Mileage, and Local Knowledge/Ignorance
Posted: Tue 9 April, 2013 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Driving, People, Travel, Work-related |2 Comments »Another long day today, with a Devon run and a stop-over in Bristol to deliver some other work-based stuff.
All went well though, and again the Saab’s doing just fine. I’d be happier if the fuel consumption was a bit better, but it’s still not too bad.
Mind you, Bristol is a bag of shit to drive round. I don’t know who designed their one-way system, but I’m pretty sure they were either a) insane or b) a fucking idiot. Perhaps both. (And I also bet it was the same person who designed the one-way system in Farnham. But that’s another story)
What amazes me with Bristol – and it’s a view based on several visits, and not something I’ve seen as much anywhere else – is how little people in Bristol know about Bristol, and places in it. I had been given the wrong address for the office I needed, but the security people in the wrong place *and* the people in the right place didn’t know how to get from one to the other. And it turned out to be a matter of crossing a dual-carriageway to get from one to the other. These two office buildings are within sight of each other. Yet no-one knew about the other.
The final straw was being at the right place, saying I was at [centre] North, and being told – by people in [centre] – that I was in the wrong place. They didn’t even know their own fucking building had two entrances!
Anyway, it all got sorted in the end, so all’s good.
I think that the ‘don’t know don’t care’ attitude that you describe from employees within an organisation is pretty universal everywhere (not just Bristol) these days.
“I ain’t paid to know that!” was a response I got recently from a shop assistant when I asked if they sold a particular product somewhere in the department store.
For many people, there seems to be a complete lack of general curiosity or desire to find out about the organisation for which they work. I guess that’s what having so much info available at the touch of a smartphone (if one can be bovered) does…
True – it’s just been my experience in Bristol (more than other places) that even asking “the man on the street” just gets you an “I dunno” or even an “I’ve lived here years, but don’t know”, which really narks me.