Dear Concerned Worker - Go Fuck Yourself

As yesterday's post shows, I contacted a city worker regarding the construction going on outside my office, or rather the shitty dirt road they've given us to drive on in order to actually get to the office. Said city worker wrote back with some canned text and then directed me to contacted the contractor directly. And so I did. Here is the e-mail I sent to the contractor:

"To who it may concern:

I contacted NAMELESS BUREAUCRAT of the City of WHERE I WORK this morning with a question regarding the road work on ROAD. I work in an office located at XXX ROAD where construction is being done. People in my office are very concerned about possible damage to their vehicles because of the temporary 'road' that has been constructed. I asked NAMELESS BUREAUCRAT who invoices should be sent to regarding damage to cars should any damage occur whilst traveling this road. He directed me to contact the contractor directly and I found this e-mail on your web-site.

Thank you in advance for any help and direction you can provide me.

Sincerely,

Cat" 

I was pleased to see that I did get a response and from someone in the contractor's company. In fact, the person who responded has the same last name as the name of the contractor company itself. I'll call this person John Contractor. Here is his response.

"Cat,

I can certainly appreciate your (and the people in your office’s) concern regarding the road work at ROAD and the Temporary Roadway that those who work in your office will have to travel on for the next 8 weeks or so until completion.

Please pass on to your fellow workers that we will be working diligently to get the road back to the way it was (only better) as soon as physically possible.

Also please pass on to those who travel this area to use extreme caution as “work zones” can be ever changing from day to day and extra precaution should be taken each day coming to and going from work.

As far as damage to any vehicle, please pass on to those who will be traveling this area:

-This is a “temporary road” and as such cannot be traveled in the same manner that the old road would have been.

-Entrances to and from parking lots will not be as smooth as they were originally.

-By using caution when entering, traveling in, and exiting this “temporary road”, there should be no damage to vehicles coming to and going from the workplace.

We understand that this will be some inconvenience for the duration of this project, but please keep in mind that we are only building the project as designed and the workers are doing their best to accommodate the public while doing their job.

Please ask your fellow workers to be considerate of those who are just doing their job and to drive through all work zones safely.

Regards,

John Contractor"

Basically, "go fuck yourself. If you damage your cars we'll just say you were driving recklessly." Sadly for John Contractor and the various people he had copied to this reply, I am something of a pest and am not easily deterred. So I sat down at my computer and I worked out my very careful response, as seen below. 

" John,

Thank you for your response. Unfortunately, I feel the main import of my question was overlooked. Have you, by any chance, seen this 'temporary road' as we all keep calling it? It is a dirt path filled with deep rivets, a few potholes, and some exposed manhole covers. Everyone is traveling with great caution; that being said, no amount of caution will protect a car when driving on a dirt road that sees a heavy volume, especially with the added condition of rain.

Before I pass on the very helpful information that you provided me with, I would like to be able to let my fellow coworkers know the answer to my question: where shall we direct invoices for any damage to our cars? I appreciate that construction conditions are different than regular conditions - we all do. However, regardless of that fact that all those working in this office pay WHERE I WORK City taxes, none of us were consulted about this project so we should not be held liable for any damage to our vehicles. I'm certain you understand my concern.

In sum, if you can let me know the answer to that one question, I would greatly appreciate it and will then forward all of your information to the other 100+ people in the office. Again, what you have given me has been very helpful indeed; I just think this one bit of information was neglected.

Thank you again for your timely response.

Sincerely, 

Cat"

Obviously, this is a very nice way of saying "what the fuck, kid? That didn't answer my question at all. You just treated me like I'm some fucking moron and said that any issues would be my fault (or the fault of my coworkers who are most likely holding contests to see who can be the fastest on the fucked up road.) Maybe I'll get a response. My guess is that it will be a very polite version of "unless you can prove that the damage was not your fault and 100% the fault of the 'road', you are out of luck stupid ass."