December 5, 2000

Money, Get Away!
   by stacy <pfftnet@stacy.pfft.net>

OK, so that's not exactly what most people say. Even those who say it don't mean it. Who out there really wants money to get away from them, besides the Mother Teresas and odd true-believing Communists? I'll tell you who: nobody. And I can prove it.

We've all seen road crews "working" on highways and bridges and other government projects. We see them "working" on the same projects all the time. Well, at least we see their barrels and cones all the time, even if we don't always see people doing actual work. The barrels sit there for months at a time, for no apparent reason sometimes. There's a stretch of highway about 10 miles long in Jonesboro, Arkansas that's had at least one lane closed off by orange barrels for the past 15 years. My theory is that they don't have enough warehouse space to store those things, so they just line them up on roads. Voila, instant no-longer-their-problem!

So, my point is that they are apparently doing something on those roads and overpasses, and eventually one suspects they'll complete what they're doing, but by that time the road under the overpass will need repair. But, have you ever been lucky enough to see them working on a privately-funded project? It takes about 3 days to get work done. They're building a parking lot in the lot next to my office building, and it used to have a huge drainage pond in it. They drained the pond, filled it in, and build a pipe to hold the run-off in about 3 working days. Now that's getting work done.

I hate to say that the government is cheap and offers very little incentive to its employees to get work done in a timely manner. OK, no I don't, the government is a bunch of tired old bureaucrats who don't give a damn how long it takes cause they get paid the same no matter what. I also recognize that to pay lowly construction workers more would require a tax hike, which I don't really favor. So I'll live with it, and keep on using those stupid barrels as practice for my stunt-driving career.

Published: December 5, 2000
Editor: robin