by saying that I and a friend would manhandle it to the entrance of the nearby primary school to see how long it took them to collect it from there.
His response in best Fire Warden Hodges indignation
"You can't do that!"
Twerp.
Well, since they were in Little Lever, the solution is obvious. It was suggested by Archimedes - they have the lever, to move it all they needed was a fulcrum.
@Fat Hen. At least the trains run on time. Oh wait...
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