Promenade - Megathread

[MadAsHell]

8 minutes ago, yootalkin2me said:

So the whole department are useless and need sacking according to you. I take it you know everyone in the department personally and know their competence levels and consiencousness, you also know everything about highway engineering and special events? You truly are awesome, we, here on MF are in the presence of greatness, we are not worthy oh great one.

What have they done well?

[thesultanofsheight]

4 minutes ago, MadAsHell said:

What have they done well?

Making the tea? 

[yootalkin2me]

I'm sure they do a lot well, what Neil Down said was that he'd like to see the feckin whole Department sacked, and what I'm saying is that not all employees are so bad at what they do that they shoupd be sacked. As with all organisations, there's good and bad employees, as Napoleon supposedly said "“There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers.”

[foxdaleliberationfront]

29 minutes ago, yootalkin2me said:

So the whole department are useless and need sacking according to you. I take it you know everyone in the department personally and know their competence levels and consiencousness, you also know everything about highway engineering and special events? You truly are awesome, we, here on MF are in the presence of greatness, we are not worthy oh great one.

DOI certainly needs dismantling. It's not fit for purpose and in certain cases is a total train wreck (or should that be tram wreck?)

Splitting it up has to happen. It's out of control. While many workers at the coalface are good at what they do, there are layers upon layers of middle and senior management that wouldn't be given a second look for employment in the private sector.

[finlo]

49 minutes ago, yootalkin2me said:

 "“There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers.”

And therein lies the problem!

[pongo]

51 minutes ago, yootalkin2me said:

Napoleon supposedly said "“There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers.”

I wonder how many of his soldiers turned up at 2 mins past start time and chatted for ages before doing any work. And were then straight out of the door at home time. And unavailable out of hours.

Also - Napoleon lost. Over and over.

And much of the so-called private sector is just as bad on the IOM too.

Edited February 4, 2020 by pongo

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, yootalkin2me said:

[...] as Napoleon supposedly said "“There are no bad soldiers, only bad officers.”

But one problem with the DoI is that there aren't any soldiers, just officers.  The manual workers were all pensioned off (under Gawne?) and the work outsourced to the usual favoured contractors.  Which means that when things do go wrong, there is no one on (or in) the ground to point things out and call a halt.  The contractors just carry on doing what they are told and lawyer-up when things go wrong, not least because they know the DoI will try to blame them even if things blatantly aren't their fault as with the concrete laying.

[Neil Down]

1 hour ago, yootalkin2me said:

So the whole department are useless and need sacking according to you. I take it you know everyone in the department personally and know their competence levels and consiencousness, you also know everything about highway engineering and special events? You truly are awesome, we, here on MF are in the presence of greatness, we are not worthy oh great one.

So the whole department are useless and need sacking according to you.

In a word - yes. Name any project they have been involved in that has been a rip roaring success, ran to schedule and didn't piss money down the drain

I take it you know everyone in the department personally and know their competence levels and consiencousness,

I don't have to know everybody personally to see what a clusterfuck of a department it is

you also know everything about highway engineering and special events?

I'm good at my job and they are not good at theirs

You truly are awesome, we, here on MF are in the presence of greatness,

First thing you've said that makes sense

we are not worthy oh great one.

You certainly are not. You'd be out of your depth in a car park puddle

[yootalkin2me]

52 minutes ago, Neil Down said:

So the whole department are useless and need sacking according to you.

In a word - yes. Name any project they have been involved in that has been a rip roaring success, ran to schedule and didn't piss money down the drain

I don't know of any major ones off hand but their smaller schemes to go well

 

I take it you know everyone in the department personally and know their competence levels and consiencousness,

I don't have to know everybody personally to see what a clusterfuck of a department it is

That doesn't mean to say everyone in the department shouod be sacked, that is like taking a sledge hammer to crack a nut

you also know everything about highway engineering and special events?

I'm good at my job and they are not good at theirs

So you say but as you're an anonymous poster there's little evidence to prove it, anyone can spout how good they are on a public forum under nom de plume

You truly are awesome, we, here on MF are in the presence of greatness,

First thing you've said that makes sense 70

As you well know, that was said with 100% sarcasm

we are not worthy oh great one.

You certainly are not. You'd be out of your depth in a car park puddle

You can't possibly know that, you have no idea who I am 

 

[yootalkin2me]

1 hour ago, Roger Mexico said:

But one problem with the DoI is that there aren't any soldiers, just officers.  The manual workers were all pensioned off (under Gawne?) and the work outsourced to the usual favoured contractors.  Which means that when things do go wrong, there is no one on (or in) the ground to point things out and call a halt.  The contractors just carry on doing what they are told and lawyer-up when things go wrong, not least because they know the DoI will try to blame them even if things blatantly aren't their fault as with the concrete laying.

There's been a reduction I grant you that but not all who are at the coal face have left, and the irony is that there are a lot on this forum banging on about the Government bloat. I'm a tax payer and I see profligate waste across government especially in our health service but that goes amiss because it's viewed as being so precious, which it most certainly is if it's run well but it isn't and there is a massive amount of utter incompetence right across the board and very evident silo mentality.

[Neil Down]

11 minutes ago, yootalkin2me said:

 

Are you Ray Harmer...

[yootalkin2me]

7 minutes ago, Neil Down said:

Are you Ray Harmer...

Not at all

[TheTeapot]

A lot of people think the heritage railways should be run by volunteers. I assume that the members of the MERS would be involved. Anyone a member? Here's a press release from them

https://mers.org.im/blog/articles/view/id/586/

There is this line early on

Quote

the horse tram service which we, and others, fought to keep open as a connection between the Sea Terminal and the MER was heavily curtailed to the Derby Castle end of the former line.

well maybe you shouldn't have fought eh? It is partly this crazy insistence that the horse trams stay open that has caused such delays. Closing it for a year to let the work get done would have been a better idea no?

And then there is this bit

Quote

Providing the signalling issue is overcome it may also be possible to run the MER (at certain times outside the running of the horse tram timetable) down the Prom to the Sea Terminal; something which should attract new passengers for the line, enabling commuter runs without undermining the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway.

Which shows you that sometimes volunteer support groups are just as mental as the mental people in charge.

Edited February 7, 2020 by TheTeapot

[Neil Down]

2 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

A lot of people think the heritage railways should be run by volunteers. I assume that the members of the MERS would be involved. Anyone a member? Here's a press release from them

https://mers.org.im/blog/articles/view/id/586/

There is this line early on

well maybe you shouldn't have fought eh? It is partly this crazy insistence that the horse trams stay open that has caused such delays. Closing it for a year to let the work get done would have been a better idea no?

And then there is this bit

Which shows you that sometimes volunteer support groups are just as mental as the mental people in charge.

Could you imagine the further disruption if the clowns had decided not to lay the lines until after the work on the prom had been competed? By the time they had finished digging up the prom to put the concrete in, we'd be back to square one only £25 million poorer

[Roger Mexico]

28 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

A lot of people think the heritage railways should be run by volunteers. I assume that the members of the MERS would be involved. Anyone a member? Here's a press release from them

https://mers.org.im/blog/articles/view/id/586/

[...]It is partly this crazy insistence that the horse trams stay open that has caused such delays. Closing it for a year to let the work get done would have been a better idea no?

[This] shows you that sometimes volunteer support groups are just as mental as the mental people in charge.

Well of course they have to keep in with the boss, though the transport management have often had a rather sniffy attitude to volunteers anyway.  But they do seem to be their own worse enemy.  The whole point of a heritage railway is to preserve things as they were, not add on whatever latest toy you fancy.  That would be like wanting a diesel locomotive to run on a steam railway.

So they should have been kicking up a fuss about curtailing the route, but also about trying to re-lay it so it could also be used for the MER and certainly about demolishing the old stables for no better reason that the DoI wanted to spend money.  By conniving in this pointless and expensive updating they are actually undermining their own case for preservation.  But I've noticed this with railway etc fans before - any spending on their field of interest is seen as an automatic good thing.  You get this with support for HS2 for instance.