Is stupidity a prerequisite for a council worker?

[Flash477]

OK, so as we all know the last week or so we have had a few problems with the white stuff, bringing most things to a halt.

Now last week my brown rubbish bin collection was cancelled due to the weather, and I expected this, fair renough. Now this week the snow has been melting (at least where I am), so I foulishly thought that things would be back to normal this week.

So I check my schedule for my bin collections (Thursday, a day later than normal due to Christmas catch up). I saw last night that people had put some rubbish out (we act as a central collection point, and people are always putting out rubbish on the wrong day, so nothing out of the ordinary there). Yet to my supprise, when I went out today, the rubbish had gone. This had me confused!

I phoned up my council , and got told that the person in charge of waste collection had decided to ignore the dates that they supplied us, and instead of coming a day later like they said they would, the came on the "normal" day, a day earlier than they had told us previously! The women on the phone said that they had advertised it on their website, and in the local paper (which I, and a lot of other people, never buy). After a just slightly less than calm , but not rude , conversation, they finally agreed to arrange for my rubbish to be picked up.

Now when there is a change in the pickup of my rubbish, I would expect it either on the day in question, or late, like it has always been. What dimwit decides that they would pick it up a day earlier than people were expecting?

/rant

*edit* perhaps a council worker is a bit too broad... should be a council manager

[MadduckUK]

badass says yes

[ajones]

They probably thought it was a good idea!

It's not just council workers though. I work in a hi-tech industry, and the other week when the snow hit HR sent around an EMail that the site would be closed.... at 7AM in the morning of the closure. Now that itself I can kinda understand... Who were they to know the heavens would drop a load. But they missed out half of the site in the communication, and also a host of line managers (me included).

The result was that I had to have the email forwarded to me from another member of staff who had received it (who only mentioned the EMail in passing), and then had to inform all the contractors on the floor that they'd have to go home!

Oh, and that hi-tech company prides itself on connecting people.... go figure!

[AthruZ]

I work for a council...I'm not stupid but there are quite a few who are

[Salazaar]

I'd be hard pushed to find many genuinely stupid people here, politicing and bureaucratic maybe but not stupid.

I suspect that most have more or less the same spread of capabilities as any other large organisations but since their work is, pretty much by it's nature, in the public eye it's very easy to make them a target. A private corporation can sweep it's mistakes under the carpet, a public body has a much harder time doing so.

Plus, by definition, any action a council takes will be political in nature and therefore annoy some of the community it's working for.

[scaryjim]

One of the main problems with working in local government is that the general populace only see the end result of a decision, and not the tens of meetings, hundreds of emails, and the late night finishes / working weekends that were gone through in the build up to making the decision. I can almost guarantee you that there is a very coherent, intelligent, well thought through and well documented set of reasons for the change of date. That it doesn't make sense to you is hardly surprising though, because all you see is that, with minimal advertising, your rubbish collection has been moved a day early.

Anyway, clearly quite a few people down your street had either checked the website or bought the local paper, because they managed to put their rubbish out on the right day</snark>

[Flash477]

Anyway, clearly quite a few people down your street had either checked the website or bought the local paper, because they managed to put their rubbish out on the right day</snark>

(we act as a central collection point, and people are always putting out rubbish on the wrong day, so nothing out of the ordinary there)

They still put them out on the Wednesday the week before, when it should have been Saturday (had it not been cancelled)

[scaryjim]

They still put them out on the Wednesday the week before, when it should have been Saturday (had it not been cancelled)

And you start a thead asking if council workers are stupid?

I'm changing my reply to "no more than the rest of us"...

[vicar]

ouch