Monty by Jim Meddick for November 17, 2024

I’ve read that the job of standing and holding the sign directing or slowing traffic is the hardest one. People hate it and often quit if that’s their assignment. Standing for eight hours is hard enough but the job is also both boring, dangerous, and carries a lot of responsibility.

Some truth in labelling.

The Pareto distribution. It’s always 20% of people doing 80% of the work.

From what I understand, it isn’t what it looks like. Each person has a given job, and each job is dependent on others completing theirs. One might think then they could show up when they are just needed, but how would they know the exact time that the other will have completed their part? And how much more time will it take if the needed person is “in route”, or even at another location doing that job, but not finished yet? They are all there, waiting to do their parts.

If you’ve ever wondered what “feather bedding” means, now you know!

A regional joke around here is: “What’s yellow and white and sleeps four?” A NIPSCO truck!" (NIPSCO [Northern Indiana Public Service Company] is the regional power company, their trucks are yellow and white).

Reminds me of the joke where the road workers get to the job site and realize that they forgot their shovels. They call the boss and he says “okay, I’ll bring them, but I guess you’ll just have to lean on each other until I get there”

As part of the racket that keeps costs so high in NJ, an off duty policeman has to be posted at every road construction site, sometimes two. When I retired from a utility 5 years ago, they were paid $800/day. That cost is passed on to consumers. One manager refused to do it and the cops went to his house and arrested him for creating a public hazard.

Reminds me of my workplace.

I see this ALL of the time…..

Only folks who just drive by think this is reality. People who actually do roadwork know it is a hard and dangerous job with idiots who just have to get where they are going driving by at high speed or yelling about lazy workers. Ever heard about Steinbeck’s bet with his dad?

Here in Northern Maine the flag holders have long days during the construction season. I would hate standing for eight to ten hours and I don’t even know if I could do it. I’ve always thought that many of the people doing it ‘’have to’’ because they can’t refuse the job without losing unemployment benefits. I’d rather be in the hole with a shovel than just standing there.

And yet, those watching usually make more than the guy working.

They are waiting expectantly to see if the treasure map was accurate…

They like to dawdle at construction sites…

The rest of the comic humorously illustrates drivers in a chaotic scramble to push to the front of the line.

They’re on standby.

Monty’s hair is really messy from behind! :)

Wisconsin seasons have long been said to be winter and road construction. But with global warming, road construction now runs deep into November and picks up again by early March — so that actually means winter is pretty close to the way astronomers describe it.

Would you prefer they drive home, then come back when it was their turn to perform their specialty? Any form of infrastructure engineering is a lot more complex than you could possibly imagine, while driving by sitting in a comfortable chair in your car.

Accurate

What’s orange and sleeps six? A Caltrans truck.

your tax dollars at work

Reminds me of the old joke from FDR’s Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression:A man saw nine people on a WPA project. Two were going toward the group. Two were going away from the group. Two were going into the outhouse. Two were pushing mowers. One man was setting in a chair. Curious as to what was going on, the man walked up to the man in the chair and asked what was going on.“Well”, the man said “I have two a’ comin’, two a’ goin’, two a’ sh—-in’, two a’ mowin’ and me supervising.”