Efficiency?

During the remaining two weeks of my spring break, some utility work started on my street, right out front of the house next door to me and across the street.  I believe it was the phone company, but with the phone company selling cable TV, and the cable TV company selling phone service, I can not be certain.

The first morning they were there, I was wakened by the “Dat! Dat! Dat! Dat!” sounds of a jackhammer.  I irritably got out of bed and headed out for a walk, since I was up.  I walked past the utility workers, digging up a rectangular hole, about 2 feet by 4 feet, on both sides of the street.  They spent the day out front, and when I took the dog out for an evening walk, the holes were asphalted over. 

   Excuse the blurry photo!

I figured the work was finished.  That was until I was wakened again the next morning by the “Dat! Dat! Dat! Dat!” of the jackhammer.  The work continued that morning into afternoon, and at the end of the day, the holes were asphalted over once more.

The jackhammer alarm clock continued to go off about 8:00 each morning during the remainder of my break.  At the end of each day, the holes were covered, only to be noisily dug up the next day.  Each afternoon, the covered hole had a cone sitting on it like in the picture. 

It seems strange how many hours (about an hour each morning and an hour each afternoon) they spent digging up the hole and covering it each day.  I’m sure, fearing someone falling or throwing something in the hole, made it necessary to cover it, but how odd to cover it with asphalt.  There are only about 12 houses that use the street as access.  We probably could have gone two weeks without falling inside.  In this economy, I guess it’s good that these guys had work for possibly more days than needed,  but I think by the third or fourth day of work, I’d be awfully tired of digging up that hole each morning.

The workers were the same each day.  An additional contractor was seen sporadically over the two week period.  On some of the days, walking the dog coincided with the work being done.  There was a second truck and third man on the scene a few of those days.  The third man looked to be a supervisor.  There are a lot of jokes out there about how many people it takes to do utility and/or roadwork, as in many cases there are very few people doing the actual work while the rest are standing around and watching it.  I had to laugh at what I saw.  For awhile, the supervisor stood by and watched the work, every so often looking inside the holes.  The rest of his time supervising was spent sitting inside his truck, texting on his phone.  Where can I sign up!

I thought the work had been completed, but on last night’s walk, a couple of the neighbors were lamenting their frustrations with the work not yet completed.  I chuckled while listening to them, as I walked by the asphalt covered hole.