So, it has been very bizarre lately, I have been having random city employees approach me lately at Slumshine. Sometimes former employees but some current who tell me about some of the crap going on in the minion divisions. For instance, over the past year two randos told me that the salt trucks were turned down to the lowest level (200 lbs per lane mile) even in the coldest conditions to save money on salt and chemicals and to not have to fill so many potholes and the other rando told me they are on a mission in HR to eliminate any non management employees over the age of 50, and they are ruthless about it. I told them, “You should hold a rally protest in the lobby of city hall over lunch hour and have signs that say WE WILL NOT BE REPLACED.” They were puzzled by my dark humor. One of them said, ‘I’ve heard that somewhere before.’ Wow. Never met anyone who has attended a Klan rally or a Puss Boys BBQ. I kid.
But let’s get to pot holes. Remember a few years back we had this new fangled app to report pot holes? I’m sure it came from Poops Bloomberg conferences. So you can go online and report the pothole and once filled it will show the work completed. Not a bad idea. How it used to be done is potholes in residential areas would be filled on a complaint basis, and arterial and thoroughfares would just be maintained 100% in the Spring. That all ended with the app. Why? I ran into a FORMER city employee who wanted to tell me about the ‘farce’ the pothole app is. For the record, she is NOT disgruntled, she left the city for a better offer with a local contractor. She told me for the last 3 years she was on a pothole crew. When she first started they were sent to a neighborhood and told to fill every hole. Then the app came along and they were only to respond to the complaints. So they would, but she would also look around the intersection and fill other holes that were NOT in the complaint. She did this for awhile and her supervisor pulled her aside and asked why she was doing that. She was naive and believed that she would get a gold star for the day, nope, she was told to knock it off and only fill the holes on the complaint app. It bothered her for awhile and realized that it had to do with analytics and the city being able to show progress on the issue without really fixing the larger issue (like building better roads and having warranties).
She said the city treated her very well and has no ill will, she just thot it was wasteful and untruthful and wanted me to know. So I asked her about being on an 8 hour shift to just fill potholes from the complaint app. She said, ‘Two hours of work, six hours of driving around.’
Our city government is such a complete fraud.
Sales tax numbers are probably scarier than we realize, and then when you factor in that the Minerva’s Burger Battle burger this year is only $35 and not $55, well, that means there is $20 less to tax all of us with 🙁
Approaching a mayoral election a city employee must know they’ll likely be replaced by paternalism or a supporter. Only staff with seniority or a director is safe and not susceptible for losing a golden retirement. If you’re a new hire, start interviewing now for a fast food job. How about taco trucks be required to pull a porta-potty and fill potholes traveling between stops?