How many electricians does it take to change a light bulb?

[Alec_t]

Or more accurately, how many does it take to repair a failed street lamp?
A month ago I reported to the local Council a failed street lamp close to my house. Yesterday a van pulled up with four occupants; three men and a woman. One man wielded tools and tinkered with something at the base of the lamp-post while the others stood around watching and chatting.
Two hours into the project and a second van, with two occupants, arrived. I'm guessing it brought some needed spare part which wasn't onboard the first van. Finally, after four hours work (all by the one man) the job was finished and all departed.
I shudder to think what all this cost. No wonder our Council Tax is sky-high!

 

[bernardgreen]

Round here it is one person to repair the street lights that are owned by the Parish Council and for those lights that are owned by the Borough Council a minimum of two work persons,

 

[Taylortwocities]

Its March. Councils, etc have only a week or three to use up their budgets before the new funding year starts. They use up a lot of money by throwing a lot of people at one seemingly simple job.
Vladimir seems to have a similar approach.

 

[JM2]

It may not beat six to repair, but I know here it took four to change every working lamp that we could see by for some new LED s**t that we can't see with (nearly everyone has added external lighting to their homes now).

One they left permanently on. It took weeks for them (2-men) to come back, fiddle with it, change bits and fix it so it went off - for it to be it permanently off. Further weeks/months for upteen people to visit it, eventually they change to main unit (again) and it goes on and off correctly (but still no good to see by).

This is good because, it saves CO2 emmisions, allegedly.

 

[JohnW2]

Its March. Councils, etc have only a week or three to use up their budgets before the new funding year starts. They use up a lot of money by throwing a lot of people at one seemingly simple job.

Indeed. It's probably no longer the case, since the budgets are now so over-stressed, but in days of old it was a very common phenomenon in the NHS. Back then, I saw lots of crazy unnecessary work happening during January-March (re-painting wards, re-surfacing car parks, replacing perfectly satisfactory equipment etc. etc.).

It was not just that any of the budget not used by the year-end would be 'lost', but also that if it was not all used during the year, they would probably get given less the following year!!

Kind Regards, John