a labour day post on unnecessary labour

and false flags

How many men does it take to dig a hole?

It depends.

If it’s just me, it’s just me.

But if the government is paying?

We need one person in the digger, one with a shovel and three white helmeted dudes with soft hands and clean boots to tell stories to an amphitheatre of hundreds of high vis gap toothed smokers.

Oh and at least eight or nine people holding signs, talking in walkie talkies and preventing the movement of traffic.

These are the people I find most galling.

They have power - the power of a sign.

Every time I see the orange road sign advising that a flagging crew is near by, I bite my lip and remind myself that they are not actually the living incarnation of an arsehole with arms legs cigarette and cell phone. They are people - real human people with lives and feelings and even a reason to live.

Yesterday I rounded a corner on a small, seldom used rural road and saw the orange sign advising of a flag crew.

Well shit, again, unnecessary traffic control gorpons on a road with ten cars a …