NationStates Jolt Archive

How many Berkeley, Calif., firemen does it take to screw in a light bulb? The SF Chronicle gives the answer. Talk about waste in government...

In an attempt to answer this burning question, we offer up a recent memo to Berkeley Fire Chief Debra Pryor from Rene Cardinaux, the city's director of public works, declaring that firefighters in the East Bay burg have been granted permission to change their own lightbulbs . . . or at least the easy ones.

"Currently whenever a lightbulb burns out,'' Cardinaux details in the memo, "Facilities Maintenance will be notified and a request is made to replace the lightbulb. The Facilities Maintenance folks would try and replace the lightbulbs as soon as they could in the midst of their high-priority work requests and other emergencies. Unfortunately, with the limited resources and the great number of high-priority items and emergencies, the lightbulbs are not replaced as timely as the customer desires.

"The suggestion by (Lt.) Michael Nagamoto to have the firefighters replace their own burned-out lightbulbs that do not require special equipment or special training has a lot of merit. I am sure that nobody calls an electrician or a maintenance person to change their lightbulb at home.

"The firefighters are authorized to replace their own burned-out lightbulb as long as it is just a simple lightbulb replacement and does not require special training and equipment.''

One other thing: "The replacement bulb needs to be less than or equal to the recommended wattage for the fixture. If the fixture doesn't work after the lightbulb is changed or there are any complications/problems, Facilities Maintenance needs to notified immediately."

This reminds me of a job I had a couple of summers ago. I worked for the dorms here on campus. We cleaned them, as they got rented out to various groups over the summer. Of course, we found a few burned out light bulbs. What we were supposed to do is send a work order down to Facilities Services to get it changed. However, if we did that, it would take them up to a month to change the thing. So we started to change our own bulbs. However, we could not tell Facilities Services this because we would be taking work away from union members, which violates their contract. Pain in the neck.

It is not just union demarcation lines, it is also health and safety regulations. No-one who is not a qualified and certified electrician should be involved in fitting or altering any electrical installation. Technically this means that in many places you can not even unplug your computer at work without breaking the rules. It may reach the stage where ther are electricians whose job it is is to switch lights on and off as required, but I hope not.

Stupid regulations.

Look folks, it is obvious that the world is one big rocky lump of danger. Things that people did 25 years ago, like change light bulbs, unplug appliances and sharpen pencils have become much more complex and demanding. Without government approved and liscenced workers we take our lives into our hands when we attempt them. What we need are tight, union dominated controls on our freedoms to insure we are safe from our bumbling selves. I propose a ban on DIY stores, unpadded walls in houses and lighting fixtures not under lock and key.
Won't somebody please think of the children. . .and adults!

the article says they DON'T have to call maintenance to replace the lightbulbs anymore. It's supposed to be good news

bureaucracy runs wild everywhere it can. this isn't surprising, as the entire point of it is to form an overarching system of surveillance, control, and management, while reducing the scope of independent human action.

the article says they DON'T have to call maintenance to replace the lightbulbs anymore. It's supposed to be good news

But it hasn't come about because of any recognition it's a bloody stupid idea, which means it's still bad.