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In an unalloyed example of bureaucratic overkill, the Town Council of Bolton, England decided that a mattress dumped in a roadside ditch in the village of Little Lever would prove too daunting for mere mortals to remove. Locals had noticed the mattress lying on the side of a ditch and promptly reported it to the local waste authority. Rather than a couple of denim-clad, blue-collar types showing up to turn this mattress into a memory for the good citizens of Little Lever, a man in a business suit appeared instead and stalked around the mattress, busily jotting his impressions on some arcane government form affixed to his very official-looking clipboard.
This man was performing a "risk assessment" regarding the potential danger to life and limb should a team of men attempt to face this pillow-topped foe without the aid of heavy, mechanized equipment. A report about this mattress was duly filed with the man's superiors, who, in the interest of health and safety decided that there was not one man among them able to safely rid Little Lever of this nuisance. No, the job must be done by machine.
The feat of engineering (otherwise known as picking up the mattress) was scheduled for a week later, to coincide with the availability of the necessary heavy equipment, the news of which prompted the last two remaining real men in England to spring into action. The men, one pushing fifty and the other in his sixties, managed to bring the mattress to justice in a scant four minutes, although the elder of the two admitted that it "was a bit heavy."
This man was performing a "risk assessment" regarding the potential danger to life and limb should a team of men attempt to face this pillow-topped foe without the aid of heavy, mechanized equipment. A report about this mattress was duly filed with the man's superiors, who, in the interest of health and safety decided that there was not one man among them able to safely rid Little Lever of this nuisance. No, the job must be done by machine.
The feat of engineering (otherwise known as picking up the mattress) was scheduled for a week later, to coincide with the availability of the necessary heavy equipment, the news of which prompted the last two remaining real men in England to spring into action. The men, one pushing fifty and the other in his sixties, managed to bring the mattress to justice in a scant four minutes, although the elder of the two admitted that it "was a bit heavy."
