Mr. B Natural: How to get nothing done in almost 9 months

9 months is a long time. People make other people during that time. I myself turned the jungle plot into a much less jungle plot in the same amount of time. And still I did it single handed and only a couple hours in weekends. Others accomplish almost nothing in that amount of time.
If you want to find the least motivated, sorry ass individuals working anywhere, just head to any random government office. Even in Japan, the land of pride and quality of service, it seems government employees see no reason to do anything more than the absolute minimum necessary. And of course they are right.
I mean their salary is not based on how satisfied the people they are supposed to serve and protect are. It is taken by force from their customers. God help you if you are a little late or miscalculate your tax payment. They will hunt you down like the worst kind of criminal and you`re lucky if they just fine you. On the other hand if they make a mistake, and you find it out and bring it to their attention that they are over-taxing you, all they say is meh, sorry, and then spend like half a year correcting and paying you back, without fines or interest.
Also there is no competition so they don`t have to be any good at what they do. I have found that the least competent people work for government, exactly for the reason that there is no requirement to be good.
This all got proven to me once again, when I went to city office over 9 months ago after my truck got stuck in the muddy road to complain about the path next to my plot, owned by the city. I brought with me maps, papers and pictures to show what it was like.
Here is the progress...

August:
I went to city office with my documents and explained my problem. The path owned by the city is not paved, it is not even graveled, and cars get stuck in the mud etc. I also told them that it is not only me but also the owners of the neighboring plots who are not happy, plus all the people and children who use that path. The lady there called the city office engineering division and explained my problem to them, and they talked to me too over the phone and said they will have a look into it.
Not much happened, so I called them a week later and asked how it is going. After a lot of waiting while they found who is handling my errand, a guy presented himself and said the most they can do is to pave (cover) the path with gravel. I said that`s fine, and expected it to happen soon, but no....

October:
Late October I called them again and asked to talk to the guy. He said he will come and have a look at the path first hand to assess what needs to be done. Ehm... good thing I called, who knows when they would remember to do their job otherwise?

November:
Of course nothing happened, and nobody came to assess anything. So I got fed up and took new pictures and added to my already big pile of maps and pictures and shit, and took a ride over to the city engineering office which is conveniently located in the middle of nowhere, about 20 km away from city office. Asked for the guy whom I had been talking to so far, Mr. M. And he said they will come and have a look. Just like he hadn't said the same thing before, and as if I had somehow forgotten our conversation.
I don't know... maybe they ran out of incompetent people to hire and started taking in people with amnesia.
A week later Mr.M. came and had a look and measured the path. A couple days later a bunch of guys came around and had a look. I figured Mr. M was the clerk in the engineering office, and those guys were the ones actually doing the work, like pouring gravel. They were all very friendly and cheerful and promised a lot of great things to help me. Now these visits were totally unannounced, and I just happened to be in the plot doing stuff when they came. Otherwise nobody would have bothered telling me what is going on and how things are moving along.
The day the working guys came to... assess for real what to do, was a week before the great typhoon. Weather forecast was that there is going to be heavy rain the day after their visit, so I didn't expect them to do anything right away. I asked them how long it would take for them to put gravel on the path and they said oh it's super easy, should take a couple of hours max. But tomorrow's gonna be rainy so we probably will come next week.
The rain was very very heavy, and parts pf our prefecture was flooded more or less, but the idiots came anyway right after the heavy rain, and their dump truck got stuck in the muddy path when they tried to pour gravel. Of course I wasn't told about their visit, so I just saw a patch of the path, maybe 3 meters long, was graveled. I asked my neighbor Mr. O about it and he laughed and said that the retards from city office had been there while he was working his field and that they got stuck in the mud. He said he had told them that it looks slippery and that they should back into the path and pour gravel as they moved in, so not to get stuck, but that they just ignored him and went in head first and got stuck, and had to emergency pour gravel in one spot to get their truck out, and then ran away. So much for professionalism.
Then we had the typhoon messing up the whole area, and I called a week after that to ask what had happened and Mr. M said they are super busy with typhoon stuff and maintenance of broken things. He also explained to me what had happened when they got stuck. I felt very sorry for the people hit by typhoon who had to depend on their help. Mr. M said in a month probably they will come and have a try again.

December:

End of December and still no sign of the city people.

January:

Called the office and asked for Mr.M he wasn't in so I left my name and number and he called back by end of the day. I told him that this week had been all sunny and that the path had dried up completely and that also next week forecast was sunny. Maybe they could come and have a look?

He said "Oh... yeah... since I promised that we put gravel on that road, you are calling to check when it will be done, right?" As I thought, we are not dealing with geniuses here exactly. I said yes, and he said he will check if there is material available and call me back.

The following day I got a call from his office, but not himself. It was a new guy presenting himself as Mr.S, who explained for me (as if somehow I had the same amnesia as they have) that their truck had gotten stuck when they came to pour gravel (old news, new guy, so it counts as progress in their book). He said they will wait for a good sunny day and come and pour gravel. Unfortunately he could not say when because these things are decided by the weather gods, and perfect for city people to blame their ignorance and delays on. But he did apologize and said that no matter how late, absolutely, definitely by end of February it will have been done. That much he could promise.

February:

Weeks of sunshine, the path is very dry and no sign of anyone coming to see if the path is ready to be graveled. So I called to remind them. This time I asked for Mr.S who had so kindly promised me a date. I told him that now is a good chance, and if they wait another week, it will start raining again.

He seemed to not remember who I was at all or what I was calling about. He asked for my address, not to the plot, but my home address, and my name and phone number. I gave him all that and told him that we had had a nice conversation last month over the phone and that he had explained this and promised that, I also mentioned Mr. M who had been handling my case for over half a year, but none of this rang a bell. Now I was sure city engineering division is populated by zombies.

He said he will check with the info he got from me and call back. Then he asked for my name and phone number, again. W!T!F! Great way to waste our tax money hiring these retards.

Later he called and said that they had been over once, but their truck got stuck, and that they will check the condition of the land again soon. Really? They must be very proud of the accomplishment of getting stuck in the mud as they keep telling me about it.

Of course, nothing happened after that.

March:

I called in the middle of March, and decided to ask for Mr. M cause Mr. S was a whole different level of brain dead. Mr. M was not in, so as usual I left my name and number and asked to be called when he came in. He called at the end of the day, and told me that... (surprise surprise) "We came to pour gravel, but it seems the path was too muddy and our sand truck got stuck." Jesus, this happened like 6 months ago, do they seriously think I forgot?

"So due to this special circumstance we have been waiting until there is no rain for a while, and then will come and check the road. Also if those conditions are fulfilled, we need to check if there is gravel in at the moment and there is also paper work etc." It's never their fault. They always have so many things to blame their inactivity on. Basically he told me that it requires a major miracle for them to come and pour a bit of gravel on a 100 meter path. He also said "Sorry it is taking such long time for all these requirements to happen"

All I could think was "fucking retards" as I hung up and decided to wait 3-4 months before calling again.

And so today I took a walk over to the plot and noticed the path looked a bit different. Not different like someone had been pouring gravel on it. No, just different like someone had sprayed an extremely thin layer of dust over the muddy surface. Plus here and there there was an additional tiny piece of gravel added. It was first when I saw Mr.O's plot that I understood that the city "engineers" had been over and poured "gravel". They had completely missed the point with covering the path with gravel, and instead had focused on pouring all gravel they had over a 10 square meter patch of Mr.O's land that was very muddy. Good for him I guess.

I called Mr. M and thanked him for having come over and started to pour gravel. And then I asked him, so when will it finish? Cause surely it is not completed yet, right? He asked what I meant so I explained what it looked like, that they had graveled a piece of Mr.O's land, and then blown only dust over the path where they were supposed to gravel. He said he will call the working guys and ask. Then he called me back a few minutes later (Wow, he didn't need to ask my name and number for that, he must have evolved) and said that as far as they are concerned, the job is done. That much dust is supposed to stop cars from getting stuck so it should be fine. Please use the path and let us know if you still get stuck.

Whatever. I guess I will never get a properly graveled path with these monkeys. At least I got them to do something after all this time. Pushing them more will probably take another year and no result than me getting old and stressed. Which they know, and count on. They don't have to do their job. They just have to ignore people until they give up. That is how they earn their salary.

I took my mini truck over to try out the "newly paved" path, and behold, it got stuck!

And here is some pictures of the newly graveled masterpiece: