A lot of people complain about the government and how inefficient they are. But they seem to forget that private companies are just as bad, and in many ways worse because they put profits over anything else.
Today is the first day of school for my kids. Let me tell you what my morning was like.
My daughter had to get to the bus stop early because the private bus company is woefully inefficient and is deaf to the needs of their customers. They were unable to let the schools, and therefore us, know what number the bus that was supposed to pick up my daughter would be until a few days before school, despite the fact that we were supposed to inform the school over a week earlier. The bus company also thinks it is just fine to make a 5 year old girl walk four blocks at 6 AM to meet her bus. The company refused to change the bus stop closer to our house despite the fact that they have another one of their buses drive RIGHT BY OUR HOUSE!
Of course, this actually assumes she survives to be picked up. As we waited for the bus (I chose to wait with her as if the bus did not pick her up, it would be too late to take her to school by the time she could walk back to the house), we were nearly run over by buses that were speeding through the residential area. I have no idea if one of the buses that drive by was hers or not as they were marked with tiny placards in the windows that could only be read if the bus was stopped and you were at the door about to get on, which by this time, you probably have some idea whether it is your bus or not. Of course, if the bus comes screaming by you doing 40 or more in a 25 mph zone, you have no chance to read the placard at all. In case you were wondering, we were waiting in plain view, outside the car, so it wasn't like they couldn't see us and just missed us. They simply weren't paying attention, more concerned with making their schedule than actually picking up kids without killing them in the process.
On the way to work, I found that the privitized road construction crews had started several new jobs on the first day of school, closing several busy intersections to one lane traffic hazards. What moron scheduled this I have no idea, but surely they could have checked the schedule and realized that today, of all days, might be a bad time to make it nearly impossible to drive across town in any sort of reasonable time frame.
When I get to work, I find that the private parking lot that my university uses had been blocked off. Why I have no idea. They didn't bother to tell us that we were not going to be able to park in the lot that about half of the university uses. We just show up to work to find that we have to park somewhere else and hoof it even farther than the half mile the parking is away from campus as it stands.
To make matters worse, the idiots that blocked off the lot forgot to block all the entrances. Those of us that come in the back way found that we had to turn around and leave because the front entrances were blocked off and we weren't actually supposed to be there, causing to us to have to drive all the way around the block, which could have been avoided if they had simply done their jobs correctly, or even, you know, told us in advance.
I decide to call the bus company and complain about the transit situation once I get to work. Only I never get anyone to talk to. What I get instead is a recording that tells me they don't answer the phones until 8 AM (which it was already after that) and that I really should have tried to get things straightened out before school started and it will be close to two weeks before I can get anything done at this point. Clearly, any complaints are surely the fault of their customers simply not planning ahead and not the fault of the bus company, at least according to them. I finally get a phone number that does NOT give me an insulting message. This one simply says they will be right with me and then proceeds to ignore me for the next 45 minutes. They eventually even stop playing the recording that my business is important to them and they will be right with me and leave me with a dead line.
Somehow, I can't imagine that the government could possibly do any worse. At least with the government, if I find someone to complain to about homicidal bus drivers and idiot construction crew, I rarely get the "suck it" response I get from private companies with government contracts.
And could someone please tell me how it is that the city could possibly be saving money by paying a company to run the buses for a profit rather than just doing it themselves? All the prices are the same, except that the company adds an extra fee to give themselves a profit. We would then also have the advantage that the school districts would actually have some idea what the buses were doing rather than having to tell the parents that the buses cannot be counted on the first two weeks of school.
A friend of mine worked for a phone company and he explained how they handled outsourcing. Outsourcing actually cost the company a fortune, but because the outsourcing was handled through a different department, each department individually looked like it was saving money. They had one department with no workers and 37 supervisors, because all the staff that actually did anything was outsourced. On the departments bookkeeping, they made a killing. The poor outsourcing department though was always in trouble for being seriously in the red. I suppose they outsourced their work too. It was patently obvious to virtually everyone that the costs to the company as a whole was more than paying for the work in-house, but since the bookkeeping was done on a departmental basis, the accountants and the top administrators never seemed to see this. to me, this is abysmally stupid and detrimental to the company. But this is apparently standard business practice.
So, if all businesses are this stupid (and from what I have seen, most government administrators are too), we should be seriously asking for our money back from all these administration and business schools, because they are teaching crap.
ADDENDUM: More than 4 hours after I arrived at work today, I received an email informing me that the parking lot would be closed due to a boat/RV show. I kinda already figured out the lot was closed, although it is good to know it will still be closed tomorrow and the next day. As Adam Sandler said in "The Wedding Singer", "This is something you could have told me YESTERDAY!"
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