the things people do
But it isn’t.
The builder hasn’t pitched to work on the snag list from the alterations which were finished in December. His guys haven’t been here since Wednesday last week, having abandoned their work because of the gale force winds whipping the village. No-one wants to be up a ladder, freeing windows gummed-up with varnish when there are 80 km/h gusts ready to pluck you from your frail perch. That was fine, but the weather today is ideal...
The garden service we contracted to help manage the fynbos outside the house was due here an hour ago.
Someone from Shield Coat - the company which painted the outside of the house as a part of the renovations - phoned at 07:15 to enquire about the weather. They need to remove a lot of the coating, prepare and re-coat about 50% of the house as the work was done very poorly the first time. They can’t work in the wind either and as the weather is good and False Bay is relatively calm, I’d have thought that they would be here by now too.
Which really sums-up what this is all about.
Who can say that they have had a completely satisfactory experience in just about anything in recent times? Late deliveries, missed deadlines, incompetent and rude staff are now the norm and good service something to be surprised and talked about over a couple of beers in the pub.
What are we coming to? The last psukhe posting was about education. You could say that this one is about the effect of its absence.
Between the education shortfall, the shortsightedness of our current BEE legislation and the efforts of our trade unions, we are critically short of managers and leaders. The managers we do have are either unable to take remedial action where needed for fear of industrial action, or unskilled to the point where almost nothing gets done.
Sadly, it’s not likely to improve any time soon.
But wait. As usual, there's more.
Rooi Els sits on a little point of land, jutting out into False Bay. It is about 25km from Gordons Bay and the R44 that winds along the shoreline from one to the other is a magnificent drive, with ocean on one side and the mountains of the Kogelberg on the other.
It is also a single carriageway, with many kilometres of solid white lines prohibiting overtaking. Why this should be so in places where it is perfectly safe to overtake is a puzzle, but that’s the law.
The last eight or so kilometres into Gordons Bay is one stretch where overtaking is banned for good reason; it’s a tightly winding section of road and the solid white lines prohibit overtaking. If you are heading in either direction and find yourself behind a sightseeing dawdler, you might as well find a good CD or radio station to listen to because you’re not getting anywhere any time soon.
Unless you decide that you are more important than the law. As a shocking number of drivers do.
Last week en route to Gordons Bay, I was passed by a young woman driving a CJ registered (Paarl) Opel Corsa. She overtook me and five other cars on a blind left hand bend with solid white lines as far as the eye could see. At least mine could, I imagine hers weren’t working very well.
To be honest, I don’t care if she kills her silly self. It’s the other road users that she kills and maims while doing it that trouble me. Especially if I'm first in the queue for a wooden box as a result
On the subject, the R44 coming from Pringle Bay into Rooi Els comes down a steep hill, which also has solid white no overtaking lines.
There are two reasons for this; firstly, the hill is steep with quite a sharp right hand bend at the bottom. The second is the number of drivers who ignore the 60km/h speed limit, misjudge the incline and career down and off the road, down a steep slope into the fynbos some 5m below. In the past, there have been fatalities and yet drivers continue to ignore the speed limit.
And overtake too. Daily. Constantly.
What is it that makes these drivers of every type from trucks to motor cycles think that the rules don’t apply to them?
More? Surely not?
Running a restaurant is much, much harder than most people understand. According to recent research, 90% of restaurants fail in their first year and another 90% fail in the second. That leaves around 1% which might make it into year three.
Like I said, it’s hard work.
Which makes a story I was told over the weekend even more difficult to choke down.
We have a number of small restaurants in the area. They need to get the best from their customers during high season as low season is a real struggle with very, very few diners around.
“In the winter, we play ‘count the cars’ while we wait for people to arrive,” she said.
My hostess was telling me that she is increasingly finding customers booking a table for four people, with them actually having no intention of actually filling all four seats. On arrival at the restaurant, the pair are seated and “wait” for the other couple who, of course, are never going to appear. Apologies and excuses spew forth, but if course, it was all just a plan to get more space.
“What it really means is they get a bigger table, we have two vitally important seats empty and the revenue from those seats is lost,” said my hostess.
I can’t begin to tell you how much I dislike my so-called fellow man sometimes.
Click here to return to the psukhe home page.