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blue_gold_84
blue_gold_84

Shell: $9.1B (https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/05/shell-earnings-q1-2022.html) [highest quarterly profit since 2008] It's not inflation. It's not the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It's not the carbon

Wanna-B-Fanboy
Wanna-B-Fanboy

Kind of big news...    

JCon
JCon

Tax the churches. 

The Unknown Poster Newbie

The Unknown Poster

Posted
Posted

So a preliminary report is out on the Ethiopia crash.  And its scary.

Turns out it was the MCAS system that was malfunctioning and trimming the plane nose down.  The pilots DID do the right thing, hitting the cut off switches to kill electrical trim.  They then had to use the manual trim wheel to correct the improper trim but because of the speed of the plane, the manual trim wheel was too hard to use.  Pilots tried together to muscle the nose up to no avail.

Boeing really screwed this up.  Tragic.

The Unknown Poster Newbie

The Unknown Poster

Posted
Posted

wow

https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/sloth-in-the-city-planning-department-inspectors-loiter-at-tims-go-shopping-probe-reveals-508135822.html

 

Quote
Long lunches, shopping trips, short shifts:
City inspectors caught on camera
Concerned citizens hire investigator to track employees of Winnipeg's planning department
By: Ryan Thorpe | Posted: 04/4/2019 7:00 PM
 
Extended coffee, cigarette and lunch breaks that eat away hours of the day. Personal shopping, errands and chores on company time. Employees slipping away early, effectively cutting shifts in half. Little to no work done while on the taxpayers' dime.
 
Those are the findings of a recent surveillance operation carried out by a local private investigation firm into the activity of City of Winnipeg inspectors with the planning, property and development department.
 
The investigation firm was hired by a group of more than a dozen Winnipeggers — homeowners, business owners and construction contractors — who’ve had negative experiences with the department.
 
Those experiences — ranging from alleged long wait times for inspections to poor, unprofessional treatment at the hands of staff — led the group to spend $18,000 to have investigators take a closer look at the department’s activities.
 
In total, 17 inspectors were placed under surveillance over the course of 28 days. Based on the latest City of Winnipeg compensation disclosure, they have annual salaries ranging from $69,000 to $91,000.
 
The investigators say only one staff member placed under surveillance appeared to be putting in an honest day’s work. On average, it’s alleged the PPD inspectors put in less than three hours of work each shift.
 
Instead, they were documented filling their days with lengthy group coffee breaks at Tim Hortons; long lunches at greasy spoons, Bar Italia and Hooters; shopping at Costco, Salvation Army thrift stores and other businesses; and taking care of chores such as clearing their driveway of snow or working on a personal rental property.
 
The results of the investigation — documented in video, photos and notes that have been shared with the Free Press for review — shocked the investigators and their clients.
 
"The way things go in that department is absolutely appalling. Based on our experiences, we figured they were overworked and understaffed. Well, we were totally surprised. They’re just running wild," said a group spokesman.
 
"Meanwhile, some of us are waiting nine months for electrical work and still haven’t gotten a final inspection yet. These guys have a stranglehold on this city. It’s about time someone woke them up and let them know they are city workers."
 
The Free Press has agreed not to name the group spokesman since he fears speaking out will negatively impact future dealings with the department. The firm hired by the group was Wilson Investigations, which is fully licensed by the Province of Manitoba.
 
The city declined to make PPD director John Kiernan available for an interview Thursday.
 
A city spokesman asked the Free Press to send documents from the investigation to the city for review. That request was declined. Instead, the Free Press sent a summary of the investigation's findings. "There are concerns with the allegations as presented, however the city won't draw any conclusions based on a summary of claims. There are situations where individuals will work extended, flexible or modified hours, which are agreed to with their manager or director," the spokesman said in a written statement. "At the end of the day, the city maintains the expectation that its officials conduct their work effectively and with integrity."
 
Long wait times for PPD inspections have been a frequent complaint among Winnipeg homeowners and contractors for years. In 2018, there were more than 96,000 residential and 47,000 commercial inspections conducted, according to statistics provided by the city.
 
The PPD department employs 57 inspectors and five zoning field officers who engage in site inspections. Their duties include, but are not limited to, proactive and complaint-driven inspections to ensure compliance with building, plumbing and electrical codes, as well as building and zoning bylaws.
 
Members of the group — who describe it as a loose collection of concerned taxpayers — said they previously took their negative experiences with PPD directly to the city.
 
However, they felt their concerns fell on deaf ears, so they decided to take matters into their own hands. At first, they believed the investigation would confirm their suspicions the department was understaffed.
 
"Our concern was primarily the wait times, although there were some concerns about the attitude as well. Overall, we were just wondering, ‘What the heck is going on?’ When we got our findings, we were dumbfounded and disappointed," the group's spokesman said.
 
"This wasn’t a personal attack on anybody. This was a fact-finding mission. Why are we waiting months and months and months for someone to come out and inspect some electrical work or get a permit for a deck?"
 
A spokesman for Wilson Investigations said the people working on the file all have more than a decade’s worth of field experience. The surveillance began Jan. 11 and ended March 29, over a total of 28 days during that period.
 
While investigators initially focused on only a handful of inspectors, they eventually branched out to look at more department employees in an effort to see how widespread the behaviour was.
 
"It was pretty consistent, different variations of the same," the group spokesman said. "One guy would go to Costco for an hour. One guy would go to a thrift store for an hour. On any given day they would link up with each other for coffees with the other guys.
 
"The only thing I noticed is they would change the location of the Tim Hortons they would go to. There were no measures taken to disguise what they were doing. It appeared to be a group effort. It appeared to be a known thing among all of them to do very little."
 
In addition to the inspectors shopping and running personal errands, there is documented evidence of group lunches that lasted, in some cases, more than two hours.
 
One employee was seen going home during the middle of a shift to clear his driveway with a snowblower. Another is alleged to have spent five hours working on a personal rental property.
 
Cutting shifts short was also common. Two employees, in particular, went home early in the afternoon on multiple occasions; a resident of Anola – located 24 kilometres east of Winnipeg — was seen arriving home by 1 p.m.
 
"When they’d attend what I believed to be work visits, buildings under construction, places like that, they would go in and out of a building in five minutes. It was very quick, five minutes, 10 minutes or less," one investigator said.
 
"It’s all right there. The proof is in the pudding. If you’re not including driving time, I would say three hours of work would be pretty generous."
 
The group spokesman said he hopes the results of the investigation lead to significant changes in the department. He alleges many other Winnipeggers outside the group have had similar negative experiences with PPD.
 
However, he said it’s disappointing they had to raise $18,000 of their own money to bring to light how their tax dollars were being misspent, particularly when they’d previously tried to raise their concerns with the city.
 
"Something has to be done with that department. It’s not hard to do investigation work when they’re just sitting ducks," he said.
 
"Under surveillance or not, that’s a very improper use of a workday."

 

Brandon Grand Master

Brandon

Posted
Posted

What I don't understand is why they needed to hire private investigators?  Shouldn't management realize that these employees are underperforming based on the amount of reports/cases they've done? 

 

The Unknown Poster Newbie

The Unknown Poster

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Brandon said:

What I don't understand is why they needed to hire private investigators?  Shouldn't management realize that these employees are underperforming based on the amount of reports/cases they've done? 

 

Just a guess, but I bet those inspectors make it seem like each job takes 1-2 hours.  The PI indicates they'd be in a job for 10 minutes.  Then you've probably got management that has known them for years and is not going to ruffle feathers.

Its a disgrace.  And if I were the city, I'd be investigating every department now.  I'd be firing the lazy inspectors and maybe even their supervisors.

JCon Grand Master

JCon

Posted
Posted (edited)
6 minutes ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Just a guess, but I bet those inspectors make it seem like each job takes 1-2 hours.  The PI indicates they'd be in a job for 10 minutes.  Then you've probably got management that has known them for years and is not going to ruffle feathers.

Its a disgrace.  And if I were the city, I'd be investigating every department now.  I'd be firing the lazy inspectors and maybe even their supervisors.

In my recent experience, supervisors and managers are no longer afforded the time to actually supervise and manage. You runaround picking up all the extra jobs with staffing shortages and new expectations. At some point, you have to choose which tasks you're going to perform and you hope that your staff is acting professionally. 

Also, as a manager who's had a lazya** staff member who reported to one of my subordinates, it's very difficult to collect enough evidence to can them in a unionized environment. It takes a lot of time and energy that you are not afforded. 

Edited by JCon
Mark F Grand Master

Mark F

Posted
Posted (edited)

Assange fans will be going nuts this today.

Democracy now Amy Goodman, and some others.

Going to be interesting to see what kind of information he has to bargain with. Because.....

Quote

 

Donald Trump’s lawyer said on Monday that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange should not be prosecuted and he compared WikiLeaks publications to the Pentagon Papers.

By Joe Lauria
Special to Consortium News

Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for President Donald Trump, said Monday that WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange had not done “anything wrong” and should not go to jail for disseminating stolen information just as major media does.

 

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/31/giuliani-says-assange-should-not-be-prosecuted/

 

Peculiar intersection of extreme right wing Trump followers, and all of the left wing Hillary Clinton haters, who actually preferred Trump, and bought the Pizza sex stories completely.

and who admire/worship Assange, who I now think is in no way an admirable person. At all.

wikileaks to Trump junior

Quote

Oct. 21, 2016 message, in which Assange had appealed to Trump Jr. to let WikiLeaks publish one or more of his father’s tax returns in order to make his group’s attacks on Hillary Clinton seem less biased. “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” the Assange-controlled @Wikileaks account suggested. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source, which the Clinton campaign is constantly slandering us with.”

The intercept

Edited by Mark F
The Unknown Poster Newbie

The Unknown Poster

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Mark F said:

Assange fans will be going nuts this today.

Democracy now Amy Goodman, and some others.

Going to be interesting to see what kind of information he has to bargain with. Because.....

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/12/31/giuliani-says-assange-should-not-be-prosecuted/

 

Peculiar intersection of extreme right wing Trump followers, and all of the left wing Hillary Clinton haters, who actually preferred Trump, and bought the Pizza sex stories completely.

and who admire/worship Assange, who I now think is in no way an admirable person.

Yup regardless of the value of the information Assange released, Wikileaks and Assange are a tool of Russia.  So no surprise the other Russian tools would be okay with it.  I imagine if Trump's tax returns ended up on wikileaks, they might have a different opinion.

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