Meet Jo Slow-Go, aka Sleepy Jo, a traffic light with a very relaxed approach to traffic management.
By Tracy Kensey

Nobody dares wake him, let alone revive his status from ‘lying’ to ‘upstanding’. It is a situation that bears an uncanny resemblance to the feedback residents regularly receive from certain municipal departments.

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Jo Slow-Go operated faithfully for quite some time before an unfortunate encounter with a flying motorist left him horizontal, and he immediately claimed disability. The department responded by reducing his responsibilities and power output by half. Still blinking in shock, Jo naturally, took it lying down. However, over the following week, the rest of his pole team decided that this arrangement was simply unfair. They were all expected to work full-time, without breaks, with none of them were receiving half-paid leave. Feeling discriminated against, they collectively decided to go on a full strike.

During a meeting with the Members of the Pole Standing Alliance (MOPSA), spokesperson Tohir Anfurther expressed his sympathy for the rest of the team. “We operate at ground level. These poles cannot be expected to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without a break,” he said.

He questioned why some pole members were allowed to receive half pay for being present but not working, while others were expected to continue performing their duties without similar accommodation. He insisted that, due to the difficulty management faces in determining who is working, who is not working, who is lying (down) and who is claiming half pay, it would be far easier for all poles to adopt one common working status. So, the pole team duly selected the ‘flat-lining’ status on their KPI forms, ensuring that their public reputation could not be differentiated from those traffic light poles who were, allegedly, still functioning.

MOPSA wishes to advise motorists that, within approximately 30 days, its members should have recovered sufficiently from any sick leave to resume working – at least for a while.

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When approached for comment, the Traffic Light Representatives (TLR) at Witkoppen/Achter and Van der Bijl/Nanyuki said they fully understood what the alliance was trying to achieve through the introduction of Pole-Lying Rotations (PLRs). Meanwhile, the teams on Main Road, Van der Bijl/Rivonia and Van der Bijl/Maxwell, who agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity, admitted that they had been on paid leave for so long that they could no longer remember why they had stopped working in the first place.

Management assures the public that the matter has been escalated, logged, allocated, referred, followed up, and placed on the appropriate system for more than three years. Unfortunately, the system is currently unavailable.

Editor’s note: The above views are those of the letter writer and do not reflect those of the publication. Reader letters may be sent to fr@caxton.co.za

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