Same in my city. There was a broken sewer pipe blasting smoking hot sewage into a local creek - it looked like heavy rains has washed out the dirty and the pipe cracked under the weight. It took five (5!!!) Calls to the city, two to the apartment complex owner that owned the land, talking with the repair truck twice. Finally they found it on a snowy day when they spotted the steam. I also got several calls demanding where I live, I assume for purposes of revenge.
Raw sewage. In a major city. In a densely populated area.
If you take on the work without being ordered to by your boss, you’re wasting resources and will get fired. If you know who is supposed to fix it, or at least who can initiate that process, and help the caller find that person, you are working outside of your job description and therefore wasting resources and will get fired. If you use the internal structure of the company designed and advertised to the workers as a method of reporting issues with getting customers (or whatever) to talk to the right department, it will quickly be realised that fixing any issues will be far more expensive than using your report to classify you as a troublemaker and you will get fired.
Dogsbodiness is the such an absolutely demanded, get-you-fired-so-quick-if-you-resist, unwritten rule of ‘business’ that they should just write it down already.
