A pitstop that sums up SA
Ever waited 45 minutes for a fast-food burger? That was a fun experience which added time to my road trip last week but gave me plenty of time to think about how emblematic it is. Not feeling particularly friendly, I was overjoyed that I could order my food from a machine during a pitstop on the N1. I put in a particularly basic order, but after 15 minutes, realised I may have to speak to somebody. After all, my order number had come and gone on the screen. After being told I must just wait, I mentioned my number had been on the screen. That’s when it was explained I must ignore the screen.
That’s when I thought, weird. Why have the screen if you’re supposed to ignore it?
As time went on, I lost myself in the same question for various other things like, why have checks and balances, public finance management regulations, liquor rules, a bloated Cabinet, airline or power utility if you’re not really using them?
When I came to, I realised I was 40 minutes in, overcame my desire to avoid being a Karen and summoned who I believed was the manager. A simple question of, “is it normal to wait 40 minutes for a burger” was met with the most South African response: “Eish.”
Spare a thought for the person who invested in upgrading the place to include the screen system. “Eish” probably won’t cut it for them when the business goes under.
But it’s that business owner’s fault, really. What’s the point of throwing money at a system your people can’t use? There’s no shame in acknowledging some people don’t have the skills to go digital. Why do you think we still do elections on paper?
Why do we keep investing so broadly in higher education when so many of the graduates we have invested in can’t find work to utilise the skills that were paid for? How is it conceivable that we spend billions in health care but can’t even place doctors efficiently?
Oh, and that whole National Prosecuting Authority-state capture thing, and one or two overruns, but it’s still too much to ask for a couple of convictions as a result?
Results are what we require, not just throwing money at something and pretending it will work. It’s stupid and unfair to those expected to perform under such poorly considered investments.
Yes, it would be lovely if we could make things smart and efficient, but you’re dealing with a country which can hardly distribute the dwindling amount of electricity it produces, so it’s not like building a smartapp to report fires is going to help … when there’s no electricity to maintain a charge on your phone, data is too expensive – oh, and the fire trucks from 1997 have no petrol.
Even if we did have the capacity to have the nice things, it’s not like we have a good track record of maintaining them.
Go play around on the e-Services Portal. Once you’ve overcome the shock from learning we have such a thing, get ready to learn how useless it is.
Maybe we should focus on overcoming our increasing inability to teach our children to read before writing policies that will affect them.
Yes, “eish” is an annoying response when you’re waiting 45 minutes for a burger. It’s an alarming response when you wake up, realise we’ve spent R620 million on schools, clinics and infrastructure that is yet to be completed.
It’s a terrifying response when you realise we’ve paid for a new minister and gotten no electricity from them. It’s a scary response when you come to realise that “eish” is not just a South African response to a problem you never knew how to deal with. It’s the automated get-out-of-accountability jail card.
Why do four million children still live below the poverty line? Eish.
‘Eish’ is an annoying response when you’re waiting 45 minutes for a burger. It’s an alarming response when you wake up, realise we’ve spent R620 million on schools, clinics and infrastructure that is yet to be completed.