Can someone explain this to me

**FROSTY:Me** · 4th October 2010, 07:49

The local council decided in their wisdom to replace the water mains running out front of our yard. 3 weeks of mud and slush and general messyness ensued.
Sales of course are affected by this
Hey look thats life I understand and not whinging about that.
BUT this morning theres another bunch of diggers out front.
The council are once again digging up. WHY? to run a new sewer line through.
Now where in gods name is the sense in that? Dig a brand new trench and disrupt traffic for another 3 weeks.
Yes folks THIS is where ya rates money is going.
No doubt we'll get a leaflet soon to say the telco's or underground power supply guys need to dig up again. ARGGG

**mashman** · 4th October 2010, 07:58

tis the same the world over... they were always digging up a stretch of road by us, UK, a VERY busy stretch of road, first water, then telecommunications, then waste pipes etc... gotta spend the department budget somehow, else it be clawed back... At least that's my understanding

**pzkpfw** · 4th October 2010, 08:07

Every now and then you hear of a software project (e.g. web site ...) that enables the service suppliers to get together and plan this kind of thing together - not that hard, you'd think. Three kids with a Commodore 64 and a 300 BAUD modem ought to sort that out.

An old lady with a notebook (a real paper one) and a telephone would do it.

Astounding this stuff still goes on, really.

I've heard that in Germany some cities don't seal their inner city roads, they just have concrete slabs over a permanent ditch. New pipe to put in? Just lift the slabs, lay the pipe and put the slabs back in place.

**Genie** · 4th October 2010, 08:15

Sorry dude, you're not special. All councils, all over the world do this.

**Banditbandit** · 4th October 2010, 08:32

Yeah mate ... if they were intelligent they wouldn't be council workers ...

**Genie** · 4th October 2010, 08:40

It's not the workers, they just do as they are told.

It's the ones in the offices', sitting on their butts and not communicating with other departments causing the shit. Too many Chief's and not enough Inidans????

**Banditbandit** · 4th October 2010, 08:45

Originally Posted by Genie

It's not the workers, they just do as they are told.

It's the ones in the offices', sitting on their butts and not communicating with other departments causing the shit. Too many Chief's and not enough Inidans????

Same thing .. intelligent people don't work for councils ..

**Deano** · 4th October 2010, 09:16

Originally Posted by Banditbandit

Same thing .. intelligent people don't work for councils ..

Intelligent people don't make sweeping generalisations over the internet.

**Banditbandit** · 4th October 2010, 09:28

Originally Posted by Deano

Intelligent people don't make sweeping generalisations over the internet.

You're right .. but trolling is amusing

**Str8 Jacket** · 4th October 2010, 11:08

Originally Posted by Banditbandit

You're right .. but trolling is amusing

Yes, of course it is if you're 5!

**Juzz976** · 4th October 2010, 11:27

It's because your council hired consultants/engineers to plan the works.

They then split the contract up into sections for sub tendering and copy and paste a whole lot of irrelevant crap into their specification with some minor conflicting "Ideas and concepts" of what work is to be carried out.
They'll also provide an inaccurate glossary of terms and drawings of things that don't work.

They'll want the contractors to drop everything they're doing and build them some $2,000 product that took them $20,000 to not design properly. Most importantly they'll get payed more than you, they fuck everything up, try to make you look like you don't know what you doing.

They pay you to do the work from their drawings but you'll need to design everything yourself which you will not get payed for.

The reason your road will get dug up time and time again is the fact that legislation requires works to be planned by someone who learnt everything they know off someone who spent their whole life in a classroom or at least tryed to do real world work and was unable to produce the goods.

There is an exception, I have met 1 modest engineer and it is a delight to do work him.

**Mully** · 4th October 2010, 12:31

IIRC, many years ago - when I used to work in the CBD (as opposed to now, when I again work in the CBD), Customs Street was dug up three times in the space of a year for various things. Water, Telecom and summit else.

I vaguely recall hearing the Auckland City Council at the time make promises about making all these guys talk to each other and plan so they only had to dig up the road once. Dunno if anything happened with that, but I doubt it.