Extraordinary news of what passes for senior management at Bristol City Council has arrived.
It seems a very senior person within their Parking Services operation has recently been suspended from work after he decided to take a photograph of his cock on his mobile phone and send it to all the female members of his team!
Then – once this freak was finally suspended and safely removed from anywhere near his long suffering staff – a search of his office revealed that there was a loaded air gun in the top drawer of his desk!
No doubt there’s a perfectly rational – and pension-saving – explanation for it all.
I’m also told that you should feel free to park wherever you like in East Bristol when it’s raining as all the Parking Services staff there prefer to stay indoors in the comfort of their St Phillips offices watching DVDs as they don’t like getting wet, poor dears.
So perhaps Labour transport boss, Mark Bradshaw, could address the current management mess within his parking department before he starts stinging inner-city residents for his new residents parking scheme? I mean, if he were to run the current operation properly, it might actually make us some money and cut congestion like he claims he wants to do right?
However, on current form, it looks like we’re destined – for our forty quid plus a year residents parking fee – to have a load more lazy tossers watching DVDs at our expense who are overseen by some perverted retard whose main qualification for the job will have been their regular attendance at the Parking Services Boys Skittle Nights for the last ten years.
Bristol City Council. Dontcha love ’em?
You know, I’m so pathalogically lazy I keep meaning to get a job with the Council, the only problem of course being that I’d have to spend time with dick-photographing loons like Mr. Parking there.
Hmmm, maybe I’ll just… not.
Does this support the case for the privatisation of parking services?
Chris – possibly. However, given most people’s experience of the underhand and sometimes downright illegal practices of private parking enforcement companies (read: clampers) I’m not sure the alternative is any better!
Still, the RPZ scheme (which I do not support at all in it’s current guise, see my many previous comments on the subject) is doomed to failure unless they can get the enforcement side of it sorted from the off.
I suspect (though I may be wrong here) that they will be making use of the little-known legislatioon passed earlier this year which allows local authorities to fine people for parking illegally using CCTV cameras. Then the parking officials can sit all day in the warm watching LCD monitors of all the streets.
A CCTV Camera on every street in the RPZ? But it’s for your own good, you know…Orwellian? No, not at all…you needn’t worry yourself with it…And then when the time comes that they feel a bit more cash is needed from it’s already bled-dry motoring public, the very same cameras can be used to enforce a congestion charge as well.
The writing is on the wall.
Chris,
given that the management of Parking Services is self-evidently bonkers, the staff sit around all day watching telly and they have over 13 days (over 2 and a half weeks) sickness each, it seems fair to conclude that the city council, its senior officers and its politicians are unable to run and manage this straightforward service.
Taking it out of their control as a matter of urgency seems only sensible and could make a vast improvement in our quality of life.
That’s what I think too. But there was a little pun in the question which no one seems to have spotted – private-isation?
@Chris -clearly it wasnt a good pun, otherwise people would have noticed.
@Dave. The first rollout of the camera ticketing is possibly on the bus routes, as the showcase buses are having their cameras certified. So both buses will able to ticket people in their way. Unless they are bristol parking services vehicles, of course.
Badnewswade said…
“You know, I’m so pathalogically lazy I keep meaning to get a job with the Council…”
I did that once, it was the worst mistake I ever made. I took a 6 month contract out with a certain section within the council… most of the time was spent being used as a footsoldier in what appeared to be an everlasting war between rival “managers” trying to boost their egos.
At the end of the 6 months they asked me if I wanted to go permanent – I told ’em they could shove it where the sun don’t shine… the look on their faces was hilarious. They weren’t used to people refusing such an offer of lazy times.
You see, I don’t like work, but if I have to, then I want to do my work, get paid, and then piss off home. I don’t go to somewhere to sit on my idle arse… I can do that in my own front room – that way I don’t even have to bother getting dressed.
… and on a different note, I recently (can’t remember where) saw a redoing of the BCC logo – only the ship was sinking…
… does anyone know where I can download a copy of this from?
I mean, wouldn’t it be great if when you Googled “Bristol City Council” and checked the images, that came up?
See above.
Hey dude! You’re the FOURTH!
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=%E2%80%9CBristol%20City%20Council%E2%80%9D&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
Your blog is the fourth entry in a Google Image search on “Bristol City Council”. In case you don’t notice or it changes, it’s the”art watch” entry:
https://thebristolblogger.wordpress.com/2007/11/04/bristol-city-councils-artwatch/
Congrats!
BCC are like many public bodies. They carp on & on about equal opps, valuing their staff, minority rights etc, but their basic employment practices are in the dark ages.
Many of their managers have virtually zero peple skills. In some cases you wonder about their family lives. The HR backup is non-existent. No management time at all is allocated to 1-on-1 supervision. A ‘supervision’ consists of filling out a form about your performance targets which is then signed-off by your manager, and that’s it! BCC Managers have NO training in management. They are simply people who have been around long enough, not upset anyone above them and made the right noises at interview. Showing any initiaitive is held against you. The system is as good as purpose designed to produce an unimaginative, paranoid, own-back-covering class of apperatchicks.
I know of two managers in BCC whos staff believe they have Aspegers syndrome, such is their lack of empathy with other human beings. The effect on staff morale is catastrophic. One of them has made at least two people cry in front of their colleagues. The other has had half his team off sick with work related stress for over eight months. Their bosses have done nothing about this. One of them also manages a staff member who is clearly mentally ill, and cannot perform even the basics of her job. He has had this pointed out to him by other staff, but he just refuses to address it.
There is no point complaining about a manager if they have the support of their boss, they simply brush it under the carpet. Department heads simply don’t give a ****. If Blogger thinks Nick Gurney was unusual in that respect then he can’t have seen that much of what BCC is like.
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You’re fortunate in East Bristol that you have rainy days. In Southern California, the meter maids are having a field day, ticketing 10 people in one hour. They don’t even have to drive far, it is all in one parking spot!
http://annoyingparkingticket.blogspot.com