The new system for collecting inorganic rubbish is wunnerful, wunnerful,
wunnerful!
You sign up for it, they send you an email to tell you what day they will be coming, asking you to
leave the stuff out (but not on the edge of the road, 'cause that's dumping), and they will come on
to your property on that day, some time after 7am, to take it away.
Fine.
No, not fine. I put six items out, all of them ones on their approved list, and together nowhere
near the maximum volume ('no more than would fill a small trailer').
I arrived home at the end of the designated day to find that only five of the six had gone. What was
left was a small fridge-freezer, with a note to say that it was too heavy for them to take.
Of course I understand that. It was not too heavy for me to take--all by myself--the 70 metres from
my dwelling to where I left it for them--only 7 metres from the road. I did that, just me, using my
antique muscles, which are older than Methuselah (who is on record as having lived 969 years),
muscles only slightly stronger than a malnourished pipi running on flat batteries.
But it seems not to have entered the official skulls to employ a couple of hefty Maori blokes
capable of lifting the entire planet on the tip of one hand whilst scoffing a pile of chips with the
other one. No, their blokes cannot, even when there are two of them, lift a small fridge-freezer.
So I called 301-0101, went through the usual labyrinth on the phone, whilst listening at the normal
high volume to what someone brain-dead likes to call music, and was then put into the 'escalation'
process, which has a lead-time of five working days. Wunnerful!
Sadly, that will not give their weaklings long enough to bulk up so that they will be able to move 7
metres what my malnourished pipis could move 70. I can see this process going on for 969 years.
Which is yet another reason for me to call the word 'progress' a one-word joke.
The pre-collection advertising said that items had to be able to be lifted by two men. Obviously something that could be moved by only one did not qualify. Or perhaps political-correctness has redefined 'men'. It now means weaklings.
Update 1: Ten days after the original collection-time the fridge-freezer has still not been taken, despite two calls to the Council. The contractor has not yet even emailed me...
Update 2; It is now eleven days after the collection date. I have just had a call from a hyperbolically bureaucratic woman from the Council, who said that the fridge-freezer would not be collected, because carrying it up the steps to the road was 'a health and safety issue', and that that had been checked by 'independent auditors', and that she 'supported the decision.' Please! If those purblind fools at the Council insist on changing the system that has worked for years (we took our inorganic items to the side of the road), and replacing it with one in which collectors come on to our properties to collect it, that means that on Waiheke, which has a large number of properties with steep access, up and down, including some with flights of steps from the road that are many times longer than my short 7 metres, then they must accommodate a wide variety of situations. I told that very stupid woman that I have, by myself, carried heavy things up and down those steps many many times. There are only twenty-nine steps, in three short flights, with two landings on the way up for taking a rest. So their 'two men' should find it easy to carry a small fridge-freezer up. Two--me and another man--carried it down, years ago. Those people are intransigent bureaucratic fools, with a bad system and the attitudes of blockheads. To repeat, I moved the fridge-freezer, by myself, up the hill the 70 metres from my cabin, but those bureaucrats say they cannot move it the remaining 7 metres with two 'men.' 'Progess' is indeed a one-word joke.
Would that we again had our own Council and were not ruled by arrogant bureaucrats over the water!
You sign up for it, they send you an email to tell you what day they will be coming, asking you to
leave the stuff out (but not on the edge of the road, 'cause that's dumping), and they will come on
to your property on that day, some time after 7am, to take it away.
Fine.
No, not fine. I put six items out, all of them ones on their approved list, and together nowhere
near the maximum volume ('no more than would fill a small trailer').
I arrived home at the end of the designated day to find that only five of the six had gone. What was
left was a small fridge-freezer, with a note to say that it was too heavy for them to take.
Of course I understand that. It was not too heavy for me to take--all by myself--the 70 metres from
my dwelling to where I left it for them--only 7 metres from the road. I did that, just me, using my
antique muscles, which are older than Methuselah (who is on record as having lived 969 years),
muscles only slightly stronger than a malnourished pipi running on flat batteries.
But it seems not to have entered the official skulls to employ a couple of hefty Maori blokes
capable of lifting the entire planet on the tip of one hand whilst scoffing a pile of chips with the
other one. No, their blokes cannot, even when there are two of them, lift a small fridge-freezer.
So I called 301-0101, went through the usual labyrinth on the phone, whilst listening at the normal
high volume to what someone brain-dead likes to call music, and was then put into the 'escalation'
process, which has a lead-time of five working days. Wunnerful!
Sadly, that will not give their weaklings long enough to bulk up so that they will be able to move 7
metres what my malnourished pipis could move 70. I can see this process going on for 969 years.
Which is yet another reason for me to call the word 'progress' a one-word joke.
The pre-collection advertising said that items had to be able to be lifted by two men. Obviously something that could be moved by only one did not qualify. Or perhaps political-correctness has redefined 'men'. It now means weaklings.
Update 1: Ten days after the original collection-time the fridge-freezer has still not been taken, despite two calls to the Council. The contractor has not yet even emailed me...
Update 2; It is now eleven days after the collection date. I have just had a call from a hyperbolically bureaucratic woman from the Council, who said that the fridge-freezer would not be collected, because carrying it up the steps to the road was 'a health and safety issue', and that that had been checked by 'independent auditors', and that she 'supported the decision.' Please! If those purblind fools at the Council insist on changing the system that has worked for years (we took our inorganic items to the side of the road), and replacing it with one in which collectors come on to our properties to collect it, that means that on Waiheke, which has a large number of properties with steep access, up and down, including some with flights of steps from the road that are many times longer than my short 7 metres, then they must accommodate a wide variety of situations. I told that very stupid woman that I have, by myself, carried heavy things up and down those steps many many times. There are only twenty-nine steps, in three short flights, with two landings on the way up for taking a rest. So their 'two men' should find it easy to carry a small fridge-freezer up. Two--me and another man--carried it down, years ago. Those people are intransigent bureaucratic fools, with a bad system and the attitudes of blockheads. To repeat, I moved the fridge-freezer, by myself, up the hill the 70 metres from my cabin, but those bureaucrats say they cannot move it the remaining 7 metres with two 'men.' 'Progess' is indeed a one-word joke.
Would that we again had our own Council and were not ruled by arrogant bureaucrats over the water!
