In efficient utilities/businesses.

[britishblue]

A 10 core phone cable ran past our farm to get to development of 8 conversions/new houses. Local BT man arrived saying it was to be upgraded to 20 core cable as they all wanted 2 phone lines in about 6 to 8 weeks time.
The next week a BT squad arrived from Glasgow and started rolling up the cable.As I passed I said is this the new 20core cable. He replied that it was just a 10 as it had been due for replacement. I explained about the new 20 core but they couldn't care less and said 'We got to keep ourselves in a job mate' ^ weeks later it was replaced again!

 

[andybk]

Had a few poles off the guys replacing them , they travel down from Birmingham in the lorry to here south of Bristol for the day with 6? poles ,then spent poles are taken to Newport at least another hour away , its utter madness , and they want to introduce the GFC ffs , Is there no one with common sense in charge of these organisations ?

 

[Top Tip.]

Had a few poles off the guys replacing them , they travel down from Birmingham in the lorry to here south of Bristol for the day with 6? poles ,then spent poles are taken to Newport at least another hour away , its utter madness , and they want to introduce the GFC ffs , Is there no one with common sense in charge of these organisations ?

I think it’s a lack of practical understanding, all university trained with loads of qualifications but no practical experience.

 

[Oliveau]

I think it’s a lack of practical understanding, all university trained with loads of qualifications but no practical experience.

Many years ago my team were due to walk the proposed route of a replacement water across Dartmoor. We were all clad in old Barbours, jeans and wellies. The consultant engineering people sent a new entrant [a graduate civil engineer!] who turned up in a nice shiny suit and polished leather shoes, but no wet weather gear or wellies. Needless to say, by the end of the day he didn't look so shiny!

 

[Boomerang]

I think it’s a lack of practical understanding, all university trained with loads of qualifications but no practical experience.

As I've posted before my Godson has a degree in economics fron Cambridge, he's never worked a day in his life .
First ever job , management consultant advising businesses how to be more efficient. 50k salary , charged out at £1600 day plus expenses..

 

[kiwi pom]

As I've posted before my Godson has a degree in economics fron Cambridge, he's never worked a day in his life .
First ever job , management consultant advising businesses how to be more efficient. 50k salary , charged out at £1600 day plus expenses..

That can't be right, TFF says University and degrees are pointless, he should be on the hod for a local bricky

 

[kiwi pom]

Had a few poles off the guys replacing them , they travel down from Birmingham in the lorry to here south of Bristol for the day with 6? poles ,then spent poles are taken to Newport at least another hour away , its utter madness , and they want to introduce the GFC ffs , Is there no one with common sense in charge of these organisations ?

It's not really about common sense it's about who wins contracts, where bases are located, where are the suppliers etc.
As has been pointed out it's the same in Ag. The land ten miles away is cheaper to rent and available, compared to local stuff. A mill in another county or country bids more for grain. German tractors are so much better than NH and JCB, so they get shipped in, dairy farmers buy heifers from Ireland or other European countries etc etc.

There's a reason for most of it if you stop and look.

 

[Grass And Grain]

Based in Yorkshire. Brother has customers in Amsterdam, Ireland, Kent, Cambridgeshire, Belgium later this year, etc. Although that's specialist work. They don't seem to be able to find anyone in Holland with the knowledge. Well, they did try the Chinese, but don't think it went too well.

 

[40 series]

What does he do

 

[Kiwi Pete]

As I've posted before my Godson has a degree in economics fron Cambridge, he's never worked a day in his life .
First ever job , management consultant advising businesses how to be more efficient. 50k salary , charged out at £1600 day plus expenses..

Fair play, that's a good place to start !

I'm the opposite, have worked pretty hard in the past, no degrees or qualifications, and a focus on how to make already efficient businesses become more effective.

Often it's efficiencies which limit or get in the way of effectiveness, farming's a good enough example of that.

 

[FonterraFarmer]

Open reach guy turned up today came 30 plus miles ,he was involved in "plant protection "" or otherwords checking telegraph poles are not rotting, took hour per pole..
Another guy who lives down road is travelling
To Birmingham every day 100miles each way, works for open reach. Inefficient madness.
Also had a chemical delivery today ,there's a satellite store 2miles away, yet chemical company send an electric van 47 miles from main store, driver said his delivery route was 315 Miles, range is 160miles on a good day.
Had to stop twice for 30-40mins charge up to get around his route..
It's green allegedly. But at what cost ,and guess who's paying. ( they have 10 electric vans )

In efficient or inefficient???

 

[FonterraFarmer]

Fair play, that's a good place to start !

I'm the opposite, have worked pretty hard in the past, no degrees or qualifications, and a focus on how to make already efficient businesses become more effective.

Often it's efficiencies which limit or get in the way of effectiveness, farming's a good enough example of that.

Effective and efficiency are not always mutually inclusive....

 

[Kiwi Pete]

Effective and efficiency are not always mutually inclusive....

Yes well with what's on the horizon, I'd much prefer 400k as a cash reserve, to what might have been worth 400k strewn around the farmyard depreciating.

That hunt for more efficiency has real risks in a downturn, effectiveness can be consolidation during the good times to weather the bad. If people think they're cash-poor now they're in for a wee shock

 

[glasshouse]

Agriculture isn’t devoid of this type of inefficiency either. The one I like is the carrots grown along the Moray coast are shipped down to Lincolnshire for washing ,dressing and bagging. The bulkers carrying them south pass the curtainsiders carrying them back up north on the motorway.

No wonder the roads are so busy
And the planets fu.cked

 

[glasshouse]

Yes well with what's on the horizon, I'd much prefer 400k as a cash reserve, to what might have been worth 400k strewn around the farmyard depreciating.

That hunt for more efficiency has real risks in a downturn, effectiveness can be consolidation during the good times to weather the bad. If people think they're cash-poor now they're in for a wee shock

In nz?

 

[FonterraFarmer]

Yes well with what's on the horizon, I'd much prefer 400k as a cash reserve, to what might have been worth 400k strewn around the farmyard depreciating.

That hunt for more efficiency has real risks in a downturn, effectiveness can be consolidation during the good times to weather the bad. If people think they're cash-poor now they're in for a wee shock

$400,000 of shite can be a hell of a lot or just one or two used 90's rally cars....

 

[Kiwi Pete]

In nz?

In the world . I'm old fashioned to the point I can see the differences between countries but also see the commonality between countries - same game where ever there is money, more money doesn't solve the issues money causes. So much for "independence" in reality the fate of nations is unavoidable

 

[Grass And Grain]

What does he do

Service, repair, new build vacuum coolers.
So very specialist.

Used to be lots of small 2 or 3 pallet machines for small scale lettuce growers, but over last 10-20 years it's changed with the industry. So now typically fewer but very large growers of either salads, veg, bean sprouts, turf, mushroom compost, cut flowers. e.g. cut flower customer has to cool about 900t of flowers every day, and mushroom compost coolers and fresh peas are made so they just reverse an artic load into the machine, but you've got to know what you're doing!

The vertical farms are the oddballs. They're usually growing high value herbs, but they haven't the scale to warrant a vac cooler, but their produce will never be anything like as good as the field/warmhouse grower who's rapid cooling their leaves.

Depends on which produce, but typically 20-40 mins to take 25°C produce down to 3°.

Also do cryocoolers which work at -100 to -180 sort of temperatures. Usually used in the costings industry. e.g. sticking the silver lining to inside of a crisp packet, coatings onto glass, coatings for papers, etc. Coatings are sometimes just a few molecules thick, and the environment needs to be perfectly clean to stick the coating to the base material, so the machines pull a really deep vacuum to get rid of all contaminants, but this causes water vapour. The cryocooler removes the water vapour, but as you pull the vac down lower and lower, then you need colder and colder refrigeration to deal with removing the vapour.

- A H Ridsdale - UK Vacuum Coolers

Design and supply of new build vacuum coolers Salads, Cut Flowers, Mushrooms, Veg, Turf, Herbs, Bakery, Mushroom Growing Medium Statutory F-Gas Testing […]

ukvacuumcoolers.co.uk

 

[Boomerang]

Yes well with what's on the horizon, I'd much prefer 400k as a cash reserve, to what might have been worth 400k strewn around the farmyard depreciating.

That hunt for more efficiency has real risks in a downturn, effectiveness can be consolidation during the good times to weather the bad. If people think they're cash-poor now they're in for a wee shock

That's just logical, common sense. But some how it dosnt exist.
Bit like government spending 10m on hubs promoting teacher safety ,when the do gooder society we have, pretty much bans discipline for kids , and wonder why teachers are regularly attacked and the brats think it's OK to go around knifing one another.

 

[PSQ]

A 10 core phone cable ran past our farm to get to development of 8 conversions/new houses. Local BT man arrived saying it was to be upgraded to 20 core cable as they all wanted 2 phone lines in about 6 to 8 weeks time.
The next week a BT squad arrived from Glasgow and started rolling up the cable.As I passed I said is this the new 20core cable. He replied that it was just a 10 as it had been due for replacement. I explained about the new 20 core but they couldn't care less and said 'We got to keep ourselves in a job mate' ^ weeks later it was replaced again!

Openreach are now in charge of maintaining the Vodafone mast on the farm, which has had a dud antenna since last autumn.
2x engineers and 2x pickups turned up (again) from the Edinburgh depot on Tuesday, to change the connectors on the faulty antenna to eliminate that as the cause.
I asked them if they'd fixed it, and the engineer replied, "no idea but probably not, we only get issued with EE phones so we can't see if it works, the team in India will monitor the reception and report back, then we'll back next month to have another go, and then they'll order the new antenna and we'll put in a request for the 'working at height' crew to fit it, and they're all scheduled to be working away in Shetland"