Jobsworths, or Why Are Our Systems Rubbish?

The point of this picture isn't obvious from the square thumbnail. Only by looking at the full, landscape image can you see that the brightly painted yellow lines run out on either side. Clearly there has been a bit of road repair around the grating, and the fresh tarmac has had its no-parking-double-yellows repainted. Which would be fine, except the yellow lines on either side of the little stretch of new painting are so faint as to be almost invisible. So, having gone to the bother of getting the yellow line painting crew to the spot, why didn't they do a proper job and freshen up the bits on either side? It isn't a particularly long stitch of double yellow lines, just around the corner up to the gates to the supermarket car park, so assuming the lines are worth having at all, why have some bright yellow and leave the rest. Was it the crew cutting corners and following the work schedule in letter but not in spirit? Or was the time given for the job so restricted they couldn't do even a little bit more? I find that hard to believe as the amount of time spent painting this little section must have been a fraction of the preparation and travel time required. But perhaps they have so little discretion in their job that they are unable to make the sensible little decisions that ultimately would save money.
Technology should be able to keep track of the council's inventory and infrastructure, detailing when each bit of road was last repaired, had its streetlights fixed or its road markings painted. I believe there is more planning with utilities these days to coordinate repairs, perhaps there should be more effort across the board. The trick might by to use 'gamification' to encourage people to keep an eye on their surroundings and show when things need fixed. Rather than the augmented reality of a game like Ingress having some vague and unfathomable goals as part of Google's plan to take over the world, its players could be keeping track of council infrastructure and helping to make our towns and cities nicer places to live. Just a thought... 
Of course it could be that this little bit of road is so unimportant that it doesn't all need painting. In which case, I would have proposed that none of it does, at least not until the next time the whole street gets refreshed. 

Comments
Sign in or get an account to comment.