A LinkedIn rant which is definitely old news:
I dreamed of living overseas in London, so after my divorce in 1992 I moved to Sutton, Surrey to take a Solutions Architect position at CGI-LS3, a consulting and software shop. My first (and only) project: the client, Lyonnaise des Eaux (now Suez Eau France) had contracted CGI-LS3 to implement a modern billing system for water companies they owned in the United Kingdom. My client Northumbrian Water in Newcastle required I train north to Geordie-land almost weekly.
I quickly learned the complexities and absurdities of water billing in England. Then, water bills were generated semi-annually. A water meter may measure consumption for either a single dwelling or multiple dwellings; when multiple, the consumption (and therefore the charges) is split equally or proportionally (based on square footage). Or a single dwelling has multiple water mains and therefore multiple meters. In the end, the customer expects a single, accurate bill. Good luck!
The biggest takeaway from this project:
Before arriving at a tap, England water authorities have lost over 30% of the total water distributed due to uncapped, broken, or cracked water mains.
Despite Thatcher‘s promises of great gains to be achieved by privatizing England and Wales regional water authorities – some justifications sounding scarily similar to those made for Brexit – the consequences have been dire for users, the environment, and its employees.
Nothing has changed in 34 years and, given the state of British politics, I would not expect action anytime soon.
And the project itself? I quickly identified multiple signs of a software death march in progress and two months later I shipped myself back to Minnesota. A clusterfuck end-to-end but it was not going to be an enjoyable place to work.
Image Credits
- “Water supply” by brunotto [Still very busy…] is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
