Letter: Another paid holiday

Paul Zunckel of Ballito writes:

Arriving at Salt Rock licencing office to simply renew my trailer licence, after a sleepless night of worry (what time should I go?) and anticipation (long queue?) of not knowing what to expect, my concerns were met with beyond even my deepest pessimistic imagination.

The office was closed.

After knocking on the door and managing to get the attention of a security guard, sprawled comfortably in a chair staring at his cell phone, I was informed that the cleaner had not pitched up and therefore the entire licencing staff refused to come to work. Another paid holiday.

Apparently the person in charge of renewing the cleaning company’s contract had forgotten to do so.

In a normal environment this person would have been fired, the ever-ambitious staff would have arrived an hour early and rolled up their sleeves and with mops in hand, cleaned up and the mayor would have issued a public apology.

But, no sir, not our lot. Anything to do as little work as possible for as much as possible.

Recently in Auckland, New Zealand a cloud burst flooded the arrivals hall at Auckland airport.

All the staff, from top to bottom pitched in, mops and buckets in hand and had the whole thing cleaned up in hours.

I subsequently went to the Verulam licence office. Straight in, 4 counters, paid by credit card and was out of there in no more than 10 minutes. How come they do it?