You Owe Me €350 Mr. Djilas
Belgrade | 19 June 2009 | By Simon CottrellSimon Cottrell
I’ve said before that the roads around here are badly maintained but I can understand that the city has spending priorities that are a little bigger than my cycle journey to work. But this, well it was just carelessness and sloppy work.
The guys had been digging up the road and left their work incomplete. The hole was just re-filled with sand and a single marker placed in the middle of the trench. The area around was covered in loose sand and it was this that did for me.
When I came to, the blood was pouring down my face and running in rivulets down the tarmac. But much more importantly, my treasured Gucci sunglasses, the ones that I am convinced had the power to turn me from middle-aged balding man into ‘Blues Brother’ were shattered.
I made sure that I collected all the pieces – just in case – before heading, with every step looking more and more like one of Dr. House’s most interesting cases, to the doctors’ surgery.
The truly wonderful Doctor Marija Lukac, put up with my whining, inserted 9 very careful sutures, and the clinic charged me a truly wonderful €145 for the job.
Now, quality doesn’t come cheap, we all know, and if, when the stitches come out I look more like Brad Pitt than Herman Munster then I will be overjoyed at the bargain.
No amount of care or superglue will fix the glasses, however.
I’m sure that there’s no appreciable difference between the skills of a Serbian road worker, and one at home. The difference, from where I’m sitting, is all about management and accountability.
And it’s a problem I recognise in many dealings with officialdom, at all levels, characterised by the bureaucratic shrug. You don’t have to even see the shrug, you know it’s happening, even over the telephone. In fact you can feel the shrug through e-mail.
“The electricity’s failed in my house” – “shrug”
“My internet connection is not working” – “shrug”
“This doesn’t work, I need to replace it” – “shrug”
It’s this pervasive “not my responsibility” attitude that’s the killer. I know that if I did try to pursue anybody, that the sloppy work would be absolutely nobody’s responsibility. The workers would blame the foreman for rushing them. The foreman would blame his bosses for his workload. His bosses would blame the city for not funding their work properly. The city would blame the government for not planning their budget correctly and the government would blame the world economic crisis. At this point the trail would go cold.
But no one would be responsible.
No one.
But it’s time to stand up and be counted. For all the sloppiness in all the departments of the administration.
It’s all about the management. Good managers make sure they use the tools they have to best effect.
So I can understand that priorities will have to be made in times of crisis, but please Mr. Djilas make sure that your managers make sure that the departments make sure that the managers make sure that the foremen make sure that the workers make sure that work that is done, is done properly.
I’d send in a bill for the replacement cost of my sunglasses and my medical bills – but I’m pretty sure it would be no ones responsibility to pay it.
Friday, June 19, 2009