Verify This!

There are all kinds of signs in our city. Most of them just sit there year in and year out and nobody ever seems to read them. Maybe they take them for granted like they do their spouse (But I digress, and rather well, I think). No, there is another type of sign that now and again makes an appearance. Yes, I'm talking (writing, actually) about the Temporary No Parking signs. You've all seen, I'm sure, those red and white beauties. These allow us to cite you AND to tow you away so read them please, because some of my colleagues live for this.

The local economy must be doing okay because lately The Desk has been sending a lot of us to "verify" that they are indeed there (the signs not the folks who sit at The Desk), and that they are filled out correctly (the folks who sit at The Desk are also pretty filled out but I will not cast aspersions on them. They have a hard job.) So, we copy down all the info we are given and off we zoom (read: slog) to the location or locations. You are lucky if there is only one location and only two, three or four signs. I've been sent to long stretches of road to verify over a hundred signs when there is some big event that needs the parking space there. And don't get me started on the parade route when that comes around!

I realize now that I need one of those clicker counters that people who work the door of various venues have. It would be much easier than trying to count the number out loud - there's so many distractions like the police radio, the radio radio, the people stopping you to ask inane questions, you get the idea.

Then, you have another problem: when The Desk tells you one thing and the signs say another. Or, they are not filled out correctly or completely. Or they are not placed properly on cones, delineaters, sign poles or telephone poles or even trees. No, sometimes the people posting them think it's okay to put them on the wall or the fence of their business, you know, where the parker won't notice them! I actually saw one recently on the handrail of the stairs leading into the building! You might see it if you were inclined to park right there on the sidewalk but otherwise, forget it!

So, sometimes we have to go back and re-verify them when they are corrected. It's such a waste of time. I'd like to quit all this nonsense. Maybe I should take all this as sign.

10-7

T.A.

The title of this post is NOT about what some of you are thinking about (those of you who troll the Internet looking for salacious material [Hello Anthony, I'm talking to you! Dummy.]). Besides, if it were, there would be an ampersand (&) between the letters. No, a T.A. refers to what the police call a Traffic Accident. The police respond to many of these on a daily basis, this being the Los Angeles area and people are constantly being distracted by a cell phone call, a text, or a pretty girl or guy walking on the sidewalk in a skimpy outfit (okay, that's as salacious as this is going to get). But we Parking types don't really respond to T.A.s unless we need to block a street or help direct traffic around the incident.

The reason I'm writing about this today is, the other day I was the first one on the scene at a pretty bad T.A. that happened right by the police station. Here's what happened: I was heading in to end my work day when I turned up the street and noticed people trying to get my attention and pointing up the street. Usually when people point at me they are using one specific finger, but this time they seemed to be trying to tell me something. I got further up the block and saw just what it was. A car had obviously been t-boned in the intersection and the young lady was still in the vehicle, which was now pulled onto the side street, the one I was on. I pulled over and jumped out of my city vehicle and immediately got on the police radio. I called in and asked them if they had a report on the accident. They said no. I told them about it and that I was checking for injuries. Then I got closer to the girl. She was badly shaken up, had cuts on her face and head, and there was blood.

Now, I like scary movies but not bloody ones. I got a little shaken up myself but I held my composure in order to help her. I asked her if she needed a paramedic. Her answer caught me by surprise. "Do I have to pay for it?" This is what our country has come to folks. I don't mean to get political here but this is telling. I told her, "I wouldn't worry about money right now. Let's worry about your health." I got back on the radio and called for paramedics, I called in the license plates of the two vehicles involved (the cops need this in case one of the parties is wanted), and I called for the tow company the city uses to clean up the intersection of all the debris (glass, metal and plastic that other cars were now driving over).

I tried to keep the young lady calm while she called her father and told him, through sobs and tears, about the accident. Her boyfriend, who was unharmed, then told me what had happened: they had swung wide in the intersection to make a u-turn and the pick-up behind them kept coming (obviously at a pretty good clip) and smashed into them. Then he asked me if it was illegal to make the u-turn there. It wasn't but one of our motorcycle officer told him that all parties in that situation have the responsibility to be safe about it. The other driver, the one with the large pick-up, was unharmed as well. The cops were speaking with him. The paramedics and a firetruck arrived, the tow truck was there and the tow truck driver was out sweeping up. The intersection got jammed with cars and the sidewalk with on-lookers. It was a mess. One of the officers directed traffic and they told me I could go, without so much as a thanks or a "good job." As I said, it's routine for the officers but not for us. Certainly not for me. And blood does bother me, mine or other people's. But, it all goes with the job.

I am part of what they call the "First Responders." I like it better when they say "Everyday Heroes." I don't ever feel heroic on my job, believe me, but that day, I kinda did.

Ten-Seven

What I really want to do is....

Anyone who lives in the Los Angeles area and has any connection at all with Show Biz will know how the title of this blog entry would finish. ...direct. Now, I came out here to be an actor, a writer, a director and I have had some success in all three of those areas. But working as a Parking Control Officer has also given me the opportunity to direct. To direct traffic.

Recently we had two (count 'em two!) High School graduations (I have capitalized High School so you wouldn't think I was saying the schools were high in the hills or the students were high in the classrooms. Although this is the Los Angeles area and anything is possible, I suppose). And you know what High School graduations mean. Yep, that's right. Bad driving. Not only by students mind you, but also by parents, grandparents, siblings, friends. All those people who are told the graduation starts at 6PM and who show up at 7:30PM asking where to park in an extremely crowded area. Sigh. Well, it's hard to complain about the ingress. But the egress! Please, get me started.

As the cars arrive for the festivities, they arrive in a staggered way (and no, I'm not talking about high students again). So, parking them is relatively easy. But of course, when the graduation is over, all the cars want to leave at the same time. This is commonly referred to by the police as a "cluster fuck." For those of you with delicate sensibilities let me apologize for the use of that word. Just understand it's not MY word but the word used by the police. Trust me, MY word is much worse.

So, here I am in the semi-gloom of a darkening sky trying to direct traffic at what is essentially a four-way intersection with one of the intersecting roads being blocked in such a way as to make it a one-way only. And wouldn't you know it? That's the most convenient way out! So of course everyone wants to go that way! Did you ever see anyone make a u-turn on a road that was closed off in one direction? I have. And I'm still amazed at myself for not throwing my shoes at those drivers. But I was standing on a hill so if I had done that it would have been even more difficult on my balance and my arches.

Add to all this the fact that there were other things going on in the area and you can imagine the chaos (some call it fun). Actually, truth be told, directing traffic IS kind of fun. Unless you've done it yourself, you can't imagine the feeling of power it gives you. The power to decide who gets to go and who must stop. The power to make the driver stop even though he or she wants to go soooo badly (and most of them do go badly, trust me). This sounds like the ultimate in ego-tripping and yeah, I guess it is. It's intense but it's kind of a thrill.

I'm sick, aren't I? Well, I really would rather direct films. Pass the Epsom salts. I'm going to soak my feet.

10-7

Welcome Back

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.)

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

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

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