Sometimes it’s the little things that really tick you off. Every day I see the exact same issue on the streets and sidewalks of Athens’ city center and suburbs: dangerous holes dug into the middle of streets and sidewalks, with no proper signage warning motorists and pedestrians. Most of these holes are the work of subcontractors working for utility companies to lay down new cables, fiber optic systems or pipes. The shoddy craftsmanship everywhere – the barbarity, in fact – and the gross negligence for the public’s safety is absolutely infuriating. You see projects lying abandoned by work crews and others progressing in the middle of the rush hour. No one is checking if these work crews are up to scratch on safety, and citizens don’t even know who they can complain to. It is also apparent that the companies taking on these projects are hiring from the very bottom of the pile in order to cut costs.
And when they’re done, what they leave behind is an ugly mess, riddled with dangers: trenches for water pipes or fiber optic cables hastily covered in dirt, holes left gaping with an orange traffic cone teetering on the edge of collapse, a sad piece of safety tape ready to fly away at the next gust of wind. The streets are a jigsaw puzzle of patches that make cars jump and groan. The entire spectacle, not to mention the behavior of some of the road crews, makes it hard to believe that this is a European country. In fact, it makes you wonder if the same sloppy and unprofessional attitude prevailed when critical infrastructure for various utility networks was being installed.
