“No you listen! We live in a real world, come back to it.” – Padme, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
I have a new calling – budget manager for The City. I’m going to make up this year’s $8,000,000 budget deficit, and then some.
You see, The City planted a tree in my curb lawn on Wednesday. A small, baby linden tree to replace the mature, spreading maple that Padawan Learner loved to climb while he waited for Dad Windu to get home from work. The tree that some jackass distracted driver literally wrapped his giant SUV around nearly 2 years ago, setting it at a jaunty 65 degree angle for 9 months while The City waited “to see if it will make it”.
At 8:45 a.m., a City flatbed truck with two men inside pulled up in front of my house with a backhoe on the trailer. The driver got out of the truck and watched as his passenger climbed up into the backhoe, backed it off and proceeded to dig a hole 3 feet wide and 1.5 feet deep. He returned the backhoe to the trailer and the two men drove away.
At 9:45 a.m., a City pickup truck arrived with two men inside. The driver got out and walked to the front door with a very valuable piece of paper: instructions on caring for my new, baby linden tree. Meanwhile, his passenger took two metal poles out of the bed of the truck and placed dropped them in the newly dug hole. They returned to the truck and drove away.
At 1:20 p.m., two City trucks arrived: a pickup truck (A) full of baby trees sticking up over the back and a water truck (B) filled with The City’s secret formula of water and baby-tree fertilizer. Each truck had a driver and a passenger. Now this is going to get a little tricky, so be sure to pay attention.
The two drivers got out of their respective trucks and watched while Passenger A placed the baby tree in the hole, arranged the poles and guy wires correctly, and covered the roots with the piled up soil. Passenger B stood at the ready with his over-sized garden hose. When the ground was firmly tamped, Passenger B soaked the disturbed soil area well with his proprietary mix. All four men returned to their respective trucks and drove away.
That’s right, The City paid 8 men to plant my small, baby linden tree.
Oh, I should add that two days previously, The City sent another man in a pickup truck out to rake out the bare area where my formerly lovely tree had stood and spread a healthy layer of grass seed down – right where the backhoe dug the hole for the new, baby linden tree on Wednesday.
Now using my advanced degree and keen efficiency skills, I have deduced that the planting of my new, baby tree on Wednesday could have been performed (with a reasonably adequate amount of waste, as required by all government entities) by a total of three men altogether – one per truck, with the stake dropping and instruction giving truck’s tasks handed off to the occupants of Truck B and Truck A respectively.
If we reduced the city workforce by these 5 men alone (6 if we include the counter-productive tasks of the guy who came on Monday to seed my soon-to-be-backhoe’d bare spot), I could immediately save The City approximately $150,000 (or $180,000) without any loss of service to City residents – assuming that each man is paid $30,000 per year.
What efficiencies would you put in place if you were able to get your hands on your city or county’s Budget?
Okay love this story. Also love that you have it illustrated with live action photos. The new site looks great
Send this in its entirety to your local newspaper.
LOVE it – hilarious!
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Found your new site – you can’t shake a SW fan like me off your trail
Good on ya. I bought a new domain, but so far have failed to put ANYTHING up on it. Maybe in a year. Or three.
I like your story, and I agree that often municipal budgets and management are disastrous, it’s a problem all over the world (I live in Russia=)).
Howeever, despite “wasting” money on extra employees, the City creates work places so people actually HAVE a job. So it’s basically a matter of opinion: whether you care more about your tax money being spent irrationally or about giving people a chance to earn their living and not to go out in the street and rob someone.
Anya, I believe we have a primary difference of opinion in the role of government. I do not believe that government has any place in creating employment, but rather should employ only those people necessary to provide required and desired services to its residents and citizens (police, fire, child protection services, park maintenance, etc) in a cost-effective and efficient manner. Those first three being required services for a community, the last merely a commonly desired service – as deemed by the voting public.
I do not believe that any of the 5-6 men in my example would have a life of crime as their most likely alternative to government employment. Life is not so black and white. I live in a state with one of the highest levels of unemployment in the US, but our crime rates haven’t gone up exponentially. The reason is that as certain jobs are drying up, people without the necessary skills for the current market are moving out to areas with more jobs. My husband is currently in threat of losing his job (as are several others). Some people (with less education, poor work habits, or unnecessary skill sets) have already been laid-off, others are out on temporary leave, others (my husband included) are working less hours and everyone in the company has taken a pay cut to help ride out this down-turn. It’s the cycle of employment.
Saving for the bad times, getting and maintaining a relevant education, really earning your pay (instead of goofing off on the job), not “needing” the latest and greatest of everything (I’d love a new car, but choose to drive an old, reliable one instead) – those, and not a “guaranteed” government job, are the real keys to a strong economy, a strong nation and a strong citizenry.
What a terrific post…I agree with the other commenter. This one is crying out to be a “Letter to the Editor”. :0)
If it were in our city I might suggest using those extra five guys to fix all the potholes in our streets!
Obi-Mom Kenobi, I suppose that what we have here is a rather interesting case of clashing mentalities. I’m Russian, and have lived almost all my life in Moscow.
Although I don’t support the Kommunists or think that the Soviets should be restored, I realize that some of their ideas are firmly stuck in our mentality, and have been for centuries. We rely on the state very much, we believe that it is its duty to take care of us when there’s trouble. Actually, we are rather like eternal children. That is why it’s natural for me think the way I do. National specifics, I guess.
However, it is very refreshing for me to read about your point of view, because that is what we are taught in all our progressive universities and don’t always truly understand. Moreover, it is quite a relief to find out that somewhere people still believe that they should be independent and not rely on their government to take care of them.
And by the way, I’m glad that the place where you live is such a safe one, but in Moscow, the crime rate has definitely risen since the beginning of the crisis.
“A strong economy”, “a strong nation” and “a strong citizenry” are what we all aspire to. But our countries, our cultures, our mentalities, our traditions are so different that it is impossible to devise a universal way of achiving those things. So I believe we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Anya and Obi-Mom: thank you. Thank you for your civil and courteous discourse. Lately I’ve seen so much sniping, insult, and bickering in comments and other communication devices on-line that I’ve been believing that civil discussion was dead on The Interweb. You two lovely ladies have given me hope. You rock.
first impulse is to agree wholeheartedly…but i wonder if a wee bit of government waste isn’t better than a lean efficient public works system and 25% unemployment. or maybe we can just tax people who earn 100-10,000 times what these gardeners make at say 25% (or less), then we can easily afford to have tree planting parties and AIG executives will have to settle for five Aston Martins. more trees + more employed people = shady happy times
What a great discussion! And OM—You’re new website is fantastic!
Re: the topic at hand.
John Taylor Gatto’s latest book, “Weapons of Mass Instruction” talks about some of this sort of stuff. What came to mind in particular is how he talks about our public education system being the largest jobs program.
And I too appreciated the respectful discussion even though opinions differ.
You sent this to the City Manager along with the paper, right?
Actually, I ran into the City Manager at a bicycling conference last week and told him the whole story. He hung his head and gave a heavy sigh. Then he said, “I’ll definitely be looking into THAT.”