Eskom can't take back white engineers without jumping through hoops

This is why I'm so happy Eskom is nothing more than backup for me. Hopefully I'll not have to rely on them again.
 
RaptorSA said:
I have an indian friend on the water infrastructure side of things. Really clever guy.

Fascinating to hear him recount some of the otherworldly skills some of these old ballies had when he was being trained by them. We're talking guys who identify complex issues that would take a legion of graduates months to figure out, and they do it using experience and senses like touch and hearing.
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Yep, those days I'm afraid are gone. The other night as our internet went offline for a bit and I could not get Siri to turn off lights, arm the alarm or turn off the pool pump I had turned on manually, I wondered if things weren't actually simpler and easier in the old days lol.
 
Lupus said:
How about things like getting the job done? Transformation can happen when things are working and the old can hand over the skills to the new.
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Exactly, it's a crisis, a disaster really. Who cares what colour they are as long as the issues get resolved. Then they can enforce their policies.
 
Lupus said:
Experience trumps qualifications. I mean I often have some of the newer guys ask how I know things and it's like I just do. I can listen to how the tape library moves, I can walk into my server room and just know something isn't right.
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Lies, you've just setup custom monitoring that tells you things :p
 
theratman said:
Exactly, it's a crisis, a disaster really. Who cares what colour they are as long as the issues get resolved. Then they can enforce their policies.
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So the old dudes come and fix it, leave - policies re enforced - Wait a year and it's fcked again.
 
RaptorSA said:
“But working without compensation creates a whole range of problems in terms of liability, accountability, and being engaged and subject themselves to discipline as it may be required,” he stated."

Jisses then just pay them.
Christ this country...

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They have brooms to pay for man don't be daft.
 
ToxicBunny said:
and a really good sys admin keeps that monitoring to themselves, and only sends emails to their address :p
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Oh no, another thing is to start getting people to do more work, I can't spend too much time doing everything. So I spread the load, work smart not hard.
 
neoprema said:
Yep, those days I'm afraid are gone. The other night as our internet went offline for a bit and I could not get Siri to turn off lights, arm the alarm or turn off the pool pump I had turned on manually, I wondered if things weren't actually simpler and easier in the old days lol.
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:ROFL:
You bring up something I've talked about with friends many times.
I also started getting into home automation at some point, it ended up making everything a pain in the ass and you end up spending more time fine tuning the problem than you actually gain from the damn automation.

The other issue is home automation needs consistency. Change your daily schedule or end up having a black swan evening drinking with a friend or something and you end up like a complete poephol fighting with your security system, lights etc. 'cause you dared stay up past 12.

Or worse actually, you get everything working then Philips Hue or whoever decides to update software or deprecate their older equipment.... *poof* effort gone, back to the drawing board.
 
Jan said:
Eskom can't bring back the skills to stop load-shedding — here's why

Eskom can’t simply accept the offers of 70 skilled pensioners to return to the power utility and work for free, chief executive André de Ruyter has said.

Responding to questions during a recent media briefing, De Ruyter said that they must consider transformation, liability, and accountability in navigating the offers from these retirees.
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Just bring back the death penalty as it is literally the answer to any problem in rsa.
 
A 2016 World Bank policy research working paper looked at the financial viability of electricity sectors in 39 sub-Saharan African countries.

It found that in 2014, South Africa’s power utility had the largest workforce out of the 39 countries - at 41,787. It also had the largest number of customers: just over 5.4 million.

The World Bank’s analysis of staffing levels estimated that Eskom only needed a workforce of 14,244 people. One assumption in the calculation was that in developing countries, there should be one employee for every 413 electricity customers.

Eskom was therefore 66% overstaffed. The only countries with higher than optimum staff levels were Zimbabwe (67%) and Zambia (71%).
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Energy expert Ted Blom, said that Eskom is overstaffed by as many as 30,000 employees, with the utility only needing 14,000 to operate, while currently employing close to 48,000 people. The 30,000 Eskom workers are also four times over-paid compared to global averages, he said.
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So Eskom can afford to employ & pay 30k employees they don't need for years, but it would be impossible to employ 70 people they do need in an emergency?

If that doesn't tell you that we're living in clowntown then nothing will. But just wait, we still have lots to eat, even Zimbobwe eventually realized they cannot do it alone.

And why should they? Yes we have a history together but the situation kinda makes a mockery of "South Africa belongs to all who lives in it, black and white".

Freedom charter baby, not some white drawn up document, but is seems whites are just here to shuttup & pay tax while watching (or maybe even having a big fat laugh as) everything collapses around them.
 
RaptorSA said:
Fascinating to hear him recount some of the otherworldly skills some of these old ballies had when he was being trained by them. We're talking guys who identify complex issues that would take a legion of graduates months to figure out, and they do it using experience and senses like touch and hearing.
Click to expand...
Let me guess...

aliens-meme-original.jpg


To be fair, it was easier being an engineer in the days when the grid was more predictable.
 
Lupus said:
Experience trumps qualifications. I mean I often have some of the newer guys ask how I know things and it's like I just do. I can listen to how the tape library moves, I can walk into my server room and just know something isn't right.
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Tacit knowledge vs Implicit / Explicit.
 
What happened to Eskoms brilliant training facilities that they use to have a long time ago, I know so many electricial engineers that went through them.
 
Lupus said:
How about things like getting the job done? Transformation can happen when things are working and the old can hand over the skills to the new.
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Because it's driven by the same mentality that would rather see millions spent on changing a street name than to see a street child not go hungry.

We do not have our priorities in order.
 
Martin_P said:
What happened to Eskoms brilliant training facilities that they use to have a long time ago, I know so many electricial engineers that went through them.
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Maybe they forgot to put in the automated spray room that paints you black when you reach the end of the line.

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