Unionized City Workers And Bankruptcies

"This is a true story - I swear to God"

About fifteen years ago I was a service manager and line tech in an auto-repair shop here in San Pedro. We were located on fourteenth street and Pacific Ave. The shop is still there but under different management. Now during the course of around a six month period the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power sent out a crew to dig up fourteenth st and replace pipes, fix pipes, fix dirt, I still don't what the fuck this crew was doing. I was too busy WORKING to ask any of them. But I watched this "job" as it went down.

Here's what happened - the city workers dug up about a block or so of trench on fourteenth street and did the repairs. They then filled in the trench and were on their way. About a month or so after finishing they came back and did the exact same fucking thing again. They dug up the block and did what looked to be the same process all over again. And while this was going on the parking was totally fucked up. The shop had limited parking so this was a terrible hardship on us AND the neighborhood. A total fucking abortion is the only way to describe the situation.

Now not knowing what was actually wrong in the first place maybe it was necessary to do the job twice. Things can and do go wrong. Lord knows after nearly forty years in auto repair I can relate. My beef is the waste of man-hours and labor. As this crew was finishing up the work for the second time there must have been at least twenty guys operating just one back-hoe, a compressor, a generator, and a flatbed truck. Twenty fucking men for that?

Upon cleaning up, as they put the street back together, there was a small pothole that needed to be filled in. There were actually four men surrounding this one-foot square pothole and working four brooms to fill it in. The fucking hole was probably six inches deep. Four fucking men for all of this?

And my point is; as more and more cities across the U.S. and Kalifornia file for bankruptcy, when are we gonna see Los Angeles in the list? Don't tell me we're too big to fail here. With waste like I saw on this job it's only a matter of time. Oh, did I mention there were NO white guys on these crews either time they were out here? All I saw were blacks and hispanics. Or maybe I blinked and missed the white dudes. More affirmative action? Is the Pope a Catholic?

Fuck Los Angeles. The sooner it goes broke - the better. Then we can start all over and maybe this time they'll get it right. BTW, ask most anyone from San Peedro and they'll tell you the assholes in downtown L.A. suck!