Contractor paid 1,000 euro to change three lightbulbs in a Garda station.

SoupyNorman

Darragh29 wrote: »

I'd love to create a new documentary along the lines of Wife Swap, except this new documentary would be called Public Sector-PAYE Swap, where you would take a Public Sector worker and swap them for a week with a PAYE worker.

I'm in a warehouse here this morning with a mate of mine who owns a logistics company in Dublin and everybody multi tasks and covers everyone else and just get the job done. The guys moving around me here keep at the moment are loading trucks and picking stock and all getting stuck in, working until the job is done and then they go home and do the same the next day. This is an efficient business operation here where everyone works to keep the ship afloat. Compare this to the intrasigent Dublin Bus drivers yesterday that went on strike for being asked to POSSIBLY work an extra half an hour a day. These people working in the semi-states and in the public sector, they are removed from reality.

Where I'm standing at the moment, if a lightblub had to be changed, it would be changed in 2 minutes. If someone here was responsible for a 1,100 Euro invoice for changing 3 light bulbs, I think the Gardai would be called and it would be dealt with as fraud.

I could highlight the fact that you're swanning around on Boards but lets assume that you are typing with one hand and changing a lightbulb with the other :pac:

Capt'n Midnight

Berty wrote: »

The HSE maintenance workers went on strike a few years back because a nurse changed a lightbulb
...
Yet. If you fail a driving test you can drive home. :mad:

Magic word: Demarcation
Magic phrase: Health and Safety
wonders can be worked with them, kinda like a trump or a veto

BTW:
You can't legally drive home unaccompanied any more, but how many of the 430,000 people with provisionals still haven't passed and are driving ?

podge3

Health And Safety

The last bastion of the dosser.

regob

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

A contractor was paid more than 1,000 euro to replace three lightbulbs at a Garda station, it has been claimed.

The Garda Representative Association blamed the Office of Public Works for what it branded the "blundering incompetence".

Michael O'Boyce, GRA President, unleashed a stinging attack on the State procurement body, demanding it be abolished for allegedly squandering public money.

I think I am in the wrong trade

http://www.examiner.ie/breakingnews/ireland/contractor-paid-1000-to-change-three-garda-station-lightbulbs-408662.html

fair play

Darragh29

pow wow wrote: »

Hey I wasn't advocating it! Legally it's a H&S issue and it's a problem most employers aren't willing to take a chance with tho, (serious hat on for a sec) I used to work in risk management and the odd things employees will do and then claim injury for would make your head spin.

"The lightbulb needed changing, and there was no ladder, so I stood on a couple of empty copier paper boxes on top of the desk to reach it, and then the boxes collapsed and I slipped off the desk..."

Health & Safety legislation is the last refuge of the fu*king idiot. How can someone who owns a house, possibly hope to argue that changing a light bulb is a task for an electrician on health & safety grounds??? Are you telling me when a bulb goes in their house, they call an electrician???

There are two well known excuses a f*cking idiot will use to avoid work:

(1) Health & Safety grounds

(2) Insurance grounds

I'm all for health & safety but somewhere there has to be common sense. I've worked in places where I've seen this mentality in full swing, one place I remember seeing it was in a certain academic institution in Dublin that will remain nameless, full of "technicians" that were as lazy as the day is long. If you needed something done, they'd avoid doing it on the basis that it was a risk to their health & safety or else they were not insured to do it, "as per instructions from our union"... If you questioned them on it through your own manager, you were accused of bullying them.

It is sad that as this recession drills down further into our economy, that these very people will probably be the last to be touched, as they are so protected by their union from the reality that the rest of us live in...

javaboy

Thread also here: http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055550813
if anyone's interested.

Kipperhell

Donny5 wrote: »

I can't believe people require training.

Technically speaking if your company has a microwave in the kitchen you are allowed use you need to be trained on how to use it. Considering people in Ireland sue for tripping over branches in the Phoenix Park you can understand companies avoiding possible liability

Donny5

Kipperhell wrote: »

Technically speaking if your company has a microwave in the kitchen you are allowed use you need to be trained on how to use it. Considering people in Ireland sue for tripping over branches in the Phoenix Park you can understand companies avoiding possible liability

People sue for tripping over branches in a park? How can the Courts find in favour of such idiotic claims?

Darragh29

Donny5 wrote: »

People sue for tripping over branches in a park? How can the Courts find in favour of such idiotic claims?

Again you will find the problem to be another sector of our society that is completely and utterly removed from reality, the judicary!

YFlyer

Darragh29 wrote: »

I've seen this mentality in full swing, one place I remember seeing it was in a certain academic institution in Dublin that will remain nameless, full of "technicians" that were as lazy as the day is long. If you needed something done, they'd avoid doing it on the basis that it was a risk to their health & safety or else they were not insured to do it, "as per instructions from our union"... If you questioned them on it through your own manager, you were accused of bullying them.

Exactly the same here in University of Limerick. The technicians in UL get a similar salary to a Professor in a UK university.

thelordofcheese

Darragh29 wrote: »

I'd love to create a new documentary along the lines of Wife Swap, except this new documentary would be called Public Sector-PAYE Swap, where you would take a Public Sector worker and swap them for a week with a PAYE worker.

So.... you'd swap two people for a week and nothing of interest would happen.

Unless of course you find the horrible caricature that you seem to think describes every public sector worker, but at that point i think we've gone beyond documentary and into the realm of surrealist cartoons.

anto9

Surely they have a team of maintenance people to look after garda stations without getting in a contractors for each and every little fault .If not why not ? I am not surprised that the thick overpaid Garda personnel did not do it themselves .

Guy:Incognito

Adeline Uninterested Threat wrote: »

Its true that the staff do not change the light bulbs but its the electricians that work for the hospitals who change the bulbs etc they dont have to actually hire someone just to change a bulb.

We were doing a few sites with a builder up till about 8 months ag (we're plumbers) . He had his own carpenters and electricians. He got a contract for work in Temple street hospital. They have their own lads there (2 guys overseeing a couple of carpenters, electricians and plumbers) who dont actually do much more than sit in their workshop all day.We were on site all the time doing anything that needed doing. Apparently the lads on staff pretty much just look at stuff then called us.It's a shocking waste of money.

Stephen

I experienced the same wankology in a previous (private sector but heavily unionised) workplace a few years ago. It was verboten for mere mortals to change a lightbulb. The on-call electrician must be called unless you want to be the one that causes a general strike to happen.

Gobsh1tes.

Nolanger

How many Guards would it take to change a lightbulb.

Two - one to change the bulb and another to say 'get out of the car'.

weeder

Nolanger wrote: »

How many Guards would it take to change a lightbulb.

Two - one to change the bulb and another to say 'get out of the car'.

that was terrible

blinding

On construction sites most of the health and safety stuff is in place to protect the employer.
If you do something off your own bat and somebody is hurt(or even yourself) then the company is covered if they say you were not trained to do this and you should not have been doing it. And if you unfortunately do something wrong that you were trained for they will say that you did not do it the way you were trained.

Health and safety laws are there to protect business's from big payouts.
In some unscrupolous industries pressure is brought to bear to make you take risks but if something goes wrong you will be hung out to dry.

If there are younger people reading this try to get an education that removes yourself from having to put up this with sort of crap in your worklife.