Digging Holes in the Ground

[kyleservicetech]

A guy stopped at a local gas station, and after filling his tank, he paid the bill and bought a soft drink. He stood by his car to drink his cola and watched a couple of men working along the roadside. One man would dig a hole two or three feet deep and then move on. The other man came along behind him and filled in the hole. While one was digging a new hole, the other was 25 feet behind filling in the hole.

The men worked right past the guy with the soft drink and went on down the road. "I can't stand this," said the man tossing the can into a trash container and headed down the road toward the men. "Hold it, hold it," he said to the men. "Can you tell me what's going on here with all this digging and refilling?"
"Well, we work for the government and we're just doing our job," one of the men said.

"But one of you is digging a hole and the other fills it up. You're not accomplishing anything. Aren't you wasting the taxpayers' money?"
"You don't understand, mister," one of the men said, leaning on his shovel and wiping his brow. "Normally there's three of us: me, Elmer and Leroy. I dig the hole, Elmer sticks in the tree, and Leroy here puts the dirt back.
Elmer's job's been cut ... so now it's just me an' Leroy.

[CrimzonRider]

LOL ain't that the truth!! Good one!

[CNY_Dave]

A little sequester humor!

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by CrimzonRider

LOL ain't that the truth!! Good one!

Yeah
The sad part of all of this, it actually happened in a small Suburb of Milwaukee WI.

Five or six years ago, a co-worker watched the city workers in Cudahy WI repairing pot holes in the asphalt street in front of his house. My co-worker walked over, and told them, "They are grinding up this street tomorrow, and will completely replace it".

The city workers told him they've got orders to fix the pot holes and they did. It took most of the day to fix the pot holes in the half mile of street. And, the next day another crew showed up with one of those giant asphalt street grinders and ground it all up. A month later my co-worker had a newly asphalted street.

True story.

[touche]

LOL, Many years ago our city had permanent snow clearing crews not contracts like today. I took a holiday to Hawaii in March and it was a warm year. The snow was gone even before I left for 3 weeks. When I got home I worked a nite shift and saw 5 plows/graders going down a busy road following each other. Not a drop of snow to be found. Asked the foreman what was up. Same thing there paid to be out and would catch hell if they stayed in the work yard and played cards. A few weeks later they were cleaning the roads of sand etc...

[kyleservicetech]

Originally Posted by touche

LOL, Many years ago our city had permanent snow clearing crews not contracts like today. I took a holiday to Hawaii in March and it was a warm year. The snow was gone even before I left for 3 weeks. When I got home I worked a nite shift and saw 5 plows/graders going down a busy road following each other. Not a drop of snow to be found. Asked the foreman what was up. Same thing there paid to be out and would catch hell if they stayed in the work yard and played cards. A few weeks later they were cleaning the roads of sand etc...

LOL
Guess it's the same all over!

[hayofstacks]

The neighborhood I grew up in had a newly paved road. A year or so after it was finished, comcast came and put in cable, tearing up the entire road. It deterorated badly and needed constant pothole fixes and re-taring the cracks.

Last year they cut the road budget. Instead of repaving the road or fixing the things wrong with it, the dumped tar on the road, spread gravel over it, and come out several times a year to fill the potholes they didn't fix with gravel and tar, only to have it ripped back up the first time a plow comes by.

I subcontracted for a government comunications gig. My job was gopher. One city required us to put the comunication boxes into the sidewalk because that was the only easement avaliable through the main part of town. We had to re-enforce the concreate and have every pour tested. Seemed stupid to put rebar in sidewalk that was 50 years old or almost non-existant in most parts of town. Everywhere we had to dip up or connect to existing pipe or buildings, we had to tear up new sidewalk. The one day I was overseeing the sidewalk repairs, we hit 23 locations in 1 day. But it took weeks to cut the sidewalk out straight, form it up, cut the rebar to fit and clean it all up after.

Everytime we put a box in, we rented a saw and a saw blade from homedepot. The saw was $100 a day, the blade was $60. You could buy a new blade for $80-$100. The blades would last several weeks/months under constant use and abuse, and were the same ones that home depot suplied with their saws. Whole time I was picking up these saws, not once did my supervisor let me buy a blade.

I don't get crap like that.