Look. No-one is happy about loadshedding. What’s to be happy about not having power for a few hours several times a week? It’s annoying, it’s disruptive, it’s frustrating.
But some people are more unhappy than others. Maybe that’s cos they just don’t get it. I think that maybe Sonia is one of those people.
Loadshedding, for those uninitiated in this relatively recently-founded South African pastime, is where there’s simply not enough electricity to go around and so the municipality cuts power from certain areas at certain times in order to conserve power and protect the grid. We’re given schedules to tell us when we’re likely to be cut off, but it’s not an exact science.
What follows is the comments thread (never read the comments thread) from a City of Cape Town post on Facebook, telling us about where was going to be switched off next and when.
I think they’re doing a pretty good job of keeping us informed. Sonia is less impressed:
Incidentally, Sonia’s area (wherever that may be) probably doesn’t have a schedule on the City website because it’s not supplied electricity by the City. But that’s beside the point. Because it’s that second comment that makes me wonder what Sonia is thinking.
The electricity at my moms old age home was out from 10am till after 2pm! This is when the old people have to eat etc – that was very bad planning!
Damn straight, Sonia. You tell them. How could they leave your mom and her pals without any food over lunchtime? That is bad planning. The City should have a list of places where people want to eat lunch at lunchtime and they shouldn’t do loadshedding in those areas.
BUT THEN WHY STOP THERE WITH THEIR NEWFOUND GOOD PLANNING?
Next, they need to look carefully at when old people need to ‘etc’ as well, because as you state above, that’s obviously something that old people need electricity for as well. Lunchtimes aren’t just about eating, hey? More often than not, there’s ‘etc’ to get through too.
They should also have a separate list of places where people want to have lights when it goes dark and they should not loadshed those areas either. Another list might include areas where people want to have a cup of tea or coffee any given time during the day. These areas would have to be wholly exempt from loadshedding, because otherwise, how are these people going to beverage themselves adequately?
What about areas where people want to watch the rugby or other more exciting sport? I tried to watch some more exciting sport on Saturday afternoon with very limited success because there was no electricity due to loadshedding. This was very bad planning. Saturday afternoons are widely regarded as the best time for watching more exciting sport and yet they did loadshedding right while I was trying to do it.
How very dare they?
What about people who need to keep things cold in fridges, or do washing in a washing machine, or use computers, or traffic lights, or other things that use electricity?
There are hard lessons to be learned here. The City of Cape Town need to look carefully at their loadshedding schedules and, frankly, need to rearrange them more sensibly around people’s activities – especially those activities which require electricity.
Well said, Sonia.
