Tuesday 15 October 2013

Couldn't Organise A Lollipop Man At A Crossing

No matter how much councils bleat about public sector 'cuts', it's always funny when their officers simply can't help self-declaring that more are needed. This, from Plymouth.
A council spokesperson said: "We take the safety of children very seriously and school crossing patrols exist to make sure children can cross roads as safely as possible. 
"To do this they must hold out the lollipop with one arm and hold their other arm outstretched to signal that all traffic must stop - this is well established signalling that should be understood by all drivers."
Really? Well, I've been driving for 30 years, 23 of them professionally, and it's never really registered what the lollipop person's arms are doing. Probably because I mostly only see a great big yellow and red sign (I reckon those bright colours are chosen for a reason, you know) being moved to the middle of the road - complete with the word "STOP" in hyper-large font and with silhouetted children on it - by a guy in an offensively loud dayglo hi-viz knee-length jacket, and guess that there might be some kids crossing soon. In all my time on the road, the sign-holder's hands have been largely irrelevant.

Interesting, too, the difference between public and private sector here.
Ms Laws said he was "doing the job very well" and following his resignation no-one was patrolling the road.
Y'see, I'd have thought a vital role of this pompous office-based council tit should be to ensure that the crossing is manned for 100% of school operating days. Just as, at Puddlecote Inc, our business depends on providing a service for 100% of the work that our customers pay for, not just when we feel like it. If our pre-planned cover for emergencies is exceeded (the council tit did plan for emergency cover, I take it?)  it is up to us in the office to put the steel-toed boots and donkey jacket on and get out on the road to cover the work as, indeed, I have been doing for the past couple of weeks.

So, if said council tit takes "the safety of children very seriously and school crossing patrols exist to make sure children can cross roads as safely as possible", why is he/she not out with a lollipop and hi-viz in all weathers helping kids to cross the road instead of sitting in his/her office thinking up fake safety concerns which result in services being unavailable - dangerously so too, according to their own stubbornly arrogant excuse. I'd say the tit has far too much time on their hands at our expense and should nominate him/herself for redundancy or a substantial cut in their hours.

Or even, perhaps, nobly offering to save taxpayers even more by offering to resign on the basis that they can't perform their fundamental and incredibly simple duty of keeping a bloody lollipop crossing manned when his/her employers - in this case, the parents - require it.


5 comments:

Miles Dolphin said...

Let alone a piss-up in a brewery . . . .

SteveW said...

They could borrow some from Bury. In the half mile or so from the motorway to the shop door I pass two lollipop people, both of whom are stationed on pelican crossings, their only role seeming to be to push the button for the children and wait for the lights to go red.
No room for cuts of any sort here...

truckerlyn said...

Par for the course, I believe, where councils are concerned! They invariably have too many staff, certainly in many departments, but then they have very good working conditions and terms, in so far as they get paid well and have lots of paid holiday too. Apart from which their sickness benefits are excellent.


Councils could save tons of dosh if they thinned down the number of staff and those that were left actually did their jobs instead of attending pointless meetings and pissing off the more lowly workers by dishing out this kind of crap.


Very well summed up DP.

James Pickett said...

If the hand gesture is the signal, what's the lollipop for..?

James Pickett said...

Once in a blue moon, council idiocy rebounds...

http://neverseconds.blogspot.co.uk/

(she had been prevented by the local council from photographing her own lunch for the purpose of blogging).

Now up to nearly 10m hits!