Napoleon was right

une nation de boutiquiers said Napoleon. (like all great men he borrowed this from several others and gave it his own unique spin). Whatever the political historical meaning is, my meaning is a positive one. By shopkeepers I mean small businesses. The current bit of harsh weather has highlighted for me what people will do if the buck stops with them. My coal man is self-employed. He has not let the snow prevent his lorry from delivering a vital commodity. Indeed he responded to my request for an extra delivery with apparent ease, but I know he is working 14 hour days. Contrast the bin men who have yet to show. They have missed two visits. I do wonder. If Dr Weasel can travel 14 miles to do vital clinical work, in a family saloon, why is it that several fit men with a lorry cannot do the 3 mile trip from their depot?

It is about will. The will to do your job. I have complained to the council and await their reply.

As for those, the shopkeepers, the small business people who work in order to eat, God Bless them. They are the backbone of this nation.

UPDATE: A fast response from East Lothian Council, but a predicatably lame one:

Waste Services are currently trying cannot really be arsed to reinstate refuse and recycling collections where roads have been treated and access is available due to reasons of health and safety.  Please put out your bins, excess bags and recycling boxes on your normal collection day only.  Our aim is to catch-up we might try again in a bit on collections by the end of next week where possible or where there is no danger of our bin men getting their little hands frozen or arses scraped and when they feel like it.
  
trying?/available?/aim?/where possible? / God, their tenacity and dedication surprises me. Meanwhile people with real jobs, jobs that matter, are doing their utmost to get to work, walking if necessary when the buses are cancelled, or risking life and limb. It makes me want to puke.

4 comments:

Richard said...

Once people are employed by others and have a safe income, the 'hunger' is gone. That's why private enterprise will always get the job done, and public service is rife with inefficiency and low performance. I was in teaching for 18 years, and the waste there was staggering. It was other people's money, after all. It can be replaced by pride in the job (rather well illustrated by the clip of those public sector rail employees getting the snow cleared no matter what), but too often the entitlement culture kicks in, and the workers see the job as being for their benefit and no-one else's. I wouldn't be surprised if, had you addressed the bin men directly, you would have got a reply along the lines of "you should be glad we're here at all, mate". Contrast that with the private sector's "thank you for your custom".

No pride, no urgency, just a job. I took a trailer-load of rubbish to the Council site yesterday. Most of the employees stood around chatting, but one guy went out of his way to help me with the heavier things, and took some light stuff when I was busy with the rest. I was insanely grateful to him, but that really was his job.

Jim said...

Meanwhile, one of Huhnes hoons was flown back from Cancun to vote in a vote on tuition fees before being flown back to save us all from global warming. How big was that hoons carbon footprint ?
That's the real story here. Oily Eck et al have been hoodwinked into believing the global warming scam and so haven't invested in proper equipment and have outsourced their road clearing ( Richard - most snow clearing has been privatised). Oily Eck will spend billions on windmills and other rubbish while we slowly grind to a halt and freeze to death.
Oh and of course our crumbling M8 dual carriageway shuts down in the summer so wouldn't stand a chance with two inches of global warming. An oil rich country is on it's knees.
And how ironic that Oily blamed the Met office / Pravda N.British section for not giving accurate warnings the day before. This will be the same Met Office and Pravda N British section who he's relying on for all his global warming updates. Hundreds of millions down the drain and Oily says they're innaccurate. He's taking the mickey.

Richard said...

"Richard - most snow clearing has been privatised"

*Cough* Actually the snow clearing and gritting round here has been pretty good this year. I've been quietly impressed. I don't know if it's been privatised or not.

Jim Baxter said...

'Contrast that with the private sector's "thank you for your custom".'

Mrs Raft had a slightly different story in her most recent blog post. But then, John lewis is a worker's co-operative. Go to one of those, especially the ones that sell 'health foods', if you want to see comrades who really, really, hate each other.