Ah yes. Privatization just makes everything so much more efficient, doesn’t it…
What’s been grinding my gears is the garbage collection. They broke the wheel on my recycling bin last month and then left a tag on it saying they can’t pick up the recycling because the bin is broken. Then last week they broke a small chip off the lip on the front of my garbage bin, and again left it full with a tag.
Both cases I am sure it was the garbage collector because I put my bins out late and we get our connection around 7 am, and they were fine when I put them out.
Sometimes it does. Some businesses are slimeballs. It’s human nature writ on different scales.
I once paid my neighbour’s kid $20/week to cut my lawn. I’d pay them sometimes for two or three weeks at a time. One time I paid them for three weeks in advance because I was going to be away and didn’t want to have to worry about being in arrears. Well, instead of cutting the lawn, the kid just stopped and I came home to knee high grass. Cash in hand, you know. I subsequently stopped hiring them and brought lawn cutting back “in house”.
So the important lesson is: structure business agreements such that you only get paid when work is provable and verifiable. The same pattern repeats anywhere people are involved, and on every scale.
I didn’t sue my neighbour’s kid though.