Managing contractors

Following the heavy rain of the last few days, the council's grass management contractors saw fit to mow the grass down Longmead Road this morning.

Using a tractor drawn gang mower, this did not work too badly on the level grass next to the road, but did not do so well on the other side of the stream. Not that the grass particularly needed mowing anyway.

An illustration of the weakness of managing contractors with KPI's rather than with intelligence. Their contract presumably says that they must mow the grass so many times a year and that is what they do, regardless of the length of the grass or of the condition of the ground. Whereas in the bad old days of direct labour, the foreman might have wandered out first thing, decided that cutting the grass was not a good plan and diverted his chaps to something more useful. Perhaps picking litter somewhere.

PS: I remember that as a child, even though my pocket money depended in part on mowing the lawns, the lawns were never cut in wet conditions, as the cutters of the push lawn mower were driven by the wheels or the roller, either of which were apt to tear the ground up. We never had a self-propelled lawn mower, which would have been easier on the ground, but would have been blowing carbon into the sky. Perhaps my father was an eco before his time.