Posted 15 July 2009 - 06:18 AM
No1. Working as part of a 'so-called' team, but when you go away on holiday, and you return back to work, not only is there a full weeks worth of work outstanding from when you were off, but all the tedious and difficult stuff the remainder of the team got last week, has been re-appointed to this week and designated for you and you alone to do.
No2. Towns and cities with 'traffic cameras' but no control over the traffic lights system. Whats the point of that? Here in Hull, we have dozens and dozens of them. A main control office where they all go back to, but they have no measures to alter the timings of traffic lights to benefit the heavier used roads. infact, Hull spent many hundreds of thousands on traffic cameras just so the operators could ring up the local radio and tell them which roads were busy. Fantastic use of public money there.
No3. Millions in public money squandered. I'm not sure how schools are elsewhere, but here in Hull, theres a very strange practice that influences a school's yearly spending budget. As an example, a school may recieve £800,000 in funding for the comming financial year. They use it wisely but only manage to spend £600,000 within that year on 'relevant' school stuff. But, if they don't spend that spare £200,000, then they will only recieve a budget of £600,000 the following year. Schools here in Hull, 'throw out' hundreds of 1 year old laptops and PC's and replace them to fit the spending requirements. Or 'tarmac' the playground every year. Install wooden seats to be burnt. Yet missing the important stuff like having CCTV fitted or increasing security. The money isn't stolen or misused per-say, but blown on useless shit that serves no benefit whatsoever. Many schools have these electronic whiteboards instead of blackboards. I believe no school was given money for these and they were funded by surpluses. Yet our kids are still taught in crumbling worn out schools.
No4. Back to traffic systems I'm affraid. Again, across Hull, we are suffering more and more with traffic jams during peak times. The city has narrowed all the roads by introducing 'Bus Lanes', but the traffic system is the blame for the jams. Not the volume of traffic. Your average traffic lights has 2 methods of detecting traffic. Induction coils under the road, usually 3 as you approach the lamps, and theres also a motion detector on the traffic lamps themselves. But why don't the traffic lights of Hull behave as if these 2 detection methods are working? Theres plenty of lamps that have the motion detector physically bent downwards so they no longer look at the road. Yet the council are happy when the city grinds to a halt when a dodgy set doesn't detect approaching traffic and you get the constant red light as the traffic lights think nobody is there. Considering the cash that the car driver puts into the system, surely it's not too much to ask that the traffic lights are optimized to give priority to the heaviest flow of traffic, and adjust accordingly when the unexpected happens. I do believe this is a systematic and deliberate attempt to piss off the car drivers. Just that it's one of those hidden gripes. Unless you know how traffic lights work, then you'll just accept that last nights busy jams was just one of those things. Yet, the council have the means to put all this right, making things more efficient, yet do nothing as the man in the street doesn't really have a clue whats going on, and would never link all this back to the council and it's roads dept.
I've gotta go to work now but I'm sure I'll have some more whines later.
