Required...Strategic thinker who keeps a cool head!

Here we are then...January 16th...we had our white Christmas and now the snow has finally melted.
It's been a slow start to the year for most people it seems. I've heard lots of comments like "I just hibernated between Christmas and New Year!"  or "I simply didn't want to get started again!"

The snow has probably had a lot to do with that. And if your local council performed like mine, and if your car is as useless in the snow as mine, then like me you probably got to enjoy the necessity of working from home.
Not really sure where they got it wrong with snow clearing this year?  But we sure were neglected, especially pedestrians who risked injury just walking to the shops. Local government has of course seen a tremendous change in its service and resources mix from the "good old days" when I worked there. It was different back in the 60's and 70's...like we had road sweepers!

Remember them?   Guys like Trigg in "Fools and Horses" whose pride in their barrow and broom could match a cavalryman's for his horse and lance. "Triggs" were the people that actually did sweep the roads ...and the footways ...and the channels. Parked cars didn't deter them! And of course when snow covered the roads they would come out and clear it... and then spread salt on icy footways. Then the "Time and Motion man cometh!" Bringing with him wonderous ways of improving productivity like the introduction of the mechanised sweeper. You know... that buggy with rotating brushes that drives up and down spraying water around the wheels of parked cars. Not very good on snow covered roads apparently. The Productivity Improvement years were followed by the Privatisation years and "Trigg" was outsourced, never to return.

Council Officers who had served their "apprenticeship" in the service they now delivered morphed into Managers with MBAs from the private sector. The old style Chief Officer became a Director who talked about Mission Statements and Values and Visions. Even we Ratepayers were changed... and now we are Customers within a "customer-centric business model."
And clearly it was that strategic thinking, together with the risk assessments and cost benefit analyses that benefitted us customers over the last few weeks as they concluded...no need to panic....the snow will eventually melt. And do you know....they were right!