Reassuring those loveable Thames Water bosses after their latest little incident
Following yet more pipe bursts in Swindon, the bosses of our favourite water company need to be reminded that they are special and shouldn't worry
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The Barrie Hudson Column
Barrie Hudson is a known quantity when it comes to writing words. Sometimes he even spells them correctly. In fact he has been writing words in the Swindon area for more than two decades. First of all for the Swindon Advertiser and then for Swindon Link and now for The Ink. Here are some of his words…
Who needs silly outdated concepts such as being able to do your job properly when you’re a Thames Water boss?
The latest Thames Water outage in Swindon happened on Sunday, with a sequel yesterday.
On the off chance that the poor loves in charge of the company are in any way worried about career consequences, perhaps because they have forgotten they work for Thames Water or else have recently joined from some other organisation where they were expected to actually be able to do their jobs properly, we at The Ink have decided to reach out with some words of comfort.
Are you a senior Thames Water executive who is a bit concerned and upset at the moment? If so, dry your tears. A few years back I would have suggested that you dry your tears on one of the £50 notes with which your wallet was stuffed to bursting, but as we live in an increasingly cashless society you might not carry notes anymore. And in any case, the modern £50 notes are made not of paper but of a sort of durable plastic which is not very absorbent.
If you wish to dry your tears, you must seek an alternative material. Perhaps you could have a minion retrieve a letter from a vulnerable person who wrote in desperation about their fear of being unable to pay their increased bills. Assuming anybody saw any point in writing such a letter. If the minion can’t find a letter, make sure they look everywhere, including under that last notification about your latest enormous bonus.
Oh, and in the waste paper basket.
Anyway, to return to what happened in Swindon the other day, when your company’s latest infrastructure failure led to supplies being cut off across a swathe of the town, centred on the SN1 and SN2 area. Another failure the following day helped to prolong the problems, and although supplies were restored, pressure was still down as late as yesterday evening.
As a direct result of the initial failure, a number of pubs and restaurants were forced to close their doors entirely through no fault of their own, meaning a significant hit to their finances at a time when the sector faces all manner of challenges, not the least of which is customers having to reduce their spending on socialising because of the cost of living crisis.
This crisis was caused in no small part, incidentally, by utility companies mercilessly hammering up their prices while pleading poverty, but who are still somehow able to hand obscene salaries and bonuses to senior staff and obscene dividends to corporate shareholders.
In addition to the blameless businesses whose owners’ and staff’s lives were made just that bit more difficult in already challenging times, the outage caused inconvenience to countless other people living in the affected areas. Some had to endure the unpleasantness and squalor of leaving lavatories unflushed, for example. Others, having gone about their normal lives in the baking heat of the day, were obliged to go to bed without being able to wash or brush their teeth.
