Information is one of those things that we need in order to understand what's going on. If, for example, work starts happening around our homes, we would like to know exactly what's going on as soon as possible. There are a few good reasons for this. One, if we consider our homes our castles, we may regard any operations surrounding them an attack. Two, we just want to know what's happening around us in order to plan our day, and we know very well that there's a chance that any construction surrounding us will affect the day to come.
For that reason, when work begins around our homes without us being informed exactly what it is, we begin to worry. Yesterday, I noticed that there were green lines being painted on my street, and today when I left my house there was a hose connected to it. I didn't know what any of this meant, and I didn't get any notice about what this meant until the afternoon. Turns out there's a water main replacement, which is fantastic, since I think there has been trouble a couple doors down.
While this is great, I think that the notice of the impending work should have gone out before any of the actual work began. Send the paper out with the crews indicating where the mains are located, perhaps, and get the notices in mailboxes before people begin to wonder what's going on their street and what exactly it means for the days ahead.
The reason I say this is because with a big project like this there will inevitably be inconvenience and pain in the short term, and early notice helps homeowners plan to avoid that pain, or at least mitigate it somewhat. For example, I will not be washing my clothes on the temporary supply, that's just kind of rude. If I had known about this work yesterday, the washing machine would have been spinning at full fury to get every shirt and sock clean before I had to worry about water again. I'm not sure how long it's going to take, after all, so it's just sensible to be prepared for any eventuality.
However, since I find out today, I wonder if I can manage to get it done before the mains need to be shut off, especially since there are things I need to do this evening. It sounds like a really minor thing, and maybe it is, but it's a problem you face in this situation, and a problem that could easily be avoided if I had just known a bit ahead of time what the work was going to be.
I'm glad to see that the notice finally landed in my mailbox, even if it was much later than I wanted it to be. That said, when you're undertaking a major project like this, especially one that would cause residents to have to adjust their lives fairly significantly, the more advance warning there is the better. A warning of half a day doesn't give you enough time to really prepare for what will be a major project in and around your home.
I hope the work goes well, I trust those doing it know what they're doing and I imagine that without the project we would be seeing some problems on my street fairly soon. All I ask is that next time there's a major project that will inconvenience people in the city, they get notification as soon as the work begins. It affects routines, and it changes the way you live, even if just for a few days. In this case, it's good to have time to prepare.
