Readers would be aware of the recent announcement by TasWater to decommission the Waratah Reservoir against the wishes of the Waratah community.
This is the first of a series of articles regarding the efficacy of TasWater management and performance and is ‘DAMNING’ in its reality.
TasWater launches inquiry into duck accident The Advocate Oct 23 2014 – Sean Ford
A TASWATER worker has been stood down on full pay after running over a duck at Sheffield.
The water and sewerage corporation has hired a private investigator to investigate the case of “the million-dollar duck”, according to Communications, Electrical and Plumbing Union state organiser Todd Lambert.
“The CEPU and other unions have been trying to highlight the wastage that’s in TasWater,” Mr Lambert said.
“With all these people in HR positions and managers’ positions, you’d assume they’d have the skills to handle this rather than outsourcing the investigation into the million-dollar duck.
“Do they launch an investigation if you run over a rabbit? While I have sympathy for the duck, I find this bizarre.”
Mr Lambert said TasWater had told him investigations into motor vehicle accidents were outsourced. Asked if the vehicle was damaged in the week’s incident, he said it was not.
“It was a duck, for God’s sake.”
A TasWater spokesperson confirmed an incident at Sheffield “involving a TasWater vehicle and ducks on a roadway”.
“. . . due to the concerning nature of the incident, an independent investigation will be carried out.”
Mr Lambert said ducks roamed across a long laneway to TasWater’s Sheffield treatment plant. He believed some had been hit previously. Mr Lambert said the employee believed he had hit one duck on October 14, but it was being claimed he had hit four.
He said the man was called into a meeting with TasWater HR staff on Tuesday morning, had his keys taken from him and was stood down pending an investigation. Mr Lambert said union representation was not allowed at the meeting, which he said was proposed to the worker as an informal chat.
As a result of this astonishing management performance, and the astonishing demolition of the Waratah Reservoir wall, a local Waratah resident can today reveal the imminent launch of TasWater’s own cryptoflummery:
Another feather in Brewster’s Cap – TASDuck $$$ to take flight
TasWater CEO Mike Brewster has announced the release of the government business enterprise’s own cryptocurrency following lengthy discussion with the Department of Finance and the Reserve Bank.
He explained that: “It developed after staff ideas showers led to a reimagining of TasWater’s administrative contingencies.
Our financial dashboard indicated we were spending too many resources on wheelbarrows and desktop calculators for staff to calculate and transport their wages, entitlements and redundancy payments home from the office.
I am fiscally motivated to move forward with this plan to implement organisational concepts by developing a strategic staircase. This follows our paradigm motto that if we add several assumptions then multiply hypotheticals we come up with a certainty.
This will see us cascade our organisational knowledge towards demonstrated business alignment goals”.
The new currency will trade online as the TASDuck.
Unlike other cryptocurrencies, TASDuck will not be backed by a rigorous set of computer-generated algorithms but by the labyrinthine thought processes of over-elevated TasWater bureaucrats.
There is a simple genius in this, claimed the mostly AWOL CEO with a PHD in OHS, also a GOAT in BS and affectionately known as a POS in DPAC.
“No logic bomb in the world can hack the unpredictable uncertainty of TasWater decision making,” he bragged. “It’s foolproof. Fools on the inside, suckers on the outside. Nyah nyah!”
Brewster the Number One Rooster explained that it will now only cost one TASDuck to fix the Waratah Dam. As no-one knows from day to day what any cryptocurrency is worth, he expected TASDuck float to follow the same pattern.
“Yes, well, this is a licence to print excuses,” he nodded sagely to dying wetlands. “What could be more valuable than that?”
While discussing the Waratah Dam Mike finally admitted to the residents that he couldn’t care less about the kid on the bike downstream of the Dam.**
What he was really concerned about was the five ducks on the lower pond.
‘For Christ’s sake’ he was heard to mutter to Fraser White on learning about the existence of the ducks.
“A dead kid will probably only cost us 1.3 TASDucks compensation but five friggin ducks? Have you any idea what that could cost this organisation?”
** The dead kid reference was an actual utterance at the only meeting of the Friends of the Waratah Reservoir that Brewster attended. In response to a question about the impact of the decommissioning he stated “if we do not, there is a possibility of a kid on a bike being washed off her bike on the Main Street.”
DUH.
