De Gemeente, de Overheid

Two incidents, an incapable government.  
Yesterday, while I was bringing my daughter to her waterpolo practice, there were four people unabashedly setting off fireworks in the parking lot.  I have a huge fear of fireworks because of some idiots who threw it at me when I was pregnant.  Moving on, this swimming pool is a government owned facility, fireworks are illegal, and my children and I were biking past.  All reasons why I was perfectly in the right of asking them not to set off fireworks while we were passing.  If you don't know the state of Dutch street culture, you do now.  Of course they started yelling at me, insulting me, and threatening me.  I tried to ignore them as much as possible, parked my daughter's bike somewhere else, and got her as fast as possible into the building so that I could get on my way.

A police car drove slowly by WITHOUT STOPPING OR DOING ANYTHING.  I called the non-emergency number and asked them to clarify, whereupon they told me that it is not their responsibility to address illegal fireworks, but that of the city's.  If I wanted to report the problem, I had to fill in an online form.  Seriously, in order to get someone to go to the spot (probably 2 days later than the incident), I had to fill in an online form.  
Totally incompetent, that is what the Dutch government is.  Bunch of sheep mewing after one another, just letting the wolves eat them from within.

Now for the other incident.  Feeling snotty and with slight throat pain, I thought that a corona test would be smart.  Calling on Monday, I was told that the only location close to my house (Amsterdam Noord) was either closed or unavailable until next week.  The man on the phone could not tell me why.  I told him to forget it.  I decided to wait another day to see if the symptoms disappeared.  That is obviously not a good way to act in a pandemic, but I had no appointments to go to and could stay at home so...

Because I heard from colleagues the following day that there were some people infected, I decided that I couldn't turn around it anymore, I had to get tested.  I called again, explained my predicament (don't have a car, not willing to bike 1 hour... stupid elitists that think that everybody *should* have car), the lady on the telephone found a spot on Thursday in the Amsterdam Noord location (this was Tuesday).  Better than nothing, so I agreed.  Get friendly with your couch in the meantime.  Wednesday rolled around, and I kept the kids from school just in case, but that evening they would go to their dad, and they were already upset at having to miss school, activities.  I decided to just go for the rapid test.  It costs 70 euros, but my employer will pay for it, and this effort of waiting for Thursday until Saturday for the results is just ridiculous.  

I signed up online, got my appointment within 1 hour, biked there with the kids, and got my result within ten minutes via my email.  Negative.  I can move on with life.  

Now how is it possible that a private company can give me so much better service at a vastly more efficient rate, than the government who is so clumsily lumbering along with this pandemic?  

Why is it seemingly impossible to just provide rapid testing to the public?  Why is this bureaucratic, expensive mess of a testing system (you have to make an appointment with a real person on the telephone, likewise you get your results from a telephone call from a real person) used if it can clearly be done in a cheaper, faster manner with an online appointment and results system?