Missing the point

The booming construction industry keeps catching my attention. Buildings and condos are rising left, right and centre and before you realise it there is a new mall along the road.
As I drove along a main road the other day, I looked at yet another construction going on. What surprised me were the long plastic sheets hanging in front of the building under construction or better, what was left of them. I always wondered what the purpose is of these plastic sheets, but the state these rags were in left me more than puzzled. Presumably they serve some kind of protection measure, preventing construction materials that may fall down from hurting passers by. This seems quite logical as many construction sites are located along roads where many pedestrians and cars pass. I also assume that there are safety regulations to be followed by contractors, especially when building more than just a ground plus one. If that is the case then, these regulations are not followed up very strictly by the contractors and also not by the regulating authorities, otherwise we wouldn’t see so many sheets turned to rags as the wind and sun play there damaging effects on them.
The strong ultraviolet rays, we are exposed to here, easily dissolve such material, while the wind is far too strong for the sheets, which are not exactly of the same strength as the sails of a boat. They are meant for other purposes in the first place and so it should not surprise us that they fail do to what they cannot. The photograph below illustrates the point I am trying to make, which is that we seem to miss the point completely.
I looked up some safety regulations and precaution measures, which contractors are obliged to follow elsewhere. These include the minimum widths of sidewalks along and beneath the construction going on, overhead cover of the same, specifications of scaffolding, protective helmets and clothing for workers, etc. There is no end to what can and in some places is required to be done to create a reasonably safe working environment at a construction site. What we observe here though is some half-hearted ineffective application of measures and only when and where this cannot be avoided. Hence the rags. Do they provide any protection for workers or passers by? I doubt it. The point is missed.
Looking around a bit more there are many points that seem to be missed. Last week I discussed some of the infrastructure problems we are facing, more specifically of solid waste collection and management. We see the creation of garbage dumps right in the middle of new residential areas because whatever waste collection system or companies exist, they simply don’t have the capacity to meet the demand. Youngsters collect domestic waste from homes against payment and dump it around the corner in and around an open container, the contents of which are only partially taken away by the waste collection trucks. While this sort of waste dumps mushroom and become major inconveniences and health hazards in neighbourhoods, you will find a lady dressed in overalls, wearing a sombrero and protecting her face with some kind of shawl and …. a broom! She and her colleagues are sweeping the streets and the ring road. While this may be a good thing to do, it seems a drop in the ocean of work to be done to really clean up the neighbourhood. The point is totally missed as labour is hired to focus merely on a bit of dust, while the container along the road allows all sorts of waste to fly around to pollute the same street.
Left, right and centre we are missing the point. Parents drive their children to school with their face resting on the dashboard instead of being strapped in the safety belt. Drivers deliberately obstruct traffic for their own selfish gain instead of following basic traffic rules which would allow traffic to flow. Drivers also hoot impatiently at the traffic police officers, when they think that they have waited long enough for those allowed to come from another direction. The police officers themselves create confusion as they stand hidden at one side of a junction instead of making sure they are clearly visible and positioned in the middle of the crossroads. All of us seem very busy but we keep missing the point and as a result we often cause the opposite effect.
Admittedly, the examples I describe here are easy to pick and for everyone to observe. The plastic sheets are just an illustration but at the same time they describe a common habit, which hinders progress in many ways. Missing the point is about ineffectiveness. Ineffective work and ineffective workers don’t achieve good results so we better want to be a bit more effective if we want to achieve results at all. And for results to be achieved we better be clear about what the results will exactly look like; a clean neighbourhood for example or a safe construction site. Defining results to be achieved will help in planning for activities to be done in order to achieve those results. Failing to do that will keep us and many workers busy being busy, while at the end of the day no progress has been made whatsoever at the expense of resources that could have been used more effectively. Don’t miss the point.