For various reasons I will not go into, I was off work for a little while. No, it had nothing to do with the last post. I'm suspecting that not many people read it in the first place. No, I was off work for a couple of weeks and on my first day back, with the very first ticket I wrote, the guy comes out of his house and gives me the finger (you know which one) and curses me out (oh, the redundancy of it all) using the same words that this particular finger indicated. He argued with me about the ticket, I told him to go argue with the clerk in the station, and I drove away.
Later on, another person told me in no uncertain terms that I was a bad person (if he only knew!) and what I should go do to myself. I don't think so.
Oy. So much for any relaxation I may have gotten from being off.
Welcome back.
Ten-Seven
(I can't wait to write EOW which means End Of Watch which means I'm through with this fahcacktah job. I can dream.)
Monday, May 23, 2011
Sunday, March 27, 2011
You Gotta Be So Careful
I heard the above phrase many times as I was preparing to write this particular blog entry. I promised you earlier that I was going to let you in on a little behind the scenes doings by writing about some of my colleagues. Now, that time has come. Let me say, that I will not be writing about any of the police. They carry guns. The most us PCOs get is pepper spray and I think I have the perfect defense for that stuff. It involves staring behind the person with the spray can, saying "What's that?" and then running like hell the other way. Foolproof.
Now, the other reason I must be careful is that, while I'm not in love with my job, I do enjoy being able to pay all my bills and have a little left over for the occasional chocolate bar. I don't want to lose this sucka now. Okay, so here goes: I will tell you about three of my fellow ticket-writers by giving them aliases.
1. Eeeyore - This guy is so miserable that listening to him on the radio is at times painful. When he's given a call by the communications center, his response is classic. Teeeenn-foooooourrrrr. Just like Pooh's jackass friend. Everything seems a burden to this guy and sometimes I feel bad for him (nah, now that I think about him, he deserves whatever he gets). The guy's stated goal is to make everyone else around him miserable too, and you know?, he does a pretty good job of that.
2. Zelda the Over-Zealous - She is obsessive. She MUST GET EVERYONE! She'll mark the tires on the same cars on the same block sixteen times a day just to keep her meds from wearing off. She would ticket her own grandmother for stopping in a red zone for two seconds to throw up out the window. She is also the impound queen. She'll impound your car just for the pure pleasure she gets from filling out the form. If your car is out of registration six months and one day, look out. She'll take it. We're all just lucky she doesn't have access to one of those car crushers. Oh, is this your cube?
3. I saved the worst for last. Baby Huey - This guy is big, fat, bald and a little baby. He is a classic bully who'll suck up to the higher-ups and look down on those below him in seniority. A real animal. He hates himself so much that he in turn hates everyone else. Mean just doesn't begin to describe this creep. He actually takes delight in intimidating people. He tried to do it to me when I was a newbie. I didn't take the bait and he hasn't spoken to me since (eight years!). This guy is well-known around town. Generally the comments we get are in the vein of "What's wrong with that fat guy?" or "Man, he's a douche." Now, I'm no psychologist but if I was, I would have warned the city that hiring this guy was a biiiiiggggg mistake. It's just not fair to repulse the citizens AND your co-workers. Did I mention he's fat? Real fat. And bald. And ugly (although that's a judgment call, I suppose, considering he dating Zelda!). When I think of the two of them together, all I can think of is The Rolling Thunder Tour (she's heavy too, you see). By the way, office romances are frowned upon by the department. This romance would be frowned upon by anyone with eyes!!!
Am I being unduly harsh? You don't know the half of it.
Ten-Seven
Now, the other reason I must be careful is that, while I'm not in love with my job, I do enjoy being able to pay all my bills and have a little left over for the occasional chocolate bar. I don't want to lose this sucka now. Okay, so here goes: I will tell you about three of my fellow ticket-writers by giving them aliases.
1. Eeeyore - This guy is so miserable that listening to him on the radio is at times painful. When he's given a call by the communications center, his response is classic. Teeeenn-foooooourrrrr. Just like Pooh's jackass friend. Everything seems a burden to this guy and sometimes I feel bad for him (nah, now that I think about him, he deserves whatever he gets). The guy's stated goal is to make everyone else around him miserable too, and you know?, he does a pretty good job of that.
2. Zelda the Over-Zealous - She is obsessive. She MUST GET EVERYONE! She'll mark the tires on the same cars on the same block sixteen times a day just to keep her meds from wearing off. She would ticket her own grandmother for stopping in a red zone for two seconds to throw up out the window. She is also the impound queen. She'll impound your car just for the pure pleasure she gets from filling out the form. If your car is out of registration six months and one day, look out. She'll take it. We're all just lucky she doesn't have access to one of those car crushers. Oh, is this your cube?
3. I saved the worst for last. Baby Huey - This guy is big, fat, bald and a little baby. He is a classic bully who'll suck up to the higher-ups and look down on those below him in seniority. A real animal. He hates himself so much that he in turn hates everyone else. Mean just doesn't begin to describe this creep. He actually takes delight in intimidating people. He tried to do it to me when I was a newbie. I didn't take the bait and he hasn't spoken to me since (eight years!). This guy is well-known around town. Generally the comments we get are in the vein of "What's wrong with that fat guy?" or "Man, he's a douche." Now, I'm no psychologist but if I was, I would have warned the city that hiring this guy was a biiiiiggggg mistake. It's just not fair to repulse the citizens AND your co-workers. Did I mention he's fat? Real fat. And bald. And ugly (although that's a judgment call, I suppose, considering he dating Zelda!). When I think of the two of them together, all I can think of is The Rolling Thunder Tour (she's heavy too, you see). By the way, office romances are frowned upon by the department. This romance would be frowned upon by anyone with eyes!!!
Am I being unduly harsh? You don't know the half of it.
Ten-Seven
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Prejudice
A disturbing occurrence today. I was driving down the street looking for a car that had been marked (chalk on the tires) for a 72 hour complaint. I couldn't find it (the guy must have moved it) but I did find the guy who owns it. He was getting into his piece of junk small motor home (it's more like one of those house cars). He started the thing up, fouling the neighborhood with the stench of his engine fumes, when he spotted me. He rolled the smelly wreck up to where I was and starting berating me for marking only his cars and not all the other ones on the street. He said, "You only mark the Spanish ones." I was incensed. We don't do that kind of thing. We've been accused of this kind of prejudice before but we honestly don't care about the color of the owner, just the color of the vehicle. I got angry and told him that we don't operate that way and that it was an unfair accusation. He made noises of one kind and another about the other cars on the block. I told him if he had a complaint to call it in to the station. Then I drove off.
People who can't take responsibility sometimes resort to this tactic but it's lame. We really couldn't give a damn what a person is like on the outside. As long as they follow the rules and behave in a socially acceptable way (at least when it comes to parking), we are completely colorblind and neutral. I know some people have a victim mentality but this guy was just mad because he always leaves his few vehicles on the street for days at a time and never moves them. So we end up having to mark them again and again because he just doesn't get it. Some of his cars are eyesores and his neighbors complain about them. What can we do?
For him to pull the race card was simply a disgrace. That's not how we do things. We've all learned that knuckleheads come in all colors.
Ten-Seven
People who can't take responsibility sometimes resort to this tactic but it's lame. We really couldn't give a damn what a person is like on the outside. As long as they follow the rules and behave in a socially acceptable way (at least when it comes to parking), we are completely colorblind and neutral. I know some people have a victim mentality but this guy was just mad because he always leaves his few vehicles on the street for days at a time and never moves them. So we end up having to mark them again and again because he just doesn't get it. Some of his cars are eyesores and his neighbors complain about them. What can we do?
For him to pull the race card was simply a disgrace. That's not how we do things. We've all learned that knuckleheads come in all colors.
Ten-Seven
Monday, February 7, 2011
The Lemming Effect
Hi everyone,
Don't you remember when your mother told you this: "If your friend jumped off a building, would you do it too?" She was trying to warn you that following the crowd was sometimes not a wise thing to do. This morning I saw a perfect example of why this is true.
I was doing the 8AM to 10AM street sweeper route. I turned a corner onto a rather busy street in our little burg and to my astonishment the whole block was full of parked cars. Full!
Holy Smoke!, I exclaimed (okay, actually I exclaimed something different but hey, I never know who may be reading this). There were at least seven cars there in the sweeper zone. I got out and started writing tickets furiously. I'm sure if anyone had come out and seen me, they would have been furious too.
Now, the reason there were so many cars there was what I call The Lemming Effect. If one goes over the cliff, they all do. (I have since come to find out that lemmings don't really do this, but for my purposes I'll use it because I like it and it's my blog). When one car parks somewhere, even illegally, people just assume that because that person parked here it must be okay. HA! I'll say it again. HA! No need to actually read the sign, there are cars here. It must be okay. HA! What they didn't know was that one of those vehicles was disabled (it had a note saying it had a dead battery. A word about this: we don't always believe the notes but we are obliged to honor them because, who knows?, it may be true and we wouldn't want to cite a vehicle that actually can't move. Vehicles do stop working now and again. For proof you only have to look at my old car, if you can find it. I've stopped looking).
So, I wrote five tickets in that spot this morning. I didn't cite the disabled car and one guy came out and I let him go because he was just making a quick delivery to the medical center across the street. Wait, there was a medical center across the street? You didn't say that! Well, yes. This is also one reason why there were so many cars on that side of the street. The parking over there is abysmal. And the drivers don't want to pay the five to seven bucks for the parking structure. Instead, they park illegally and have to shell out forty bucks. Oh, Brother.
Lemmings may just have more intelligence than people after all.
Ten-Seven
Don't you remember when your mother told you this: "If your friend jumped off a building, would you do it too?" She was trying to warn you that following the crowd was sometimes not a wise thing to do. This morning I saw a perfect example of why this is true.
I was doing the 8AM to 10AM street sweeper route. I turned a corner onto a rather busy street in our little burg and to my astonishment the whole block was full of parked cars. Full!
Holy Smoke!, I exclaimed (okay, actually I exclaimed something different but hey, I never know who may be reading this). There were at least seven cars there in the sweeper zone. I got out and started writing tickets furiously. I'm sure if anyone had come out and seen me, they would have been furious too.
Now, the reason there were so many cars there was what I call The Lemming Effect. If one goes over the cliff, they all do. (I have since come to find out that lemmings don't really do this, but for my purposes I'll use it because I like it and it's my blog). When one car parks somewhere, even illegally, people just assume that because that person parked here it must be okay. HA! I'll say it again. HA! No need to actually read the sign, there are cars here. It must be okay. HA! What they didn't know was that one of those vehicles was disabled (it had a note saying it had a dead battery. A word about this: we don't always believe the notes but we are obliged to honor them because, who knows?, it may be true and we wouldn't want to cite a vehicle that actually can't move. Vehicles do stop working now and again. For proof you only have to look at my old car, if you can find it. I've stopped looking).
So, I wrote five tickets in that spot this morning. I didn't cite the disabled car and one guy came out and I let him go because he was just making a quick delivery to the medical center across the street. Wait, there was a medical center across the street? You didn't say that! Well, yes. This is also one reason why there were so many cars on that side of the street. The parking over there is abysmal. And the drivers don't want to pay the five to seven bucks for the parking structure. Instead, they park illegally and have to shell out forty bucks. Oh, Brother.
Lemmings may just have more intelligence than people after all.
Ten-Seven
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Two Beats
Hello Citizens,
I realized I never talked about what happens when we are assigned two (or sometimes more [gasp!]) beats to patrol. Let me tell you, it ain't pretty.
First, a beat consists of a specific area of our little hamlet. There are six beats overall here and that's enough. Really there are seven if you count our small downtown area. This has been carved into another beat because, well, lots of people park there. I pity the guy who must patrol this beat all the time because, while any of the beats can become downright boring after a month's time (we rotate after that), the downtown area can become simply unbearable after a week or two. There's just not that much there. Of course the shop owners and the regulars get to know the downtown beat person pretty well, and we get to know them. I think it's harder on us. The shop owners think they can park in front of their place of business all day. Of course they can't, but why would they want to? Don't they want their customers to have a convenient place to park to patronize their business? I don't get it. Unless they think that they work so hard that they are entitled to a little laziness. Costly laziness though.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Two beats. Usually when you have two beats, doing a lot of marking of tires is out of the question. Why? Well, usually when you respond to a request for service or a Desk Call, as we say, they are invariably in the other beat - not the one you are in at the time. Then, you can be sure that the next desk call will be all the way on the other side of the beat you just left. It really taxes your vehicle and your nerves. You just can't get anything else done! This morning for example, I had two beats. I had the other beat's eight o'clock sweeper zone to patrol, we had a roll call at nine-thirty back at the station which I would barely be in time for, then I had my regular ten o'clock sweeper route to do. So, what happens? The Desk gives me a call to do "after your eight o'clocks" all the way on the other side of town (Damn you, Murphy and your law anyway!). Now, there were three other PCOs out there in the field who had nothing to do in the morning. Do any of them "buy" the call for me? Of course not. Those lazy bastards. I called the supervisor and asked her if she would have one of the others do the call for me. She did and I was happy. Still pissed off, but happy (This is simply a taste of what's coming when I write fully about my colleagues. It's coming, I promise).
Having two beats is a royal pain. But, it beats having no beats. Anyway, I prefer beets.
And beers.
Ten-Seven
I realized I never talked about what happens when we are assigned two (or sometimes more [gasp!]) beats to patrol. Let me tell you, it ain't pretty.
First, a beat consists of a specific area of our little hamlet. There are six beats overall here and that's enough. Really there are seven if you count our small downtown area. This has been carved into another beat because, well, lots of people park there. I pity the guy who must patrol this beat all the time because, while any of the beats can become downright boring after a month's time (we rotate after that), the downtown area can become simply unbearable after a week or two. There's just not that much there. Of course the shop owners and the regulars get to know the downtown beat person pretty well, and we get to know them. I think it's harder on us. The shop owners think they can park in front of their place of business all day. Of course they can't, but why would they want to? Don't they want their customers to have a convenient place to park to patronize their business? I don't get it. Unless they think that they work so hard that they are entitled to a little laziness. Costly laziness though.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Two beats. Usually when you have two beats, doing a lot of marking of tires is out of the question. Why? Well, usually when you respond to a request for service or a Desk Call, as we say, they are invariably in the other beat - not the one you are in at the time. Then, you can be sure that the next desk call will be all the way on the other side of the beat you just left. It really taxes your vehicle and your nerves. You just can't get anything else done! This morning for example, I had two beats. I had the other beat's eight o'clock sweeper zone to patrol, we had a roll call at nine-thirty back at the station which I would barely be in time for, then I had my regular ten o'clock sweeper route to do. So, what happens? The Desk gives me a call to do "after your eight o'clocks" all the way on the other side of town (Damn you, Murphy and your law anyway!). Now, there were three other PCOs out there in the field who had nothing to do in the morning. Do any of them "buy" the call for me? Of course not. Those lazy bastards. I called the supervisor and asked her if she would have one of the others do the call for me. She did and I was happy. Still pissed off, but happy (This is simply a taste of what's coming when I write fully about my colleagues. It's coming, I promise).
Having two beats is a royal pain. But, it beats having no beats. Anyway, I prefer beets.
And beers.
Ten-Seven
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Letting people go
I must relate this occurrence while it is still fresh, although fresh is a bad word to use because it completely stinks. I marked a green zone today which allows for ten minute parking. We give about fifteen. So because I was busy, I came back about a half hour later. I figured the zone would be clear. To my surprise, there was a vehicle still there and still marked. I pulled to the curb and got out, prepared to write the ticket. Of course the guy came out of the business. He gets into the car and as he does so I tell him that green zones are for ten minute parking only. He says nothing except "Okay". Then he asks me "Are you going to give me a ticket?"
I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to give the guy a break although he was already rubbing my rectum the wrong way. So I said, "No, sir, but please be more careful in the future." Does he say thank you? No. He is a selfish moron. As he drives past me he points to the vehicle that was in front of his (which is about one third into the green zone - it's ticket-able but kind of on the edge, you know?) and says "That guy's been here fifteen minutes."
Oh, how I wish I could have said one of a thousand things I was thinking. What I did say was, "I'm monitoring it, sir." I couldn't help but hear the venom in my voice.
Well, this putz drives away and what drives me crazy is: why in the world didn't I cite this guy? He certainly deserved it and he knew it! It's unexplainable even to myself.
All this does, at times, is make me be harder on the next person which I hate to do. I'm telling you, controlling myself is the hardest part.
Okay. Deep breath. I let him go and now I have to let this go.
Beer? You betcha!
Ten-Seven.
I don't know what possessed me, but I decided to give the guy a break although he was already rubbing my rectum the wrong way. So I said, "No, sir, but please be more careful in the future." Does he say thank you? No. He is a selfish moron. As he drives past me he points to the vehicle that was in front of his (which is about one third into the green zone - it's ticket-able but kind of on the edge, you know?) and says "That guy's been here fifteen minutes."
Oh, how I wish I could have said one of a thousand things I was thinking. What I did say was, "I'm monitoring it, sir." I couldn't help but hear the venom in my voice.
Well, this putz drives away and what drives me crazy is: why in the world didn't I cite this guy? He certainly deserved it and he knew it! It's unexplainable even to myself.
All this does, at times, is make me be harder on the next person which I hate to do. I'm telling you, controlling myself is the hardest part.
Okay. Deep breath. I let him go and now I have to let this go.
Beer? You betcha!
Ten-Seven.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
Happy New Year, citizens. At least, I hope it's going to be happy.
Some things have changed (some, unfortunately have not). Firstly, one of my colleagues passed away from that old devil, cancer. We were almost exactly the same age. She was a trusted friend and ally in a sometimes contentious job world. I miss her terribly. We would have lunch together and vent about all kinds of things: the job, our fellow PCOs, the bad-parking public, and just our lives (and loves) in general. She had a boisterous laugh and that is what I'll remember, and miss, about her most.
The other thing that has changed is my schedule. This is not unusual in police work, but I'm not a policeman. We are civilians who work for the police department. Anyway, I now have to work an hour later into the evening and it sucks. On the bright side, I have every Wednesday off. Which sucks for making travel plans. On the bright side, I can take a Tuesday off after a major or minor Monday holiday (Hello? [cough, cough] I'm not feeling well today), and have five days off in a row. Which sucks because I have to burn an hour of accrued time in order to get the tenth hour off on the minor holiday - um, never mind. If I try to explain it all to you, you'll get a headache - mine. Bookkeeping was never my strength and when it involves Time, it's even more confusing. With Time, first you earn then you burn. Hm, sounds like a life-lesson.
In any case, it all takes some adjusting. I hate adjusting. But, humans are nothing if not adaptable and believe it or not, us parking control types ARE human.
We wear a blue uniform shirt and I can tell you, so far this year, some of the blue has seeped through to my soul. Oh well. Bad rehearsal, good performance, right? Let's see how the rest of the year goes from here.
Ten-Seven
Some things have changed (some, unfortunately have not). Firstly, one of my colleagues passed away from that old devil, cancer. We were almost exactly the same age. She was a trusted friend and ally in a sometimes contentious job world. I miss her terribly. We would have lunch together and vent about all kinds of things: the job, our fellow PCOs, the bad-parking public, and just our lives (and loves) in general. She had a boisterous laugh and that is what I'll remember, and miss, about her most.
The other thing that has changed is my schedule. This is not unusual in police work, but I'm not a policeman. We are civilians who work for the police department. Anyway, I now have to work an hour later into the evening and it sucks. On the bright side, I have every Wednesday off. Which sucks for making travel plans. On the bright side, I can take a Tuesday off after a major or minor Monday holiday (Hello? [cough, cough] I'm not feeling well today), and have five days off in a row. Which sucks because I have to burn an hour of accrued time in order to get the tenth hour off on the minor holiday - um, never mind. If I try to explain it all to you, you'll get a headache - mine. Bookkeeping was never my strength and when it involves Time, it's even more confusing. With Time, first you earn then you burn. Hm, sounds like a life-lesson.
In any case, it all takes some adjusting. I hate adjusting. But, humans are nothing if not adaptable and believe it or not, us parking control types ARE human.
We wear a blue uniform shirt and I can tell you, so far this year, some of the blue has seeped through to my soul. Oh well. Bad rehearsal, good performance, right? Let's see how the rest of the year goes from here.
Ten-Seven
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