Another Thankless Task Well Done By SSA Folks
AS WITH SO MANY OTHER JOBS, NOBODY (except perhaps Ian Bourne) grows up wanting to work at the Sanitation Service Authority.
Think about it. What ten year old says, “When I grow up I want to be a garbage truck driver.”
That is also true of many other jobs. No ten year old says “I want to be a night shift manager at the transit garage” or “When I grow up, I want to be the one to check the tyre pressure on golf carts at Sandy Lane”…
But more often than not, life decides for us where and how we will work. We take jobs for a year, expecting to move on to something better, and then find we like our friends at the new job and the pay is ok… And a little one comes along and now we can’t quit because we have a family. Or, we do well and move up with a first promotion and a little more money – but we’re still doing that job we swore we’d quit.
Many of you reading this know exactly what I mean.
So we continue going to work at something we didn’t think we’d be doing five or ten years later – and we do the best job we can.
Many folks look down upon our fellow citizens at the Sanitation Service Authority, thinking “I wouldn’t do that!
And that is precisely my point.
Our Sincere Thanks To The Folks At Barbados Sanitation Service Authority
To the men and women of the Sanitation Service Authority who work hard to keep us all healthy and the island clean – thanks so much. We wish we could pay you more because you surely deserve it. We don’t know what, if anything, we at BFP could do to make your life easier, but we’re going to try to think of something.
In the interim, again, thank you for looking after all of us.
Cliverton, Marcus, George, Robert, Shona & Auntie Moses
Media Release From Barbados Sanitation Service Authority
The Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) faced one of its greatest challenges in recent times, when the Authority removed a forty-foot dead whale, which was beached on the shores of Tent Bay.
After reviewing the scene where the creature was beached, the SSA contacted the rapid response division of the Central Emergency Relief Organisation (CERO), who sent two officers. They helped in breaking up the head. A team of three SSA employees with an open backed truck plus a tractor was used to tackle the dead whale, which was 40 feet in length and it weighed 15 tons.
It took five hours to get the whale out of the water – due to its decayed state, it was very slippery to handle. As the team tried to lift it, it started to break up and the stench caused onlookers to quickly scatter from the rare sight.
Then the tractor with its backhoe-blade cut the whale into pieces to load into the open-backed truck. This took another two hours to accomplish since the skin, despite advanced decomposition, was very tough. It was eventually taken to the Mangrove Pond Landfill where an extra deep hole was dug for the large creature. It was then buried and covered to ensure no odours at all escaped.
The SSA was pleased to help keep Barbados clean and is grateful for the swift attention from CERO.
Barbados Free Press 
What kind of whale was it ? Was anyone from the Marine Institute here alerted?
Congatulations for a 1st world response.
I salute our hardworking members of the SSA.
Well done to all concerned, the importance of the job you do, has been recognized.
SSa
A job well done!!!THANKS.
Too many of us take the SSA workers for granted…except when the trucks break down, of course!!!
How about greeting each SSA person with a “hello” and a smile today?
I used to live in St .Barnabas,now I live in Mullins terrace.
We had garbage collection twice a week in St.Michael…same thing here in St.Peter.
These people are the backbone of a healthy society but some of us treats them with scant respect.Sometimes simply as much as slowing down for them to bring cans to the other side of the road,is too much for us,but let them strike for 2 weeks.
My only squabble with them is that I would love to see them all outfitted with respirators ,reflective jackets and gloves at ALL times ,except for this they are an important group and as soon as I familiarise myself with my new crew,they will know were to stop for their Xmas ‘treats’ just like the old guys in St. Barnabas.
Congrats to all staff at the SSA.
Good for you. Well done SSA
Chase
I agree with you, they need all the protective clothing etc that they should have and I think that the Government should give it to them, after all most people would not do what they do, so at least let us protect them
Dead whales having been occasionally washing ashore here, for nearly a million years,now.
They couldn’t have washed ashore here, more than a million years ago, because Barbados island hadn’t yet broken the surface as an island!
I recall a similar dead Whale on Bath Beach,during the mid-1960s.
African Locusts have also periodically landed here
(several times per Century, I should think),
so the incident in the late 1980s was not as unusual as we thought,then.
Yes,congrats to SSA for the stinky work.
Society pays its four most CRITICAL workers, the pissiest of salaries!!
How’s that for reward,huh?
* Nurses
* Garbage Workers
* TEACHERS
* Policemen
– and we wonder why we have the screwed-up world we have? duhh?
Why would we want to pay the above four categories anything more than a Peanuts wage?
They’re only the four most important categories of social workers: we can afford to pay them little.
Just try doing without their (decent) services.
(-and by ‘decent’, I DON’T mean prissy and churchy)
Thank you SSA.
Thank you BFP for a good reminder. It sound like who wrote this work at a place they don’t want to.
In past days Ms. Maxwell and Lamming would have had to suffer with it until it deteriorated, at the expense of several weeks of buffet misery. Mr. Williams is trying to continue succession in the Sunday tradition, where locals and tourists mingle in a truly cultural experience.
Your example of great service benfits this venerable icon. Great work!
David
Lamming is my grandmother. Ms. Maxwell was a great old lady and did not take any nonsense from any of us young boys, she once put a broom handle up longside my rear, and when I told my Grandfather, he said “You must have been doing something wrong”
So that was how they dealt with it in those days
Well said bfp . I also agree with what ‘NEWS ‘ wrote . Imagine on top of that , the salaries that Basketballers and footballers and other sportsmen get compared to these professions . No wonder everything like it frig up fa real.