Friday Observation. The Busy Lady
Wearied by the saccharine speeches of politicians and occasionally of officials, I was unable for nearly a year to obtain a meaningful explanation about the smelly air in the port area. This week fate was favourably disposed and generously presented the opportunity to speak in person with the Environmental Service's "busy lady". There is indeed such a one there. :)
Another Friday. :) Wearied by the saccharine speeches of politicians and occasionally of officials, I was unable for nearly a year to obtain a meaningful explanation about the smelly air in the port area. This week fate was favourably disposed and generously presented the opportunity to speak in person with the Environmental Service's "busy lady". There is indeed such a one there. :)
Contrary to politicians' sweet speeches, the busy lady, in one breath without her voice breaking, expounded on how small the funding, how meagre the salary, how negligible the technical provision. The listeners to this monologue, as if playing along, burst in with their questions about how large the fines for the stinkers are, what the port's profit is, and whether it shouldn't be redistributed in favour of those who suffer. From what was now almost a dialogue, I still could not grasp the essential point - what would change if the busy lady's institution's budget were increased tenfold. Well, the offices would be nicely renovated, shiny computers provided (perhaps even "bitten apples") and other equipment, the employees' selfless work generously rewarded. And then? Then the busy lady could complain that the Cabinet of Ministers regulations on odours are not suited to operational work, that there is no methodology allowing the guilty party to be identified, that investment must be protected and one simply cannot just halt the operation of port companies. That due to the influence of unfavourable weather conditions, port neighbourhood residents will also in future have to smell Russian business - not oil products, but the stench generated by the transshipment of oil product waste (!) - products which, incidentally, both Tallinn and Klaipėda ports refused to handle.
Afterwards I sat in a pub, afflicted by worries and thoughts, sipping not beer but coffee, bitter as life itself, and sank into reflections on what I had heard. Day turned to evening, but a few heretical little thoughts and unasked rhetorical questions continued to smoulder in me. Perhaps without warning one should arrive at some official's workplace on a workday and, making the excuse of public interest in their "important" work, quietly settle in some corner and rustle a newspaper all day long? The Cabinet of Ministers regulations don't say that one can't! Perhaps by acting this way it will "dawn" on those who eat the state's bread that small, health-wise non-threatening nuisances can also drive one to despair and impulsive action...
Have a lovely first weekend of this March!
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