Lowest Bidder

The city went with (in their words) "the lowest bidder" for our new garbage and recycling collection. People who were supposed to have their garbage collected last Wednesday are still waiting to have it picked up, and now they are complaining about the lousy service.

We went with the company who promised to do the work for the least amount of money, and now we wonder why the service is not the greatest. It's possible that it is because they are using cheap equipment, with the fewest, lowest paid staff they can manage to get away with in order to come in with a really low bid but remain profitable.

My kind of people.

Customer Service Week began again today, and one of the usual activities is a shared story, where everybody is welcome to add few words to a community story in order to win tickets for the draw at the end of the festivities. Each person is allowed to enter as many times as they want, but they can only contribute five words at a time, and they have to wait until at least four other people have contributed before they can contribute again.

As one friend said, you could collaborate with four co-workers to take over the book and earn an inordinate number of tickets - though they are quick to crack down when they catch people gaming the system. The CSW committee reserves the right to modify the rules at their whim.

The part of the announcement for this contest that caught my eye was the line I have quoted (and even copied the formatting) below.

For the last 2 years we have not been able to publish the story due to inappropriate content…Please keep in clean and free of innuendos and we will be able to publish it this year!!

Wait, so if you leave a book lying around my office for people to create a community story, we end up filling it with so much puerile innuendo that it can't be published? These truly are my people.

Speaking of inappropriate stories filled with innuendo, I submitted my entry for the MWFF con book last night. Whether they actually choose to publish it is another matter entirely. If they don't use it there, I will distribute it here instead.